On Perfection Part One

Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.




(Dedicated to my seminarian friends, who in some places, are being taught to be mediocre.)

This is one of the promises given to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque for those who keep the Nine First Fridays of Masses. On June 11, 1899, Pope St. Leo the XIII dedicated the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

What is the connection between the pursuit of perfection and the Sacred Heart of Jesus? What is this seeking of perfection called for by Christ Himself?  In Matthew 5:48, Christ states, Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.


In this Age of Mediocrity, I have heard very weak and mealy-mouthed sermons on this passage,to the point that the priests have deconstructed the text so that it no longer means what Christ intended. We are called to perfection. We are not called to second-best, or "good enough", or "getting by". Some preachers have compare "wholeness" to "holiness". This is not so. That is a New Age confusion of terms. We are called to be like the Father, Our Father, in whom we were made in His Image and Likeness. St. Bernard of Clairvaux has said that we have kept the Image,but lost the Likeness and that Likeness is living in the life of Sanctifying Grace.


In this age of the dumbing down of everything-politics, education, entertainment, culture-we have lost the sense of perfection. I hear good Catholics state, "I shall be happy if I get to Purgatory." That is not even good enough and it is false humility. To seek perfection is to want to bring Heaven down to Earth now, to be a saint now, in the messy world of secularism and sin. Christ always calls us to the hard and narrow way. If we aim at the wide way, we shall miss the mark.


My dad taught me archery. He also taught me how to shoot. He always said, "Aim at the center." If one concentrates on the bulls-eye, one will learn the technique and train the eye. No discipline, no success. I loved learning such skills, and I had to listen, be patient, practice over and over. Like all sports, one aims at perfection. I loved hitting the mark, the bulls-eye. Those who aim at the mediocre will never be great at anything.

This is not about competition, unless one is competing with one's self. Nor is it about pride. The fake humility in the world of the West, which discourages excellence and praise mediocrity,  the point of the drama, Amadeus, creates an atmosphere of envy. Evil hates good and mediocrity hates excellence. 


So why do priests in sermons give in to this Age of Mediocrity, not merely by ignoring the call to perfection, but by undermining God's Own Words in the Scriptures? Because they disagree with God, these priests at the pulpit lower their own standards and insult the laity by not calling them to perfection.


Why do I mean by this? The priests who teach mediocrity have lost the vision of holiness themselves and no longer believe that the laity can be holy. They have fallen into a trap of modern psychological interpretation which separates doctrinal teaching from pastoral teaching. There is no such separation. Pastoral theology is the application of doctrine, not the deviation from doctrine.

How to be perfect is simple. Put on the mind of Christ, writes St. Paul in many places in his epistles. One reference is from Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.

Thinking like Christ brings us into relationship with the Father and the Holy Ghost. The Indwelling of the Trinity, given to us at Baptism and Confirmation, leads us to this perfection, if we cooperate. 

There can be no compromises, no watering down of the message. Bonhoeffer reminded us of this in his discussion of Cheap Grace and Costly Grace, in his The Cost of Discipleship, a book which changed my life when I read it at 23. One chooses either the less or the more. At about the same time, I read Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind. I was also "into" C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams at the time. There are excellent reads for young minds. The earlier that one realizes that the pursuit of excellence is the Way of Christ's Call to us, the better. Disciplining the mind and the heart are easier is one pursues Christ's Mind and Christ's Heart at a early age. Perfection of the mind is a theme in Thomas Aquinas, as I have written on this blog before. The intellect must be perfected in order to live the life of virtue.

However, it is never too late. God, who is Infinite and does not merely see us as we are at one moment in time, but as we are in our entire life, can do in months, even weeks, what we have not done in years. We only need to be convinced that the call to perfection is His Call. Ignore those mediocre priests, pray for them, call them to a higher vision. 

This is what St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and Pope St. Leo XIII did for the Church-give us a higher vision. The heart of Christ becomes our heart, in the world, wherever we find ourselves, and gives us confidence and grace to live His Will in the world. The next time I cover this topic, I shall look into what perfection looks like. By the way, martyrs are not suddenly "made". These men, women and children have lived perfection before being able to die for Christ.  Another Margaret, St. Margaret Clitherow, lived in a time when mediocrity was rewarded. She lived in the perfection of grace which led her to martyrdom. This is our call.


I do not have my works of St. Bernard of Clairvaux with me, but I can paraphrase one of his sayings: There is rejoicing in heaven when a bad man becomes good, but how much more rejoicing is there when a good man becomes perfect.

Great Britain's Discrimination against Christians

Yesterday, online at LifeSiteNews, there was a report that 74% of Christians in a poll believed that discrimination against Christians is a reality and a growing phenomenon. I hightly suggest reading the entire text here. This is not a new prejudice, or bias in the government and courts, but the trend is obviously threatening. The fact that the Queen is the Supreme Head or Supreme Governor of the Church in England does not seem to make a difference. I wonder why?

Cancers in the Culture from an American Point of View

Two articles in this morning's Irish Times refer to themes on this blog. The first is a semi-humorous, but serious article on stereotyping national characteristics, or, in other words, national racism. As an American, I am aware of these strange undercurrents in Ireland of disparaging remarks toward other nations, as well as the Irish "taking the mickey" out of their own. The sad and boring beliefs, it seems among some Europeans, as well as some Americans, concerning the base, supposed nasty habits of those who are not of the same ethnic background as themselves, have lost all reality, in my mind, as national characteristics may or may not be real. The truth of national characteristics may be found more in the positive expressions, rather than the negative. For example. on this tiny island, one can see a heritage of poetry and song, which is also shared with the slightly larger island to the east. Dare I say that the Irish and the British have something in common? Perhaps this is the problem, that the emphasis on stereotypes is merely an effort at defining differences. But, why can't we use definitions, or descriptions which are positive rather than negative? And, to add a historical wrinkle to the question, in Medieval times, when Europe was the Faith and the Faith Europe, when Christendom existed as a reality more cohesive than the EU, were there national stereotypes before nationalism? I suggest that stereotyping is a form of secular nationalism, not merely nationalism. If we were all related by a common religion, such as the Catholicism of Christendom, would we be telling Irish jokes, for example, or Polish ones, etc.?

