I saw this the other day and it was just another reminder how me give lip service to the truth, but set up false ideas like American exceptionalism and idea worship truely in place of actual dogma
The talk radio mafia, pushers of the American Civil Religion
Christianity is an unconditional allegiance; and it involves membership of a Church which, though she exists in a world of political communities and nations, co-exists with these as contingent realities that are merely passing. Our allegiance as Christians to any of these merely passing realities can only be conditional; and it must be conditional, in particular, on the extent of their respect for Christianity and the mission of the Church.
But then that same Anglicanism wrapped itself up in a passing political and cultural identity, and defended itself in terms only intelligible in the context of that identity.
The particular time or place of one’s youth and childhood is always vividly one’s own. Equally it is irrecoverable, and impossible fully to communicate to others. It is a place to which one can never return, and it cannot provide a common life. But Christianity provides, through the Church, a common life that is eternal – to which one must arrive through a history, but not to remain in that history. This common life appeals to memory but cannot remain locked up in the vividness of a particular remembered past, not that of an individual, or even of a nation.
There is a religiose form of cultural conservatism that ignores this, and that seeks to defend Christianity as, in effect, a local human tradition. It can take Anglican form, and celebrate a national idyll of prayer book and common law, or it can equally well take a more superficially Catholic form, and celebrate Christianity as the essence of a European culture. But this is limiting and presumptuous.
The Christian life is supernatural. It divinises the human. Cultural conservatism parading as religion does the reverse. In this respect it curiously resembles Christianity in overtly liberal form. Like liberal Christianity, cultural nostalgia reduces to the human what should be divine.
This is an open letter to the Talk show host and founder of the new's source, "The Blaze"
Dear Mr. Beck,
I have been listening to your radio program and watching your TV show on and off for about five years now and have gladly supported your Blaze company over the last few years. I want to make it clear that I enjoy your work and want to continue supporting your company.
However, again and again you engage in black legends that have been shown to be exaggerations fabricated by protestants and other non Christians for their personal ends. Some of these include:
Inquisition: Again and again you reference the Spanish Inquisition and the treatment of the Jews as being a great injustice done against a noble and innocent people by the big, bad Romanist Church. Now granted you use a vague term so as to no directly offend Catholic sensibilities, I guess I should be grateful. However, again and again you want to attack modern problems by bringing up black legends, which is completely inconsistent with your character of being a lover of history and engaged in pursuing the truth. Why is it that you never mention why the Jews were exiled in mass in its context, and instead engage in black legend mass killing conspiracies? Why not acknolwdge the much miligned Pope Alexander VI (the Borgia Pope) was activly inviting the Jew's to take up residence in Rome when hearing about the exile? So was it really the Church's fault that bad things happened (on a small scale nowhere near the size the legends the protestants brought about)?
Knights Templars: Again another issue of context. We dont claim the Pontiff is impeccable for Christ did not grant such abilities even to the original Pontiff himself St. Peter. The knights were accused of grievous things by the state, they were tortured and confessed under that context. They later recanted the confession seeking Gods forgiveness for such weakness. Power corrupts, and here was an opportunity for the crown to show authoritie over heros that might pose a threat to power.
Flat Earther Accusations: Yesterday you made a statement that the Spanish, and other dark-age or mid-evil people believed the Earth was flat, and that they believed this to be so because they were coerced into the matter by the state and the Church. The only problem is that they did not believe the Earth was flat at this time. You mentioned the story about the Egyptians knowing this, so did the Greeks and Romans. This knowledge was safeguarded and expanded upon by the Church and her lay people. You claimed in 1492 they believed you would fall off the face of the Earth if you ventured too far. This is a false accusation. They knew the Earth was curved becasue as ships would venture farther and farther from shore it would seem to sink, proving a curvature (or drinking too much). There was no agenda in people thinking that the curvature may end, they didnt have a picture from outerspace to know where the Earth starts and where it ends. Even the Welsh monks that ventured and might have found America way before the Vikings knew that the Earth was a large mass.
My Point is dont use black legends to justify your anger with the Church. You, Mr. Beck, are called to come back home. We await your return to Christ's one true fold and pray for your return daily!
As much as progressives/liberals drive me mad, I think (and this is my own opinion) that the greatest damage is actually done by those that call themselves Conservatives. GK Chesterton once stated:
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types--the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine."
We all know the madness that progressives wish to thrust upon us and can clearly point out the inherent problems with their thinking. Yet too many are so willing to let the so called conservatives get away with taking a stance that is untrue and even damaging to the well being of others. The greatest attestation to progressives that we can give is that they are very much against the truth. Yet the conservatives who seemingly play on the right side of things are more than willing to forego their stated "principles" in favor of compromise. Such people are neither hot or cold like their counterparts in progressive movement, but are lukewarm opting for a mutual non-aggression pact so as not to create tension. And don't think this is limited to the secular world. Take for instance the vice presidential debate from the 2012 elections where Joe Biden was called out for his visual support of abortionists. Left untouched by the so called orthodox Catholic Media was how Congressman Paul Ryan was more than willing to compromise his "stated position" as being fully pro-life so as not to cause a notable difference between himself and Mitt Romney during the presidential run. I can think of no one that called him out for being lukewarm on this matter, for seeking compromise with the practitioners of death out of convenience. In fact the only one I remember saying anything about this was...well Voris...but thats obvious and hes obviously wrong because hes just a reactinary, anti-Vatican II, uncharitable bigot...Right?
