Biblical Foundations International - Catholic Apologetics - Gerry Matatics.org

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PO Box 569, Dunmore PA 18512 USA
phone (570) 969-1724   fax (570) 969-1725
www.gerrymatatics.org   e-mail: GerryMatatics@gerrymatatics.org


Submitting to the Social Kingship of Christ: The Radical Surgery That Alone Can Save America

Submitting to the Social Kingship of Christ: The Radical Surgery That Alone Can Save America

Dear Friends:

Greetings on this solemn feast day of All Souls. What follows is a revised, updated version of the letter that I originally posted here exactly a week ago, on October 26.

 

Before October 26 it had been a while — over two months — since I last posted anything here. On top of recent trips I've taken (one of which is described below) and all my other usual projects and chores that keep me busy running this one-man lay apostolate without any secretary or staff, I have added to my already-overloaded schedule the teaching of various college courses via Skype videoconferencing calls this fall: courses in Scripture, church history (currently both Early Church and Protestant Reformation), patristics (the Church Fathers), moral theology, ecclesiastical Latin, and French, with students spread out all over the country: Washington, California, Colorado, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts and more.


And as if that weren’t enough, I’ve been also burning the midnight oil doing a massive amount of reading lately — fortunately all in the fields I love the most: philosophy, theology, Biblical studies, apologetics, history (both Church history and American history), politics and economics.

 

Why all the extra reading? To prepare for a talk I just recorded two days ago, Monday, October 31 — the day after the Feast of Christ the King in the traditional, pre-Vatican II Church year — which I want to send you on CD. It’s entitled “Submitting to the Social Kingship of Christ: The Radical Surgery That Alone Can Save America.” 

 

Biblical Foundations International (BFI), the apostolate I started over a quarter of a century ago (January 1991), has many patron saints. To name just a few of our heavenly patrons, protectors, and intercessors, there's St. Jerome, patron of Biblical studies; St. Thomas Aquinas, patron of theologians and teachers; St. Robert Bellarmine, “doctor of the papacy,” whose clear teaching necessitates the “sedevacantist conclusion” that the men who called, concluded, and continue to implement the Second Vatican Council — John XXIII through Francis — due to their lack of the Catholic Faith cannot have been validly elected to the see of Peter, but are in fact antipopes; St. Hermengild, whose brave martyrdom eloquently teaches us that Catholics must be willing to die rather than receive sacraments from the hands of heretics or otherwise be in ecclesial communion with them (for example, by attending a Mass which puts Francis’s name in the canon).

In a class by herself, of course, stands our special patroness, Our Lady of LaSalette, the Church-approved apparition of Mary in France on September 19, 1846, when she forewarned that “in the last days Rome itself will lose the Faith and become the seat of the antichrist .. and the Church will be in eclipse.”

 

But above them all, and from the very beginning of our apostolate, we have always and especially invoked as our supreme patron our beloved Christ the King, for whose honor we engage in all our battles, and in whose honor we humbly offer this new CD.

Our next election for the president of the United States (as well as numerous other public offices) is now less than a week away. And I’m sorry to be such a sourpuss, but listening to people’s remarks about our election choices, it’s painfully apparent to me that even far too many traditional Catholics have at best a superficial, and in some cases an alarmingly erroneous, grasp of the issues involved, which sadly prevents them from acting as authentic Catholics in the current cultural chaos in order to save our society, our children and grandchildren. And nothing less than the Church’s neglected but necessary teaching on the social kingship of Christ can give us any hope of a future for our country (or any country).

In this CD I share with you, first from Sacred Scripture and then from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and the magisterium, the little-understood connection between Christ’s three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and how this three-fold office (in the logically sequential manner I describe in the CD) must be faithfully and courageously carried out in the life of His Mystical Body on earth, His Church.

I mention that this teaching was deliberately sabotaged at the Second Vatican Council, with disastrous consequences for global society, which is now teetering on the edge of a complete breakdown (and World War III), though it is still not too late to prevent this if we are willing to undergo the radical spiritual surgery I speak of.

I also mention the amazing experiences I had earlier this month (October 6-7) attending a public conference on “Faith in the Public Square: A Dialogue on Public Theology” at Westminster Theological Seminary, the most intellectually rigorous seminary in the entire Protestant world (where I went in the early 1980s, before my conversion to Catholicism in 1986, to earn a Ph.D. in Biblical studies).