The second article is one I barely know how to address. Monday is the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, one of the times to which I inferred earlier on this blog, which needs to be marked by the spirit of forgiveness, rather than the re-living of a terrible crisis. The past is full of massacres, wars, individual murders, hatred. To keep "celebrating" a day with the idea of never forgetting seems to fester this hatred rather than to resolve, repent, forgive. There are days of victory in wars which even the Catholic Church celebrates. I think we need to celebrate victories hard-won and noble. There are weird celebrations in England on Guy Fawkes Day, which is blatantly anti-Catholic. But, one must look at the differences of these "remembrances". Does it help a country to grow, thrive, move on by celebrating hatred? Of course, we must honor the dead, the victims. But, to keep the hatred brewing is a sure sign of a cancer in the culture.

If a people hate another nation as an enemy, that group is not free, Freedom rests in forgiveness and reconciliation. To hold on to the hatred destroys the hearts of those who hate.

I refer you to my previous post of January 20th.

Obama Against Home Schooling

Did many notice Obama's stand against homeschooling in his address this week? When I home schooled, I belonged to the Home School Legal Defense Association for most of the 14 years or so I home schooled. Thankfully, I never had a legal problem. In fact, my relationship with various state and council governments was cordial and, on the whole, supportive.

Now, we see the true tyrannical attitude of this man, as if we had any doubts, towards the authority of parents. And, who are the two groups who home school the most? Evangelical Christians and Catholics. No surprises here, as POTUS continues his assault on freedom of religion.

Please follow the instructions on the link above to stop further legislation against home schooling. The Catholic Church has consistently upheld the primary right and duty of the parent to educate their children. Several Popes have written on this, including our present Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Paul VI among others. The links are on the names. Please pray about this, as a government which takes away the parents' right to educate their own children is a tyranny. If this happens, and if we lose freedom of religion in the other ways being pushed this week, America will no longer be a free country. Period.

"I say! You just can't say, 'You want to know', you know": On the Circumlocution Office in the Mind, Earthquakes and Cyclones and "Society"

Some people's minds, and maybe their hearts, are like the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit, my favorite book-read it at least four times and maybe five. Their minds are full of anxiety, useless information, fluff. They only want what the employees in the Circumlocution Office want-power, a comfortable income, status and a pension. In the older version of the movie, the 1988 interpretation, (I saw it in a special showing in 1987 in London), one sees the millions of folded, ignored documents falling under the weight of gravity and years of neglect, eaten away by water, wind, and fire. The piles fall, slowly, sliding into waste. The photos here are from the 2008 BBC version. But, I also want to write about sensitivity, paying attention, sensing earthquakes and cyclones. The silent, grave-like inertia of the Circumlocution Office is connected to the movement of earth, sea, sky, and our civilized world. 


This week, several earthquakes have occurred in Europe, in Italy, Greece, Norway and a small one in Ireland. Now, I knew there had been an earthquake before it was on the news in Ireland. I do not know why I knew, but I have been through a sizable one in Alaska , and my cats knew it was happening before we did. In Alaska, the walls of my apartment were going one way and the floor another. Days of aftershocks occurred as well.  I also experienced one in Illinois, which cracked my fireplace in the living room in 2004. Maybe I am like a cat in this regard, as my parents who were visiting me slept through it. I woke up,  heard it coming, like a wave on the sea, rumbling in, and felt it under the house, rush through the earth like the wave. Yesterday, I looked at the ceiling to see if the mini-chandeliers were moving, and I listened for the rumble. Nothing. But, I knew something had happened at about 1:00 AM, I knew it slightly before the time. This was one of many I detected in my life, the first being in Iowa, yes, Iowa, in 1968. I was in a bank at the time, and I saw the walls moving. Some people did not notice. I notice these things. Iowa, Alaska, Illinois, Ireland, there is probably no place in the world which has not experienced at least minor earthquakes.


I have also been in places where many tornadoes occurred, as I grew up in a tornado belt area. In one week, we experienced five tornadoes in north-west Iowa. One man died in a town where I was living, as he was picked up by a tornado and flung a half-mile away.  And, I was in Mississippi and New Orleans after Katrina, and personally saw the devastation.  I was living in Ealing when the great British Storm happened in 1987. I woke up just before that hit and told my husband we were going to have a tornado. He laughed at me, and said England did not have tornadoes, and fell back to sleep. Hundreds of trees fell in Ealing that day. But, as horrible as cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes are, there seems to be something really uncanny about the earth moving. One can, if one has warning, get into a cellar or place of safety during a tornado, but in an earthquake one stands in a door jam, hoping for the best. In Alaska, my son, holding Puddy the cat, and me, holding Vladimir the cat, (after we caught them), stood in an apartment doorway for several minutes. If it had been worse, there really was no shelter.



Why some people are more sensitive to these things before or during, if the natural movement of the earth is mild, I do not understand. Some are more sensitive, that is all. The sensitive ones would not work in a Circumlocution Office.

But, the reason for these ramblings is that I want to make a spiritual connection to sensitivity about things around us. I am surrounded by people in denial about the economic situation in Europe. They believe in fairy tales told to them by bankers, politicians, even priests. I am surrounded by people who cannot see the decline of the West, the breakup of European countries, or the coming persecution of the Catholic Church in America, or the moral bankruptcy of this Millennial Generation. I am surrounded by Catholic people who plan ahead for holidays next year without any thought of their souls, the souls of their spouses, children, parents. They are living as they always have, and cannot see or sense that their lives may change drastically in a mere few months. They do not want to see. They are drunk with power or comfort or stupidity. They are drugged with complacency or fear. They are caught in a cultural inertia. They are caught in the Circumlocution Office.

The times are not "business as usual". I do not think we have had "business as usual" since before 1973. We are in crises in most of the levels of culture and civilization which marked the downfalls of hundreds of nations before us. Like those who cannot feel the earthquakes coming or sense the tornadoes, it is, as Christ said, They did eat and drink, they married wives, and were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark: and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Luke 17:27.

