Fight Starts Here

As we remember warriors who donated their lives for this now fallen Republic, we must not forget that no accident of time explains that this previous Sunday marked the Holy Church’s nativity. From this commemoration of persons and nation must arise awareness of truth that leads to right action. Any fight for the resurrection of this noble undertaking known as the United States must begin at the altar of the Supreme Ruler of Nations. Furthermore, any attempt to achieve the same result apart from Him will perforce be smashed and subsumed into Darkness.

The former Republic’s own cultural Protestantism, present since Jamestown, overcame her. Instigated by Martin Luther, the subversion of ecclesial authority established the radically erroneous theology that man could access the divine, and therefore his own salvation, apart from the teachings of the one Church established by Christ. Falsely but consistently, it followed that if man could construct a church that would save him, then the state (like Tudor England) could create a church to justify its own capricious and immoral fiats. Puritan dissidents simply compounded this error by founding a new society on their own self-justifying authority. The problem here is obvious: on what basis can self-justifying authority reckon with truth? It simply cannot. Neither can it escape the circular logic of its own inception. The Protestant apologist is like one who says of himself, “I’m right because I know that I am right” or “I’m right because I utterly depend on my own righteousness”.  A simple inquiry obliterates his edifice, what if he errs? To answer correctly is to admit that any and all human error committed under the Protestant auspice will replicate and broaden in scope without any possibility of reckoning with objective truth. Since A.D. 1607, such is the functional heresy of Protestantism comprising the main ingredient of American culture. 

Even that marvel of standard-setting in good governance, the now defunct United States Constitution, could only hold sway for 235 years against such cultural toxicity. No one was immune to protestantizing, not even the immigrant members of the Roman Catholic Church and their descendants. Cultural Protestantism succeeded magnificently in its seduction, called assimilation. It adulterated good catechesis and otherwise sound Catholic instruction (pre-Vatican II) into an ethos of making Catholics into successful Americans. To assimilate into a protestantized culture is to make oneself protestant in mindset. To think as a protestant is to act as a protestant. The supreme instantiation of such logic is America’s widespread subsumption into that satanic anti-Eucharist known as artificial contraception. From Lambeth to Winnipeg to Land o’ Lakes, relativistic and self- justifying moralities replaced true holiness with supposed evidence of being saved, material success. False holiness leads to false worship. If morality is based on one’s own interpretation, and holiness is made manifest by one’s acquisition of material wealth to the exclusion of procreation, then the worshipper ipso facto adores himself to the exclusion of Almighty God. Enter the Catholic Modernist heretic (the ordained apostate) to provide the patina of righteousness and moral cover for the above putrefaction.  Contraception cast the American male into the dark wilderness of his lusts, made his lawful wife into concubine, and his children fatherless; so has profligacy been appended to the culture of self-worship. Thus the Protestant error, with necessary attendance by Modernist Catholic sentimentalities, progressed inexorably to the present-day state of affairs. It has been Protestant culture’s bent toward self-justifying morality sans authority that has led to degenerate autotheism, and likely onward to a militant nihilism.

This likely next phase is one in which the nihilist does not merely contemplate nothing as his final end, but actively pursues it by forcing others to engage in mutually self-destructive acts both public and private, with impacts both on his natural being and the final destination of his spirit. Using government force to pronounce sanctity upon acts of sodomy sounds the drumbeat to the dark and cannibalistic dance with death of the militant nihilist. Thus, fundamental errors of self-justifying authority inevitably magnify from the initial self-justification of objective truth (the relatively decent and moral culture of the Founders), to self-justification of that which is objectively false: evolution, self-perfection, eugenics, - birth control. Over the course of ten generations, Protestantism’s kernel of spiritual error deforms culture into one of self worship, which devolves into self-annihilation.  We at present live out the inexorable result of that same Protestant error from which only the Holy Trinity’s Second Person can save us, and not even the most robust of social contracts – the now defunct Constitution of the United States – can do likewise.