The conference's Protestant organizers are so alarmed at the state of society that — in an absolutely unprecedented move for such a staunchly Calvinist seminary — they asked four prominent Catholic leaders and scholars to address them on how to turn the cultural and political situation around. Also addressing us were Edwin Meese, former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, about his hopes for a “restoration of Christian culture” in the United States, and several other Protestant scholars, including the seminary’s president, Dr. Peter Lillback, who was a fellow student at Westminster with me back in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, neither Protestant nor Vatican II Catholics can possibly reverse the cultural decline nor “restore” a Christian culture, because their most fundamental principles are fatally flawed, as I explain in the CD (and explained to some of the conference's speakers and attendees in conversations with them). Because I paid to have VIP Access to (meals with, etc.) all the speakers, to event moderator Hugh Hewitt the nationally syndicated radio talk show host (many of you perhaps saw him on TV as one of the moderators at one of the Republican primary debates), and to a surprise guest, Charles Chaput, the Cardinal Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (of the false Vatican II church), I was able to give each of these men my card, engage them in discussion, and show them why on any but classic Catholic grounds their efforts were doomed to failure. I also discussed this over meals with some of the faculty of Westminster Seminary who were in attendance.

In particular I zeroed in on “Archbishop” Chaput, who was a surprise guest I hadn’t expected to meet at the conference. He was not on the docket of speakers, though Hugh Hewitt — who describes himself as “an evangelical Catholic Presbyterian” because he, a Catholic, also attends a Presbyterian church Sunday evenings with his Presbyterian wife — had Archbishop Chaput as a scheduled guest during a three-hour radio show that morning that those of us with VIP status were permitted to sit in on. I introduced myself to and sat next to the Archbishop on two occasions during the conference, gave him my card, told him my story, and initiated a discussion with him on Protestantism’s fatal flaw of sola scriptura and on the error therefore of ecumenism (Pius XI’s condemnation of it vs. Vatican II’s promotion of it), a discussion he encouraged me to continue with him via email.

It would admittedly take an extraordinarily miraculous grace from God for a “bishop” of the Vatican II church to see, and publicly admit, that:

a) Vatican II cannot be an authentic council of the true Church if it officially teaches things (e.g., ecumenism and the Masonic idea of “religious liberty”) that the Church formerly officially condemned as antithetical to true Catholicism, 

b) the men who have posed as popes while promoting the errors of Vatican II cannot therefore be authentic popes, and 

c) he himself (Chaput) is not an authentic, or even validly consecrated, bishop of the true Church.

Yet God, I believe, is still in the business of affording such extraordinary graces and effecting such dramatic conversions. What a shock-wave Chaput’s conversion would send throughout the Catholic (and pseudo-Catholic) world! Please pray fervently for this as I continue to interact with him.

Please pray, too, for the conversion of a seminary student from Northern Ireland who wants to go back there after graduation as a missionary to convert Catholics to Presbyterianism. He was stunned when I stood up publicly in the conference’s very first Q & A session and identified myself as a former Westminster doctoral student and ordained Presbyterian pastor who converted to Catholicism. (I was in fact the very first student at Westminster, and also the very first minister in my particular denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, ever to convert to Catholicism, though several among both bodies have since followed.)

 

This student approached me afterwards and we conversed on both days of the conference about the issues that divide Protestants and Catholics (and divide real Catholics from the counterfeit Catholics who accept the errors of Vatican II). He gratefully received from me, not only my card so we could keep in touch, but a gift of several free books and CDs, which I pray he is eagerly devouring.

In my new CD I also explain why the notion that the United States of America was founded as a “Christian nation” — a status to which we supposedly can return by political maneuvering — is a deliberately contrived myth that has been adequately debunked in many books that possess impeccable scholarly credentials, but one that tragically keeps many Americans from seeing the need for the radical surgery required to establish this country on the only sound basis God offers: a complete recognition of and submission to the social reign of Christ the King.

My CD covers many, many other aspects of our current situation. I comment on the character, campaigns, and commitments of our current candidates — not just the Republican and Democratic party nominees Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton, but also libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and newly independent candidate Evan McMullin. I can guarantee you that what I have to say about all of these candidates will doubtless disturb many people who prefer to look at things through rose-tinted glasses.

I will of course address the thorny issue of what US citizens should do next Tuesday on Election Day, November 8, according to classic Catholic moral theology. The answer may surprise some of you.

There is so much more I’d like to tell you now about this CD, which touches on the Church’s teaching on politics, economics, Freemasonry, US history, and other pertinent matters. But I will let the CD speak for itself. It sells for $11.95, as do all my single CDs, but as always I’ll be sending a FREE copy to my handful of faithful monthly donors, for whose generous support I remain daily and prayerfully grateful.

In addition, so that both donors and non-donors might more affordably distribute copies of the CD to family and friends, I will make ten copies — which would otherwise cost $119.50 plus $6.50 Priority Mail shipping and handling — available for a donation of only $100. That’s a savings of $26! 

I have not written many appeal letters this year, in part because I frankly hate writing them! I would be delighted if the sales of CDs and books from our online store, and my earnings from the college courses I now teach through our St. Hermengild Online College, were sufficient to pay Biblical Foundations International’s bills, so that I never again had to write another appeal for funds.