I am not a Cassandra. I am a realist and an idealist at the same time. My idealism rests on the Revelation and Teaching Magisterium of the Church, on the Three Persons of the Trinity. I do not read false prophets or follow the many, even local, Irish seers. I do not follow the Internet prophecy sites. Many are liars and cult leaders, as I wrote about in one of my first postings. These unscrupulous people make money out of the weak and the desperate. I am neither weak nor desperate. However, I can sense the signs of the times. Christ and His Church make up my ark. One of my lady friends whose mind is a Circumlocution Office said to me, "You are hard on yourself." I responded that, as Christ said, in Matthew 11:12 from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.


Those who do violence to themselves, that is, fast and pray and die to self, will see the Kingdom of God. Christ challenges us to leave the Circumlocution Office of our minds and heart and become simple, like children, like Little Dorrit.


In the meantime, responsible adults must work hard to try and stop the tide of religious persecution and the loss of freedom. Some bishops have made strong statements against the present administrations war on religions-specifically the Catholic Faith, this week in the States. Many of these statements are on blogs on my blog list to the right. We need grass roots reactions, practical and spiritual. Both passive, complacency and drunkenness are irresponsible responses. Some of us can fast and pray. I dedicate this posting to the four women, and a man I know who said recently to me, "Don't talk to me about such things. I do not want to know." Their minds have become the Circumlocution Office. Their minds are full of information, some good, some useless, but they do not want to know. They are not free. They are like those in the Marshalsea Prison, who cannot see reality and do not want to do so. Their minds, like the minds of William Dorrit, Fanny and Tip, are full of self-pity and complete selfishness. Their minds, hearts, souls are trapped in "society".  Society has become their guide, their god. Little Dorrit is free, in mind and spirit, which is the appeal of her character. She is also completely selfless, loving and kind. She is a free woman in or out of the prison. Unlike all the others in her family, the prison has not tainted her mind, which is one of the paradoxes in the book.

Another phrase in Little Dorrit, is "Nobody's Fault". Misery, poverty, stupidity, lies, madness, and even murder, are "nobody's fault". Those same people who do not want to know blame everyone else for their problems. If we tolerate evil in ourselves, we shall overlook evil in others. Now, we see the logical consequences of this toleration of evil. I hope and pray evil has not won the battles we now face, although Evil has lost the War. The same people who do not want to know, do not want to know their own sin and play the victims, as do Little Dorrit's family members. Sin is never their fault. They do not want to know about themselves, others, the times, society. They are imprisoned in their own minds and hearts. They have lost the sensitivity to feel the earthquakes and cyclones. And, they will be swept away, sadly, unless they come to their senses and become free again. They are caught up in their own Circumlocution Offices.

Meditation for the days before St. Valentine's Day

I know many single people, widows, those home alone do not like Valentine's Day. But, for me, it is a day to think about Love, Who is a Person. Christ is Love. All love is from Him. The many types of positive love, such as storge, philios, eros, and agape, come from Him. If love is destructive, it is not love, but something else, like lust or selfishness or control. My generation read two Shakespearean plays every year for four years in high school. We started with Julius Caesar, moved to Macbeth, then to Romeo and Juliet, then to The Merchant of Venice, then to Othello, then to The Taming of the Shrew and ended up in our last year with Midsummer Night's Dream. I read the others in the summer, until my mother took away my books so that I would first do my chores. Happy days.

We also had to memorize some of the sonnets, at least one a semester. One of my favourite sonnets is one I had to memorize. It is about true love. I am not too old, or too jaded not to appreciate the fine sentiments here. As God is Love, He is in this poem as well as the two lovers.

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

This is the intellectuals' dream poem. This is a poem of mature love. Mature love is complete, selfless, undying, unconditional, perfect, and eternal. The  fullness of Love rests only in God,in the Indwelling of the Trinity. Those of us who have experience this, at least for fleeting moments, or as a way of life, have been blessed.

Revival of the Jewish Hero

Steven Spielberg is going to direct a Moses big, big picture, one to rival the iconic The Ten Commandments of 1956. Mel Gibson and Joe Eszterhas are working on a film about the Maccabees. These plans show a mini-trend to return to several themes which have been lost in the past decades of anti-heroes, a la James Joyce's Leopold Bloom. I grew up on Charlton Heston's Moses, as that is one of the very first movie I ever saw. The 1995 version of Moses, with Ben Kingsley is good and historically more realistic than The Ten Commandments. Some Christians like it better.

The point here, however, is not so much a comparison of interpretations of Moses, the greatest Jewish hero, but the fact that two great directors have taken on Judaic, Old Testament historical and religious figures as heroes for two important movies. We are in need of role models in the States and elsewhere, and these leaders are good, old fashioned heroes.


Moses is a hero, as well as a religious leader, and maybe that is a point of concern. He cannot be seen merely as the man, who cooperating with the Will of God, freed the Hebrews from slavery. He must be seen as "the" Prophet, who transmitted the Decalogue to the entire world-Revelation from God through Moses.

The Maccabeus clan provides us with many heroes. I am not sure what Mel Gibson will do with Judas Maccabeus, but I am looking forward to the interpretation. Those two books of the Bible are some of my favorites, and I have taught Josephus in the past, who, of course, is the great historian outside the Biblical texts not only for the Maccabean Wars, but for references to Christ. I shall be following the making of these two movies with interest. A Judaic revival of heroes is a poignant sign of the times.


PS I cannot refer to The Ten Commandments without mentioning one of the worst lines in cinematic history: "O Moses, you stubborn, you splendid, you adorable fool!" Anne Baxter's famous line to Charlton Heston-her Nefretiri to his Moses. I am sure both Gibson and Spielberg will avoid such schlock.

Lost Boys = Lost Civilizations

In America, now, almost 20% of young men from the ages of 25-34 live with their parents. In England, 25% of young men from 25-29 live with their parents. This is higher than the percentages of young women living at home in both countries.

Most pundits blame the economy is both nations, and one can say that is a factor, but that is not the main factor.

Disclaimer, my son left home at the age of 22. This should be normal. I left home at just over 23, and there was a shortage of good jobs in the early 1970s in certain areas as the baby-boomers left college and university. Still, we singles managed and without any government help.

One difference is that now parents allow this dependency and do not fight it. Parents have given up their parental authority. There is work, if one wants to do manual labor or take low-paying jobs. I know this. But, I have been told by some young people that they will not clean, do road work, work in factories, etc, which their dads and even grandads did . These young men do not want to get their hands dirty. They do not want to join the Army, Navy, or Marines. These young men do not want to suffer. They only want happy thoughts.

