Part One
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
We live in a world filled with hypocrisy.
Self-appointed "experts" in the secular media, most of whom despise the Catholic Church and reject out of hand that there are Divinely-revealed truths that bind the consciences of all men in all places at all times, pronounce on matters of public policy and morality as they they have been endowed with the charism of infallibility as they seek to bind the consciences of one and all.
The high "priests" and "priestesses" of the secular media resort to mockery and scorn to denounce those who oppose chemical and surgical baby-killing in all instances without any exception whatsoever and who are opposed to the advances being made by those steeped in unrepentant sins of perversity in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and even nature itself. Many in the secular media's "hierarchy," including those who are of the "conservative" bent of naturalism, have reacted with stunned disbelief to the revelation that a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party endorsed candidate for the United States Senate in the State of Delaware had opposed a certain Mortal Sin against the Virtue of Chastity when she, a baptized Catholic, was a member of some Protestant sect. Such a view, the high "priests" and "priestesses" told Americans, was "nutty" and outside of the "mainstream."
Granted, the particular candidate has had some truly nutty ideas, such as dispensing free bottles of suntan lotion to voters in Delaware when running against then United States Senator Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., in 2008.
Opposing the particular sin in question, however, is not "nutty" and is not out of the "mainstream" with the true God of Divine Revelation.
Stating that the false, disproved ideology of evolutionism, which is the core "religious" belief of naturalists as to deny Special Creation and Adam and Eve's Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden permits them to assert that everything evolves, including God Himself, if He even exists, of course, is a myth, as Christine O'Donnell, the Republican nominee for the United States Senate seat in Delaware that was held for thirty-six years by the current vice president of the United States of America, the pro-abortion, pro-perversity Catholic named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., has asserted publicly in the past, is not "nutty." It is the truth and nothing but the truth. (See two articles written in my "resist but recognize" days,
The Fruits of Evolutionism and
Unintelligent Evolutionary Forces, and Absolution from the Earth?, Witness For Skulls Full of Mush, Let Your Yea Be Yea, and Without Belief, Without Love that have been written in more recent years).
Well, what exactly is the "mainstream" in the minds of most of the naturalist gatekeepers of Modernity?
Who defines the "mainstream"?
Wait no longer. I will try to answer these questions in my newfound style of brevity and conciseness that have done nothing to increase the readership of this site or the support necessary to continue its work (smile, I do have my tongue in my cheek, folks).
The "mainstream" is whatever the high "priests" and "priestesses" of naturalism define it to be at any given moment. Simple, no?
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept mocking comments about religion in general and Catholicism in particular.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept Barack Hussein Obama's dismissive attitude about religion, quoted below, as a statement of unquestioned truth:
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing. (Transcript of Obama's Remarks at San Francisco Fundraiser; LISTEN TO THE FULL OBAMA April 6. FUNDRAISER SPEECH HERE.)
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept blasphemous speech as nothing unusual or to be criticized.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept chemical and surgical baby-killing under cover of the civil law. The high "priests" and "priestesses" say that such a position represents"moderation" on social issues.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept open pornography, whether in magazines or on television or in motion pictures, displayed in full view of children.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept tattoos and body armor as "expressions" of individuality.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" for men and women to dress immodestly, including the blithe acceptance of women in masculine attire.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept the lie that the civil state and a legitimate role to play in the establishment and operation of schools and the development of mandatory curricula.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept the concept of "social security" as a "right" for the elderly, who should be supported by their grown children as the latter fulfill their obligations under the Fourth Commandment to give back unto their parents what was given to them when they, the children, were helpless infants and toddlers and adolescents.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept all of the ideological, statist misrepresentations presented by those engaged in the junk science of environmentalism, including all of the cooked up evidence about "global warming."
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept the representations of the pharmaceutical and health care industry concerning the "safety" of various drugs and vaccinations, which contain all manner of poisons and are threats to public health in and of themselves.
It is thus part of the "mainstream" to accept uncritical acceptance of the policies of the State of Israel as perfectly with the national security interests of the United States of America and that the murder and torture and destruction of the very houses of innocent Arabs by the Israeli Defense Force are always infallible, always beyond reproach, always fully justifiable.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to accept the promiscuous use of profanity very openly in public places.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to accept all manner of innuendoes concerning sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to accept "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" as two of the building blocks of a "just society."
It has become part of the "mainstream" to believe that "affirmative action" and other reverse discrimination programs have advanced the cause of "equality" rather than having created a culture of mediocrity and entitlement.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to consider discrimination and even threats of intimidation against whites as acts that must never be prosecuted (see Prosecutor: DoJ bias against whites.)
It has become part of the "mainstream to accept without criticism the existence of the policies advanced by the United Nations Organization.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to accept trade with and the outsourcing of jobs to Red China as "essential" to national economic growth and stability despite the tyranny exercised by its Communist regime and despite the fact that Red China's manufacturing industry is exporting foods and pharmaceuticals and even building materials that are filled with poison (see Army Probes Mysterious Baby Deaths at Fort Bragg.)