But such, alas, is not the case. Due to my extreme reluctance to write the necessary number of appeal letters, as Almighty God is my witness, BFI is right now at an extremely dangerous all-time low in revenue — so much so that it is literally true that, both right now and for the foreseeable future, I don’t have any money to make the necessary copies of this CD. That’s a fact. If it weren't for the undeserved grace of God and His gift of faith, I would be extremely nervous right now.

Having worked inside other Catholic organizations in the past, I know full well how they hire highly-paid professional fundraisers to write alarmist, “We’ve-got-a-financial-emergency-that-could-shut-us-down-tomorrow” type appeal letters, which succeed in bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars and paying the organization's director’s cushy salary.

 

I’ve never hired anyone to write such a letter — I couldn’t afford to hire anyone to do anything! — and I’ve never fabricated or exaggerated the facts of my financial situation. Right now I have no money to even pay for the blank CDs or the production of any copies of my recording, and I am also looking at monthly bills BFI has to pay — for its monthly post office box rental, phone bill, postage, office supplies (paper, toner for our printer and photocopier, etc.), website hosting, and so on — that we currently have no money to pay.

This is in part due to the fact that some of those who’ve pledged in the past to send us monthly donations have not done so for several months now. I understand that times are hard, and that people can’t send what they say they don’t have. But when that shortfall gets passed on to me, I can’t do my work — can’t produce new CDs, for example.

That’s why I’m hoping that some of those who don’t currently send us any monthly donations might prayerfully consider beginning to do so now. Even $50 a month is a great Godsend, because BFI honestly operates on a (highly-frayed) shoestring budget. After our monthly bills are paid and new projects are funded, what’s left over — if anything! — goes to my “salary,” if I’m lucky, though I generally get severely underpaid. Last year, as I mentioned in a previous email, I made only $16,293 — drastically down from the already-too-low $21,230 the previous year. (And this year I will have made even less.) As anyone knows, this is seriously below the poverty level, and a challengingly inadequate amount with which to raise a family of our size.

 

If you can't commit to making a monthly donation, could you please prayerfully consider sending as large a one-time donation as you afford right now? 

And although I don’t expect, and wouldn’t dream of asking, my already-generous handful of monthly supporters to send any additional support, if any of them, after prayer and reflection, decided to send an additional one-time donation this week to help us out of this deep hole we're in, I certainly wouldn’t refuse it!

I need to receive the funds right away that are necessary to have sufficient copies made of this new CD so that we might start mailing them out (I'll need the money in hand for the postage, too), to get them in the hands of people by the end of this week or by next Monday at the latest, the day before Election Day. Only if Catholics truly understand the Church’s teaching on the social kingship of Christ — and act and pray in accordance with it — can God bless our efforts to turn around the situation in this country before it’s too late.

1) As always, the quickest, easiest way to donate is to go to any page on this website (www.gerrymatatics.org) and click on the gold-colored “Make a Donation” button in the upper right area of the website’s homepage (or any page) to use PayPal to make a donation.

2) Or you can call me at (570) 969-1724 to use your Discover, Visa, or MasterCard to make a donation. If you get my private voicemail because I’m away from my desk, just leave on the recording (it’s completely secure: no one listens to it but me) your credit card information: your name exactly as it appears on the card, the 16-digit card number and expiration date, the 3-digit security code on the back of the card, your billing address for that card, and the amount you wish to donate.

3) A third option is to make out a check or money order, payable to either “Gerry Matatics” or “Biblical Foundations International,” and mail it to me — today, if you can! — at PO Box 569, Dunmore PA 18512.

Please help me to continue:

a) to serve you;

b) to serve as well the many under-informed people of our country who seem oblivious to our true spiritual state and to the authentic teachings of the one Church Christ founded and put here on earth to serve as “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15);

c) and to serve our God, to Whom we owe literally everything we have and are.

Our family of eleven will be going to the Catholic cemetery later today, as we do every year on All Souls Day, to pray our rosary at the graveside of our dear departed daughter Felicity Ann, who sadly died the day she was born, March 16, 2000. She would have been a beautiful young lady 16 years of age this year had she lived. There we will pray, as we do every day, for the souls of the faithful departed, but also for all our donors and all their loved ones, both living and deceased. We hope you and yours will be among them. May He richly reward you for your generosity!

Yours in Christ the King and Mary His (and our) Queen Mother,

Gerry Matatics

Updated On: November 2nd, 2016

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March 29th, 2024

Donations are to Gerry Matatics as a speaker and writer, dba ("doing business as") Biblical Foundations International (BFI). BFI is not a 501 (c) 3, tax-exempt, non-profit corporation, and donations to it are not tax deductible as such.

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BROADCAST SCHEDULE FROM NOW ON

Dear Friends:

 

<...  Continued

Date Added: Monday, November 04, 2019

Broadcast tonight (Thurs, Oct 31) at 9 pm Eastern

Dear Friends:

 

Dear Friends:

 

<...  Continued

Date Added: Tuesday, October 29, 2019