A second issue is more serious. The young men do not want to grow up. They simply do not want to take on responsibility for a house, a wife, children, themselves. They want the full fridge, the large screen tv, the social life of going out, the new clothes. We budgeted. I think this word has been forgotten. We paid cash in the days before the crazy use of credit, which really did not start until the 1980s where I lived. If one did not have the cash, one did not go out, or buy clothes, or drink, whatever.

I consider this desire to remain a Peter Pan the main reason for young men staying at home. There are other opportunities, which these “boys” are not considering. They can emigrate. One of my friends' sons who is 26 went to Australia, and is making excellent money in electrical engineering. He claims there are many jobs for men who want to work in building, contracting, plumbing, electrical work, etc. Many of our ancestors went to America for jobs and careers. What happened to the old pioneer spirit? I blame parents for coddling their kids and for being selfish. When a mom does not let go of her son, or her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, she is selfish. Here in Ireland, there are many Polish youth working in menial jobs, while there are Irish boys walking around doing nothing. What has happened to the work ethic? 

It was hard to let go of my son, but he is a man. I am proud of him. He is doing what he should be doing, following his role in society, taking responsibility for his finances, his future. He thinks of me and others, and not merely of himself. We do not live in the same country. This is sometimes what men have to do to be men-go where they will thrive.

This is normal behavior. The Peter Pan syndrome is sick and ruining both America and England. And, as a woman, I say, who wants to even date Peter Pan? The handwriting is on the wall. He would not be an independent, good provider for a family. If he sponges from his mom and dad, he would sponge from his mate.

The lack of religion has a lot to do with the Peter Pan syndrome. If a man does not have to take responsibility for sexual activity because of the Pill , he avoids growing up. He remains with the Lost Boys, and at least they lived away from their mom and dads in Neverland. 

The last issue to review is the social welfare state which allows young men to get money without working. Take a look at some towns in Kent. Young men are out, walking the streets, not working, but they have girlfriends, and smoke, and generally act like they deserve a living doing nothing. Socialism takes away personal pride and personal initiative. More than a hundred years of Church teaching from the Popes warned the West of the evil of socialism undermining the individual's need to work and the dignity of work. Now we see the result-in our lost boys. We shall see the complete denouement in the collapse of Western Civilization in these countries.

The Fractio

IBERA nos, quaesumus, Domine, ab omnibus malis, praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris: et intercedente beata et gloriosa semper Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria, cum beatis Apostolis tuis Petro et Paulo, atque Andrea, et omnibus Sanctis, da propitius pacem in diebus nostris: ut ope misericordiae tuae adjuti, et a peccato simus semper liberi, et ab omni perturbatione securi. 

ELIVER us, we beg Thee, O Lord, from every evil, past, present, and to come; and by the intercession of the Blessed and glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and of the holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, and of Andrew, and of all the Saints, mercifully grant peace in our days, that through the assistance of Thy mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all disturbance

The priest then breaks the Host and says,

Per eumdem Dominum nostrum Jesus Christum Filium tuum. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus.

Through the same Jesus Christ, They Son, our Lord. Who with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth God.

This, the fractio, or the fraction, is my favorite part of the Mass after the Consecration. The poignant breaking of the Consecrated Host fills me with sadness and dread.

This action is to imitate the breaking of the Bread, the Body of Christ by Christ at the Last Supper. However, for me, this is the breaking of Christ's Own Body in the Passion, and the breaking of His People, the Church, into different groups. The pain of the fraction, in Late Latin, fractio, is the pain of the Broken Christ. It is, at this moment, that I can see the betrayal of Judas breaking Christ's Heart, the horrible, fake trial, the scourging, the crowning of thorns,the long road to Calvary, the execution by crucifixion all in that small gesture. In addition, I see the Protestant Revolt, those killed in Germany, the martyrs of England, Scotland and Wales, and even today's persecuted brothers and sisters in Egypt, Nigeria, Somalia, Indonesia, China, and I see the broken bodies of the babies after abortions.

The fractio resounds, When the priest breaks the Host and I hear the break, the sound rings out not only in the Church but down through the ages to the ruining of Fountains and Glastonbury, to the fires of Nero's Rome, to the very steps of the Praetorium in Jerusalem in 33 A.D.

And, today, on this Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, was he not broken of hatred, pride and false fanaticism? Are we not broken and humbled in order to be with Our Lord?

The fractio continues, daily, hourly, in every Catholic Church in the world. Christ is being broken over and over and over again. This is His Redemptive Act for us. We must enter into His suffering, becoming part of that fractio, now and forever until we are renewed in the Land of the Everlasting Joy, Heaven.


And, as a postscript, frequently, at least three times a week, I am given the half of the broken Host which the priest has held up for all to see-Ecce Homo. I feel part of that ministry to support priests in anyway that I can, and I pray daily for priests and seminarians. God bless you all.

On this Post-Post Modern Generation: Oscillation into Self-Organization and Out Again

One of my young readers and friends stated that his generation (he is 23) are not Marxists or communists, or capitalists, or socialists, or Post-Modernists, but Post-Post-Modernists. Now, as he is in another generation, that of the emerging youth, I need to think about this. He blatantly stated that his friends do not care about Lenin, or Gramsci, or Obama, even though many of them voted the present president into office. My young friend claims that some of the same youth who voted in POTUS are now Ron Paul libertarians. If he is correct, then his assessment that his generation is made up of Post-Post-Moderns, (from now on called PPMs) is also correct. Why?