It has become part of the "mainstream" to accept the belief that women must go to work in order to be fulfilled, and that children must be "planned" in order to have a "meaningful" and "successful" career.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to believe that one's life is defined exclusively by material success and that the true measure of national greatness is material prosperity.
It has become part of the "mainstream" to believe that it "does not make any difference what religion one belongs to as long as he is a 'good' person," that a "loving God" would never send anyone to Hell, if this place of eternal perdition even exists, you understand.
A thousand more examples could be given. The point, though, is this: some of very same people who scoff at the binding precepts contained in the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication expect others to obey them lest those who refuse such obedience be deemed as "outside of the mainstream."
Being called "outside of the mainstream" is one of the accusations that is supposed to cast a chill down the spine of those so characterized.
Really, however, this is all not new at all.
Fallen men, seeking to justify their own lives of sin and injustice, have tried to rationalize their words and actions before men as they denounce and sometimes viciously persecute those who dare to dissent from the grand pronouncements of what is considered to be in the "mainstream." Even pagans such as Socrates, who lived in Athens, Greece, in the Fifth Century before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Incarnation and Nativity, suffered at the hands of their fellow pagans for refusing to submit to the passing, arbitrary whims of the majority.
Permit me to quote yet again from the late Dr. Russell Kirk's The Roots of American Order, which is, as I came to recognize after having used it in my classes for some years, sad to say, filled with an "admiration" for the very Protestant heresies that must degenerate into some form of statism sooner or later when they are accepted as legitimate foundations of a just social order, and the citation of the philosopher Simone Weil's naturalistic observation on the state of human discourse in the early part of the Twentieth Century:
"It is as though we had returned to the age of Protagoras and the Sophists, the age when the art of persuasion--whose modern equivalent is advertising slogans, publicity, propaganda meetings, the press, the cinema, and radio--took the place of thought and controlled the fate of cities and accomplished coups d'etat. So the ninth book of Plato's Republic looks like a description of contemporary events." (Simone Weil, quoted in Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order.)
Simone Weil, who was very confused about many things until, according to a priest who knew her, she converted to the Faith after moving to New York from France during World War II, described the early-part of Twentieth Century perfectly, a description that is even more apt in our own day when there naturalists who serve as "liberal" gatekeepers (Paul Krugman, Eugene Robinson, Thomas Friedman, Frank Rich, almost every on-air personality at CNBC and MSNBC, et al., in addition to the White House spin doctors such as Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod and Rahm Emmanuel) and naturalists who serve as "conservative" gatekeepers to keep those they deem as "fringe" elements (perhaps people who, just for a random example, take seriously the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by the Catholic Church and, at least in most instance, most anyone, noting a few exceptions here and there, who is in the least bit critical of the "global war on terror" and/or the policies of the State of Israel) to monopolize public debate and to keep the masses entertained with their naturalist bread and circuses.
Thus it is that while many get all enthused once again for the biennial farce called national elections, I continue to yawn--and not only because I remain very fatigued despite having lost eighty pounds (as of yesterday morning, Friday, September 24, 2010) since the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010 (down to a weight considered "in the normal range," one hundred ninety pounds). I continue to yawn as none of the naturalist "excitement" excites me. It is all a diversion from the adversary to distract us from the simple truth that the injurious babbling that passes for public discourse in the United States of America and everywhere else in the world at this time is the result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt that made possible the rise of the multifaceted and interrelated naturalist forces of Judeo-Masonry to hold sway over men and their nations.
Although I have cited the following two passages, the first from Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and the second from Pope Pius IX's Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, many times on this site, I will do so again to demonstrate that our time is much better spent praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits than it is on what is considered public "discourse" on current events:
Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)
But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.
For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling." (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1964.)
Not convinced yet? Well, how about turning to Pope Benedict. That's right. Pope Benedict, the Fifteenth, that is:
Let the Princes and Rulers of peoples remember this truth, and let them consider whether it is a prudent and safe idea for governments or for states to separate themselves from the holy religion of Jesus Christ, from which their authority receives such strength and support. Let them consider again and again, whether it is a measure of political wisdom to seek to divorce the teaching of the Gospel and of the Church from the ruling of a country and from the public education of the young. Sad experience proves that human authority fails where religion is set aside. The fate of our first parent after the Fall is wont to come also upon nations. As in his case, no sooner had his will turned from God than his unchained passions rejected the sway of the will; so, too, when the rulers of nations despise divine authority, in their turn the people are wont to despise their human authority. There remains, of course, the expedient of using force to repress popular risings; but what is the result? Force can repress the body, but it cannot repress the souls of men. (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)
"All right, all right," I can hear some of you say. "But about the primaries? What about the elections that will be held on the Commemoration of All Souls, Tuesday, November 2, 2010? What about the Republican Pledge to America?"
