The Idols of our Time

I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people

*Note quotes are not direct but rather recorded after (no phones in church). *

I recently had the opportunity to hear a lecture (sermon) that was focused on the Catholic Charity from the perspective of a Brother of the Francian (of Assai) order.

His lecture focused on embodying Christ to “bring sight to the blind, to bring good news to the poor, to help the sick and relieve the oppressed.”

This talk then degenerated into a political diatribe about voting and the importance of voting for more government programs (through higher taxes) and not “selfishly voting for your wants but rather for the marginalized people.”

“People are living in tents in -20oC and that is not by choice… It is not because they are mentally ill or don’t want to live in homes. It is because we refuse to build homes.”

“We must care for the sick and outcast” referring to the Francis’ legacy of treating Leperasy.

“We must take care of our neighbour” and of course in this interpretation that includes foreigners.

Firstly, the entire point of democracy (and all politics) is to get stuff.

Reward your allies punish your enemies.

Secondly, my question for left leaning Catholics, how is the government going to solve/address these problems?
It was not so long ago that Catholics/Christians were running healthcare and education. Is the government doing a better or worse job?

Modernist Religion

The modernist (as per quiet revolution) Christians saw hierarchical religion as a stumbling block. It had the right ideas but refused to execute what needed to be done to ACTUALLY solve poverty, disease etc…

Men like Pierre Trudeau knew about the morals of Christianity but openly flaunted them. Openly chose the hedonistic and destructive lifestyle while claiming to fulfill the Christian mission on Earth (Utopia). Of course, God is the final judge and perhaps in his later life Pierre repented.

My concerns with Pierre are his public lifestyle (as leader) and his Idolization of the state. Pierre Trudeau publicly pushed for and enacted Abortion, gay marriage and other “liberalizing” ideas. To what end? I struggle to see an argument from any faithful Christian for the moral end for these Liberal ideals. Understanding Pierre’s Personalism (from Mounier’s Personalism) “that persons are not to be used, but to be respected and loved.” Pierre’s personalism seemed to express itself as a live and let live. But as with Mounier Pierre was tilted towards Liberal and Marxist ideology with a deep suspicion of “fascism”.

Pierre a man of his time likely heard non-stop about the evils of Franco’s “Fascism” (he was not fascist) or Mussolini (yes he was actually fascist) or Hitler (also not fascist).

From Pierre’s perspective, I suppose, these “liberalizations” were to allow to respect people’s choice and freedom. A secularization of the state brought on by the supposition that most Christians/Catholics were just play acting for culture. A demand by this young generation (pitted in a generational struggle against the old and clergy) for high minded understanding of the faith.

In their haste to revive Catholicism they removed a fence they did not understand and we still struggle with their folly. Blinded by the Liberal ideology they believe only True Christians would believe and act as they did. Fundamentally, this liberal ideal of the interchangeable or blank slate man.

They removed the boundaries. The fences and thought everyone was as enlightened as they themselves believed to be. A moral man, it is true, does not need a law. But not every man is moral. Some men need violence (or the threat therein) to keep within the boundaries.

Just give the government (managerial state) all power and it will usher in this Utopia.

The early Christian (Catholic) church created hospitals, universities, schools, and networks of charity. Much of this was still operated by the Church in Quebec prior to the Secularization of the government by the fruits of the Quiet Revolution and the Catholic Action (youth group). Of course I do not discount the effects that Modernism had on these groups and the drive to liberalize/marx-ify or democ-rificy every aspect of the society.

A cynical reformer of the time (as these youth leaders) would claim that the Catholic or Christian running of universities/hospitals or schools was not done out of the charity of the church’s heart. They would claim these services were about power and removed the focus from the Churches actual function (evangelizing and social justice). That the Church had become bogged down in a bureaucratic mess, unable to properly lead the flock.

While I do not accept it was not done out of charity. Let us ask “okay, who else then?” Or “If not the church then who? Who will run the schools? Hospitals? Universities? Community organizations?”

Who currently runs our

• Schools - Managers who employ, queer theorists that currently wish to castrate children as their pet project. Who believe that white children are racist and should be shamed for simply being “old wool”

• Hospitals - Managers that push for profits and declining service. But don’t worry now we can get abortion when ever and MAiD suicides whenever!

• Community Organizations - Nobody (generally) Our communities are falling apart (especially with mass immigration)

These left leaning reformers promoted the neutral government as the referee. As the umpire calling balls and strikes. A pulling back of the Church into its “actual functions” but the ground beneath our feet has shifted. We are now in the husk of a once great society that is on the decline. If not suicide. The myth of good liberal governance has fantastically collapse.

It was either a naïve or a malicious understanding of institutions. Institutions are not neutral. They are power bases. A place to promote culture and reward your friends or punish your enemies.

The church (specifically the Catholic Church) is in the business of saving souls and generating our cultural cohesion. This goal did not fit into the materialist liberal/Marxist view of social justice.

Social justice has degenerated into caring for the material wellbeing of society while (in a Lutheran sense) neglecting the soul. Sin not only harms the community it tears apart the soul. Once one believes that sin is only a communal problem how easy is it to walk over to the Liberal believe? The Liberal believes that private sin (“keep the government out of our nation’s bedrooms!”) cannot cause damage to the soul nor the community.

As Haidt put it in his book the righteous mind (paraphrasing) what is the harm in someone using a chicken sexually in the privacy of his own home? Everyone intuitively knows this is abhorrent and wrong. But the liberal cannot perceive why.