The PPMs are seen as a group with an "oscillating" or "moving polar philosophy" which goes between extremes of individualism (games) and group sectarianism (fanatic religions), anarchy (Occupy Rome) and totalitarianism (global markets and global economy buffs), relativism and orthodoxy (obvious), cynicism and sincerity or idealism ( The Daily Show and  EWTN ) and so on. His labeling seems to be spot-on when one examines these young people as individuals and as a group, which is hard, as the hegemony of the culture is gone and there are less and less real groups. Groupings tend to be based on small, very small, precious or keen interests, such as anime groups, animal rights groups, pro-life groups, anti-war groups, and so on. There is not necessarily any overlap of morals, ethics, world-view, religions, or philosophies in these groups. Individuals come together to form these groups for a time and five years is considered a long time. (Youth always thinks five years is a long time). They oscillate until they create self-organization, like the above nano-particles. And, like these particles, their organization may be based on reactions only, and not rational discourse, or even passionate emotions. I have seen this type of behavior in the college classroom, where reactive groups form quickly and dissipate as quickly. Young ones reacting against something rarely have a solid sense of who they are, either as individuals or as a group.

I think my friend is onto something. The PPMs are fluid for exactly the same reason my generation was not. How we were and how they were raised in the home created these mind-sets and ways of life. We were strongly conservative or liberal, country western or classical, Catholic or Lutheran, democrats or monarchists, Marxists or Catholics and so on. We chose to be (we were Pre-Post-Moderns) something, even if it was opposite our parents.

However, the differences between oscillation and surety lies in these facts. Number one, we did not believe in the Decline of the West-we loved the West. We were optimists as youths. Two, we were not relativists, nor subjectivists, but strove for objectivity and the rational. Three, we did not trust our emotions. Four, we belonged to stable groups, such as large families, parishes with continuity in the Mass, schools with Classical Education, and a pride in all of that. Five, we knew who we were. We had a core of being based on our training and discipline in the home. We did not have to totally invent ourselves. Our moms and dads loved us and we knew it, but we had to prove ourselves. We had to measure up and succeed.

The PPMs have to invent themselves. They have not had the core of being created for them and with them in the family or parish or school. They lack a framework for judging between good and evil, good taste and bad taste, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false, and so on. So, they vacillate, they oscillate in ideas and taste, like a little boat on the sea skimming the waves in order to find the berth which will give a comfort zone.

I once thought America, and maybe Europe, would see civil wars. Now, I doubt it. PPMs could not support one side for long. But, then, I think not all this generation of  PPMs are PPMs. How do we know if they keep changing? To be continued....

Disclaimer: I do not have a television. I have never seen CC. My PPM friends do and have.

Congratulations to Father Cassian of Norcia

Inside the Vatican has chosen Fr. Cassian Folsom of Norcia as one of the "Ten Persons of the Year". Congratulations. Here is the good news. Of course, these monks celebrate the Tridentine Mass of the ages.

The pursuit of the virtual replaces the pursuit of virtue

I know that I am going to make a lot of people angry or at least, irritated, with this post. However, with a following membership of 10 million people worldwide, it is time to look at World of Warcraft as a cult and not merely an online game. I have read the manual and looked at the game in order to understand the attraction it holds for many people and not merely the young. I am not going to emphasize lurid stories of marriage breakups, deaths, etc. regarding WoW, but only look at some of the characteristics of a cult with regard to this game.

First, I am admitting that I am changing the accepted definition of cult from the outset, as a cult usually is started by one charismatic figure, as already noted on this blog. However, the charism of the originators can be seen in the eclectic appeal and the use of many threads of myth and the occult, as well as violence and intrigue. Those inventors of the game obviously used popular modes of entertainment and popular literature in the genre of fantasy to create a complicated and appealing game.

Like a good German philosopher, I am provoking new definitions of cult.

I do not doubt the genius of the writers and artists, the logicians and who else were involved in the creation of WoW. I am questioning the power of the appeal and how it falls into the category of a cult.

Second, having thrown out the initial part of the definition, I move to the second part, which indicates that a cult has a religious basis. Reading the manual, it was clear to me that such things as spells were to be used and taken seriously in the game. Much of the game involves characters who are wizards or even necromancers. Already, a Catholic would have a "huh?" moment of enlightenment knowing that some of the characters fall in to the tried and true characterizations of damned behavior. Parallels are made with LOTR or even The Hobbit, but in those books and subsequent games, the powers of evil and good are clearly defined, and there is no such thing as good being confused with bad. No relativism in those books, movies, games and soon to be legos....:). Some people who state the opposite, that the spells are not taken seriously and are arbitrary, that is, not connected to an obvious evil source, such as Sauron in LOTR. Relativism is the secular idea that there is no good or bad except what one decides, and this modernist heresy is part of the ethos of WoW. If it were clearly defined what was necessary evil, and that, for example necromancy was always evil and never good, this problem would be solved. This is not the case. Some activities are always objectively evil according the Catholic teaching AND natural law philosophy.

Third, I have been puzzled by the use of unnecessary and extreme violence in the game. Those who are familiar with the game know these uses of violence. Some young people disagree with me on this point, stating that the ratings of teen was based not on violence but on drunkenness in the game. Some twenty-somethings say the cartoon and out-dated graphics make it less violent. But, as one NOT immune to violence, I find it disturbing.

Fourth, a cult changes peoples personalities and takes them into another realm of false reality. That is the entire point of this game. In cults, people get a new identity to the point where family members state that they do not even know the brother, sister, son, etc. any more after cult involvement. One of the signs of an occult is the addictive or compulsive behavior it causes in its members. One cannot live outside the cult, one defends the cult, one loses one's rational ability to critique the cult, all one's friends are in the cult and so on. WoW with shrinking membership is still a group of 10 Million. These people must play the game. To me, this is a sign of cultic brainwashing and addiction.

Fifth, ritual is a huge part of the game. Players get involved personally in these rituals in order to be the characters, etc. These rules and rituals create a vocabulary which is bizarre and particular to WoW. This fact alone is a sign of a cult. The topic will form a part of another posting in the near future.

Sixth, the game is a community just as a cult is a community, of closed membership, demanding certain commitments, to the point of becoming the most important interactive group of friends, relationships, in a person's life. The fact that it is virtual does not mean that this is less real than the Moonies or Heaven's Gate. The WoW community can become and does become the arena where people are accepted unconditionally without moral or any other type of outside input. The VIRTUAL has taken over the pursuit of VIRTUE. For example, in the days of chivalry and knighthood, the knight had to go through certain rituals in order to become a man capable of being knight. The same is still true for pursuing a career or a vocation. It takes six years to become a doctor, for example, after undergraduate school, and the same for becoming a priest. The preparation can be longer. The purification of the intellect necessary for forming a good conscience and the purification of the emotions necessary for becoming a man or woman who is mature takes time and energy wasted in the virtual world. What is truly based on a life of virtue has been lost in the game.