Yeah? Well, what about all of these things. What do you want? Another article? I relent. I will give you part two of this brief commentary on Monday, September 27, 2010. (Yet another article, which will focus on the gatekeepers of conciliarism, will be written soon.)
The purpose of this commentary has been to remind the few people who remain as readers on this site that the distractions of the mass media are merely that, distractions that cannot solve a single, solitary problem and that will not retard a single, solitary evil, including the statism that has been incubating since the days of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Woodrow Wilson and and has been growing to full gestation ever since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his brave new world of social engineering called the "New Deal."
Do not be deceived. As I have written before but find opportune to reiterate once again, the exponents of naturalism, whether those in power at the present time or those who are opposing them by means merely natural, are but minions and/or dupes of the devil. It is the devil that we must fight in our own daily lives:
Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.
Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace:
In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints: (Ephesians 6: 11-18.)
We cannot fight the devil and his naturalistic plans with means merely natural.
A Catholic would think in terms of organizing monthly Rosary processions around the nation. It is with Our Lady's Holy Rosary that we must oppose naturalism and naturalists as we lift high the Cross of the Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in every aspect of our lives at all times without any exception whatsoever.
Father Frederick Faber explained the allure of naturalism in his own day, an allure that is no less enticing today to Catholics all across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide than it was one hundred fifty years ago now:
All devotions have their characteristics; all of them have their own theological meanings. We must say something, therefore, upon the characteristics of the devotion to the Precious Blood. In reality the whole Treatise has more or less illustrated this matter. But something still remains to be said, and something will bear to be repeated. We will take the last first. Devotion to the Precious Blood is the devotional expression of the prominent and characteristic teaching of St. Paul. St. Paul is the apostle of redeeming grace. A devout study of his epistles would be our deliverance from most of the errors of the day. He is truly the apostle of all ages. To each age doubtless he seems to have a special mission. Certainly his mission to our is very special. The very air we breathe is Pelagian. Our heresies are only novel shapes of an old Pelagianism. The spirit of the world is eminently Pelagian. Hence it comes to pass that wrong theories among us are always constructed round a nuclear of Pelagianism; and Pelagianism is just the heresy which is least able to breathe in the atmosphere of St. Paul. It is the age of the natural as opposed to the supernatural, of the acquired as opposed to the infused, of the active as opposed to the passive. This is what I said in an earlier chapter, and here repeat. Now, this exclusive fondness for the natural is on the whole very captivating. It takes with the young, because it saves thought. It does not explain difficulties; but it lessens the number of difficulties to be explained. It takes with the idle; it dispenses from slowness and research. It takes with the unimaginative, because it withdraws just the very element in religion which teases them. It takes with the worldly, because it subtracts the enthusiasm from piety and the sacrifice from spirituality. It takes with the controversial, because it is a short road and a shallow ford. It forms a school of thought which, while it admits that we have an abundance of grace, intimates that we are not much better for it. It merges privileges in responsibilities, and makes the sovereignty of God odious by representing it as insidious. All this whole spirit, with all its ramifications, perishes in the sweet fires of devotion to the Precious Blood.
The time is also one of libertinage; and a time of libertinage is always, with a kind of practical logic, one of infidelity. Whatever brings out God's side in creation, and magnifies his incessant supernatural operation in it, is the controversy which infidelity can least withstand. Now, the devotion to the Precious Blood does this in a very remarkable way. It shows that the true significance in every thing is to be found in the scheme of redemption, apart from which it is useless to discuss the problems of creation. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, written in 1860, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 258-259.)
This is just as much a description of our own days as it was of Father Faber's. Indeed, Father Faber was merely describing naturalism's hatred for the Holy Faith, a hatred that is from Hell and that is meant to send souls there for all eternity as disorder is sown into the hearts and souls of men to be spread abroad in one nation after another as even well-meaning people come to believe that there is some naturalistic "remedy" for the evils of naturalism that are at the proximate root of our personal and social problems today.
With Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., and the Cristeros in Mexico to whom he brought the Sacraments, who uttered the battle cry of "Viva Cristo Rey!", we must always lift high the banner of Christ the King, remembering these stirring words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:
We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.
Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.
Naturalism cannot be opposed with naturalism. Naturalism and all of its attendant evils can be opposed only with Catholicism.
We need to learn this simple lesson once and for all without getting distract by the false "excitement" provided by the devil's minions in the world.
We are Catholics! We need to learn the simple lesson that naturalism can be opposed only with Catholicism, nothing else at all, as we lift high the Holy Cross of Christ the King and pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, especially today, Saturday, September 25, 2010, the Fourteenth Saturday in Bishop McKenna's 2010 Rosary Crusade, receiving Holy Communion, if at all possible, today in honor of the Fourth Glorious Mystery, the Assumption of Our Lady body and soul into Heaven, praying to have a deep and abiding Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is meant, whether or not the naturalists (and those Catholics who think and speak naturalistically when given access to the American public by the mass media) accept or like it, to be honored publicly as the Queen of all men and all nations.
Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.