Restoration of the republic can only begin at the altar of Christ. Attempting to do otherwise is to live the unhappy discovery that “apart from me you can do nothing”. A thing cannot give what it does not have. A nation whose degenerates outnumber persons decent by untold margins cannot yield a swarm of hardy and fearless patriots. However, genuine hope can be found by those who first set about to restore the Church’s members. Human history’s one true dreadnought, having set sail 1,979 years ago yesterday, bears the Almighty’s guarantee of freedom from doctrinal error. Her navigational equipment cannot but bear her through her mission to save souls and back home again. She preaches the truth. She converted the seething and orgiastic depravity of Rome into the light of Christendom. She saw to its preservation against marauding Muslim hordes. Her promise to us is nothing less. The robustness of the Church nurtures the hope of the nation. 

If one were to address the question of whether the Republic can be resurrected, the only answer can be the result of an inquiry into the possible: in what way might be possible a new republic?  Would an overtly Catholic Constitution restore and guarantee the future of a new republic?  While not without merit, Ireland’s constitution teaches us that Modernism can infect any nation. In fact, the concept of Catholicizing a new founding document bears the imprint of the same protestant error that it would seek to avoid. Our Blessed Lord guaranteed the invincibility of His Bride. Only She has it. His promise that the Gates of Hell would fail to defeat her is not transferrable, and cannot be applied to any compact or contract between men.  What would be desirable is a document that would foster the full freedom of Catholic culture. In reality, a true and level cultural playing field is all that is needed, because an authentic, thriving Catholic presence will attract souls to the Church. In this regard, the extraordinary merits of the Constitution of the former American republic perdure. Nonetheless, the original problem of cultural Protestantism has metastasized over 235 years. The present ethos prevailing in post republican American culture, that of autotheistic degeneracy rapidly spiraling into militant nihilism, is not merely a toxic idea but an operational spiritual deformation.  Factor in the intellectual semi-literacy which affixes to the practice of self-worship and the result is a culture of degenerate stupidity remarkably impervious –nay, even hostile to- reason. A most compelling case could be made that altering or improving this dynamic has no real hope for success. Men of good will must rally at the altar, because the enemy holds firmly the public square of cultural discourse. Similarly, he who would resurrect the deceased American Republic must first anchor his efforts, his prayer, and his very being to the restoration of the human aspect of the Holy Catholic Church. Hence the question ought no longer be how to still the cultural maelstrom, but how to reach and rescue those who languish to escape from it.

These little ones who are trapped in what they know to be the lies of materialism, fornication, addiction, intellectual sophistry, crime and poverty, are to be the mustard seeds providing shelter for the birds of the air. Their uniting themselves to the Church’s mission to preach and save souls will help others who also seek to escape the dark, stinking jaws of the Culture of Death. In order for a proper place of refuge to be provided these lost little siblings, the Holy Church’s members must work (as understood to mean the work of the people, or liturgy) to restore the human component of the institution to its proper dignity. The only real hope for the souls of post-republican America is to be rescued from the deep by the frigate of the Church Militant, and her launches of royal marines who plunge into and row forward against teeming swells to effect their rescue. Let the restoration proceed: all hands on deck!

St. Brendan, pray for us.

Confronting Liturgical Thugs

The linguistic dignity of Third Edition of the Roman Missal and the beauty of Holy Mass, said and heard with reverence, completely transcend the protestantized music.  Several dozen youngsters, among them youngest offspring, process forward to receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. A father watches with that same anxious eagerness that he saw his firstborn’s clutching hands and hungry jaws latch onto the vital well-spring of love and nourishment of her mother’s breast. My son has received on his tongue! The assembly follows. For reasons unknown the associate pastor administers Holy Communion to the altar’s right, leaving this agonist the prospect of receiving the Holy Eucharist from a layman’s hand.  The moment of reception arrives and out of justice the communicant drops to his knees and, extending his tongue, presses begging hands to one another. Indifference, ignorance, or sheer idiocy causes the Body of Jesus Christ to be most literally dropped into the communicant’s mouth.  The offense is nothing less than releasing the deceased Savior’s limbs from that first high altar and dropping his body to the ground with a thud.