WoW which is from the manipulation of the community or rules of the game. Manipulation is only efficacious if; one, the person agrees to it; and two, if it is coherent. One of my young friends noted that all sport is manipulative to a certain extent. He wrote:

Shane Warne manipulated cricket for two decades by bowling a ball that no batsman could handle. As long as he was physically and mentally fit, he was unbeatable. That's not a problem with the game - merely an exceptional man with exceptional ability.

I may disagree with him on this point, but I say that cults attract people who are manipulable. That is the success of a cult. Those heavily independent minded people are not attracted to cults. However, some extremely intelligent and good people are, by the very fact that they are idealists and have a need for a community who agrees with their ideals. I think the point is that the cult is self-selecting.

WoW has or had people in the game who “policed it” and this in itself indicates to me it is a cult. Those who were policing it were still “in reality”. The fact that some left the real world is scary.

Abortion

The money behind the abortion industry has won the day in Great Britain. The ruling from the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP), allows private clinics to advertise abortion services on the television and radio . Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, among other statements, said that “Broadcasters will be making profit through advertising revenue off the back of a service which ends life. It’s appalling.”

Can we call Great Britain a civilized nation? Can we?

In addition, one can see the connection between greedy interests and abortion. The statistics for our missing children can be found on LifeSiteNews. In addition, those who want POTUS's views on abortion today, only have to look at his speech this weekend, stating that abortion basically gives opportunities to women. Murder for opportunities...and greed. His views can be found here.  


When I taught religion, I used to open my first day of class with this observation. I would ask, "Where are the other 25% of your classmates?" This would start a discussion of why so many kids dropped out of my class. After a short discussion, I would say, "They are not here, because they were murdered." You could have heard a pin drop.

Tebow "in" Ireland

There cannot be a mom in America who would not be proud to have Tebow for a son. He works hard, he is articulate, he is generous, he is pro-life, he prays, he loves Jesus Christ, His Lord and Savior. And, today, he "made" it into the bulletin of our local church. I have an excuse to use some of the photos I have been collecting of this young man. Today's Gospel from Mark 1:14-20 in the NO is the calling of the disciples. I use Matthew for my references here. Now, granted, not all, as St. Paul points out in his epistles, are called to be apostles. Paul was, as he notes in 1 Corinthians 1:1-Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

Some of us are called to be teachers, mothers, wives, husbands, doctors, engineers, lawyers, fathers, priests,  prophets, or athletes. Wherever we are called, we are to witness to Christ's love and mercy in our lives. 

St. Josemaria Escriva wrote,

In order to love and serve God, it is not necessary to do extraordinary things. Christ asks all men without exception to be perfect as His heavenly Father is perfect (cf. Mt 5: 48). For the great majority of men, to be holy consists of sanctifying their work, to sanctify themselves in their work, to sanctify others with work, and also to find God on the road of their life.

And from Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 4 almost identical to Mark we hear today:

And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea (for they were fishers).

    ¹⁹And he saith to them: Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men.

    ²⁰And they immediately leaving their nets, followed him.

    ²¹And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets: and he called them.

    ²²And they forthwith left their nets and father, and followed him.

The radical call to be an apostle is the call of the priest. Most of us are called to discipleship, to learn, to follow, to witness in the ordinariness of our daily lives. Let us look at Tebow and not forget what type of impact we can have on the world, even if ABC, NBC or CNN are not filming us. God knows our hearts. Some of us have left the nets, some of us still fish daily, some of us cook the fish...do whatever in and with the Love of Christ. I pray that Tebow, through his example of manly discipleship, will inspire a young man today in the Catholic Church to become a priest. We need more apostles to lead us disciples.

By the way, pray for Abdullah al-Sabah of Kuwait (probably not his real name), who has just converted and become a disciple of Jesus Christ. For some, this decision is the loss of fame and fortune, and maybe more.

   

As an ex-Illinois resident, I am not surprised...

Mirror of Justice, on my blog list, should be checked out daily. This is a snippet of a comment on the recent blast of war trumpets against the Catholics' freedom of conscience by POTUS. Robert George posted this at the end of his entry.

Pro-life citizens, including many Catholics, who in 2008 allowed themselves to be persuaded that Obama wouldn't, as his critics warned, push abortion hard and run roughshod over the religious liberty and rights of conscience of Catholics and other pro-life citizens and their institutions, have now gotten a rude awakening. His administration revealed its contempt for religious freedom and the rights of people and communities of faith when it embraced an extreme and utterly untenable position on the ministerial exemption in the Hosanna-Tabor case.  In case anyone thought that was some sort of isolated mistake, the President's abortifacient and contraception mandate leaves the matter in no doubt.

In 2012, it is no longer possible to sustain illusions about what Obama and his people mean to do to us. They are already doing it.  "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Plan, Read, Pray, Act, Be Intelligent

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

And, Ireland is being really stupid. It is going to become an Islamic financial hub.  Read this on the buying and selling of  Islamic bonds, etc. in Ireland. How to lose one's sovereignty, is to lose one's currency to shariah compliant initiatives. Follow the money. And, Great Britain and Luxembourg did not get into this buying of these bonds, as the powers that be are a bit smarter. Greediness brought this on. What happened in the Sudetenland started with a lack of jobs in Germany and the Nazi take over of the imaginations of the German and Austrian people with regard to financial expansion. Edvard Benes used to meet in my Grandma's kitchen and discuss such things. The Czech economy was ruined by the Sudetenland take-over, but now there are more subtle means of doing the same thing.

The Beginning of the Gulag; stage 3-vilification

There have been since World War II, psychologists and sociologists who have defined stages of persecution for religions. The first is stigmatizing the targeted group. This has already happened in the United States under the present administration, who has labelled pro-life people as terrorists and those against same-sex marriage as prejudiced. Secondly, the government marginalizes Catholics in their role in society by taking away freedom of speech and by stating that personal conscience has no rights in law. That is what happened today and with Roe v. Wade. Third, the Catholics are vilified for alleged crimes or misconduct. This was in the language of the law today. Look at the press follow-up, here in this television report on the SPLC stating that all pro-life and anti-gay actions are hate groups. Jewish, Catholic, Black and White pastors are against this vilification. If you think I am into exaggeration look at the Southern Poverty Law Center's statement through this link here.

