From Call the Patriot
By Joseph Andrew Settanni
Anyone who truly understands Roman Catholic theology realizes that there must logically and reasonably be great reasons for hope, meaning especially that orthodox belief, orthodoxy, will definitely survive. But, not just sacred theology or mere belief proves the truth of this assertion, contrary to Satan and the forever embittered forces of Hell.
Starting, at the very least, with the Manicheans then the Arians, Albigensians, Protestants, French Revolutionaries, Communists, New Agers, etc., each successive historical wave of assault, either supinely or aggressively, had assumed its own historical inevitability without question. But, is the Great Apostasy, as many do fear, achieving its evil fulfillment now?
If the Roman Catholic Church were, of course, merely, only, a religious institution, then such a judgment that the tide of history must run only in one direction, in an inevitable manner, would have then seemed fairly logical and reasonable. This would have appeared to be the case both to the engaged and committed participants of the quite vigorous challenges made as well as to many outside observers with (at least) presumed impartiality. Or, so the broad presumption usually goes.
However, regardless of the people, the human beings involved, who have often been sinful, imperfect, disreputable, or just otherwise not quite the best of mortal specimens, the Church is also, by definition, a supernatural institution, or else it would be a meaningless nothing. The perniciousness of what is projected to occur at the October Synod exists because the nihilism involved is directed toward the very heart of affected dogmas and doctrines, the basis of the Faith of the Church, though many rosaries said to the Blessed Mother of God, the Queen of Salvation, may prevent such a triumph of evil.
The Holy Ghost is, for instance, assured to always exist and to protect it from the very gates of Hell, according to the known theological understanding proclaimed as being the actual truth. There is, in truth, no real middle position, no via media, to this critical point that could be held to be theologically acceptable for Catholicism, for the one Church founded by Christ. It then possesses indefectibility, indissolubility, and authority. This is, equally, as the Sign of the Cross is the outward visual expression of what ought to be an interior faith, not just a religious institution.
What, therefore, is so adamantly asseverated here? No real need exists, furthermore, for the illegitimate importation of yet more secularist ideology into the ecclesiastical realm, for the aims of this future gathering seem directed athwart sacredness, set against proper holiness. Yet, no surprise ought to exist if offense may be given to the Trinitarian Dogma itself at that meeting. Are such matters to be put into semantic jeopardy?
For brief illustration of what is easily meant, St Paul proclaimed that if Jesus the Christ had not, in fact, truly risen from the dead, as is to be absolutely believed without any question, then the whole Christian faith is entirely in vain, held then to no useful purpose whatsoever. For the valid goal of humanity, its truly highest achievement and purpose, is then the worship and glorification of God, not of human beings, (however much this may be heatedly questioned today, of course).
Any proper theory concerning effective and substantive Catholic theology, meaning genuine orthodoxy, must axiomatically accept this without any questioning as dogmatic veracity, as factual truth, not just, perhaps, as a peculiar Christian suggestion or, again perhaps, merely opinionated afterthought. As Jesus is said to be the Christ, the Messiah, there are, in fact, cognate implications and ramifications.
Religious Theorization of Roman Catholicism
A radical supernatural break in all of human history, a literal theophany, had forever occurred by the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Corpus Christi Himself, which eternally defined the past and future from the time of that most glorious birth. And, this is no small matter. It is literally a cosmic event, not a simple anamnesis, as so many Christian “reformers” allege.
The monumental historicity of the only Christ, the true Messiah, rises above all other beliefs that are then axiomatically relegated to mere fables if put into contradiction. Why is this confidently said? Supernatural reality forever trumps human or natural reality, the latter is subject to mythology and superstition, not the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus was supremely needed to come to deal with the truly terrible consequences of Original Sin by, through his Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, providing the then totally requisite means of actual salvation, as afforded through His sacrifice and the belief in Him as the only Way, the Truth, and the Life. Mere Christianity is never enough, however, whenever compared with the theological fullness of Catholicism, Apostolic succession, and the sacred hierarchy of truths, with the very basis of all ontological truth fully included.
This relates to the historicity of that which has been known, through the ages, as being Catholic. In the 3rd century AD, there is St. Cyprian’s On the Unity of the Catholic Church. One could cite, in the 4th century, the Letters of St. Pacianus who had explicitly declared himself a Catholic, not just a Christian; in the following century, St. Vincent of Lerins, in his Commonitoria, noted the meaning of Catholic. Such actually used terminology was not a supposed fictional creation of the Catholic Reformation made many centuries later; it was, simply, coterminous, coexistent, with both the existence and growth of the early ecclesiastical reality itself, not artificial at all.
And, of course, there quite abundantly is St. Augustine’s Contra Epistolam Manicaei, De Fide et Symbolo, De Vera Religione, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, and his The City of God; also, there is Boethius’ De Fide Catholica and his De Trinitate, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Discourses, St. Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrnaeans, and Lactantius’ Divine Institutes. More need not be said.
The above, just being a very small sampling, still greatly illustrates what now ought to be seen, contrary to the endless fallacies of Protestantism, as to the theologically important reality of there being a very known, well defined, and understood Catholic Faith, meaning Catholicism, nothing less; the early Church, the Church Fathers, these preachers, and the Patristic Tradition in general, explicitly and continually, all proclaim this obvious truth without any question. Q. E. D.
There are many critically important matters, however, that do mark out Roman Catholicism as the most radically different belief that distinguishes it forever from anything else as a faith, especially Protestantism in any and all of it various forms. Ontologically speaking, it is definitely an incarnational faith made forever absolutely explicit with the truly remarkable dogma of transubstantiation; in contrast, any Protestant (read: deficient) thoughts of consubstantiation are just a mere mockery or jest at most that evilly detracts from the supernatural righteousness of the Holy God, the Supreme Being Himself.
Against the amassed forces of Hell, the metaphysical order had both powerfully infused and illuminated the ontological order of reality, and, thus, was made manifest the New Creation, the Christ, for all time, past and future. The supernatural order of reality, greater than any “religious” symbolizations, stands forever above and beyond the mere natural order of reality; further than that, anthropocentricism, secular humanism, is always strongly refuted by the Christocentric appreciation of the meaning of all life on earth, which purpose is to give glory to the Creator. And, one sure means of rendering glory, for instance, is certainly the traditional Latin Mass with its concern for reverence and orthodoxy of belief.
A symbolic “Christ” is, therefore, an abstraction not worth either believing in or dying for, at a minimum. How is this to be here known? Transubstantiation, thus, makes the Catholic faith inherently Christocentric, radically so, in both ontological substance and orientation without any question whatsoever. And, if nothing else, this ought to be perceived as the truth for all of valid Christianity, for all of heresy, in contrast, is demonic in nature.
The, for instance, simply symbolic Christianity of all of Protestantism, moreover, is doubly seen to be simply unworthy of martyrdom and casts imperious contempt, furthermore, upon religious belief itself; this is because it, furthermore, acts so strangely as the vile attempted rationalization of epistemological meaning and axiological truth simultaneously, which is so cognitively quite obnoxious. One sees here how the alleged Reformed Religion is necessarily the attempted theonomic (thelogico-normative) diminishment of Christ and His eternal glory that must be held, in truth, as being just axiomatically anathema to all genuine Christians. But, this could be only if the supportive logic is well understood.
It is known that innumerable former Protestants, such as Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, G. K. Chesterton, Monsignor Ronald Knox, etc., had correctly figured out that most salient fact quite long ago. Why? The Truth is indivisible, though there are three Persons in the Holy Trinity, yet, the Godhead is forever One, which remains a mystery not subject to any gnosis, just a belief of the true Faith. All are to be united in Christ, not divided into (increasing numbers of) sectarian bodies, which is ever a tremendous and invidious scandal that no committed Christian should tolerate, though it is very pleasing to Satan, of course.
And, the movement ever further toward Christian orthodoxy demands the good realization in belief of the compulsive desire to obtain the fullness of Christ, not any partial attribute(s) seen in, e. g., an ever increasing multiplicity of diverse and necessarily divergent Protestant sects, offshoots, and cults. The subdivisions of variegated, motley, beliefs are potentially endless and should, at the least provoke, tortured Protestant consciences, if not tormented bodies.
Each man, whether consciously admitted to or not, ends up being his own pope; the choice of alleged “orthodoxies” becomes a subjective preference justified, no less, by imperiously citing Scripture, a practice that can and usually becomes spiritually abusive. It has been well said, moreover, that the Devil can cleverly quote Scripture too. But, fortunately, Satan can never pray the rosary. Q. E. D.
A rather simple formula here explains the contrary proclaimed indesinent truth: The more Christian, the more orthodox, the more Catholic, for Catholicism and Christ are held to be indivisible. Who says one says the other, simultaneously, as to the indicative theorization of the perennial Faith with its defense of the Trinitarian Dogma as being absolutely essential.
Those informed converts and many others rather perspicaciously saw, therefore, how all of Protestantism is inherently incommensurate and, ultimately, ontologically incompatible with the definitive integral nature of Christianity itself. Catholicism, opposed to dogmatic inversions unrecognized as such by many divergent doctrinal Protestantisms, seeks the mysterious peace of superbly Christian unity. True faith, as opposed to all the theological differences of the so-called Reformers, is indivisible.
In contrast, rationalization of belief for supposed explicitness peels the philosophical onion to get at the real onion that disappears through an odd religious sort of devotion to secularism, for atheism, also, too often goes unrecognized as a faith. Heterodoxy logically results. And yet, e. g., the opposite extreme of (Protestant) Evangelism produces its own errors, inclusive of so wrongly pitting faith against reason, in effect, God against man.
Most of what goes by the name of “Christian” today is a horrid partial “Christianity” not worthy of the name, for these worthless fantasies will not at all suffice regarding the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, or Hell. Equally, the desire of the “reformed religion” to absurdly derogate the Blessed Virgin Mary into being either a minor or obscure functionary of their larger speculative creations speaks ill of the truth of the Immaculate Conception, the Queen of Heaven, the Mediatrix of all Graces.
The title “Mediatrix” refers to Roman Catholic Mariology’s denotation concerning the important intercessory role of the Holy Virgin Mary as a facilitator in the Salvific Redemption by her Son, Jesus Christ, and He, thus, bestows graces through her. Mediatrix, however, is not any new “papist” invention but, rather, an ancient title that has been actually expressed by a number of saints since at least the 5th century AD, for Blessed Mary is venerated, not worshipped, contrary to the ever perpetuated lies of the alleged Reformers.
The so-called Reformers, being hypocrites, who claimed that they just wanted to get back to the early/primitive Christian Church conveniently ignored, as Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman had observed, most of the history of the early Christian Church in their highly skewed exegetical process (what today would be more simply called deconstructionism) seen by their alleged “reform.” The baleful consequence was the ugly shredding of Christendom by their assumed Reformation, a massive epistemological attack set evilly against the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which every Christian ought to have recognized as such.
Also, in their hotly supposed desire to eliminate any intermediaries between man and God, they ironically kept the intermediate institution of then necessarily intermediary ministers of the Gospel. Any real Christian, with half a brain, however, would logically prefer the Mediatrix of all Graces to the various, questionable blessings of a quite variegated hodgepodge of less than perfect presbyters and others. So much for Protestantism, with it Sola Scriptura. Such crudely assumed Christian “primitivism” deserves, so rightly, the historical and theological scorn that has been heaped upon it.