Less than a week previous to the above, the unconsecrated hands which write these words were engaged in the same work. An occasional hand tremor betrays fear of Almighty God and genuine dread of particular judgment. Having completed the immediate task, a dispute is observed. Out of pure charity, a woman of fifty or so is requesting that the Holy Eucharist be administered to a blind and wheelchair bound worshipper whom she apparently does not even know personally. In a deplorably extraordinary rejoinder, the EMHC initially refuses, citing some sort of procedural protocol to the effect: “we don’t go that far up the aisle,” or some such nonsense. The woman’s insistence finally induces his visibly indignant assent. Only moments later, the same bearded child reappears to my left and truculently snatches both Sacrament and ciborium from this sinner’s hands. Sadly typical of his graying generation seemed this tantrum.  This narrative only adds to others, such as a sanctimonious EMHC’s hateful look directed at the communicant who should dare to kneel when receiving; or the choirmaster’s impromptu lecture that all should sing – while the celebrant communicates with God Himself.

Whereas the reverence of this year’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper and subsequent Eucharistic adoration drew soul into peace seemingly unsurpassable, the converse abuse heaped upon Him cries out for justice. Witnessing the Body of Christ, or the Holy Church’s liturgy suffer violence, causes a seething volcano to rumble to its surface beyond the ability to quench. Desecration lights the fuse to engage in lawful and physical retribution.  Would this mean a fist fight after Mass? Most sorely tempting is the very thought. Just one time, oh, how much would be settled, on the spot! What man can stand by and watch his own mother physically assaulted?  Less a man and more seedless eunuch would he be, a bark sans anchor that meanders about but never staves sand to hold forth and cannonade. There is no moral failing for refusing to feel warm and tingly at such outrage.

How appropriate that the bearded child should be found outside the church, selling roses for Mother’s Day. How reverently he now holds the cherished cash in his right hand!  The gentle woman from Mass is also there. Unclenched hand extends for introduction as Spirit has brought outrage to heel by His peace. The ancient adolescent shakes hands but offers not his name – how pallid his skin in the May morning sun, so like a walking corpse, this one!  Having voice and all else to Spirit acquiesced, the case is made: grave scandal given before the altar. Tears gush forth from gentle sister’s eyes. How long has she waited for someone to stand up for her?

On this day, the silence ends. On this day the choking and throat-trapped rage at last thunders through the air. On this day Holy Mother Church finds herself one more little son who will speak the truth, while any less and all else forthwith and forever to Hell. On this day hapless sinner, so late in love with You, offers his very bodily being to bear You witness. To attend readiness alone remains. My most dread Lord and Sovereign Christ Jesus, Judge Supreme, High Priest Eternal: when nothing more can I give, rend me asunder for thee.

War Against Existence

The woman who once condescended to accept as husband this walking tower of human wreckage, welcomed most wonderfully the gift of several offspring. A husband’s love, with its violent urgency, momentarily surpasses time-bound existence’s cold and damp walls of language. To issue forth into his wife’s joyful acceptance is man’s happy arrival at his home-in-exile, a haven to which his wife alone lays claim, until life’s final agony. The Holy Church teaches this sacred act to be one of total donation of self for the sake of other. This burning conflagration of nuptial love, the well-spring of new human existence, ushers in a tranquil peace, albeit imperfect, between man and wife. Such devotion to other, surpassing any ability to contain, bursting forth and giving rise to a third (and perhaps fourth) person, bears the imprint of the Holy Trinity. Infinite in scope and depth, the Eternal Father’s perfectly reciprocated love for His consubstantial Son makes eternally impossible the absence of a third person: God the Holy Spirit. Unimaginable and perfect, Divine Love forever radiates within and from the Holy Trinity and ushers in the peace of perfection.

