Fools for Christ

Now tell me: why do you suppose voters in the United States decided to go all leftist last November? Takuan Seiyo tells us.

The Spanish Civil War (1936–39), for instance, due to its "Fighting the Fascists” veneer is to this day a subject of veneration by the “progressive” West. But this hews to the line of Comintern's phony propaganda. For the noble cause that the West sees in the Spanish Republicans was in fact an attempt to create a totalitarian Soviet republic. The International Brigades of idealistic volunteers were led by Soviet commissars under the control of NKVD, and carried out genocidal actions against a civilian population. But for “progressive humanity” (Stalin’s words), facts can never stand in the way of feelings.

There are 80 years of conditioning, hundreds of millions of KGB dollars and dozens of still-extant institutions that have gone into manufacturing this “antifascist” and “antiracist” reflex of the useful idiots. ANSWER for instance, aka Act Now to Stop War and Racism is a peace-and-justice loving organization on whose Steering Committee sit, among others, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, Partnership for Civil Justice, a few Muslim rception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.”

[ ... ]

Those who are counter-jihad are pummeled not by jihadis but by socialists. Those who are anti-socialist are pummeled not by socialists but by immigrant demographics. Those who are traditionalists are pummeled not by nihilists but by global capitalists. Those who are social conservatives are pummeled not by libertines but by the very symbol of rectitude, the Law. Those who are declining fertility activists will be defeated even if they succeed, for any number of Western children would still be compelled to spend 12 – 18 years turning into Pods in the Snatchers’ zombie farms. It’s in light of all this that I see the tactical retreat of Exodus.

When Reality becomes taboo, and fiction becomes an official totem, civilization has driven itself into a swamp. From then on, it’s the flotation coefficient of the lying totem versus the suction force of Reality’s swamp. That is a contest with only one possible outcome, as gravity and entropy work for the swamp. Unless the lie be smashed and the taboo repealed, that civilization must be sucked under.

I'd love to be able to say Seiyo is yanking our chain with conspiracy theory. What he is doing, however, is tracing the outline of the sacred as lived out in current events sans knowledge of Girard's mimetic theory.

And while Seiyo may correctly see the origins of our leftist turn in America - interesting, isn't it, that suddenly we are following the lead of a bygone Europe that now is turning to the right - we cannot subscribe to his Exodus theory. Christians are called to be the leaven in the loaf, in but not of the world.

Like the babushkas who faithfully went to church in Soviet Russia, so we are called to be out of step, unhip, the butt of jokes and scapegoating in a West that is imploding in a faith and morals void of its own making.

But we are in on the joke on us. We are fools for Christ. And that is okay.

Thomas Merton on St. Bernard of Clairveaux

Trinity Sunday - Yesterday and Today

As a convert to Mother Church, after an upbringing in the home of a devout Evangelical, Midwestern pastor, and after twenty-plus years being an ordained Protestant pastor myself, many have asked why. Why become a Catholic? Isn't it enough to know you are "saved" by "accepting" Jesus Christ as my "personal Lord and Savior?" What does the Catholic Church bring to me that wasn't available in a Protestant faith?

For me, it's been like following hints, intimations, a trail of bread crumbs in a dark wood.

Today is Trinity Sunday in Catholic Christendom. At Vigil Mass, we sang:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in power, in love and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

As a small boy, I sang exactly the same words. But I wondered, "Cherubim and seraphim? What are they?" They are orders of angels. Protestants don't care much about such things. "What 'denomination' does?" I wondered. I had no answer for a long time, but the question stayed with me.

Why? Because it seemed like a cool breeze from a wider, higher range of mountains; related, but of a world vaster than our dry and rather arid little land of John Wesley.

We sang of God in three persons, blessed Trinity at my father's Evangelical United Brethren church, All Saints, in South Bend, Indiana. It is no longer "All Saints Church." Now it is just "Faith Church."

We didn't emphasize the Trinitarian nature of the Holy Godhead, but we were drummed with making Jesus our personal Lord and Savior. Saints? Who cares? It is ALL about Jesus. Funny thing is, no one observed that the saints are the handiwork of Our Lord, living lamps of His grace burning in our world through the ages. No time for "saints".

On this Trinity Sunday, strangely, I find Our Lord, Jesus Christ, rules over a far more expansive Kingdom than the rather truncated one I grew up knowing as a non-Catholic child - the Church Triumphant in Heaven, enjoying the Beatific Vision before Him; the Church Suffering in Purgatory, being prepared and "purged" of the residue of sin so as to enjoy His Presence for eternity; and the Church Militant here on earth, struggling but assured of victory due to His Victory of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

The Holy Catholic Church - 'catholic' is Greek for 'universal' - is big enough for everyone. God would not make the Church anything less. Yes, we must indeed "accept" Jesus as our Lord, but we are much more than mere "deciders". The Catholic Church provides for every aspect of human living to become sanctified ... all the way to Heaven where by God's grace alone we will enjoy the Beatific Vision of the Most Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - for evermore.