On the contrary, both faith and reason must spiritually unite for the then betterment of the perspicacious perception of the ontological order made significant intensely by the noetic realization of metaphysical order for achieving its end of offering salvation for humanity. For Catholics, the end of ontological order, both its correct teleology and theological entelechy, is God, which means that doctrinally such matters as the sacred filioque is not a mere semantic joke.
It is a requisitely positive sign and insight of true Catholicity itself, as is Apostolic succession and the eternally proclaimed hypostatic union of the Christ, all that and more to compose the ever necessary sensus fidei of orthodox Christian belief, not its necessarily heterodox opposite as was preferred by the so-called Reformers with their quite practiced scriptural legerdemain; thus, e. g, when Martin Luther wanted to so cleverly excise the Epistles of St. James, the uproar was such that he had recanted; otherwise, his massive “Stalinist” redaction efforts, demonic in conception, would have then succeeded.
This quite vile attempt at such unholy deliberate adulteration was not just primitive but rather positively imbecilic, not primitive Christianity certainly. The truly earliest Lutheran, Luther himself, thought he, committing the sin of presumption, could really hubristically do much better than Holy Writ itself. Yet, Catholicism did not disappear, of course, nor has the traditional Latin Mass.
There is far more involved, as can be understood, than the asserted theological primitivism, the reification, of just saying that one has a personal relationship with a personal Jesus or Savior, guaranteeing salvation by faith. How so? Any such true personal relationship is obviously equivalent to an earthly beatification, though unrecognized by all Protestants due to their ever predisposed soteriological myopia. Christian beatification in Heaven is utterly unlike, e. g., the assumed, highly erotic satisfaction of carnal lusts, as in the Muslim Paradise with its 72 eternally pulchritudinous virgins awaiting each crazy martyr, roughly equivalent to the Norse warrior’s entrance to Valhalla.
Anything less than puissant Catholicism, furthermore, is representative of degrees of paganism, as is, in such a sense, the too often disguised paganism of Protestantism. Also, monotheism or Judaism is not enough; paganism, therefore, is not just adhering to a multiplicity of gods, which needs to be critically understood; being thoroughly Christocentric is theologically essential at all times for avoiding being less than properly Christian.
Anything less than the fullness of Christ results in forms of paganism, though much too often not recognized as such, for Saul, a devout Jew, had to be literally knocked off his high horse before becoming St. Paul. The absolute holiness of God, thus, takes necessary precedence first, last, and always, not Sola Scriptura. The true essence of Protestantism (aka nominalism), thus, is not the proffered purification of faith; it is, however, its actual contemptible corruption, whether intentional or not.
For Catholics, as an example, Purgatory exists for the purification of those souls not yet ready for the true sanctification, beatification, of the life of the world to come, for attempted holiness on this planet, no matter how seemingly great, is not enough; it must be transferred into Heaven as the object of salvation, the Kingdom of Christ, set beyond any mere purgatorial minimum because that ever exalted realm is logically everlasting, not further transitional to any other place. And, Heaven is an actual location because, among many other reasons, the physical bodies of Lord Jesus, High Priest and Eternal Judge, and the Blessed Virgin Mary are there.
In context, one then perceives how extremely anemic Protestantism and any other belief is with necessarily attenuated or greatly emaciated concepts, if any, of soteriology, doxology, Christology, eschatology, dogmatics, apologetics, etc. The rejection of Catholicism is then the rejection of the Truth; no middle way exists whatsoever because, sooner or later, that leads the way toward the degenerative path of relativism.
However, the continuing existence of Protestantism, New Age, and other beliefs testifies vividly to how nominalism in cognition has almost totally turned anti-classical, modern, and what usually goes as postmodern thinking upside down and inside out by its poisonous subjectivism; the refutation and confounding of heretics and other enemies of God is righteously needed, not dialogue or ecumenism. For in truth, the demonic opponents of Christ have a pure hatred for “sweet reason” and never seek supplication, much less atonement. Q. E. D.
In this cantankerous and too often defiant upside down and inside out mental world, an effort to start with the ontological arguments of, e. g., St. Thomas Aquinas are no longer adequate to the task. Granted that there can be isolated successes as to making some people agree with reason and logic in a traditional manner, but this is not, in truth, compelling evidence as to what is needed for a majority. Most contemporary intellects are inherently insensate to the requisite noetic characteristics and hard cognitive demands of classical reasoning and logic. Nominalism, thus, severely flattens the human intellect.
Today, for better or worse, one must start with axiology, with all its deficiencies, to go up to epistemology and then, rising still much higher, toward ontology. Why? Because nominalism has become so incredibly pandemic as to be, seemingly, fully coequal with the very air that people breathe. The world, e. g., greatly despises the notion of the mortification of the flesh, thinking it barbaric, brutal, and insane, done for the love of God, while still praising all bloody murderous abortions, surely quite barbaric, brutal, and insane, as a moral, social, cultural, and political good of the highest order. Good is boldly said to be evil, evil is loudly said to be good, with a bold contempt for classical Natural Law, as, e. g., with “married” sodomites.
Any simple or uncritical appeal to Thomism/neo-Thomism will not work, especially, e. g., as Pope Francis has so, increasingly, provoked much frightening speculation as to if these are apocalyptic times. Many wonder if he is, in fact, the prophesied anti-Christ or not. It has been well said, moreover, that someone can smile and smile and smile and still be a villain.
One can learn much of his overt apostasy, for instance, from his truly Teilhardian jesuitical monograph: Laudato Si. One can see, of course, that he is in great need of fraternal correction, an act of spiritual mercy, since he is not the anti-Christ, for Francis has not manifested the required “signs and wonders” necessarily requisite for this preposterous accusation to hold. Scholastic theology, for the adept, can easily guard some people against simply accepting such wild allegations or various animadversions, but the masses themselves, however, are not so mentally equipped and fall prey, as ever, to much nonsense and popular superstition.
As can be perceived above, the principles of what may be properly denominated as classical Thomism have to be critically exercised within the context of a fundamental cognitive disaster of truly gargantuan portions. For instance, it is absurd to profoundly discuss, e. g., the basics of collegiate Catholic theology if the prospective students have no fair preparative understanding of even Natural Theology; they would lack the requisite mental tools for rational and informed thinking. Without that, even attempted critical theological exegesis would, in fact, be meaningless.
Catholicism, therefore, must be properly understood and comprehended as an exoteric, not an esoteric, faith as is, e. g., Gnosticism. This vividly means that the simplest peasant or workman imaginable, as well as the most sophisticated and educated prelate or pope, can know all the basics of the Faith, as surely as it ought to be known that the Church can never accept the immorality of artificial contraception, homosexuality, or the possibility of ordaining women as priests, all are, by definition, forever inherently anti-Catholic in nature.
There is, in fact, absolutely no requirement at all for gaining any amount of (assumed) esoteric or supposedly hidden knowledge whatsoever. And, moreover, this is an extremely important, critical, and highly significant point to suitably grasp at the very beginning of this discussion, in spite of the aforementioned prevalence and inroads of nominalism.
Christianity and Catholicism, in particular, as its ever proper and highest expression of such religious and theological truth, consists of public, not private, knowledge. Almost all of what needs to be fundamentally known can be so readily made known by a reading of the Nicene Creed, along with admonitions to practice both corporal and spiritual acts of mercy.
No gnosis is ever needed or required. No private (or secret) understanding or assumed comprehension is ever demanded, which creates a tremendous dividing line of unimaginable proportions. The truth is free but often at the religious cost of humiliation and suffering, penitence and prayer, which the modernists, afflicted with accidie, reject as entirely anti-human and, thus, beneath the assumed dignity of exalted Man seeking entrance to the intramundane Utopia (by whatever name).
This is why it is also important to know that Gnosticism, favored by Satan, seeks always to be a rival of Christianity but necessarily fails in its perverse mission to then subsume or conquer Christianity. It is not, as often misinterpreted, a variation or subcategory of Christian thought, a companion system of belief just waiting in the wings, so to speak. Such a defective belief has absolutely nothing to say to Catholicism, for Gnosticism is no better than Manicheanism.
It is, by definition, heretical since, among other valid reasons, it is always inherently and deliberately esoteric in its assumed and much too vainglorious cognition. Thus, as such, this kind of warped thinking is, by definition, very anti-Christian in its fundamental orientation and purpose, logic, and reasoning. Catholicism, moreover, refutes all such metaphysical errors.
This is why axiologically, epistemologically, and, especially, ontologically Gnosticism is opposed to Christianity, to the Catholic sensus fidei, without rational question. Any true theorization, theologically considered, that does not clearly recognize such a basic, requisite fact, such an indicative truth, is unworthy of being taken seriously, regardless of how much contemporary religious literature now exists to the contrary. Error is not the truth, no matter how many times it gets repeated these days; repetition, therefore, is not proof, theological or otherwise.
In firm reiteration, Gnosticism is definitely not a synonym for Christianity nor, in fact, is it any assumed variant of it, in any way whatsoever; moreover, Roman Catholicism is ever the very opposite of such a belief system or orientation of thought because nominalism in philosophy is necessarily intolerant of all genuine orthodoxy, of the reality of true Catholicism itself, of the aforementioned sensus fidei. If that is not obvious, however, nothing really is.
Once this greatly critical point is correctly understood and comprehended as to its complete theological and religious truth, then such odd matters as supposed same-sex “marriage,” communion for continuingly adulterous people, and other such manifestly heretical practices can be always reasonably seen as blasphemous triumphs of nominalism in cognition that do, logically, parallel Gnosticism in fundamental direction and much allied evil consequences.
Since Catholicism is, by definition, an exoteric belief, as has been irrefutably demonstrated, no such vile perversions are held to be ever properly compatible with or favorable toward the orthodox presentation and acknowledgement of the Faith. This is a self-evident truth of a high order, an indicative magnitude, set righteously beyond ecclesiastical machinations, clerical intrigues, which may be determined to the contrary. Further than that, Christ is King, not any pope or, perhaps, celebrated conclave or synod whatsoever; and, the traditional Latin Mass exists in rather splendid defiance of heresy.
Therefore, the history, theology, religion, and affirmative mental dynamics of all of Roman Catholicism, correctly perceived and practiced, stands adamantly with all of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, the Three Pillars of the Faith, united strongly against heresy, by definition; thus, this is, adamantly, set against any machinations attempted at the October Synod, which is not any supposed preparation for the Parousia itself.
What is going on, in terms of modernity lurching into postmodernity, is man’s odd search for intramundane salvation, not the salvation of souls, which is what the Church is to be interested in being involved with, as long as this world exists. Most of the Western world, specifically, is seeking a New Eden on this globe spinning in time and space, rather than wanting to devoutly pray as much as possible to Venerated Holy Mary, the Mother of God. All Christians are to take up the Cross every day of their lives, though this is not usually that easy to do; but, all are to live and die by the Sign of the Cross, which is hated by Satan and the evil demons in Hell.
Those who wish to introduce religious novelty are, thus, no better than aberrant Gnostics concerning a disregard for the exoteric nature of the Church’s teachings, as they have been publicly known for many generations, many centuries, contrary to the evil forces of error, of heresy itself. Catholicism, as to its essence, is forever radically set against the intramundane reading of human reality as is ever greatly desired by modernity and its assorted prophets.