The pilgrim could meditate an entire lifetime, and with much merit, on the human blueprint’s Designer. The Catechism of the Catholic Church predicates many of Her excellent teachings on the premise that man was not created for himself alone. Bearing the image of his Creator, with mind oriented toward truth and will toward the good, the human heart is called to move beyond itself and into a state of solidarity with the suffering of the other. Conjugal union is merely one aspect of such reality.

Wherefore then, cometh the claim of the sodomite? The ruin that the operational depravity of the homosexual act wreaks upon the bodily constitution is merely the obvious and most outward manifestation of a most horrible spiritual deformation. A man’s lying with another male, as with wife, constitutes an act of mutual, self-annihilation. The one issues forth the sacred essence of his human creativity so that it mingles with the bodily waste of the other who, in turn, plays host to the spiritual crime. The homosexual act is satanically anti-creative. Whereas the husband bursts forth creatively and bodily into the ark that is his wife, the sodomite can only invert this creativity and in a tooth-clenching rasp, profanely climax into a wish for his own non-being. The spiritual depravity hidden behind this sexual travesty is a lust to undo creation itself. The homosexual act is therefore, an attempt to rebut Almighty God’s act of creation. In the aftermath of such sin can never be peace, but rather only relentless war against existence.

This anti-creativity then, becomes the hidden objective of the implacably evil advance of homosexualist public policy initiatives. The enemy, by way of degenerate culture, lawless governance, and Modernist Catholic heretics, seeks to forever destroy human souls by inducing them to affirm as truth the fallacy of undertaking to un-create. In a perversion of Natural Law, the imminent encoding of sham marriage in civil law acts as a prod to corral the public into consent to objective evil by accord of their general will. Once penned in and submitted to Darkness, the slaughter and subsequent eternal condemnation can commence. With Satan’s hand operating its choke and throttle, mutual self –annihilation becomes the internal combustion to the engine of evil government, advancing homosexuality in its war against human existence.

There is a further contortion to this wicked pursuit of non-being. If it were not impossible, would Satan un-create himself? Such a rebellion would move beyond the capture by Hell of multitudes of souls, because he desires to rebut the Creator. God, being perfect, cannot make a mistake. Therefore nothing created by God (though deformed by sin) can be a mistake. If God cannot make a mistake, then creation is irreversible, and therefore for a thing to be un-created is beyond impossible. Having been created, the infernal enemy can in fact, neither create nor un-create; but many human souls can be lost forever in the attempt to do so, and man can be deformed so badly that he will engage in the homosexual act that lusts for non-being.

Was it a meteor falling from the sky that the soon-to-be-widowered Lot escaped his city? How could so many have not seen it coming? Perverse sins cloud the intellect and destroy the conscience. Do sins of self-annihilation not cry out for a chastisement of annihilation?  The case is self-evident. Having been for generations indescribably corrupt, exactly why would the events and institutions about which we busy ourselves always be as they are now – because they now are? Such is the gibbering illogic of the insane. God cannot not be.

Holy Mother Church, Please Fire Me

Having fled the riot of irreverence that was giving rise to unconscionable acts of liturgical violence against the Holy Church, this sinful pilgrim sought refuge in a different parish. There, a scrupulously orthodox pastor presides over a reverent Novus Ordo Mass. Shortly after my arrival, he asked me to serve as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion.  Reasoning that my assent would be my properly humble acquiescence to the Church’s lawful bidding, I said, yes. 

Since that first moment of stepping onto the altar (a boundary at which I ought to stop and kneel), the following certainty has been reaffirmed, week after week: I am ontologically unfit for this work. There is one Eucharistic Minister at Mass, the Priest (along with any concelebrants also present). The work of administering His Body and Blood is the purview of the ordained: the priest, deacon or acolyte.  Being ordained is, like baptism, to undergo an existential change. The hands of the priest are most definitely unlike the hands of this sinful layman.  Alone ordained for the task, it is those hands that feed the hungry wanderer.  By what means does a beggar feed a beggar? How is it possible that I should give to others what I myself do not have?  Thus the question arises: why not withdraw consent immediately and cease?  The indestructible hull of this ship, the Holy Church, is sole hope of conveyance to everlasting life.  She sails not under my aegis, but Christ’s.  It is She who guides and corrects the concerted movements of her members, not the sinner. Therefore in the fullness of time, She will return the altar, the assembly, the choir and the language, each to its rightful place.  