The fourth step will be a criminalization of the Church's stance on lgtb rights, abortion, contraception, etc. Wait and see in one year where these new laws take us. And, finally, the out and out persecution of the Church in martyrdom.


These categories are taken from PERSECUTION: HOW LIBERALS ARE WAGING WAR AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. By David Limbaugh


If we do not pay attention now, we have only ourselves to blame when all our liberties are gone. 

Losing Religious Freedom in the United States

This is too horrible to pass up. The Federal Government today announced two things. First, birth control pills will be free to all women in the States. Second, religious institutions must pay for birth control pills  The Washington Times story included this quotation: The decision is “a radical incursion into freedom of conscience,” said Deirdre McQuade, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Never before in U.S. history has the federal government forced citizens to purchase directly what violates their beliefs.”

and

Representing some 600 hospitals, the Catholic Health Association expressed disappointment.
and
Workplace health plans will have to cover all forms of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ranging from the pill to implantable devices to sterilization. Also covered is the morning-after pill, which can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex and is considered as tantamount to an abortion drug by some religious conservatives.


This is an assault of the freedom of conscience for millions of Americans and for those institutions, such as colleges and universities which do not pass out abortifacients. All I can say is that those Catholics who voted for Obama in 2008 brought this upon the Church. This is the tyranny of the Left. (see Gramsci post below). One brave bishop prophesied this years ago and told Catholics if they voted for Obama, they had to consider their salvation. Click here.

A Land Under the Fog of Hatred

Last night in Londonderry, two Republican bombs were exploded. People in the area were evacuated quickly. This was not the headline in this morning's issue of the Irish Times online, but in the Wall Street Journal.

In the month I have been here, I have, almost daily, heard people, including women, go on about British occupation. I am sick of hearing about The Troubles. I am sick of the unforgiveness among Catholics, who like the "moderate" Muslims, do not condemn sectarian violence. Ireland is rotting from the inside out from hatred, prejudice and unforgiveness.

I lost family in both world wars. My grandmother's family, in what is now the Czech Republic, disappeared and their houses and land, and some were wealthy, confiscated by, first the Germans and then, the Russians. We assume many members of the family, most politically active, perished in the Holocaust. Some of my ancestors were Jews from Bratislava. We never knew what happened. I do not hate Germans and I do not hate Russians. I have personally experienced betrayal from someone I thought was my best friend, not once, but more than once. I forgave. I had to do so, as I was commanded by God to forgive. If we are obedient, we forgive.

I am reminded of the anime Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a powerful story based on the Dumas novel of hatred and revenge. It is terrifying. It is "true". In the anime version, the Count is overtaken by a demon. But, he already had some-the demons of revenge and unforgiveness. Thankfully, there is redemption at the end. That is what we desire, redemption, not revenge.

Four members of my family were abused by a priest for years. These family members never sued, and are still Catholic and raised their children Catholic. They forgave. They exhibit heroic virtue, as we all must.

Forgiveness is the necessity of all Catholics, all Christians, all Jews. Those who do not forgive will not see the Face of God. Matthew 6:15 But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.

God said that. He means it. The evil of unforgiveness is that we become God. We play God. Here is the Count in the anime speaking:

Count of Monte Cristo: No show is as captivating as the death of a human being.

Count of Monte Cristo: Is it not as though we have become God?

I call this Evil. Like Lucifer, the Count was playing God.

Living among a people who dwell in unforgiveness is something I could not do for any length of time. I have never met, in modern times, people more prejudice than the Irish Republicans, and I lived in Missouri and Mississippi. The language of hate is in the speech like a reoccurring motif in poetry-except that it is deadly to those who speak it. Forgiveness creates healing. Forgiveness opens the door for reconciliation. It does not matter what or who on "the other side" do or not do. The power of forgiveness is in our hearts to use or not to use. Politicians here use the language of hate towards the Church, as the land is full of hatred. The beauty of Ireland is hidden in the fog of unforgiveness.

The Ultimate Failure of Transformational Marxists

Some of you have wondered when I was going to write my anti-Gramsci articles here. Well, here is the first of many. I wrote on this before many years ago and now it is time to dig in and get dirty on this blog. Here is where some of my information is from, but not all, as some is my own construct over the years. Also, there is another link below for summaries.There are many sites on Gramsci if one wants a bibliography, I can send one on request. But, the letters are key. Just remember that the key to understanding all of this is that the ideology is based on materialism, that there is no spiritual world. The old Marxism is not exactly the same as Gramsci's ideas, except in the denial of the spiritual and the emphasis on pragmatism, but that denial of a spiritual hierarchy is key. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, "Communism is based on a materialistic and humanistic view of life and history. According to Communist theory, matter, not mind or spirit, speaks the last word in the universe. Such a philosophy is avowedly secularistic and atheistic. Under it, God is merely a figment of the imagination, religion is a product of fear and ignorance, and the church is an invention of the rulers to control the masses. Moreover, Communism, like humanism, thrives on the grand illusion that man, unaided by any divine power, can save himself and usher in a new society--"

Gramsci wrote that "the mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence … but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organiser, "permanent persuader" and not just a simple orator…"  See above. Here is where the Chomskyites and Alinskyites come in. with grass roots political and social activism. But, there is more...The intellectuals were not merely to be in academia, or politics, but everywhere, changing the philosophical roots of the culture from within. Again, the emphasis is on pragmatism and what works in the relationships between people and groups of people,such as labor unions. However, what actually binds people together to want to do things together is a less than satisfactory explanation, being basically the historical context of "subjectivism", lacking any hierarchical ideology and denying any universals. In other words, humans create their own reality which changes constantly in history and context. This is a variation of the heresy of immanentism, which states that there is no God outside of man, and leads to the complete denial of God. Of course, if all meaning and history are created by humans, there is no God or plan outside the temporary. Historicism is a combination of immanentism and false progressivism or evolutionism, all condemned by Pope St. Pius X in his encyclical against Modernism (Star-Trek theories). Simplified here and here.