The Incarnate God, Jesus as the Head of the Church, demands acceptance of the standard of absolute Truth, as is to be observed in the posited dogma of transubstantiation within the Holy Eucharist; it is surely defined at Holy Mass by both sacred anaphora and epiclesis; Catholicism, furthermore, is a fully Eucharistic faith, not a series of supposed (Protestant or neo-Protestant) symbolisms finally diverging out toward the useless abstractionization or, perhaps, too vapid rationalization of belief. The reality of the Christ is incarnational, not subjective speculation geared toward nominalism usually concealed under various and elaborate euphemisms resorted to by dialectical speech. Catholic clarity should exist.
Creed of St Athanasius: Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem: Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternum peribit. There can be no amount of supposedly reformulated theoretics that can transform the known theorization inherent to Catholic theology and its own rightful religious, social, cultural, and other expression on earth, besides, of course, always suitable consideration for supernatural reality and its truth.
Fidelity as to Catholic doctrine and practice is not merely owed to any current generation, contrary to the strange speculations of heretical clerics and their assorted sycophants, but must ever take into account the dogma, the doctrine, of the Communion of Saints; this is besides the demands for holiness and ascesis, from the believers, as to their own precious Catholicity, for Jesus is the Christ, of which there ought to be no doubt whatsoever. Ontology here is reality; there is to be no sophistic division of substance against symbol nor faith against reason.
The supernatural reality of the Church, often neglected or scorned today, goes well above and certainly far beyond mere men who may think that they can freely tinker with plastic notions of morality or mores. God cannot be fooled, and He cannot be mocked with impunity. The Holy Ghost, the Communion of Saints, the Tradition of the Patristic Fathers, and much else must be intimately involved in any and all questions and issues concerning the Faith, regardless of the proclaimed capacities or competencies of a (mere) Synod of [many God-defiant] Bishops. They seek, being overt to the truth here, to defame the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Catholic theological theory has had, e. g., champions of a sturdy Athanasian resolve such as St. Thomas Aquinas who, long ago, laid down certain orthodox fundamentals of religious teachings and cogent ascriptions that get so wrongfully neglected whenever petty or vainly disrespectful men, puffed up clerics and their lackeys, try to evilly second guess the Lord God Almighty. The essential core of the Faith was, in effect, basically codified by Aquinas, which has been added to by other orthodox teachers, writers, and others, for to be truly a Catholic is to willingly love God unreservedly, to entirely worship the Lord unconditionally. Nothing less is religiously valid.
Attempted errant reformulations by any heretical ecclesiastics are never, logically or otherwise, consistent with the faithful theorization created for Catholicism by the first Apostles, the early Church Fathers, any of the religiously orthodox synods held by the Church, the Council of Trent, and the First Vatican Council. Citing of the Second Vatican Council against all of that is to make the proverbial tail wag the whole dog; it is fully obnoxious to the wholeness of truth and Catholic teachings, dogmas, and doctrines covering over 2,000 years of the Church.
For it is here perceived most intensely that Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium all combined, meaning none held as being in any opposition to one or two of these pillars, uphold all the theoretics of an orthodox system of belief, not Gnosticism or even neo-Pelagianism for that matter. Most obviously, as can be above noted, the October Synod is not preaching into any supposed vacuum of spirituality or seemingly hollow doctrines lacking substance, thus, the fallaciousness of (often covert) heresy stands here exposed.
Catholicism does deal, of course, with true mysteries such as the Trinitarian Dogma, which no mortals can ever grasp as to the overt infinitudes so manifestly involved within the dogma. But, these assertions are not done for creating any sort of assumed gnosis so that some enlightened tiny minority of a minority may alone know the actual truths of the religion. Moreover, the predestination of souls, a free response to grace that can also include His passive Will, is for Almighty God to know, not for mere mortals to grasp at foolishly as with Calvinism’s many absurdities.
Mysteries enhance the divinity of the Supreme Being and give meaning to the love requisite toward needed worship of the Creator, not the false glorification of those who claim a “higher knowledge” only specially gained by the assumed “adepts” of a mere cult, which is not, in fact, equivalent to a religion, as with, e. g., Mormonism.
Not even the much too often flaunted Spirit of Vatican II can be cited successfully toward the radical overthrow of heuristic matters defining the Faith made quite sacred by immemorial tradition and practice known as being contributory to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. Nor can, e. g., any supposed historical inevitability traduce orthodoxy where novelties are but old heresies in new disguises.
Nothing must be, in human affairs, until men will it or, at the least, when the passive Will of God allows situations or events to occur, for good or ill, knowing that the Lord can yet produce good out of an evil. If it were truly thought otherwise, then one would surely be dealing with confirmed fatalists or determinists, not Catholics. All of this has both complex and simple elements, as to an explanation and deeper extrapolation philosophically and theologically speaking, meaning as to the posited specific Catholic theorization of theology qua theological theoretics.
But, what is and has been predominantly plaguing the intellectual or cognitive movement of the world is neo-Pelagianism, essentially, the denial of Original Sin put into religion, morals, ethics, politics, culture, society, etc. Thus, modern Christianity, in the desire to seem “hip,” has ceased long ago the eternally vital task of saving souls and seeks, instead, the accumulation of too sedulously tedious and vapid pieties toward no good end, thus, coldly creating a supposed “church” of the essentially faithless and/or indifferent.
But, it doesn’t even take a Catholic to perceive this rather open truth, e. g., the Rev. Franklin Graham himself sees through this grand farce of a faithless faith pretending to be Christian.
Contrary to Eric Voegelin’s very flawed thesis, neither Gnosticism nor neo-Gnosticism can adequately ever explain what has and is happening to a warped humanity’s thinking toward wrongly accepting degrees of utopianism, the desire for the intramundane New Eden, under various euphemisms. The humanistic or secularist disavowal of Original Sin, meaning neo-Pelagianism, has had many baleful consequences, inclusive of the sin of blatant secularism itself, for this is how sinning produces the convenient rationalizations for yet more sinning.
This has caused, e. g., serious problems for philosophical theorization and political theorization, not just for Catholic attempts to properly formulate certain efforts at the appropriate heuristic construction of useful theoretical ideas or concepts as propositions. A contemporary zymotic societal and cultural reality, in addition, easily facilitates confusion, misinterpretation, and misunderstanding, even in language used for attempted common communication. How so?
It gets rarely, if ever, recognized how the common occurrence, for instance, of sin ends up then creating stupidity in human cognition. The linkage here of religion and politics with compositive theoretics is not, as should be understood, either arbitrary or absurd as people seek to actively rush toward the obvious damnation of their souls.
The acceleration of sinning, in turns, further accelerates the decline of the ability of the human mind to escape from being progressively dumbed down, as with the evil dumbing down of the fundamental perception of deviance. Human beings, however, are still utterly dependent upon God, not themselves, as secular humanists, modernists, do suppose.
The more that sin, especially truly serious moral turpitude, gets accepted publicly, politically, as being normal, the more that it becomes extremely difficult to think logically, reasonably, and rationally. An Orwellian mindset takes over the then so much befuddled and reified brain, where what had been once accepted as rational, as common sense, is made to appear irrational and, thus, unacceptable as well. All manner of fornication gets rationalized into becoming normal.
For instance, what would have been once simply recognized, generations ago, as clearly forms of minority-aristocratic privilege are now routinely classified as modern democratic rights to use the force of law for imposing deviant social and cultural mores upon the many recalcitrant unbelievers. A surely privileged class of sodomites now exists. It is not just an abuse of law, it is an abuse of truth and classical Natural Law itself in the name, oddly enough, of civil rights. Secularization is, therefore, the strange sanctification of idiocy, of indomitable stupidity, at large. What is, thus, critically meant?
It is the core essence of the contemporary zeitgeist when a “right” is nothing other than a mere sentimental imperative, as Alasdair MacIntyre has well noted it to be; the truly perverse contention is nothing more than an audacious and imprudent desire, which used to be called lust, incubated by an ever incestuous craving to promote selfishness. However, this is fixated pseudo-ethically with the tyrannical demand that others must now forever slavishly submit to such a necessarily pubescent insistence that the mere desire, the asserted feeling, be always thoroughly gratified, supposedly, at whim.
This so irredeemably meretricious, highly specious, notion of manufactured rights degrades them by inserting subjectivist individual desire ahead of all true objective value, an illegitimate interchange that axiomatically reduces to plain nonsense any and all very obstreperous claims to have such putative rights axiomatically respected as such. This is insanity writ large.
No conscientious objection whatsoever is allowed those who are subject now to involuntary servitude (aka slavery) to homosexual activists in manifest violation of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. All must now bow down to salacious Sodom and its so vile hellishness.
In America, this so clearly sex-obsessed form of insanity has ominously sanctioned the odd rationalization, through nominalist reductionism, of enshrining sodomy as a respected and protected civil right that is supposed to forever even trump the civil liberties once thought guaranteed forever by the aforesaid Constitution. As a truly cognate consequence of blatant secularism, e. g., the theorization of theological absolutes, of Roman Catholic dogmas, has itself become now greatly questioned by even many of the highest prelates of the Church, in the second decade of the 21st century.
Gross sin has its important implications and added significant ramifications; nothing evil seeks to only exist in isolation, as misery loves company; its inherent reductionist, subjective, need is to become so crescively prolific and, moreover, to be accepted as normal, not really perverse; it is not a matter of mere tolerance, one must fully accept it under penalty of civil law, as a part of the contemporary mythology of secularism triumphant. Resistance is now depicted as unlawful behavior no less, not a needed and proper appeal to both sanity and morality.
This more than suggests, in hindsight, that the terribly insane tolerance of such grave evil, in civil society, has inexorably lead to its aggressive defense and strident legal promulgation as the now new minimum standard of the height of (sexual) justice itself crudely mandated without any question. Such surely perverse cognition in the debased Western world has reverberated, increasingly, into religious establishments to their sad detriment, not for their sanctification certainly.
Since the past Extraordinary Synod on the Family, the Church has seemingly entered a strange new period of much perceived heightened uncertainty and unneeded confusion over several highly controversial issues: communion for divorced and “remarried” couples, a change of views towards homosexual unions, and an assumed related relaxing of attitudes towards non-married couples. Sacramental understandings may get upended and distorted as a very dire consequence of bringing forth deliberately troublesome theological speculation of a reified nature at best, which will, then, give great offense to the metaphysical order of reality.
All of this surely bodes ill, while pastoral practice is said now to be made the enemy of doctrinal admonitions against heretical thoughts, since practice is supposed to match and complement doctrine, not to be wrongly divided against it. Whenever sacred faith is set against reason or vice versa, however, heresy then raises its ugly and unwanted head.
The only known cure for such impure fevers of speculation and subjective questioning has been always orthodoxy, not odd preferences and perversions lusted after, as might have been once said by Msgr. Ronald Knox, through much disguised whimsy, verbiage, and clerical frolic.
The theorization of Catholic theology and religion, since the time of at least the Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas, supports proper orthodoxy toward, through, and in the Faith, which is, by definition, the opposite of heresy. One sees that any use, for instance, of the Hegelian dialectic or, perhaps, Marxist exegesis would be illegitimate, by definition. No proper understanding of Catholicism should ever be made subject to modernist or postmodernist ideological dictates, no matter how seemingly fashionable in certain intellectual circles, inside or outside the Vatican.
Not even, for instance, St. Augustine, being among the early Church Fathers, was as thorough as Aquinas concerning the various appropriate ways and solid means of correctly securing theological knowledge amenable to and quite consistent with the perennial sacred teachings of the Holy Mother Church, ad majorem Dei gloriam, along with, e. g., the traditional Latin Mass.
