Death of A Civilization

It must be hard for a person who has grown up with either strong feelings or ideologies in a family to find out, as a thinking, intellectual adult, that many things which were held sacred are absolutely, positively wrong.

When I taught history, the history of ideas, or humanities, I taught de Tocqueville. His insights have proved to be correct about the failures of democracy.

But, I am surrounded by people who refuse to look seriously at the failures of democracy, instead covering up lies and serious problems with slogans, usually using words like “true liberalism”, “patriotism” or “equality” when what is meant is always the lowest common denominator.

I was raised as an elitist, as all Catholics of a certain age were. We were taught to be leaders, to be intellectuals, to study the liberal arts, the classics, to learn how to think and not merely how to feel or have knee-jerk reactions.

In my own family, half were GOP and half Democrats. The Luxemburg half were the GOPs and the Czech half the Dems. No surprises there…For years, parents cancelled out the votes of each partner.

But, over all the political differences, until the generation before mine, stood the loyalty to the Church, to Catholicism. As I noted in a post earlier on Saturday, I was raised to be a Catholic first and an American second.

When did this view, so good, so true, change among American Catholics? One can blame the Kennedys, or go back further to the heresy of Americanism.

The photos of leading clergymen with the president and other leading Dems discouraged many Catholics in America. But, have they considered the root of the evil of compromise?

One reason I prefer Europe is that Europeans are sick of democracy. Now, this sickness could lead either to life, or to death, as do all illnesses. Europeans no longer believe in one man, one vote. But, they have committed themselves to be against monarchies, as real possible governments.

What is left is the fatal decision between anarchy and tyranny.

In America, the vast majority of Americans still believe in a government by the people for the people.

Without being “under God”, this ideal is merely romantic junkfood.

I cannot believe the fact that the American Catholic Church is so anti-intellectual, like the Protestants, who, from the beginning of the Revolt, were anti-intellectual (is there anything more anti-rational than sola fide, sola Scritpura).

What the nuns inculcated in us as leadership skills and the idea that as Catholics, who had been given beauty, Truth and talents, and that everyone was not equal, either in gifts or in roles.

The Catholic sense of superiority of culture and civilization is gone, gone, gone in America. Catholics seem to only want to conform, not challenge (see my post yesterday).

We have lost the cutting edge. Maybe, just maybe, there can be a revival of rationality, of the sense that the Catholic Church must be a leader in the public square, in the market place.

But, I know, deep down inside, the corner has been turned, and we shall be persecuted by the barbarians and by the emotional, by the leftists who only want power over the sheeple, and by the tyrants.

We shall be persecuted because Catholicism is superior, it is the only way to civilization.

And those who do not want God or the Truth hate us, as they hated Christ Himself

Without God as the acknowledge Ruler of America, there is no America, but a shadow, a false dream. Without the recognition that Truth is only found in the Catholic Church in its glorious fullness, America will limp into tyranny, seeking security over honesty, and comfort over rationality.

May Our Lady have mercy on this nation and intercede for this sad place.