Gramsci also wrote of what he called his idea of infiltrating the media, the Church, journalism, schools, universities, the judiciary and so on. In the posting below on Levin a day ago, one can see how this has happened in government and political theory.  Georg Lukacs, Gramsci's follower, was the one who came up with the idea of sex education as undermining Christianity in the culture. One can see that in Ireland today, with the push to end Catholicism in schools. This has already happened in England. These ideas have been part of the elite of education in America, in Great Britain and now, in Ireland since the 1950s. By placing anti-Christian curricula in the schools such as anti-abstinence and pro-homosexuality, the Christian, and specifically, the Catholic religion would be destroyed in the culture. Now, this is mainstream. In addition, Latin and Greek were to be removed from the curricula, so that the continuity of Catholic and Western culture would be destroyed. All this has happened. It happened a long time ago when my brothers were in high school, and now they are in their early fifties. They did not get Classical Education. Some of these references are here.

I had Classical Education, including Latin, and world history, as well as Church history, logic, ethics, civics, Plato, Aristole, etc.  I was in the last generation to get the pre-Gramsci education, which was based on the Jesuits and on the Catholic-based Western Civilization. The destruction is now all but complete. All this was done in the name of "democracy" and the destruction of elitism. Anyone who decries elitism is a Gramscian at heart. In the early 2000s, I had a little business as a curriculum consultant, helping schools either move back to Classical Education or created new schools in this mode. Many people did this at the college level, like the founders of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, or Wyoming Catholic, or Thomas More College. It works. Young people learn how to think and how to preserve the beauty of Western Civilization. They discern the Marxist fallacy of class warfare in the present milieu and the nihilism of Post-Modernism. 

A drop in the ocean, I am afraid, are these efforts, as the powers that be are outlawing independence in education and outlawing home schooling. Look at developments this week in Sweden. The term "social engineering" has come to mean many things, but in academia and in politics, it means the appropriation of Gramsci and Lukacs' ideals of infiltration and destruction, of the emphasis on the pragmatic and not the person. In the construction of a new society based on relationships, this destruction of frameworks of relationship seems counter-productive. But, for Gramsci, humans are capable of inter-relating without religion or even metaphysics of any kind. I always wonder when reading this why people would bother to work for such a society.

Why? Because these men hate the Church and Western Civ, they set out to destroy both, knowing what Belloc so succinctly wrote that  "The Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith."  Thanks to Gramsci and others, like Kant, we barely have the Faith and we barely have Europe....Gramscians deny that he intended to destroy culture, but I cannot see that his explanations and plans mean anything but that as a consequence of human activity to set up a society without Faith or the culture based on that Faith. Herein lies a paradox in Gramsci.

When I met my first true follower of Gramsci he said to me. "One cannot be a scholar and a Catholic." The implication was that only those who had thrown off the tyranny of the teaching of the Church, of Aquinas, Bonaventure, Augustine, even Maritain or Gilson, could one think. Not so, as Gramsci himself needed the past to resconstruct or rather desconstruct Western society. He relied on the writings of some of the "great books", the same he seemed to decry. The Gramscian error lies in the fact that the Marxist has just accepted another ideology in place of the teachings of the Catholic Church, and one more illogical and self-serving than that of the Church. Gramsci's emphasis on intellectuals and activists leading society away from the Church and Western Civilization just replaces one ideal system for his own. The error lies in the denial of the basic premises of natural law philosophy and the desire of the human will for freedom from social engineering. Over and over, he writes about historicism, mentioned above, the idea that humans get their identity from societal relationships and not from nature. In this sense, Gramsci is the arch-relativist, the grave error of the American educational systems today. He is a relativist also in so far as he does not believe in the absolute materialism of the Marxist, but a created, practical materialism. This pragmatism may be where one sees Gramsci being influenced by Machiavelli, the ultimate pragmatist. However, even with relativism or utilitarianism,  a backlash comes eventually and the backlash is barbarism. The only idea that has historically changed the barbarian is Christianity.

The reason why barbarism is the ultimate failure of Gramsci's desire for atheistic communism is that the lowest common denominator of a human mode of being emerges from the death of the West.  Communism and historicism fall to the armies of complete selfish, narcissistic individuals who only think of themselves and not the common good. Ergo, the Russian mafia. There is no longer a common good. There is no state to adore. This is complete Post-modernist deconstructionism and nihilism. In the post-society, the only remaining ideals are the death-wish and the desire for power. Interestingly enough, Gramsci was against worship of the state and believed that the proletariat could rule without such an organization. He thought that a regulated society could rule itself-this is the false ideal of utopianism, see post below on Levin's book. Order does not spring out of mere pragmatism. In fact, I would state that relativism and atheistic anarchy comes out of utilitarianism. Here is the difference between Michelle and POTUS. She is a true Alinksy activist and he is a narcissist. However, they both fall into the Gramsci camp of relativism.

Sadly, all of the idealism of the Gramscian falls to the neo-barbarians desires for personal, physical satisfaction and the death-wish. What Gramsci and his followers fail to take into consideration is raw evil, or Evil, if one can be so primitive as to believe, as I do , that Evil is a Person, who is pure spirit. The idealism of the Marxist or neo-Marxist cannot stand up against the greed and hatred of the world, the flesh and the devil. It doesn't matter in the long run, as the Marxist, as well as Evil, desires the destruction of the West and the Catholic Church. Marxism undoes itself by unleashing deeper powers, such as one understands in the dabbling of the occult. There is always something under the atheism and narcissism. But, those who deny the spiritual world. those who are complete materialists, overlook this important concept. In that spiritual world is found naked power. In the praxis of history and human activity, as described by Gramsci, there is no accounting for this evil. However, evil exists. It states, "Non serviam" I will not serve. Jeremiah 2:20--"Of old time thou hast broken my yoke, thou hast burst my bands, and thou saidst: I will not serve. For on every high hill, and under every green tree thou didst prostitute thyself."

That is what the neo-barbarians understand. Naked power does not need an ideology in order to succeed. Power just wants power. However, the good news is that such power undoes itself. It self-destructs over and over again. That is the nature of evil-it cannot create, it can only destroy. But, destroy, it does.