Theory and the cogency of the demanded pastoral practice was, further to the point, united superbly, e. g., at the orthodox Council of Trent; this was then by which there was a surely true and careful clarification of many important doctrines, dogmas, and teachings, not obfuscation certainly. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi should, therefore, be every true Catholic’s personal motto. Only an uncompromising Catholicism, as one perceives, can come to last and, thus, give always righteous glory to God, not its opposite, not a Hegelian dialectic.
For valid Catholicism is, if it is anything, an exceedingly sacramental faith spiritually uniting the sacramental communities of all parishes and dioceses in the blessed ecclesiastical enterprise of directing attention toward the Christocentric life as being the only true life worth living for all of the faithful. This is, therefore, as it ought logically to be for all professed Christians without any dissent as to its intended holiness, as it is said that Jesus is the Christ. Anything less is merely a mockery of Christianity, far from the guidance of the Holy Ghost at a minimum.
Any innovations or alleged reforms, invoked ever in the dubious name of that haunting Spirit of Vatican II, that contradict this truly central fact of the universal nature of the Catholic Faith will, thus, fade away eventually, as being integrally repugnant, so clearly obnoxious, to the perennial axiological, epistemological, and ontological tests of obvious orthodoxy. All else is then, by sure definition, heresy by whatever name it may appear.
This is certainly why it can be validly perceived, especially after 50 years, that the Second Vatican Council and its horrid aftermath failed to complement the highly important reality of Catholicism, being truly a supremely Eucharistic religion, at odds with the supposed reforms that have vigorously sought its deformation. The both indicative and instructive point is being reached, with Pope Francis, to choose schism rather than to surrender orthodoxy in an effort to help him ideologically achieve ecological redemption, rather than requisite spiritual salvation, for the Church.
Its ever dwindling appeal, especially in the Western world since the end of Vatican II, has been matched empirically to the so-called reforms that have oddly tried to make the Church more “relevant” to the worship of humanity, seen as being so increasingly desirable by ecclesiastical progressivists and liberals, the permanent reformers. They will never, by definition, be satisfied since nihilism knows no pleasant rest from its insatiable demands.
This quite evident nominalist theory of reform, most recently perceived by bizarre efforts at papal ecological redemption, has so cracked severely, again and again, under the recalcitrant weight of sinful human reality; however, the age-old worship of Nature, in whatever guise, is still not Catholicism, for it really is, in the end, merely man worshipping himself, thus, bold neo-Pelagianism revealed at last.
In the upcoming October Synod’s theology: “God” is merely an anthropomorphic projection of human aspirations and feelings, nothing more than that, and so made entirely subject to the historical process (read: German-Hegelian idealism) as the then movement set within history. What is the secularist implication?
Man is to then evolve toward his (secularized) humanity as a means of escaping existential angst and phenomenological devaluation by, thus, negating the abstractionization of man qua being. With his coming of age, so to speak, man can needfully recapture, regain, his essence “stolen” by just a childish regard for Deity incapable of appreciating the greatness of humanity, for all things are subject to mutability, including God itself.
But, such nominalism is almost never recognized for what it is, for its much too often unconscious acceptance appears as natural as the air being breathed; it is, thus, that both insidiously and enervatingly pandemic as it infects and rots the human brain and spirit so contagiously.
The right cognizance of dogmatic theology, therefore, upholds firmly that level of profound theorization so requisite for the confirmation of the architectonic structuring of the three pillars of the Faith, meaning Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, united always for proclaiming the Roman Catholic unity of faith and reason.
As has been demonstrated, therefore, there is a distinctive theological theorization of what is Catholic, especially as the Apostolic Age of Revelation had ended with the death of the last apostle, St. John. No new revelations, contrary to the clearly heretical writings, e. g., of Scott Hahn, are possible as to the Faith, as to Roman Catholicism.
All this above superbly represents the vital integral essence, the inherent quintessence, of such a tremendously sacramental faith, the exposed nature of true Catholicism athwart its unholy and demonic degradation and repudiation by too many supposed innovators.
This distinctiveness of such religious metaphysics is ardently set against that often unspoken handmaiden of spiritual nominalism, known as immanentism (aka intramundane salvation), which internally fuels the ever greater and ongoing ecclesiological crisis as the true dynamism supporting neo-Pelagianism fixed into modernity and postmodernity, as if it is simply just inevitable, plainly inexorable, like a spreading plague.
Historical Inevitability or Determinism?
The Zeitgeist is said to (mindlessly) compel people to obey laws of historical determinism or inevitability, as if men were mere lemmings set blindly upon an absolutely fixed course of conduct nihilistic in its dreadful consequences. But, it is Lutheran to deny the doctrine of free will, not Catholic. The Moslems, for instance, have their kismet, roughly translated as being fate, while many millions in the West do harbor within themselves variants of fatalism nearly indistinguishable from degrees of determinism under different euphemisms.
Where does this all mainly come from? The return, in the modern world, of what can be seen clearly being paganism qua neopaganism acting and prevailing under many guises. The secular religions, known as ideologies, have so contributed greatly to this quite baleful situation, along with the often unrecognized return of myth and magic to the modern political order, through the successful advance and pandemic spread of what exists as neo-Pelagianism.
The morally and mentally forceful combination, mixture, of a strident neopaganism and a very psychologically seductive neo-Pelagianism has captured not only what had existed as modernity but now threatens to absorb all factions of postmodernity in thought as well. The impulsion for this began, most forcefully, in the 20th century. What is meant?
Malcolm Muggeridge, among others, had keenly noted that what was vastly different about that century versus all the past centuries was the effort to live as if God (or gods) did not exist, as if this is an ultimate measure, supreme touchstone, of all true and validated “Progress,” a god-term, ironically speaking, if there ever was one.
For the greatest superstition of them all is to piously believe that one’s own age is, supposedly, entirely free of superstition. The New Atheism, as it is usually called, is but one instance of such clearly superstitious nonsense on parade, of (assumed) autonomous man existentially trapped in a phenomenological vacuum, set ever incomprehensibly within an irrational cosmos, possessed of a meaningless meaning. But, as Muggeridge astutely knew, the real argument is actually always about something else, usually left unspoken. For instance?
Seeking to herald the alleged wave of the future, the “true believers” know that they cannot attack God (their real enemy), so they, thus, seek to attack His creation by supporting abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, and, of course, population control in general to overtly spit in the face of the Creator. Though unmentioned by them, this is what is, in fact, going on in their many heated protestations, ideologically based or otherwise.
It is part and parcel, e. g., of progressivism or radicalism to claim that it is always the inevitable wave of the future, which illustrates its absolute affinity with historical inevitability or historical determinism. Karl Marx had asserted that there were inexorable laws of history, as discovered by him, which had then mandated a Communist future for the entire world; no one, however, was supposed to ever question what was so axiomatically declared as so inevitable.
The Islamic terrorists of today, of course, feel exactly the same way with their own version of explicit determinism, conducted with as much intended violence and bloodshed as is true for Communism. The many overt parallels, especially planned violence, exist for all to see.
Admittedly, before going into a demonstration of the necessary falsity of all such popular conceptions or general extant understandings of historical inevitability, there will be given examples of that which could only be described as clearly inexorable or predictable realities, seen historically.
Mark Antony had been sure to lose of the Battle of Actium because, among other reasons, he was a truly brilliant army leader with sure skills in handling strategy and tactics on land; but, he was no competent naval commander as was surely most needed for that famous sea battle. Only a series of major incompetent actions by Octavius could have helped Antony who so obviously lacked maritime, nautical, resourcefulness.
Napoleon was bound to lose, sooner or later, because his insatiable conquering urge was ever ceaseless, until so met by a surely resounding defeat, by the inevitable final challenge that he, inescapably, was simply not able to overcome. It just happened that defeat, in 1815, occurred at Waterloo, though it actually could have been elsewhere.
Those were/are easy examples of inevitability, though not determinism. The metaphysical order intrinsically mandates that those who do neglect the important matter of sin will be, eventually, dominated by that harsh reality that usually, in secular terms, is called human imperfection or failure.
But, fatalism ought not to be conflated with determinism, though often both do appear as supposed synonyms. Fatalism implies that nothing at all can stop what is perceived as being inevitable, which appears to then need no real cause as to its sufficient cause for being. The historical inevitability, not fatalistic necessity, of the now well observed fall of Western society, culture, and civilization is due to many real causes that have combined and gravitated toward a proclivity that cannot be reversed. How so?
A great boulder coming lose, e. g., will fall down a steep mountain, unless meeting with a halting structure sufficient along its path, and so normally continue downward, until it reaches the lowest point consistent with the end of gravitational pull and its observed proclivity to keep falling.
This does not mean, however, that a new Western civilization, etc. is incapable of rising. But, the present post-Christian order, starting with the Renaissance Era, is in the natural process of rapidly crumbling; error, finally, cannot sustain itself. The drift away from a proper religious concern for Divine Providence is the supposed sophisticated desire of modern man and his self-worship inevitably leading to nihilism, e. g., the secularist focus on world population control. So, what has noticeably occurred?
The very last vestiges of what was just the mere shell of a now former Christendom are no more; perhaps, as seems very possible, a New Christendom may yet arise as a proverbial phoenix coming up out of the ashes. With Christ, by definition, humanity is never bereft of true hope; without the Son of God, man begins to despair to the point of achieving his death wish because of the both hubristic and solipsistic rejection of the supremely important metaphysical order of reality. Once the Social Kingship of Jesus gets denied, as in America and elsewhere, then exactly, in a spiritual and moral sense, all Hell breaks loose.
What needs to be so critically recognized is that the amassed wills of, literally, tens of millions set into the hundreds of millions have, directly and indirectly, united to destroy the present society, culture, and civilization as a kind of death wish. This surely perverse willingness has created the inevitability perceived, not a vague source or kind of (assumed) determinism even against the human will as it were; what is then occurring is, moreover, neither fatalism nor a fatalistic determinism, which can, moreover, be here readily explicated.
Causes have effects; what is being witnessed is, therefore, the quite natural consequence of an accepted nihilism, the worship of death as the real price of sin, the harsh reality made manifest as the evil attempt to secularly deny the too baleful results of Original Sin; but, as always, the metaphysical order (aka God) will not be mocked with impunity. Such depravity, furthermore, necessarily impinges upon the course of reality seen in society, culture, politics, economics, etc.
As is well known, the wages of sin is death, thus, though those addicted to either modernity or postmodernity do wish to deny this fundamental truth of human reality and its many innate imperfections, yet, there are still the too numerous empirical consequences of the yet clear proclivity, the rather marked inclination, under examination.
In brief summation, historical inevitability, as has been qualified and elucidated above both historically and philosophically, is what is involved, not a supposed determinism operating against the free will of human beings. What is actually happening is not some sort of kismet, happenstance, or, perhaps, mere fatalistic conundrum fixed beyond the real control of people existing within an existential or phenomenological vacuum in space and time.
This is but the abstract and too shallow excuse for wishing to remain either ignorant of or simply indirect to the empirical truth, to the strictly human reality of sin, as is ever denied by “enlightened” folk.
Nor is, e. g., simple heresy itself in the realm of historical inevitability since, too often, it recurs under a merely new semblance that soon supposes its odd possession of a sort of determinism, which is, in truth, just a tautology. No, the verified ugly reality of nihilism, and its supremely vile hellishness, is what is here truly involved, meaning as to the easily notable degradation and degeneration, decline and deterioration, overtly seen in the decaying Western world.