A liberal is blind to consequences that are not smacking him in the face (non-material or distant harms). How can the liberal help but create children of the forever now? Children in which downstream or existential consequences are irrelevant. Why not live selfishly and die young?

Pierre Trudeau married his first wife Margaret Sinclair in 1971 who was later diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Margaret had very liberal ideas of marriage, family and morals. The two were divorced by 1985 after three children with the youngest tragically dying in a skiing avalanche.

Margaret is infamous in Canadian tabloids and her scandals as the “first lady” shocked and normalized lewd behaviour spawning the infamous theory that Justin Trudeau was actually the son of Fidel Castro.

Pierre was known as a “swinging young bachelor”. He knew the arguments and reasons and could talk through the Catholic position he lived publicly in disregard of them. The scandal that his actions could cause, nor the damage to his soul.

At root Pierre Trudeau became a slave to his idols of Liberalism (or Marxism). He could not connect his “private” sins turmoil of his life.

And what of the generation that followed Pierre Trudeau?

The Last Men

The Last men are those that have no connection to the past. No ties to anything. They are nowhere people of the forever now. They have no interface with Christian spirituality. No community and no true identity. Their identity is vacuously defined by culturally acquired disorders or physical characteristics

But these people are not all bad. They still pursue the goals of the modernist. They work with anyone (except reactionary racist/nazis!) but out of direction rather then intent. They whole heartedly believe in the goals: Diversity, inclusion and equity but have no idea how to drill down into why they do.

They are superficial thinkers. They have been trained to take tests and forget. To study hard. To memorize information to generate a good report and move on. “Don’t sweet the small things.” Who cares what the company is actually doing you just file your paper work!

Justin Trudeau is the poster child for this type of Last Man. He has no idea why Catholics believe in God. Nor do any modern Canadian politician (liberal) such as the Premiers.

As Blackhorse Covid pressure was done on a purely materialistic strain. They wanted Covid cases to go down so stop going outside!

The Covid Tyrants could not understand why the more pressure they placed on Christian pastors and faithful the more they resisted the governments tyranny.

To these midwit managers (last men) it made no sense. If someone punishes you, you stop doing that thing to avoid punishment.

It is always important to understand the people you are ruling/punishing to properly punish them. A criminal that is un-repentant should not be treated lightly as they will re-offend. Instead the Premiers (and Trudeau) punished in a way they thought would work against themselves (so if you ever gain power remember that Trudeau and all his allies fear most to be striped of all material possessions, shamed and jailed for a very long time.

”For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always.” Mt 26:11

It is important to remember the bible must be read in full context. While yes we should help the poor and conduct Charity this is not a call to outsource our charity to an extractive government that uses “charity” as a patron system to maintain power.

The church must regain its social structures and build a community in which it takes care of its own. The Catholic community needs to rebuild the generational connections to end the Last men of nowhere. To identify and move away from modernist/liberal ideals such as the nuclear family. Not to simply remove things because they are modern or liberal but to remove ideas that are directed at Liberal/modern goals counter to Catholic morals.

If it was only Quebec that saw a collapse of the family and Catholic/Christian values perhaps we could blame the quiet revolution. In part I believe that the quiet revolution (especially from Catholic viewpoint) was a diagnosis of a problem of Modernity and rise of the managerial state. The response can be judged by its outcome. Which, while ongoing, is lax-luster. More should be done to understand the role of Modernity, the managerial state, massification and Vatican II.

Catholics appeared to have weathered the storm of modernity, of massification and transition to the managerial state better then other churches. Churches that have completely adopted secular humanism (female priests, trans/gay flags, preference for the distant to immediate relations) seem to be too far gone to be saved from their hearsay.

Communities that seem to be fairing far better appear to be those that have created an strong in-group preference community. Those that reject electrical devices the “Amish” (Anabaptists and Mennonites) are not perfect but have maintained a distance from modernity that has to a great deal immunized their community from the horrors of modernity.

The greatest flaw of the Modernists is the bias that they could not understand the value of power structures outside of the control of democracy (voting) or of “merit”.

Both these power structures can play a role in society but neither should be the operating guide for a family or a community.

A functional society (as per elite theorist Gaetano Mosca) needs to have opposing power structures that check one another. Family or community centre (derogatorily called “Nepotistic”) are essential for families. A family will not last long based on merits and democracy. Democratic/merit based systems sterilize connections. They atomize and stripe the connections down to mere materialistic interactions.

Rather then igniting a generational conflict we must build community with elders and younger generations to re-establish a connection to our past and future.

Outsourcing “charity” to the state allows for depravations and disordered view of the world. Charity is burying the dead. Shall we forbid family from burying their dead relatives? Just place the responsibility and care of the dead in the hands of the cold and indifferent state.

When Covid occurred the government myopically “trusted the science.” Trusting the science boiled down to:

1. Do not treat covid with prophylaxes

2. Close the economy/country down

3. Do what you are told

4. Be VERY AFRAID!

An organized minority (in the government) was able to control the people far larger then themselves. This tyranny only ended when a minority organized and protested. The Freedom Convoy played a game of Chicken with the government. We have found:

1. Banks are willing to freeze/de-bank dissidents at the whim of a government.

2. Government was willing to violently crack down on a peaceful protest.

3. Police (and govt) would falsify evidence and courts would accept it.

We need to stop living in politics as a wish and rather observe politics as it really is.