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Monday 31 December 2012

Well, yet another Gramsci post; without the Spirit, the intellect stagnates and dies

Did philosophers and revolutionaries honestly believe that humans can be intellectuals without the life of the Spirit? Did and do they honestly want a better life while denying the soul?

Some critics of the Church since the Enlightenment state that the teachers and Popes did not address the modern issues of politics, science and modernism. This is a misunderstanding of the times and the teachings. Since the publication of Marx and Engels, the Church has been on the offensive, not the defensive regarding teaching concerning the effects of tyrannies, the materialists dialectic and the supposed war between the classes. All the popes since 1848 have addressed these ideologies. The problem has been in the implementation at the local levels of the clarity of the Teaching Magisterium.

Why? Many priests fell into error and carried those errors into the pulpit for the last two-hundred years. Many priests and even bishops themselves were and are communists and push for that version of a world-view, based on materialism, rather the the spiritual message of the Kingdom of God.

As laity, it is our duty to take care of our brothers and sisters in poverty or troubles.

Gramsci was clear that the Church was the only institution to understand what he and other revolutionaries wanted in the culture wars and the destruction of Western civilization, itself created largely by Christendom.

Here is one of  his quotations. Gramsci understood that both Faith and Reason were held together in the Catholic Church, that Revelation and the Teaching Magisterium provided a cohesive block against the fragmentation of society.

The strength of religions, and of the Catholic Church in particular, has lain, and still lies, in the fact that they feel very strongly the need for the doctrinal unity of the whole mass of the faithful and strive to ensure that the higher intellectual stratum does not get separated from the lower. The Roman church has always been the most vigorous in the struggle to prevent the “official” formation of two religions, one for the “intellectuals” and the other for the “simple souls” … That the Church has to face up to a problem of the “simple” means precisely that there has been a split in the community of the faithful. This split cannot be healed by raising the simple to the level of the intellectuals  .... but only by imposing an iron discipline on the intellectuals so that they do not exceed certain limits of differentiation and so render the split catastrophic and irreparable. 

Catholic intellectuals, including the laity, have a duty to combat the lies of the ideologies which have almost overcome the concepts of freedom and individualism. Our definition of the individual is not that of the socialist.  We are unique creatures, each one having a purpose, not to be subsumed by the bloated government. 

Those who are the enemy delight in the fragmentation of society, and society is built on natural, moral law and not the laws of men. This is the key to the strength of the Church...that we have recognized that man-made structures are doomed to tyranny and/or chaos.

Tyranny will come to America and chaos to Europe for the purposeful loss of the culture wars has occurred. 

That Gramsci only saw the discipline of the Church as evil, rather than a guideline of the Holy Spirit intended to persevere Truth mirrors his own lack of Faith and Reason. 

The man or woman who will not bend to God, will not bend to the Church. Humility in scholarship is key.

We are on the edge, as most people will choose material comfort over truth. This is the sad decline of the human spirit. The remnant Church holds the real intellectual unity of a society, which Gramsci wanted through his groups of intellectuals at all levels.

Of course, this burgeoning of intellectual life has not happen, and in fact, societies are less intellectual now than in the recent past. Atheism makes one closed to the entire spiritual world, and therefore, the world of creativity and newness.

There has been a split in the Church, but not the one mentioned in the above quotation. The real split is between those who see the Spirit working in the Church and those who want to make the Church into their own image and likeness, into their own ideological institution. Hence, the liberal intellectuals have sold out to the Gramscian ideal of "intellectualism" but separated from the soul.

This state in a person or government is suicide. The intellectual gifts are connected to the spirit of man and woman, to the soul, to prayer and illumination.

Gramsci's material mind-set could not imagine an institution which is actually empowered by  GOD HIMSELF.  That the Trinity dwells in each baptized Catholic and that there is insight and intellectual freedom partly defines us as made in the image and likeness of God.

Gramsci wanted men and women to be made in his image and likeness--and that is the primal sin of the angels; I will not serve.

Without the Holy Spirit and the individual free spirit of men and women, the intellect dies.

We are in that stage of Western Civilization. At the end of the year, we can only look forward to making ourselves and our families strong against the Gale of Stupidity and Barbarism which will engulf some reading this in their lifetime.


The passing of a year


For some, the passing of the year is a sad time, as the dying year brought love and life. Sometimes a fear or dread of the future covers this day and evening. Some go to parties or dances to celebrate a new year of life and light. Some go to forget a painful year. Some just go for the diversion. But, at the passing of 2012, I think most Americans can stop and think that as Catholics we have lost the culture war and must try either to regain our battle strategies, or, choose another path of resistance to the growing evil. That evil is growing can only be denied by those who will go out tonight for diversion from the pain of reality. Christ lived in real time and real history. He is the God-Man who came into time to redeem the time and us, as well as all of nature. If we cooperate with Christ's grace and vision and truth, this day would mean another time of reflection and a hope for new life. New life most probably will not be material. New life must be spiritual and interior. This day, stop and have an examination of conscience. Look at the good and bad of the year and resolve to pray more, adore more, and allow Christ to change you, so that you can face the years to come. These will not be pleasant.

The Generation Gaps

Entering a new year, in which a few days I shall have a birthday,and meeting wonderful people who have family and love each other across four generations, I am struck by the numerous generation gaps. The gaps are not based on age but on experience and technology. I have friends in their sixties and seventies who are on line, on facebook, read blogs, text and email each other. I have other friends in the same age group who do none of these things. Sadly, they are cut off from a generation or three who communicate using technology...but more than that, these good people are unaware of a strong conservative movement online...one which is both political and religious. More and more international contacts are "on the same page" in these spheres. The dangers to the Catholic Faith, especially the clergy, and the real enemies of national identities and freedom control the traditional media. Herein lies the "knowledge gap". This is a huge part of the generation gaps....where we find truth or lies...where we encourage truth. The remnant Church in all countries of our glorious universal Church need to band together. Ironically, even the international groups of anarchists are more united than some Catholics.

The Masterpiece in Malta-The Beheading of St. John the Baptist by Caravaggio