And so, the questionable October Synod, a product of the true Spirit of the S
By Joseph Andrew Settanni
Anyone who truly understands Roman Catholic theology realizes that there must logically and reasonably be great reasons for hope, meaning especially that orthodox belief, orthodoxy, will definitely survive. But, not just sacred theology or mere belief proves the truth of this assertion, contrary to Satan and the forever embittered forces of Hell.
Starting, at the very least, with the Manicheans then the Arians, Albigensians, Protestants, French Revolutionaries, Communists, New Agers, etc., each successive historical wave of assault, either supinely or aggressively, had assumed its own historical inevitability without question. But, is the Great Apostasy, as many do fear, achieving its evil fulfillment now?
If the Roman Catholic Church were, of course, merely, only, a religious institution, then such a judgment that the tide of history must run only in one direction, in an inevitable manner, would have then seemed fairly logical and reasonable. This would have appeared to be the case both to the engaged and committed participants of the quite vigorous challenges made as well as to many outside observers with (at least) presumed impartiality. Or, so the broad presumption usually goes.
However, regardless of the people, the human beings involved, who have often been sinful, imperfect, disreputable, or just otherwise not quite the best of mortal specimens, the Church is also, by definition, a supernatural institution, or else it would be a meaningless nothing. The perniciousness of what is projected to occur at the October Synod exists because the nihilism involved is directed toward the very heart of affected dogmas and doctrines, the basis of the Faith of the Church, though many rosaries said to the Blessed Mother of God, the Queen of Salvation, may prevent such a triumph of evil.
The Holy Ghost is, for instance, assured to always exist and to protect it from the very gates of Hell, according to the known theological understanding proclaimed as being the actual truth. There is, in truth, no real middle position, no via media, to this critical point that could be held to be theologically acceptable for Catholicism, for the one Church founded by Christ. It then possesses indefectibility, indissolubility, and authority. This is, equally, as the Sign of the Cross is the outward visual expression of what ought to be an interior faith, not just a religious institution.
What, therefore, is so adamantly asseverated here? No real need exists, furthermore, for the illegitimate importation of yet more secularist ideology into the ecclesiastical realm, for the aims of this future gathering seem directed athwart sacredness, set against proper holiness. Yet, no surprise ought to exist if offense may be given to the Trinitarian Dogma itself at that meeting. Are such matters to be put into semantic jeopardy?
For brief illustration of what is easily meant, St Paul proclaimed that if Jesus the Christ had not, in fact, truly risen from the dead, as is to be absolutely believed without any question, then the whole Christian faith is entirely in vain, held then to no useful purpose whatsoever. For the valid goal of humanity, its truly highest achievement and purpose, is then the worship and glorification of God, not of human beings, (however much this may be heatedly questioned today, of course).
Any proper theory concerning effective and substantive Catholic theology, meaning genuine orthodoxy, must axiomatically accept this without any questioning as dogmatic veracity, as factual truth, not just, perhaps, as a peculiar Christian suggestion or, again perhaps, merely opinionated afterthought. As Jesus is said to be the Christ, the Messiah, there are, in fact, cognate implications and ramifications.
Religious Theorization of Roman Catholicism
A radical supernatural break in all of human history, a literal theophany, had forever occurred by the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Corpus Christi Himself, which eternally defined the past and future from the time of that most glorious birth. And, this is no small matter. It is literally a cosmic event, not a simple anamnesis, as so many Christian “reformers” allege.
The monumental historicity of the only Christ, the true Messiah, rises above all other beliefs that are then axiomatically relegated to mere fables if put into contradiction. Why is this confidently said? Supernatural reality forever trumps human or natural reality, the latter is subject to mythology and superstition, not the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus was supremely needed to come to deal with the truly terrible consequences of Original Sin by, through his Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, providing the then totally requisite means of actual salvation, as afforded through His sacrifice and the belief in Him as the only Way, the Truth, and the Life. Mere Christianity is never enough, however, whenever compared with the theological fullness of Catholicism, Apostolic succession, and the sacred hierarchy of truths, with the very basis of all ontological truth fully included.
This relates to the historicity of that which has been known, through the ages, as being Catholic. In the 3rd century AD, there is St. Cyprian’s On the Unity of the Catholic Church. One could cite, in the 4th century, the Letters of St. Pacianus who had explicitly declared himself a Catholic, not just a Christian; in the following century, St. Vincent of Lerins, in his Commonitoria, noted the meaning of Catholic. Such actually used terminology was not a supposed fictional creation of the Catholic Reformation made many centuries later; it was, simply, coterminous, coexistent, with both the existence and growth of the early ecclesiastical reality itself, not artificial at all.
And, of course, there quite abundantly is St. Augustine’s Contra Epistolam Manicaei, De Fide et Symbolo, De Vera Religione, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, and his The City of God; also, there is Boethius’ De Fide Catholica and his De Trinitate, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Discourses, St. Ignatius of Antioch’s Letter to the Smyrnaeans, and Lactantius’ Divine Institutes. More need not be said.
The above, just being a very small sampling, still greatly illustrates what now ought to be seen, contrary to the endless fallacies of Protestantism, as to the theologically important reality of there being a very known, well defined, and understood Catholic Faith, meaning Catholicism, nothing less; the early Church, the Church Fathers, these preachers, and the Patristic Tradition in general, explicitly and continually, all proclaim this obvious truth without any question. Q. E. D.
There are many critically important matters, however, that do mark out Roman Catholicism as the most radically different belief that distinguishes it forever from anything else as a faith, especially Protestantism in any and all of it various forms. Ontologically speaking, it is definitely an incarnational faith made forever absolutely explicit with the truly remarkable dogma of transubstantiation; in contrast, any Protestant (read: deficient) thoughts of consubstantiation are just a mere mockery or jest at most that evilly detracts from the supernatural righteousness of the Holy God, the Supreme Being Himself.
Against the amassed forces of Hell, the metaphysical order had both powerfully infused and illuminated the ontological order of reality, and, thus, was made manifest the New Creation, the Christ, for all time, past and future. The supernatural order of reality, greater than any “religious” symbolizations, stands forever above and beyond the mere natural order of reality; further than that, anthropocentricism, secular humanism, is always strongly refuted by the Christocentric appreciation of the meaning of all life on earth, which purpose is to give glory to the Creator. And, one sure means of rendering glory, for instance, is certainly the traditional Latin Mass with its concern for reverence and orthodoxy of belief.
A symbolic “Christ” is, therefore, an abstraction not worth either believing in or dying for, at a minimum. How is this to be here known? Transubstantiation, thus, makes the Catholic faith inherently Christocentric, radically so, in both ontological substance and orientation without any question whatsoever. And, if nothing else, this ought to be perceived as the truth for all of valid Christianity, for all of heresy, in contrast, is demonic in nature.
The, for instance, simply symbolic Christianity of all of Protestantism, moreover, is doubly seen to be simply unworthy of martyrdom and casts imperious contempt, furthermore, upon religious belief itself; this is because it, furthermore, acts so strangely as the vile attempted rationalization of epistemological meaning and axiological truth simultaneously, which is so cognitively quite obnoxious. One sees here how the alleged Reformed Religion is necessarily the attempted theonomic (thelogico-normative) diminishment of Christ and His eternal glory that must be held, in truth, as being just axiomatically anathema to all genuine Christians. But, this could be only if the supportive logic is well understood.
It is known that innumerable former Protestants, such as Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, G. K. Chesterton, Monsignor Ronald Knox, etc., had correctly figured out that most salient fact quite long ago. Why? The Truth is indivisible, though there are three Persons in the Holy Trinity, yet, the Godhead is forever One, which remains a mystery not subject to any gnosis, just a belief of the true Faith. All are to be united in Christ, not divided into (increasing numbers of) sectarian bodies, which is ever a tremendous and invidious scandal that no committed Christian should tolerate, though it is very pleasing to Satan, of course.
And, the movement ever further toward Christian orthodoxy demands the good realization in belief of the compulsive desire to obtain the fullness of Christ, not any partial attribute(s) seen in, e. g., an ever increasing multiplicity of diverse and necessarily divergent Protestant sects, offshoots, and cults. The subdivisions of variegated, motley, beliefs are potentially endless and should, at the least provoke, tortured Protestant consciences, if not tormented bodies.
Each man, whether consciously admitted to or not, ends up being his own pope; the choice of alleged “orthodoxies” becomes a subjective preference justified, no less, by imperiously citing Scripture, a practice that can and usually becomes spiritually abusive. It has been well said, moreover, that the Devil can cleverly quote Scripture too. But, fortunately, Satan can never pray the rosary. Q. E. D.
A rather simple formula here explains the contrary proclaimed indesinent truth: The more Christian, the more orthodox, the more Catholic, for Catholicism and Christ are held to be indivisible. Who says one says the other, simultaneously, as to the indicative theorization of the perennial Faith with its defense of the Trinitarian Dogma as being absolutely essential.
Those informed converts and many others rather perspicaciously saw, therefore, how all of Protestantism is inherently incommensurate and, ultimately, ontologically incompatible with the definitive integral nature of Christianity itself. Catholicism, opposed to dogmatic inversions unrecognized as such by many divergent doctrinal Protestantisms, seeks the mysterious peace of superbly Christian unity. True faith, as opposed to all the theological differences of the so-called Reformers, is indivisible.
In contrast, rationalization of belief for supposed explicitness peels the philosophical onion to get at the real onion that disappears through an odd religious sort of devotion to secularism, for atheism, also, too often goes unrecognized as a faith. Heterodoxy logically results. And yet, e. g., the opposite extreme of (Protestant) Evangelism produces its own errors, inclusive of so wrongly pitting faith against reason, in effect, God against man.
Most of what goes by the name of “Christian” today is a horrid partial “Christianity” not worthy of the name, for these worthless fantasies will not at all suffice regarding the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, or Hell. Equally, the desire of the “reformed religion” to absurdly derogate the Blessed Virgin Mary into being either a minor or obscure functionary of their larger speculative creations speaks ill of the truth of the Immaculate Conception, the Queen of Heaven, the Mediatrix of all Graces.
The title “Mediatrix” refers to Roman Catholic Mariology’s denotation concerning the important intercessory role of the Holy Virgin Mary as a facilitator in the Salvific Redemption by her Son, Jesus Christ, and He, thus, bestows graces through her. Mediatrix, however, is not any new “papist” invention but, rather, an ancient title that has been actually expressed by a number of saints since at least the 5th century AD, for Blessed Mary is venerated, not worshipped, contrary to the ever perpetuated lies of the alleged Reformers.
The so-called Reformers, being hypocrites, who claimed that they just wanted to get back to the early/primitive Christian Church conveniently ignored, as Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman had observed, most of the history of the early Christian Church in their highly skewed exegetical process (what today would be more simply called deconstructionism) seen by their alleged “reform.” The baleful consequence was the ugly shredding of Christendom by their assumed Reformation, a massive epistemological attack set evilly against the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which every Christian ought to have recognized as such.
Also, in their hotly supposed desire to eliminate any intermediaries between man and God, they ironically kept the intermediate institution of then necessarily intermediary ministers of the Gospel. Any real Christian, with half a brain, however, would logically prefer the Mediatrix of all Graces to the various, questionable blessings of a quite variegated hodgepodge of less than perfect presbyters and others. So much for Protestantism, with it Sola Scriptura. Such crudely assumed Christian “primitivism” deserves, so rightly, the historical and theological scorn that has been heaped upon it.