Holy, Holy, Holy - God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.

Prayers Needed - Gil Bailie

On this Trinity Sunday, please keep friend, mentor, and really great fellow, Gil Bailie, in prayer. Gil has informed his many readers, listeners, and friends that he will soon be facing major surgery. "A well deserved vacation ... attended round the clock by a courteous and competent staff," he quipped.

Blessings upon Gil for a successful surgery and safe, speedy recovery.

'The Catholic Church is young'

Damien Thompson gives a glimpse of a promising institution of higher education and compassion: the Ukrainian Catholic University.

Seiyo - Swallowed by Leviathan

The inimitable Takuan Seiyo continues his From Meccania to Atlantis series:

Raymond Kraft, [hat tip, Fjordman] has written that the Islamic movement has turned the civility of the Western peoples into a weapon against them. It has weaponized niceness, compassion and the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. “We have become too civilized to defeat our enemies, perhaps too civilized to survive.” True, but it applies to much more than just Muslim colonization.

The questions this begs is, first, how could such insanity have taken hold in a civilization based on reason, and second, how could a “mental virus” alone produce this level of collective psychopathology, unmatched in the recorded history of mankind. The answers require that we move on to the next Russian expression, kto kogo.

Kto kogo, which means the same in several Slavic languages is “who whom.” Like in “who is ruling, dominating, doing in, controlling whom.” This was Lenin’s formula for instant clarity in politics.

The good intentions of the squishy West stem from biblical morality so mainstream that a sermon in a random Western church or synagogue sounds like induction into the Body Snatcher creed. There is the shame and sorrow for Nazism and Fascism, Colonialism and Slavery, centuries of poisonous anti-Semitism, copious internecine bloodshed in the name of the loving Jesus or xenophobic nationalism, exploitation of peasants, workers and women.

Contrition and restoration one can understand. But suicide?

Read all here.

Sea Change

An important vote-with-our-$ effort is brewing among Notre Dame alums. The point is not the university's decision regarding I Won's coming to speak, but rather the fact that,

Over 80 bishops and more than 367,000 Catholics voiced disagreement with Father Jenkins, saying he disregarded the 2004 guidelines from the U.S. bishops that state: "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles" with "awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

This is a very "clear cut case," DiFranco said. Obama is not just pro-choice, but is among a very small minority who actively defends abortion rights in every instance (emphasis added). More here.

Let's hope it is part of a trend.

Swallow This

What seems a staple and forced diet for Americans and, now, the rest of the world with I Won's Cairo speech is a table filled with myth rather than gospel. "Let's move on" means a highly truncated selection of tasty tidbits of history, remembrance, and flavoring.

And what is our chef-in-chief preparing by way of a main course? Well, to be honest, we're not supposed to look too closely, leave that to his royal why-ness in the kitchen. In fact, a regular diet of platitudes chosen and oh-so carefully presented - he really is a master of innuendo seasoning and double-meaning - will ensure a lean, forward-thinking society.

Who wants to scour old recipe books like the Bible? The Koran is hip, growing, a force to be reckoned with; kosher is out. Judeo-Christian America? Pass. Didn't you know? America is one of the world's largest Muslim countries. Mmm, boy. That tastes great.

Let's face it. Myth just tastes better than gospel. Consider this first year a palate cleanser. Just you wait. Why before you know it, America will be feeding on a cuisine that will make you never look back. Yep.

Fancy That - Goldman

David Goldman, of Spengler repute, asks, Why Couldn’t Obama’s Speechwriters Find a “Peace” Quote from the Koran?

F. O'Connor Story - Live @ 6

For the record, John Zmirak's Death’s Hand on the Tiller.

Functional Atheism and Scimitar against ...

Listening recently to the CD of Gil Bailie's fifth Emmaus Road Initiative session (2/24/09) - Why did it take the Crucifixion to save us? - I realized again the vital distinction between the sacred and the mythical vs. the gospel and truth.

We live in a time when power is evinced by power of office, of wealth, of clout. How many divisions does the Pope have? is a question not only asked of a former Communist dictator, but every government that is a functionally atheist regime. That is, powers and principalities that look neither for an ally in Heaven nor to be judged by the same on terms not of their own choosing, but that of Heaven's (name one that does, please).

The only major world power that does - save (I hope) Israel - is no longer a temporal power in the normal sense of the word. It is the one, holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church. It occupies very little land, sum total; yet it purports to hold forth on matters magisterial to the entire human race - every man, woman, and child made in the image of God, imago dei.

That it should be such a target of venom and vitriol, such concerted efforts to divide and castigate it should - should - make every man, woman, and child made in the image of God wonder why. Why should the Catholic Church be heaped with such scorn and spite if it is merely an antiquated remnant of medieval superstition?