Almighty Sovereign and Lord Jesus Christ, send, we beg Thee, workers for Thy harvest. Bless Thy Church with vocations yielding many more holy priests. May every altar revert to its position of addressing thee properly, and every Mass be offered in Thy Holy Church’s mother tongue. Spare Thy confused Child the judgment due for having tread upon Thy altar at that most holy moment, and for having comported himself in the manner reserved for those whom Thou Thyself hast ordained.  Make Thy will known through the voice of Thy Bride, and return every pilgrim whence they come, to the assembly, adoring and receiving thee from bended knees.  

Saint John Vianney, ora pro nobis.

Neutral No More

Almighty God with great frequency proffers his human children the opportunity to exchange lower things for higher gifts. Enveloped often around such gifts are Divine mysteries, impenetrable to the willful and worldly human heart. Not to be dissuaded by our obtuseness, reality’s Supreme and gentle Ruler creates an occasion through which He cleverly delivers His mystery-draped benefactions. Our benighted eyes and sinful hearts desperately avoid any such occasion, to which we give the name crisis.

A salesman loses his job due to the sheer caprice of those who employ him, and is initiated into a quiet duel against destitution; while no longer debarking planes in Cabo or Costa Rica, he is led to other, higher work. A teenage boy lies dazed, staring up into the desert sky. Although unknown to him at that moment, his best friend, the driver, has already departed for his particular judgement. The hand of a California Highway Patrolman rests gently upon the youth’s forehead as his grizzled countenance calmly relates, “Jesus is with you.” Prophetic utterances and indeed understatements were these words, as this moment would be later retold by the priest that boy was to become. A human being is conceived by way of a gravely sinful act. The child’s fifteen year old mother is thrown out of her home and seeks refuge in the family of the father, who himself is the object of a recruitment effort by a criminal gang. Despite the sinister and snarling maw of darkness, a fledgling family is born.

Our Creator seeks our arrival at the highest possible good, which He brings to pass by having us alight upon stations at which we pilgrim children accede to holiness higher than we previously could conceive. These successive steps of assent up His holy mountain require that we relinquish the trinkets and trash to which we so desperately cling. When stripped of the trappings of this world and battered by crisis, the seeker steps into His Agony, and into unutterable joy. Such is the mysterious bid by our Blessed Lord in the humiliating crisis of the Tenth Station of his Passion. Such is His inscrutable tender to the members of His Bride.

When everything upon which human beings believe that they inescapably depend is stripped down to its final, essential remnant, God’s work of glorifying Himself can at last begin. When stripped of the Protestant illusion of radical self sufficiency, for example, man comes to understand that the ultimate origin of his daily provision is God alone. If man did not create himself, then neither did he furnish himself with talent nor opportunity. Although he freely participates in the work of the Almighty through the exercise of his will and talent, what he owns or accomplishes must be confessed to have its basis in the persistent act of God’s affirmative will. What He gives, He also can take away. However, the painful withdrawing of a particularly beloved bestowal nearly always coincides with His offering a gift of a transcendent good. While removal of the known can create crisis and fear, the penitent’s humble accession submits the human will more perfectly and completely to the will of God. Submission, giving rise to nearer perfection, yields sanctity. Greater personal sanctity results in the magnification of the Glory of God. So must greater the result be when the members of Mystical Body, as Church, humbly accept being stripped of that spiritual jetsam to which they have become attached.

