End times tribulation in light of the French Revolution

By Paul Rasavage

"Whoever fails to learn from history is doomed to repeat it."

"All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing."

"Man cannot be separated from God, nor politics from morality."


Does anyone remember (or care) what the French Revolution was all about? Well, maybe we should. It might well be worth the effort to refresh our collective memory.

Research on this unusual yet fascinating subject has surreptitiously exposed and brought into a clearer perspective many disturbing parallels that begin to emerge between the violent and traumatic socio-political events that occurred over two hundred years ago on a continent an ocean away, and the darkening trend of contemporary social and political events to which we bear witness in our own time.

The conclusion is presented here first, followed by the rationale that compels it.

From the inferences that can be made, it would seem that the so-called homosexual agenda has nothing to do with legitimizing the immoral behavior and perverse sexual preferences of 0.5% of the population.

The issue of "gay rights" is all about forcing the Catholic Church, indeed all of Christianity itself, into non-existence by means of a systematic effort to categorize and legally declare her ancient faith, morality and teachings, her ethics and principles, all firmly based in God-given Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to be "hate crimes" and therefore unlawful, punishable to the fullest extent of the law.

With such legislation in effect, as Canada is about to inaugurate, we will see ominous parallels between contemporary events and those that happened in the French Revolution some 200 years previous, in which laws were manipulated, transgressed and obliterated by a select minority with the singular purpose of bringing Christianity itself to extinction, in order to drive all visible remnants of God's Divine Laws, even His very Presence on Earth, into utter oblivion.

Satan's strategy has long been one of divide and conquer. He attacks Christianity from without and from within, seeking nothing less than its utter and complete destruction. Catholicism is not the only object of his malevolence and hatred. Our Constitution today stands in tatters from years of relentless attacks launched upon it from both internal and external forces.

So far, this demonic strategy has proven to be extremely effective and successful when considered within the context of the tremendous headway made of late in eliminating religion and its influence from contemporary society and the minds and hearts of men.

What happened so many years ago? — A Synopsis of a very complex Revolution

• A small but daring and vocal political minority was able, over time and with very little resistance, to enforce its will ostensibly as that of "the people," by working to assume ever greater political and legal power and influence. Their revolutionary goal was a tactical upset of the status quo of the legitimate authority in order to achieve this very purpose.
  
  
• Social, moral and religious decay proliferated throughout all segments of society as a consequence of weak leadership. (There are many similarities here to what we saw happen in the U.S. in the decades that followed the assassination of JFK.)
  
  
• Secularists gained a foothold in using this newfound platform for furthering their atheistic agenda and in exerting their new philosophy and moral mindset upon the general public — in the halls of government, in the schools and even from the pulpit.
  
  
• Responsible people in positions of legitimate and influential power and authority, legislative, judicial and religious, who could have done something to thwart this offensive, did nothing. (As a reward for his weakness in the face of evil, the King eventually lost everything, including his head, along with the heads of his family.)
  
  
• A reorganization of the government took place, with the predictable re-distribution of power in favor of the disruptive but well prepared secularist minority.
  
  

Don't worry, it only gets worse — The Age of Enlightenment (NOT!)

• The "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" was anything but, as this illicit document was intended rather to deny natural and inalienable human rights to a great number of the people, in particular the clergy and anyone remaining faithful to their religious heritage, resulting in random and arbitrary imprisonment, exile or, in some cases, summary execution. What were considered universal rights and privileges in ages past, and rooted in the natural law, were consistently denied to people at practically every political and social level. The only article relating to religion was worded as follows: "No one shall be disturbed for his opinions, even religious, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law."
  
  
• Once in full control of the government, the Assembly voted with extraordinary enthusiasm to abolish all privileges and feudal rights, thus, in effect, implementing martial law. The government effectively fell under complete control of the revolutionary mob under the pretext of an "Assembly."
  
  
• The Assembly declared that the property of the clergy belonged to the nation.
  
  
• In the discussions relating to the Civil Constitution of the clergy, the Assembly explicitly expressed a desire that the Catholic Church, to which the majority of the French people belonged, should be subject to the State and really organized by the State. (This was the inception of what would become state-run religion.)
  