On the contrary, both faith and reason must spiritually unite for the then betterment of the perspicacious perception of the ontological order made significant intensely by the noetic realization of metaphysical order for achieving its end of offering salvation for humanity. For Catholics, the end of ontological order, both its correct teleology and theological entelechy, is God, which means that doctrinally such matters as the sacred filioque is not a mere semantic joke.
It is a requisitely positive sign and insight of true Catholicity itself, as is Apostolic succession and the eternally proclaimed hypostatic union of the Christ, all that and more to compose the ever necessary sensus fidei of orthodox Christian belief, not its necessarily heterodox opposite as was preferred by the so-called Reformers with their quite practiced scriptural legerdemain; thus, e. g, when Martin Luther wanted to so cleverly excise the Epistles of St. James, the uproar was such that he had recanted; otherwise, his massive “Stalinist” redaction efforts, demonic in conception, would have then succeeded.
This quite vile attempt at such unholy deliberate adulteration was not just primitive but rather positively imbecilic, not primitive Christianity certainly. The truly earliest Lutheran, Luther himself, thought he, committing the sin of presumption, could really hubristically do much better than Holy Writ itself. Yet, Catholicism did not disappear, of course, nor has the traditional Latin Mass.
There is far more involved, as can be understood, than the asserted theological primitivism, the reification, of just saying that one has a personal relationship with a personal Jesus or Savior, guaranteeing salvation by faith. How so? Any such true personal relationship is obviously equivalent to an earthly beatification, though unrecognized by all Protestants due to their ever predisposed soteriological myopia. Christian beatification in Heaven is utterly unlike, e. g., the assumed, highly erotic satisfaction of carnal lusts, as in the Muslim Paradise with its 72 eternally pulchritudinous virgins awaiting each crazy martyr, roughly equivalent to the Norse warrior’s entrance to Valhalla.
Anything less than puissant Catholicism, furthermore, is representative of degrees of paganism, as is, in such a sense, the too often disguised paganism of Protestantism. Also, monotheism or Judaism is not enough; paganism, therefore, is not just adhering to a multiplicity of gods, which needs to be critically understood; being thoroughly Christocentric is theologically essential at all times for avoiding being less than properly Christian.
Anything less than the fullness of Christ results in forms of paganism, though much too often not recognized as such, for Saul, a devout Jew, had to be literally knocked off his high horse before becoming St. Paul. The absolute holiness of God, thus, takes necessary precedence first, last, and always, not Sola Scriptura. The true essence of Protestantism (aka nominalism), thus, is not the proffered purification of faith; it is, however, its actual contemptible corruption, whether intentional or not.
For Catholics, as an example, Purgatory exists for the purification of those souls not yet ready for the true sanctification, beatification, of the life of the world to come, for attempted holiness on this planet, no matter how seemingly great, is not enough; it must be transferred into Heaven as the object of salvation, the Kingdom of Christ, set beyond any mere purgatorial minimum because that ever exalted realm is logically everlasting, not further transitional to any other place. And, Heaven is an actual location because, among many other reasons, the physical bodies of Lord Jesus, High Priest and Eternal Judge, and the Blessed Virgin Mary are there.
In context, one then perceives how extremely anemic Protestantism and any other belief is with necessarily attenuated or greatly emaciated concepts, if any, of soteriology, doxology, Christology, eschatology, dogmatics, apologetics, etc. The rejection of Catholicism is then the rejection of the Truth; no middle way exists whatsoever because, sooner or later, that leads the way toward the degenerative path of relativism.
However, the continuing existence of Protestantism, New Age, and other beliefs testifies vividly to how nominalism in cognition has almost totally turned anti-classical, modern, and what usually goes as postmodern thinking upside down and inside out by its poisonous subjectivism; the refutation and confounding of heretics and other enemies of God is righteously needed, not dialogue or ecumenism. For in truth, the demonic opponents of Christ have a pure hatred for “sweet reason” and never seek supplication, much less atonement. Q. E. D.
In this cantankerous and too often defiant upside down and inside out mental world, an effort to start with the ontological arguments of, e. g., St. Thomas Aquinas are no longer adequate to the task. Granted that there can be isolated successes as to making some people agree with reason and logic in a traditional manner, but this is not, in truth, compelling evidence as to what is needed for a majority. Most contemporary intellects are inherently insensate to the requisite noetic characteristics and hard cognitive demands of classical reasoning and logic. Nominalism, thus, severely flattens the human intellect.
Today, for better or worse, one must start with axiology, with all its deficiencies, to go up to epistemology and then, rising still much higher, toward ontology. Why? Because nominalism has become so incredibly pandemic as to be, seemingly, fully coequal with the very air that people breathe. The world, e. g., greatly despises the notion of the mortification of the flesh, thinking it barbaric, brutal, and insane, done for the love of God, while still praising all bloody murderous abortions, surely quite barbaric, brutal, and insane, as a moral, social, cultural, and political good of the highest order. Good is boldly said to be evil, evil is loudly said to be good, with a bold contempt for classical Natural Law, as, e. g., with “married” sodomites.
Any simple or uncritical appeal to Thomism/neo-Thomism will not work, especially, e. g., as Pope Francis has so, increasingly, provoked much frightening speculation as to if these are apocalyptic times. Many wonder if he is, in fact, the prophesied anti-Christ or not. It has been well said, moreover, that someone can smile and smile and smile and still be a villain.
One can learn much of his overt apostasy, for instance, from his truly Teilhardian jesuitical monograph: Laudato Si. One can see, of course, that he is in great need of fraternal correction, an act of spiritual mercy, since he is not the anti-Christ, for Francis has not manifested the required “signs and wonders” necessarily requisite for this preposterous accusation to hold. Scholastic theology, for the adept, can easily guard some people against simply accepting such wild allegations or various animadversions, but the masses themselves, however, are not so mentally equipped and fall prey, as ever, to much nonsense and popular superstition.
As can be perceived above, the principles of what may be properly denominated as classical Thomism have to be critically exercised within the context of a fundamental cognitive disaster of truly gargantuan portions. For instance, it is absurd to profoundly discuss, e. g., the basics of collegiate Catholic theology if the prospective students have no fair preparative understanding of even Natural Theology; they would lack the requisite mental tools for rational and informed thinking. Without that, even attempted critical theological exegesis would, in fact, be meaningless.
Catholicism, therefore, must be properly understood and comprehended as an exoteric, not an esoteric, faith as is, e. g., Gnosticism. This vividly means that the simplest peasant or workman imaginable, as well as the most sophisticated and educated prelate or pope, can know all the basics of the Faith, as surely as it ought to be known that the Church can never accept the immorality of artificial contraception, homosexuality, or the possibility of ordaining women as priests, all are, by definition, forever inherently anti-Catholic in nature.
There is, in fact, absolutely no requirement at all for gaining any amount of (assumed) esoteric or supposedly hidden knowledge whatsoever. And, moreover, this is an extremely important, critical, and highly significant point to suitably grasp at the very beginning of this discussion, in spite of the aforementioned prevalence and inroads of nominalism.
Christianity and Catholicism, in particular, as its ever proper and highest expression of such religious and theological truth, consists of public, not private, knowledge. Almost all of what needs to be fundamentally known can be so readily made known by a reading of the Nicene Creed, along with admonitions to practice both corporal and spiritual acts of mercy.
No gnosis is ever needed or required. No private (or secret) understanding or assumed comprehension is ever demanded, which creates a tremendous dividing line of unimaginable proportions. The truth is free but often at the religious cost of humiliation and suffering, penitence and prayer, which the modernists, afflicted with accidie, reject as entirely anti-human and, thus, beneath the assumed dignity of exalted Man seeking entrance to the intramundane Utopia (by whatever name).
This is why it is also important to know that Gnosticism, favored by Satan, seeks always to be a rival of Christianity but necessarily fails in its perverse mission to then subsume or conquer Christianity. It is not, as often misinterpreted, a variation or subcategory of Christian thought, a companion system of belief just waiting in the wings, so to speak. Such a defective belief has absolutely nothing to say to Catholicism, for Gnosticism is no better than Manicheanism.
It is, by definition, heretical since, among other valid reasons, it is always inherently and deliberately esoteric in its assumed and much too vainglorious cognition. Thus, as such, this kind of warped thinking is, by definition, very anti-Christian in its fundamental orientation and purpose, logic, and reasoning. Catholicism, moreover, refutes all such metaphysical errors.
This is why axiologically, epistemologically, and, especially, ontologically Gnosticism is opposed to Christianity, to the Catholic sensus fidei, without rational question. Any true theorization, theologically considered, that does not clearly recognize such a basic, requisite fact, such an indicative truth, is unworthy of being taken seriously, regardless of how much contemporary religious literature now exists to the contrary. Error is not the truth, no matter how many times it gets repeated these days; repetition, therefore, is not proof, theological or otherwise.
In firm reiteration, Gnosticism is definitely not a synonym for Christianity nor, in fact, is it any assumed variant of it, in any way whatsoever; moreover, Roman Catholicism is ever the very opposite of such a belief system or orientation of thought because nominalism in philosophy is necessarily intolerant of all genuine orthodoxy, of the reality of true Catholicism itself, of the aforementioned sensus fidei. If that is not obvious, however, nothing really is.
Once this greatly critical point is correctly understood and comprehended as to its complete theological and religious truth, then such odd matters as supposed same-sex “marriage,” communion for continuingly adulterous people, and other such manifestly heretical practices can be always reasonably seen as blasphemous triumphs of nominalism in cognition that do, logically, parallel Gnosticism in fundamental direction and much allied evil consequences.
Since Catholicism is, by definition, an exoteric belief, as has been irrefutably demonstrated, no such vile perversions are held to be ever properly compatible with or favorable toward the orthodox presentation and acknowledgement of the Faith. This is a self-evident truth of a high order, an indicative magnitude, set righteously beyond ecclesiastical machinations, clerical intrigues, which may be determined to the contrary. Further than that, Christ is King, not any pope or, perhaps, celebrated conclave or synod whatsoever; and, the traditional Latin Mass exists in rather splendid defiance of heresy.
Therefore, the history, theology, religion, and affirmative mental dynamics of all of Roman Catholicism, correctly perceived and practiced, stands adamantly with all of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, the Three Pillars of the Faith, united strongly against heresy, by definition; thus, this is, adamantly, set against any machinations attempted at the October Synod, which is not any supposed preparation for the Parousia itself.
What is going on, in terms of modernity lurching into postmodernity, is man’s odd search for intramundane salvation, not the salvation of souls, which is what the Church is to be interested in being involved with, as long as this world exists. Most of the Western world, specifically, is seeking a New Eden on this globe spinning in time and space, rather than wanting to devoutly pray as much as possible to Venerated Holy Mary, the Mother of God. All Christians are to take up the Cross every day of their lives, though this is not usually that easy to do; but, all are to live and die by the Sign of the Cross, which is hated by Satan and the evil demons in Hell.
Those who wish to introduce religious novelty are, thus, no better than aberrant Gnostics concerning a disregard for the exoteric nature of the Church’s teachings, as they have been publicly known for many generations, many centuries, contrary to the evil forces of error, of heresy itself. Catholicism, as to its essence, is forever radically set against the intramundane reading of human reality as is ever greatly desired by modernity and its assorted prophets.