In concert with statements made by Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com, the crisis faced by the Holy Church is mild when compared to the crisis within the Church. What precisely is the purpose of religious freedom when its pursuit does not result in bold proclamations of the truth? Contraception is intrinsically evil because it obliterates family at the very moment God wills that a family have being in Him. Western Civilization nears collapse because of its insane denial that civilization and family are one in the same, and cannot exist apart from the Almighty. How hard to say can these words be? Why is this pronouncement contravened before one syllable meets the air? If the catastrophic state of affairs both within the Church and outside Her doors cannot persuade those in authority to speak the truth, then what will?   

This silence, then, becomes like the hound that didn’t bark. Truth unproclaimed is truth unbelieved. Being bereft of belief is to be bereft of faith. In the void where faith ought to flourish, the weed of Agnosticism takes root. Agnosticism spawns and replicates itself in the Church under the name of Modernism. Enter into the sanctuary, under this covert auspice, love of this world, ambition, greed, and lust for power over others. The Modernist, like a traitorous groomsman, steals into Her chamber intending to strip the Bride of her spotless gown of the sacred, to have his way with Her, and to cast her into the dark concubinage of his autotheistic error. Commanding worshippers to lower the standard of their reverence and to rise, when Justice and Majesty impels that they kneel, may well constitute blasphemy against the Spirit, especially when teaching authority is invoked to do so. Where materialism has replaced faith in positions of influence, and where contumacious refusal to convert is manifest, the Modernist cannot be expected to relinquish his position and decamp. In his eyes, far better will it be to throw out those stubborn, sanctimonious few who “cling bitterly to the past”.

Due to the influence of Agnosticism, the Modernist fears loss of worldly standing more than the loss of God. Hence he fears the wrath of government more than Divine Wrath. This disordered sense of fear makes him deaf to the call to return to the fullness of truth, no matter how loud or clear. He seeks, therefore, some sort of neutral ground upon which he can posture at taking a stand, while avoiding the difficult, but crucial task of preaching the Gospel in its full majesty. At some point, perhaps quite soon, the Modernist’s beloved neutral ground will be stripped away; he must choose then between the City of God and the Kingdom of Darkness. May we pray ardently for our brothers’ and shepherds’ deliverance on that fateful day.

If the values of this world prevail upon them, however, then the resulting remnant of the Holy Church will have arrived at Station Ten. Those who choose to worship Christ, and not the rulers of this world, could be stripped of  many things we have known that in some part make us Catholic: parishes, church buildings, the altar, the tabernacle, the ability of our priests to minister in public. It is imperative that at such a moment we be not afraid. Battered, bruised and bleeding out, we must turn our gaze aloft and await the blaze of His magnified glory.

Pope St. Pius X, pray for us.     

    

Welcome Back, Cromwell

Uncertain political circumstances break out into civil unrest. After usurping an office to which he holds no legitimate claim, the ruler declares, “I’m in charge now,” and a nominally legitimate government is openly overthrown. A politically unfavored religious minority resists. Catholics’ property is confiscated. Real estate ownership among Catholics drops 90%. Catholics relocated to encampments in the mountain west.  Catholics deported and suspected to be enslaved in foreign territories. Government security agency eliminates 500,000 Catholics. Priests resort to saying mass in secret. Priests disappear. Priests administering sacraments executed upon discovery by government security agency. Catholic population reduced by 40% in less than five years. Government victory jig: “Catholic bigots deserve what they get.”

If these predictions seem wildly improbable, what must be noted is that every single statement above represents a historical fact. Arising from the English Civil War of 1642-1651, a political partisan by the name of Oliver Cromwell consummated his lust for power by committing regicide against Charles I.  Once done, he declared England a Commonwealth, formed a security bureau called the Committee of Safety, and gave himself the title of Lord Protector. The targets of his genocidal campaign were Irish Catholics. As with any despot with no real authority beyond the ability to initiate more force than his opponents, Cromwell had many enemies and much to fear. He also had something to covet. The illegitimate autocrat must, like Satan himself, necessarily despise and destroy what he can never actually possess. Because he can never garner even the rudiments of moral authority, he seeks to annihilate those who do. An openly oppressed and wounded minority, by its very existence, cries out to God against unjust rule. This righteous cry places the ruler in the wrong in the mind any self aware individual. Thus, by its affinity with the right, the oppressed minority represents the seed of just revolution. Therefore, due even to the mere potential of lawfully exercised human power to unseat him, the tyrant will seek to utterly eliminate minority, irrespective of their ability to successfully overthrow.  However, it is the superior moral position of the oppressed, made manifest by the very existence of their oppressed state, which ultimately seals their fate. Because the ruler cannot remove the evidence without liquidating the witness, he will simply do both.  The tyrant will permit none to occupy a higher place than he himself assumes. Exceptions shall be made neither for moral outcries nor Almighty God.