  
• Both Church-owned and personal property of clerics began to be summarily confiscated by the government and put up for sale.
  
  
• The Assembly charged its ecclesiastical committee to prepare the reorganization of the clergy resulting in the issuance of the "Civil Constitution on the Clergy," giving the government free reign to exercise full control of churches, clerics and the contents and doctrines of worship.
  
  
• All clerics were obliged to swear an oath of loyalty to this new constitution or face deportation or imprisonment. Any priest or cleric who refused the oath was forbidden to publicly exercise their ministry.
  
  
• Bishops who remained faithful, organized and issued a rebuttal to the Assembly in which they rejected the Constitution and called upon the faithful to do the same.
  
  
• In response, the Legislative Assembly openly declared to "stamp out the rebellion which disguises itself under the pretended dissidence in the exercise of the Catholic religion."
  
  
• Mobs were organized and gathered to specifically target, physically harass, attack and persecute nuns and other pious women and religious.
  
  
• Many members of the assembly openly championed a complete separation of Church and State. (Sound familiar?)
  
  
• The Assembly passed a decree which suspended the king's powers and convoked a national convention. King Louis XVI was thus imprisoned.
  
  
• By the opening of the National Convention in 1792, the majority of the Convention declared open hostility to Christianity itself.
  
  
• The Convention voted a prize to whosoever should denounce any priest liable to criminal prosecution and who remained in France despite the law.
  
  
• The Constituent Assembly created a "Cult of the Fatherland," rooted in paganism, in an effort to re-focus public religious sentiments away from traditional Christianity.
  
  
• The leaders of the Convention perpetuated abominable massacres. In Paris the Revolutionary Tribunal, carrying out the proposals of the Public Accuser, inaugurated the Reign of Terror.
  
  (The office of "Public Accuser" was actually an official governmental position. The person occupying this office held absolute life and death power over all citizens, without recourse to trial or appeal. Thousands were arbitrarily sentenced and executed by guillotine at the hands of the Public Accuser and his henchmen.)
  
  
• The Convention passed the Law of Suspects, (1793), which authorized the imprisonment of almost anyone for any reason.
  
  
• Full religious persecution was in force. The Convention sent "missionary representatives" to the provinces with the specific mandate to close churches, hunt down citizens suspected of religious practices, endeavor to constrain priests to minister, and threaten with deportation for lack of citizenship priests who refused to abandon their posts.
  
  
• Informing on others became a profitable trade in France.
  
  
• Following the trial of Louis XVI, on 21 January, 1793 the Assembly "hurled a king's head at Europe." The King's last words, "I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I Pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France."
  
  
• Queen Marie Antoinette (who, contrary to the malignment her name has been subjected to by historical revisionists, was a good and holy Catholic Christian woman), was beheaded 16 October, 1793.
  
  
• Sixteen Carmelite Nuns, who came to be known as the Martyrs of Compiegne, were guillotined on 17 July, 1794. (An excellent, well researched and very readable book detailing their story has been recently published entitled, "To Quell the Terror.")
  
  
• Measures were taken by the Convention to replace the universal Christian calendar with the radically deviant Revolutionary calendar, renaming the months and substituting the traditional 7-day week with a 10-day week known as the "decadi." Only one day off was allowed during this new 10-day week, and this day was specifically intended to replace the Lord's day of rest on Sunday.
  
  
• Decrees were issued ordering the municipalities to seize and melt down bells and other treasures of the churches.
  
  
• Regarding education, the Convention commissioned a collection of works detailing the heroic actions of the Republicans to replace the "Lives of the Saints," which had traditionally been taught in the schools for centuries. Persecution, denunciation and suppression of all religious ideas continued in earnest.
  
  
• All churches were closed to Catholic worship. The Convention offered a prize for the abjuration of priests by passing a decree which assured a pension to Priests who abjured, and the most painful day of that sad period was 20 November, 1793, when men, women, and children dressed in Priestly garments taken from the Church of St. Germain des Prés marched through the hall of the Convention. A man named Laloi, presiding over the convention, congratulated them saying they had "wiped out eighteen centuries of error."
  