But I want to now get into another so called conservative/libertarian that is often credited for being a standard bearer, and controversial at the same time. Im speaking here of one of my favorite talkers Glenn Beck (and I actually do like his show, but some days he just makes me face palm), who today on his radio show was calling on all people of good will, especially Christians to come together and defend those in the Middle East who are under fire. I can agree with him here, I too hope that people of good will can come together on this issue specifically and push for peace in the region. Yet the ends don't justify the means, and in this case the way that he went about calling for this is a means that violates the truth so bad that it creates false groundwork where peace is supposed to be built on.
So what did he say, you might ask that has caused this dumber ox to write up a million word TPS report on the matter? Simply this: He stated that people need to come together and not act as the early Christians who refused to help each other because they looked at each other as not being Christian and therefore forewent their responsibility to protect each other. Now fore context sake Mr. Beck is an apostate Catholic, turned remarried Mormon...no gossip here its out there and its freely admitted. First consider that this statement is being made by a Mormon who believes that the Church went wrong following the death of St. John, and that the Church (both East and West) was the result of Constantine's decree and therefore a man made institution built on worldly power despite the one they professed. But moving past this, the Church did not look on the others, even the Monophysites (Coptic Orthodox) as being unworthy of help. Mr. Beck so often will bring up topics like the Crusades or the Inquisition in passing to gin up feelings among non-Catholics to as to make a point. As compotent as Mr. Beck might be on American ideals and history, he is not competent on Church history including relations among the major Sees, nor is he competent about the crusades or the inquisition. He is the same on that will condemn the Crusades outright as being evil, while condemning the Earliest Christians for not fighting. Well which way does he want it? If he took off his Americanist glasses for but a moment and delved into the early church he would notice that the Roman Pontiff only took the step of allowing the crusade when getting the appeal from the semi-schismatic Greeks (at the time) calling for help. So too the early church didnt battle for each other because physical violence wasn't necessary. If his point is that we were not fighting for the rights of Arians, Pelegians or other heretics at the time he misunderstands rights and tolerance. No one has a right to error, they might hold to it and do so against the very wishes of Christ, but its not inherent that they have a right to do so. If someone cuts themselves off from the Church and refuses the Churches council, how can you help them? The answer is that you cant. Help is freely offered and freely received, if one of those things are violated we have disorder.
My point is that conservatives are just as guilty as progressives in putting forth deceit (known or not). Truth does not belong to either party and the ends don't justify the means, and the Truth is worth fighting for because it is a person.
+HOLY MOTHER CHURCH IS THE TRUTH BECAUSE SHE IS HIS BODY+
It should not be a surprise that the verdict on Saturday
came out as not guilty. It seemed to
most of us that there was no real evidence showing that Mr. Zimmerman had done
anything illegal in a temporal or moral sense.
Yet for two nights now we get stuck with riots and general terror by
people greatly upset with the juries verdict.
I found the following pictures online at the Daily Mail website showing
conditions in New York, LA and so forth.
Being blunt this is pathetic, but its all part of the plan.
A while back I remember seeing a talk by former, then
ousted, Green Czar Van Jones where he made a comment that a revolution was
coming, that it would be Bottom up, Top Down and Inside out. Now to most of us this seems like mere
rhetoric and is generally poo-pooed as such.
Yet a couple people, generally associated with blogs or conservative
outlets picked up on this immediately. People like Glenn Beck (who I have posted the
video below for) did his best to bring to the public knowledge of this plan,
and to some extent I think we might have been helped.
Its not that this is the sign that we are in trouble. Its only one thing in a laundry list of
signs. The Fabian Socialists were just
on the tip of the era. They wished to
set the world a blaze so as to make it closer to their hearts. Part of their plan included eugenics which
was directly associated with the racist attitudes that most of them held. Creating Race wars is just another way to
promote division and confusion among people, and I don’t need to tell you the
million news stories that are so prevalent just in the US alone. It seems like there is so much to keep in
mind that we are seriously in dire straits.
This Zimmerman case is just another show case to cause
confusion and division and it is fueled by a media complicit in acting against
life and the will of God made known in his Holy Catholic Church. Mr. Zimmerman made a statement to the officer
before even knowing Trayvon was dead that his Catholic faith made it clear the killing
of another is always wrong (speaking of murder of course).
The complicit are abundant.
1.The Media
2.The Government
3.The wealthy Progressives and Conservatives
4.The ignorant masses
But in the end who is at fault?
Catholics.
That’s right Catholics.
Many Popes and Holy people like St. Bernadette of Lourdes noted that all
the evil of the world is the fault of bad Catholics. I confess that all to often I fall into this
category. My pride, my lustful desires,
my thirst for worldliness too often clouds my sight and I fall.
I was thinking it is now time to really take my call to
holiness seriously, not that I haven’t at times, but he calls us to be perfect
and this scares us. Dr. Peter Kreeft
says that we are all called to be great saints but we hold ourselves back from
this with worldly concerns. For me its
always wanting credit for my actions.
Too often I think my knowledge is grander then others and I want to set
them straight regardless of how I do so.
Often times I am uncharitable and fall.
Lord grant me the grace of humility to live out a just life and be completely
commited to your call of the Golden rule.
Help me to be mercy to the ignorant so as to enlighten them and bring
them to you. Let it no longer be me who
lives, but you who lives in me.
Let us pray for Mr. Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. Let us particularaly pray for those Holy
Souls in Purgatory for they are nearly home and our love for them as part of
the Body of Christ is just like the loaves and fishes Christ was given.
Humility, Mercy, Trust.
Thank you for all the suffereings both of the mind and body
O’ Lord, Your grace is sufficient.
For, Whatever be the will of the Lord, I trust in the’ oh
God