But, as Mark Studdock discovers in C. S. Lewis's prescient novel, That Hideous Strength, along with the powers and principalities that desire so much to arrogate and usurp for themselves the cult of power, persuasion, and permanence, the Normal (along with the True, Good, and Beautiful) has a remarkably tenacious way of rebuffing them, outnumbered, out-strategized, and out-gunned though it is.

This might be remarkable as a talking point, but right now the people of the biblical faiths - Judaism (and Israel is particular) and Christianity (and the Catholic Church in particular) are being attacked with a renewed vigor by a great many of the "functional atheist" regimes and peoples mentioned above. Even the most powerful man on the planet, President I Won, is catering hugely to Judaism's and Christianity's largest foe: the Scimitar.

Like all good politicians, he knows which way the (foul) wind blows, and he thinks he can harness it for his pitiably puny understanding of what is "good" for everyone. In this way, he merely another Protestant: he has studied under the finest progressive minds of post-modernity and has found Catholic truth, faith, and morals not to his liking. Therefore, he eschews them (read: rejects them) for another Rube Goldberg contraption. Which is passing strange, since his progressivist ideology can't possible assimilate the Scimitar's fervent intolerance for his permissive, Dionysiac values.

What they surreptitiously have in common is ... a common hatred for biblical truth. And it is always of value in politics and anthropological dealings to have a common scapegoat: someone or someones we can agree to sub-humanize and upon whom to cast blame.

And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day: for before they were at enmity between themselves. - Lk 23, 12

Who might that be? Who are those two figures left standing who believe in Heaven's authority, a Law that will not be superseded by human arrogance, hubris, and idolatry?

I think you know, gentle reader. Judaism and Catholicism.

Cartoon Demonizing and Prayer

The Anchoress correctly says this is one of Michelle Malkin's finest essays.

It is abundantly clear that the polarizing, accusatory gestures are becoming more emphatic in our hyper mimetically charged cultural milieu. Enemies are less human and more demoniac; less nuanced and more cartoon-esque (think Dan Brown Catholics stereotypes or Obots). Less human means more expendable.

About the only thing that will save us from continuing down the vortex of the sacred is prayer: for us as sinners and as our purported enemies as sinners. Once we think those who want to do away with "Christianists" are targets - or worse, gunning for us - we will be apt to attack first and ask questions later.

Henri Nouwen once said the most fearful people he ever met were incarcerated criminals doing time for violent crimes. They all had a "first strike" mentality.

Chivalry believes in legitimate defense. It also believes in the universality of Original Sin.

If it walks like a duck

... And quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

For the Record - Scimitar at a Glance

A brief history of the Scimitar, complete with a profile of its "shining example," here.

Obamanation Parasitic on ... Domestic Church

Aristotle’s remark that man is by nature a social animal is not often paired with another of his: man is even more naturally a marrying animal. The union of man and woman with the aim of reproduction creates the most fundamental society of all, the family. Any further society presupposes the family and is parasitic on it. The mark of any society is concern for the common good, and where better than in the family do I learn that I have goods that are not simply mine but ours? Parents and children, each with their private goods, must give precedence to the shared or common good of the family if it, and they, are to flourish.

- Fr Ralph McNierny, The Marrying Animal

Chivalry, Faith, Hope, and Charity

When a commander-in-chief allows that an unstable Middle Eastern nation whose secular leader ever breathes maledictions against the survival of Israel has "legitimate" aspirations to nuclear power(/weapons?); when, structurally and surreptitiously, he wants to divide Catholics and undermine the Magisterium of the Catholic Church; when he is "outraged" over the murder of a late-term abortionist doctor, but silent when a Scimitar religionist guns down a member of the armed forces in a recruiting office on our native soil ...

Either he is pretending he knows something far past the average, common-sensical wisdom and we must play along and trust his judgment; or we are in for a very tumultuous and difficult melt down time in America.

The prophets of the Old Testament would view our time as the abomination of idolatry, paganism, and sin, ripe for punishment. The doctrine of Original Sin has not gone away, nor will it.

The Last Self-Help Administration to the contrary notwithstanding, be faithful, be charitable, be chivalrous. Christ our Lord has triumphed. We march merrily in the present darkness.

Sacred Violence

What is the difference between this and this, and this ? Structurally, nothing. They are all instances of sacred violence from an anthropological point of view. The farther we get from the influence of the Gospel, the more we had better be prepared to see it.

And, by the way, where is President I Won's "outrage" at the cold-blooded murder of one of his soldiers on our native soil by an exemplar of the Scimitar and Sudden Jihad Syndrome ?

Hughes - PRB

Tithe in Kind - Edward Robert Hughes

Tiller Murder(er)

Mark Shea sums it up about as well as it can be said.