  
• One of the key instigators and authors of the Reign of Terror, Robespierre, outlined in a long speech his plan for a new religion. He explained that from the religious and Republican standpoint the idea of a Supreme Being was advantageous to the State, but religion should dispense with a priesthood, and that priests were to religion what charlatans were to medicine, emphasizing that the true priest of the Supreme Being was Nature.
  
  
• Robespierre made the mistake of putting to vote in June the terrible Law of 22 Prairial, (the name given to one of the new months of the Revolutionary calendar), which still further shortened the summary procedure of the Revolutionary tribunal and allowed sentence to be passed almost without trial even on the members of the Convention. This move backfired, resulting in the arrest and execution of Robespierre and his compatriots in 1794.
  
  
• Coincident with these events, another pagan, neo-religious venture of this period made inroads. Known as the "Theophilanthropists," these people wished to create a spiritualist church without dogmas, miracles, priesthood or sacraments, resulting in only a sort of vague religiosity so as not to offend anyone while still appealing to the person's innate, natural desire to worship a supreme being.
  
  

Fortunately for France, following the death of Robespierre and his partisans, the reign of terror quickly came to an end, a new, more moderate government formed and the previous liberties and freedoms slowly crept back into the pattern of daily existence for the average citizen, though religion continued to be subject to some form of governmental scrutiny and control, a restriction on the natural, God-given freedom of religion which continues there even to this present day.

It is a direct, negative commentary, indeed a condemning mark on our society that historical revisionists around the world should still hold the Age of Enlightenment and the fathers of the French Revolution in so positive a light and in such high regard, in spite of the sea of blood that was shed by their hands under the guise of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," which was the motto and rallying cry of the French Revolution.

To draw a conclusion, it can be said that within the larger panorama of the historical stage, a sad repetition of the events of those troubled times may well occur, as we may come to experience many of these same terrible, despotic atrocities in our own time, having failed to learn from the painful lessons that history and our fallen human nature collectively have to offer.

It is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that a like scenario could be construed in which we might witness Church property assimilated, confiscated and sold off in payment of debt, both real and contrived. The sermons of priests and pastors might well soon be closely scrutinized and monitored by special interest groups and governmental agencies seeking to first discredit, then prosecute.

Those who remain courageous enough speak in defense of traditional, conservative morality, teaching of the dangers of sin and the consequences thereof, or otherwise work to shepherd their flocks as our Lord Jesus commissioned them, will be jailed for "hate speech" or other contrived civil abrogations against the perverse, man-made idol that has come to be known as "separation of church and state."

Organized religion in any form other than the "official, state-sanctioned" government regulated services, will be banned and outlawed.

As was in the heyday of the Roman Empire, it will once more be a crime to be Christian.

Lacking any means of public worship, God's people will be driven underground. We Christians will head back to the catacombs, as were the faithful in the early Church, forced to worship God in secret.

Mere possession of a Bible might constitute a capital offense. Clergy and many of the faithful will be arrested, tried and sentenced to forced labor camps — or worse.

We will be hunted once again for imaginary crimes against society, and punished, when found, with all contrivance of torture, even unto death. Scripture will be fulfilled, and the roll of the martyrs will be made complete.

I'm afraid that it's coming. It's only a matter of time.

But do not despair, however, for our God is the Lord of history. All things are in His hands and under His dominion and control. His Divine Providence reigns supreme.

His enemies, as Sacred Scripture records, will be given only the briefest illusion of victory before our Savior returns in triumph. These evil ones will be eternally vanquished to the nether regions of hell to join their despotic predecessors, and His Kingdom, the new Heavens and the new Earth, will be firmly established forever.

This, too, is coming. It's only a matter of time.

So be watchful and pray that you, too, may remain faithful and persevere to the end — because only God knows who among us will be put to the ultimate test.

"Then they will hand you over to persecution, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. And then many will be led into sin; they will betray and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved." — Matthew 24:7

RESOURCES:

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia, 2005 Edition,
   
   Article by GEORGES GOYAU
   Transcribed by Jeffrey L. Anderson
   On-line at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13009a.htm
   
   
2. "To Quell the Terror," by William Bush
   
   
3. The Execution of Louis XVI, 1793," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (1999).
   
   

© Paul Rasavage