The Incarnate God, Jesus as the Head of the Church, demands acceptance of the standard of absolute Truth, as is to be observed in the posited dogma of transubstantiation within the Holy Eucharist; it is surely defined at Holy Mass by both sacred anaphora and epiclesis; Catholicism, furthermore, is a fully Eucharistic faith, not a series of supposed (Protestant or neo-Protestant) symbolisms finally diverging out toward the useless abstractionization or, perhaps, too vapid rationalization of belief. The reality of the Christ is incarnational, not subjective speculation geared toward nominalism usually concealed under various and elaborate euphemisms resorted to by dialectical speech. Catholic clarity should exist.
Creed of St Athanasius: Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem: Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternum peribit. There can be no amount of supposedly reformulated theoretics that can transform the known theorization inherent to Catholic theology and its own rightful religious, social, cultural, and other expression on earth, besides, of course, always suitable consideration for supernatural reality and its truth.
Fidelity as to Catholic doctrine and practice is not merely owed to any current generation, contrary to the strange speculations of heretical clerics and their assorted sycophants, but must ever take into account the dogma, the doctrine, of the Communion of Saints; this is besides the demands for holiness and ascesis, from the believers, as to their own precious Catholicity, for Jesus is the Christ, of which there ought to be no doubt whatsoever. Ontology here is reality; there is to be no sophistic division of substance against symbol nor faith against reason.
The supernatural reality of the Church, often neglected or scorned today, goes well above and certainly far beyond mere men who may think that they can freely tinker with plastic notions of morality or mores. God cannot be fooled, and He cannot be mocked with impunity. The Holy Ghost, the Communion of Saints, the Tradition of the Patristic Fathers, and much else must be intimately involved in any and all questions and issues concerning the Faith, regardless of the proclaimed capacities or competencies of a (mere) Synod of [many God-defiant] Bishops. They seek, being overt to the truth here, to defame the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Catholic theological theory has had, e. g., champions of a sturdy Athanasian resolve such as St. Thomas Aquinas who, long ago, laid down certain orthodox fundamentals of religious teachings and cogent ascriptions that get so wrongfully neglected whenever petty or vainly disrespectful men, puffed up clerics and their lackeys, try to evilly second guess the Lord God Almighty. The essential core of the Faith was, in effect, basically codified by Aquinas, which has been added to by other orthodox teachers, writers, and others, for to be truly a Catholic is to willingly love God unreservedly, to entirely worship the Lord unconditionally. Nothing less is religiously valid.
Attempted errant reformulations by any heretical ecclesiastics are never, logically or otherwise, consistent with the faithful theorization created for Catholicism by the first Apostles, the early Church Fathers, any of the religiously orthodox synods held by the Church, the Council of Trent, and the First Vatican Council. Citing of the Second Vatican Council against all of that is to make the proverbial tail wag the whole dog; it is fully obnoxious to the wholeness of truth and Catholic teachings, dogmas, and doctrines covering over 2,000 years of the Church.
For it is here perceived most intensely that Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium all combined, meaning none held as being in any opposition to one or two of these pillars, uphold all the theoretics of an orthodox system of belief, not Gnosticism or even neo-Pelagianism for that matter. Most obviously, as can be above noted, the October Synod is not preaching into any supposed vacuum of spirituality or seemingly hollow doctrines lacking substance, thus, the fallaciousness of (often covert) heresy stands here exposed.
Catholicism does deal, of course, with true mysteries such as the Trinitarian Dogma, which no mortals can ever grasp as to the overt infinitudes so manifestly involved within the dogma. But, these assertions are not done for creating any sort of assumed gnosis so that some enlightened tiny minority of a minority may alone know the actual truths of the religion. Moreover, the predestination of souls, a free response to grace that can also include His passive Will, is for Almighty God to know, not for mere mortals to grasp at foolishly as with Calvinism’s many absurdities.
Mysteries enhance the divinity of the Supreme Being and give meaning to the love requisite toward needed worship of the Creator, not the false glorification of those who claim a “higher knowledge” only specially gained by the assumed “adepts” of a mere cult, which is not, in fact, equivalent to a religion, as with, e. g., Mormonism.
Not even the much too often flaunted Spirit of Vatican II can be cited successfully toward the radical overthrow of heuristic matters defining the Faith made quite sacred by immemorial tradition and practice known as being contributory to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. Nor can, e. g., any supposed historical inevitability traduce orthodoxy where novelties are but old heresies in new disguises.
Nothing must be, in human affairs, until men will it or, at the least, when the passive Will of God allows situations or events to occur, for good or ill, knowing that the Lord can yet produce good out of an evil. If it were truly thought otherwise, then one would surely be dealing with confirmed fatalists or determinists, not Catholics. All of this has both complex and simple elements, as to an explanation and deeper extrapolation philosophically and theologically speaking, meaning as to the posited specific Catholic theorization of theology qua theological theoretics.
But, what is and has been predominantly plaguing the intellectual or cognitive movement of the world is neo-Pelagianism, essentially, the denial of Original Sin put into religion, morals, ethics, politics, culture, society, etc. Thus, modern Christianity, in the desire to seem “hip,” has ceased long ago the eternally vital task of saving souls and seeks, instead, the accumulation of too sedulously tedious and vapid pieties toward no good end, thus, coldly creating a supposed “church” of the essentially faithless and/or indifferent.
But, it doesn’t even take a Catholic to perceive this rather open truth, e. g., the Rev. Franklin Graham himself sees through this grand farce of a faithless faith pretending to be Christian.
Contrary to Eric Voegelin’s very flawed thesis, neither Gnosticism nor neo-Gnosticism can adequately ever explain what has and is happening to a warped humanity’s thinking toward wrongly accepting degrees of utopianism, the desire for the intramundane New Eden, under various euphemisms. The humanistic or secularist disavowal of Original Sin, meaning neo-Pelagianism, has had many baleful consequences, inclusive of the sin of blatant secularism itself, for this is how sinning produces the convenient rationalizations for yet more sinning.
This has caused, e. g., serious problems for philosophical theorization and political theorization, not just for Catholic attempts to properly formulate certain efforts at the appropriate heuristic construction of useful theoretical ideas or concepts as propositions. A contemporary zymotic societal and cultural reality, in addition, easily facilitates confusion, misinterpretation, and misunderstanding, even in language used for attempted common communication. How so?
It gets rarely, if ever, recognized how the common occurrence, for instance, of sin ends up then creating stupidity in human cognition. The linkage here of religion and politics with compositive theoretics is not, as should be understood, either arbitrary or absurd as people seek to actively rush toward the obvious damnation of their souls.
The acceleration of sinning, in turns, further accelerates the decline of the ability of the human mind to escape from being progressively dumbed down, as with the evil dumbing down of the fundamental perception of deviance. Human beings, however, are still utterly dependent upon God, not themselves, as secular humanists, modernists, do suppose.
The more that sin, especially truly serious moral turpitude, gets accepted publicly, politically, as being normal, the more that it becomes extremely difficult to think logically, reasonably, and rationally. An Orwellian mindset takes over the then so much befuddled and reified brain, where what had been once accepted as rational, as common sense, is made to appear irrational and, thus, unacceptable as well. All manner of fornication gets rationalized into becoming normal.
For instance, what would have been once simply recognized, generations ago, as clearly forms of minority-aristocratic privilege are now routinely classified as modern democratic rights to use the force of law for imposing deviant social and cultural mores upon the many recalcitrant unbelievers. A surely privileged class of sodomites now exists. It is not just an abuse of law, it is an abuse of truth and classical Natural Law itself in the name, oddly enough, of civil rights. Secularization is, therefore, the strange sanctification of idiocy, of indomitable stupidity, at large. What is, thus, critically meant?
It is the core essence of the contemporary zeitgeist when a “right” is nothing other than a mere sentimental imperative, as Alasdair MacIntyre has well noted it to be; the truly perverse contention is nothing more than an audacious and imprudent desire, which used to be called lust, incubated by an ever incestuous craving to promote selfishness. However, this is fixated pseudo-ethically with the tyrannical demand that others must now forever slavishly submit to such a necessarily pubescent insistence that the mere desire, the asserted feeling, be always thoroughly gratified, supposedly, at whim.
This so irredeemably meretricious, highly specious, notion of manufactured rights degrades them by inserting subjectivist individual desire ahead of all true objective value, an illegitimate interchange that axiomatically reduces to plain nonsense any and all very obstreperous claims to have such putative rights axiomatically respected as such. This is insanity writ large.
No conscientious objection whatsoever is allowed those who are subject now to involuntary servitude (aka slavery) to homosexual activists in manifest violation of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. All must now bow down to salacious Sodom and its so vile hellishness.
In America, this so clearly sex-obsessed form of insanity has ominously sanctioned the odd rationalization, through nominalist reductionism, of enshrining sodomy as a respected and protected civil right that is supposed to forever even trump the civil liberties once thought guaranteed forever by the aforesaid Constitution. As a truly cognate consequence of blatant secularism, e. g., the theorization of theological absolutes, of Roman Catholic dogmas, has itself become now greatly questioned by even many of the highest prelates of the Church, in the second decade of the 21st century.
Gross sin has its important implications and added significant ramifications; nothing evil seeks to only exist in isolation, as misery loves company; its inherent reductionist, subjective, need is to become so crescively prolific and, moreover, to be accepted as normal, not really perverse; it is not a matter of mere tolerance, one must fully accept it under penalty of civil law, as a part of the contemporary mythology of secularism triumphant. Resistance is now depicted as unlawful behavior no less, not a needed and proper appeal to both sanity and morality.
This more than suggests, in hindsight, that the terribly insane tolerance of such grave evil, in civil society, has inexorably lead to its aggressive defense and strident legal promulgation as the now new minimum standard of the height of (sexual) justice itself crudely mandated without any question. Such surely perverse cognition in the debased Western world has reverberated, increasingly, into religious establishments to their sad detriment, not for their sanctification certainly.
Since the past Extraordinary Synod on the Family, the Church has seemingly entered a strange new period of much perceived heightened uncertainty and unneeded confusion over several highly controversial issues: communion for divorced and “remarried” couples, a change of views towards homosexual unions, and an assumed related relaxing of attitudes towards non-married couples. Sacramental understandings may get upended and distorted as a very dire consequence of bringing forth deliberately troublesome theological speculation of a reified nature at best, which will, then, give great offense to the metaphysical order of reality.
All of this surely bodes ill, while pastoral practice is said now to be made the enemy of doctrinal admonitions against heretical thoughts, since practice is supposed to match and complement doctrine, not to be wrongly divided against it. Whenever sacred faith is set against reason or vice versa, however, heresy then raises its ugly and unwanted head.
The only known cure for such impure fevers of speculation and subjective questioning has been always orthodoxy, not odd preferences and perversions lusted after, as might have been once said by Msgr. Ronald Knox, through much disguised whimsy, verbiage, and clerical frolic.
The theorization of Catholic theology and religion, since the time of at least the Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas, supports proper orthodoxy toward, through, and in the Faith, which is, by definition, the opposite of heresy. One sees that any use, for instance, of the Hegelian dialectic or, perhaps, Marxist exegesis would be illegitimate, by definition. No proper understanding of Catholicism should ever be made subject to modernist or postmodernist ideological dictates, no matter how seemingly fashionable in certain intellectual circles, inside or outside the Vatican.
Not even, for instance, St. Augustine, being among the early Church Fathers, was as thorough as Aquinas concerning the various appropriate ways and solid means of correctly securing theological knowledge amenable to and quite consistent with the perennial sacred teachings of the Holy Mother Church, ad majorem Dei gloriam, along with, e. g., the traditional Latin Mass.