The English Civil War metastasized out of a split from a schism. Luther’s bitter fruit, via Henry Tudor, had sired perforce what in itself it had always been. The schism that had previously fractured Christendom had done so once again, albeit this time Anglicans and Puritans were violently parting ways, with Catholics caught in the middle. Economic volatility and political pressures simply created the necessary flashpoint for genocidal violence. What also must be considered is that, as attitudes and positions ossify, the much lionized middle ground tends to disappear, and the spectrum of opinion is reduced to a binary state. No possible stance can be taken that is not simultaneously claimed by one side and decried by the other. 

Within such a context, a climate of economic volatility and political pressure, must be considered very real the risk of shadow schism within the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Were this risk to be realized, then cascading consequences such as violent upheaval ought not be ruled out. Consider the following supposition, synthesized from aforementioned historical facts combined with nascent possibilities.  

Having lost the electoral sham of 2012, the outgoing occupant of the White House is ominously absent on Inauguration Day. Suit is filed in Federal Court protesting results of the sham. Outgoing occupant re-emerges in home city and claims to be President Elect, declares parallel, “protest” administration, and sows the seeds of civil unrest. Morally degraded opposition dithers and shamefully capitulates to autocratic overthrow.  

Suspecting that their dollars are being appropriated to procure both contraceptive and deliberate abortions, without even the slightest pretense to the contrary,  a minority of traditionalist Catholics declares a tax strike. Armed IRS agents arrest traditionalist Catholics and their leaders. Protest spreads. Traditionalist Catholics declared to be religious extremists and enemy combatants. Guantanamo Bay filled to capacity. TSA deployed with newly acquired police powers and rounds up Catholics for transport to secret camps in remote regions of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Monsignor Milquetoast, an emissary of the pale and reticent Archbishop Beefeater, seeks dialogue with government officials over arrest and relocation order. Government proposes exemption from detention order for dioceses willing to share Vatican’s teaching authority with government. Theologian from Notre Dame says government input to Magisterium is consistent with the thinking of the early Church. Pope instructs local ordinary to demand retraction or excommunicate theologian. USCCB remains inert.

Traditionalist Catholics appeal to their prelates for answers, which are provided by the precious and courageous few, who also affirm and actively defend the stance of their dwindling flocks. The Holy Father pronounces solidarity with the faithful, demands account on the part of American episcopacy. Traditionalists inquire whether dioceses are complying with government mandates; many Bishops refuse to answer.  Announcement made on Pentecost Sunday of the birth of the American Catholic Church. Confusion is deliberately sown among the faithful, who are told that they henceforth will be Catholics of the American Rite. Pope declares so called American Rite Church not in communion with Roman Catholicism. American Rite Catholics ordain formerly Episcopal, female clerics, who begin presiding over sham homosexual weddings. American Rite Church sues in Federal Court to take title of all lands held by Roman Catholic Church. Counterclaim by Roman Catholics dismissed due to lack of standing. Fearful, ignorant, and nominally Catholic individuals herd into American Rite Churches. Employment of traditionalist priests terminated without warning. 

Executive order citing national security threat orders the assassination of religious extremist priests. Priests resort to saying Mass in secret.  Bishops loyal to Rome imprisoned. Priests disappear. Housing or protecting a Roman Catholic Priest declared a capital crime subject to bill of attainder. Welcome back, Cromwell.