Theory and the cogency of the demanded pastoral practice was, further to the point, united superbly, e. g., at the orthodox Council of Trent; this was then by which there was a surely true and careful clarification of many important doctrines, dogmas, and teachings, not obfuscation certainly. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi should, therefore, be every true Catholic’s personal motto. Only an uncompromising Catholicism, as one perceives, can come to last and, thus, give always righteous glory to God, not its opposite, not a Hegelian dialectic.
For valid Catholicism is, if it is anything, an exceedingly sacramental faith spiritually uniting the sacramental communities of all parishes and dioceses in the blessed ecclesiastical enterprise of directing attention toward the Christocentric life as being the only true life worth living for all of the faithful. This is, therefore, as it ought logically to be for all professed Christians without any dissent as to its intended holiness, as it is said that Jesus is the Christ. Anything less is merely a mockery of Christianity, far from the guidance of the Holy Ghost at a minimum.
Any innovations or alleged reforms, invoked ever in the dubious name of that haunting Spirit of Vatican II, that contradict this truly central fact of the universal nature of the Catholic Faith will, thus, fade away eventually, as being integrally repugnant, so clearly obnoxious, to the perennial axiological, epistemological, and ontological tests of obvious orthodoxy. All else is then, by sure definition, heresy by whatever name it may appear.
This is certainly why it can be validly perceived, especially after 50 years, that the Second Vatican Council and its horrid aftermath failed to complement the highly important reality of Catholicism, being truly a supremely Eucharistic religion, at odds with the supposed reforms that have vigorously sought its deformation. The both indicative and instructive point is being reached, with Pope Francis, to choose schism rather than to surrender orthodoxy in an effort to help him ideologically achieve ecological redemption, rather than requisite spiritual salvation, for the Church.
Its ever dwindling appeal, especially in the Western world since the end of Vatican II, has been matched empirically to the so-called reforms that have oddly tried to make the Church more “relevant” to the worship of humanity, seen as being so increasingly desirable by ecclesiastical progressivists and liberals, the permanent reformers. They will never, by definition, be satisfied since nihilism knows no pleasant rest from its insatiable demands.
This quite evident nominalist theory of reform, most recently perceived by bizarre efforts at papal ecological redemption, has so cracked severely, again and again, under the recalcitrant weight of sinful human reality; however, the age-old worship of Nature, in whatever guise, is still not Catholicism, for it really is, in the end, merely man worshipping himself, thus, bold neo-Pelagianism revealed at last.
In the upcoming October Synod’s theology: “God” is merely an anthropomorphic projection of human aspirations and feelings, nothing more than that, and so made entirely subject to the historical process (read: German-Hegelian idealism) as the then movement set within history. What is the secularist implication?
Man is to then evolve toward his (secularized) humanity as a means of escaping existential angst and phenomenological devaluation by, thus, negating the abstractionization of man qua being. With his coming of age, so to speak, man can needfully recapture, regain, his essence “stolen” by just a childish regard for Deity incapable of appreciating the greatness of humanity, for all things are subject to mutability, including God itself.
But, such nominalism is almost never recognized for what it is, for its much too often unconscious acceptance appears as natural as the air being breathed; it is, thus, that both insidiously and enervatingly pandemic as it infects and rots the human brain and spirit so contagiously.
The right cognizance of dogmatic theology, therefore, upholds firmly that level of profound theorization so requisite for the confirmation of the architectonic structuring of the three pillars of the Faith, meaning Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, united always for proclaiming the Roman Catholic unity of faith and reason.
As has been demonstrated, therefore, there is a distinctive theological theorization of what is Catholic, especially as the Apostolic Age of Revelation had ended with the death of the last apostle, St. John. No new revelations, contrary to the clearly heretical writings, e. g., of Scott Hahn, are possible as to the Faith, as to Roman Catholicism.
All this above superbly represents the vital integral essence, the inherent quintessence, of such a tremendously sacramental faith, the exposed nature of true Catholicism athwart its unholy and demonic degradation and repudiation by too many supposed innovators.
This distinctiveness of such religious metaphysics is ardently set against that often unspoken handmaiden of spiritual nominalism, known as immanentism (aka intramundane salvation), which internally fuels the ever greater and ongoing ecclesiological crisis as the true dynamism supporting neo-Pelagianism fixed into modernity and postmodernity, as if it is simply just inevitable, plainly inexorable, like a spreading plague.
Historical Inevitability or Determinism?
The Zeitgeist is said to (mindlessly) compel people to obey laws of historical determinism or inevitability, as if men were mere lemmings set blindly upon an absolutely fixed course of conduct nihilistic in its dreadful consequences. But, it is Lutheran to deny the doctrine of free will, not Catholic. The Moslems, for instance, have their kismet, roughly translated as being fate, while many millions in the West do harbor within themselves variants of fatalism nearly indistinguishable from degrees of determinism under different euphemisms.
Where does this all mainly come from? The return, in the modern world, of what can be seen clearly being paganism qua neopaganism acting and prevailing under many guises. The secular religions, known as ideologies, have so contributed greatly to this quite baleful situation, along with the often unrecognized return of myth and magic to the modern political order, through the successful advance and pandemic spread of what exists as neo-Pelagianism.
The morally and mentally forceful combination, mixture, of a strident neopaganism and a very psychologically seductive neo-Pelagianism has captured not only what had existed as modernity but now threatens to absorb all factions of postmodernity in thought as well. The impulsion for this began, most forcefully, in the 20th century. What is meant?
Malcolm Muggeridge, among others, had keenly noted that what was vastly different about that century versus all the past centuries was the effort to live as if God (or gods) did not exist, as if this is an ultimate measure, supreme touchstone, of all true and validated “Progress,” a god-term, ironically speaking, if there ever was one.
For the greatest superstition of them all is to piously believe that one’s own age is, supposedly, entirely free of superstition. The New Atheism, as it is usually called, is but one instance of such clearly superstitious nonsense on parade, of (assumed) autonomous man existentially trapped in a phenomenological vacuum, set ever incomprehensibly within an irrational cosmos, possessed of a meaningless meaning. But, as Muggeridge astutely knew, the real argument is actually always about something else, usually left unspoken. For instance?
Seeking to herald the alleged wave of the future, the “true believers” know that they cannot attack God (their real enemy), so they, thus, seek to attack His creation by supporting abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, and, of course, population control in general to overtly spit in the face of the Creator. Though unmentioned by them, this is what is, in fact, going on in their many heated protestations, ideologically based or otherwise.
It is part and parcel, e. g., of progressivism or radicalism to claim that it is always the inevitable wave of the future, which illustrates its absolute affinity with historical inevitability or historical determinism. Karl Marx had asserted that there were inexorable laws of history, as discovered by him, which had then mandated a Communist future for the entire world; no one, however, was supposed to ever question what was so axiomatically declared as so inevitable.
The Islamic terrorists of today, of course, feel exactly the same way with their own version of explicit determinism, conducted with as much intended violence and bloodshed as is true for Communism. The many overt parallels, especially planned violence, exist for all to see.
Admittedly, before going into a demonstration of the necessary falsity of all such popular conceptions or general extant understandings of historical inevitability, there will be given examples of that which could only be described as clearly inexorable or predictable realities, seen historically.
Mark Antony had been sure to lose of the Battle of Actium because, among other reasons, he was a truly brilliant army leader with sure skills in handling strategy and tactics on land; but, he was no competent naval commander as was surely most needed for that famous sea battle. Only a series of major incompetent actions by Octavius could have helped Antony who so obviously lacked maritime, nautical, resourcefulness.
Napoleon was bound to lose, sooner or later, because his insatiable conquering urge was ever ceaseless, until so met by a surely resounding defeat, by the inevitable final challenge that he, inescapably, was simply not able to overcome. It just happened that defeat, in 1815, occurred at Waterloo, though it actually could have been elsewhere.
Those were/are easy examples of inevitability, though not determinism. The metaphysical order intrinsically mandates that those who do neglect the important matter of sin will be, eventually, dominated by that harsh reality that usually, in secular terms, is called human imperfection or failure.
But, fatalism ought not to be conflated with determinism, though often both do appear as supposed synonyms. Fatalism implies that nothing at all can stop what is perceived as being inevitable, which appears to then need no real cause as to its sufficient cause for being. The historical inevitability, not fatalistic necessity, of the now well observed fall of Western society, culture, and civilization is due to many real causes that have combined and gravitated toward a proclivity that cannot be reversed. How so?
A great boulder coming lose, e. g., will fall down a steep mountain, unless meeting with a halting structure sufficient along its path, and so normally continue downward, until it reaches the lowest point consistent with the end of gravitational pull and its observed proclivity to keep falling.
This does not mean, however, that a new Western civilization, etc. is incapable of rising. But, the present post-Christian order, starting with the Renaissance Era, is in the natural process of rapidly crumbling; error, finally, cannot sustain itself. The drift away from a proper religious concern for Divine Providence is the supposed sophisticated desire of modern man and his self-worship inevitably leading to nihilism, e. g., the secularist focus on world population control. So, what has noticeably occurred?
The very last vestiges of what was just the mere shell of a now former Christendom are no more; perhaps, as seems very possible, a New Christendom may yet arise as a proverbial phoenix coming up out of the ashes. With Christ, by definition, humanity is never bereft of true hope; without the Son of God, man begins to despair to the point of achieving his death wish because of the both hubristic and solipsistic rejection of the supremely important metaphysical order of reality. Once the Social Kingship of Jesus gets denied, as in America and elsewhere, then exactly, in a spiritual and moral sense, all Hell breaks loose.
What needs to be so critically recognized is that the amassed wills of, literally, tens of millions set into the hundreds of millions have, directly and indirectly, united to destroy the present society, culture, and civilization as a kind of death wish. This surely perverse willingness has created the inevitability perceived, not a vague source or kind of (assumed) determinism even against the human will as it were; what is then occurring is, moreover, neither fatalism nor a fatalistic determinism, which can, moreover, be here readily explicated.
Causes have effects; what is being witnessed is, therefore, the quite natural consequence of an accepted nihilism, the worship of death as the real price of sin, the harsh reality made manifest as the evil attempt to secularly deny the too baleful results of Original Sin; but, as always, the metaphysical order (aka God) will not be mocked with impunity. Such depravity, furthermore, necessarily impinges upon the course of reality seen in society, culture, politics, economics, etc.
As is well known, the wages of sin is death, thus, though those addicted to either modernity or postmodernity do wish to deny this fundamental truth of human reality and its many innate imperfections, yet, there are still the too numerous empirical consequences of the yet clear proclivity, the rather marked inclination, under examination.
In brief summation, historical inevitability, as has been qualified and elucidated above both historically and philosophically, is what is involved, not a supposed determinism operating against the free will of human beings. What is actually happening is not some sort of kismet, happenstance, or, perhaps, mere fatalistic conundrum fixed beyond the real control of people existing within an existential or phenomenological vacuum in space and time.
This is but the abstract and too shallow excuse for wishing to remain either ignorant of or simply indirect to the empirical truth, to the strictly human reality of sin, as is ever denied by “enlightened” folk.
Nor is, e. g., simple heresy itself in the realm of historical inevitability since, too often, it recurs under a merely new semblance that soon supposes its odd possession of a sort of determinism, which is, in truth, just a tautology. No, the verified ugly reality of nihilism, and its supremely vile hellishness, is what is here truly involved, meaning as to the easily notable degradation and degeneration, decline and deterioration, overtly seen in the decaying Western world.
And so, the questionable October Synod, a product of the true Spirit of the S
