This is me and what I am...

For fear of being accused of being like many modern Pharisaical Christians; for fear of being the splinter recongizer in ignorance of my own beam, I will take the next few blogs to give my story. I write against the real slave morality of 'will to power' relativism, not merely as accuser but as its victim. I was once a slave, but with Christ and His Church, I have begun the journey toward freedom.

In contemplating writing about myself a few flurries went through my head. 1) Who wants to hear my story? What gives me the presumption? and 2) Fear, as it will take great humility to dispose my inner web of relations to the world. As a once reveler in Nietzschean relativism, strangely, I am now more afraid to expose my virtuous self rather than my vicious self. How great of down goers we are! When I lived the will to power relativism, I would boast of my faults -- intimidating others with my own slavery. Now that I have seen the light; now that I have been given the light; I am more afraid to talk about the grace I've been given than when I was wicked. What a herd member I am! No more of these chains! No more will the torrents of custom swallow and drown me!

As victim, then, I write. Not as accuser. In my next entry, I'll tell you about my association with dope dealers and tyrant slaves; about my own slavery. (Tyrants, are as Plato relates, the greatest slaves because they can satisfy the beast within without limits.) When I was a member of the modern herd -- the Nietzschean herd -- I was a slave to the pride of life; I was a real slave moralist. Perhaps my story will break someone else's chains.

This, I hope, will put to rest the demonic venom of the haters of real free thinking Catholics. Free thinking because their shepherd is the Spirit of Freedom. Submission to the right authority is freedom. Let my story bring freedom!

It is time for the sword to be unsheathed.

Anti-feminine feminists at it again...

Perhaps the greatest college football player in the history of the game is making waves this week because he and his mother are telling their story in an ad taking place during the Super Bowl. The ad is pro-life, about how Tebow's mother chose life. As an avid college football fan, and someone who is not a big Florida fan, I do have to say that Tebow is a great human being.

Nonetheless, it did not take the modern feminist haters long to spout their usual venom towards anyone who is not a nihilist like themselves. The anti-feminine feminists, the ones who are power-mongers, liars, and silencers were quick to state that Tebow and his family were infringing upon a "woman's right to choose." Interesting how they always shroud their murderous ways in the guise of freedom.

Let us ask these wannabe men, these nurture despisers, nature haters, and women hurters (yes, they do hurt women by discouraging marriage which increase abuse, by forcing abortion on them when over 90% of women regret them) what 'freedom' actually means, shall we? If we needn't worry about the objects of our acts (i.e. what we intend and the outcome) then we are all free to do whatever we please. Here we confront Nietzsche all over again -- freedom in the feminist mindset is domination of the weak by the strong. Freedom is doing what we are capable of; doing what we have the potency for. Let us tangle them in their own web of inconsistency, shall we?

A feminist would rightly be opposed to a man's right to choose to abuse his wife? Correct? A feminist would rightly be opposed to a man's right to choose to rape a woman? Correct? A feminist would rightly be opposed to a man's right to victimize a female child? Correct? "Wait!" shout the nihilists, " Those are not rights! It is not a man's body that he damages in committing those crimes. When a woman has an abortion it's her rights over her own body." Really?

So different blood types, different heart rates, and even different sexes, makes the fetus "the same body"? The real issue is one of the ontological status of the embryo. We can say de facto that it is a human being simply by genetic testing. The difference between a feline embryo and a human embryo is testable. Whether or not an intellectual -- rational soul -- is present is not testable. To make the claim that the human being is not a "person" in vitro is to make a metaphysical claim. Alas! Our materialists are at last view metaphysicians! The God and spirit deniers are actually spiritualists!

Anything genetically human is per se rational irrespective of it functional capabilities based on the rational telos of its nature. So the anti-feminine feminist claim that it is a woman's right to choose is simply a relativist claim to freedom. If we needn't worry about the objects of our acts as the feminists claim with abortion, then the feminists cannot make moral claims anywhere else. At bottom, the justification for morality becomes power. Do only that which you are powerful enough to do. Sound familiar? The feminists are Nietzscheans. If a woman has the freedom to choose to abort, then the murderer has the freedom to choose to kill a prostitute, simply because she is weaker than him. Will the anti-feminine feminists want to approve such a position? If not, then we must ask them to be silent about their misguided freedom.

Bravo, Tim Tebow, Bravo! You made the snakes writhe, which makes me smile.

A Little More on Why I am Here...

Walking away from my two previous posts I realized there was a deficiency in introduction. Why the title "warrior"? Why defend the Magisterium? Why?

First of all, my own dream has always been to be a professional writer. While adoring the Eucharist as a guardian five or six years ago, in my head as an elocution I got the message "Write of me," and the words were imprinted in such a way that I thought they could not have come from me. Nevertheless, always skeptical, I thought maybe I was simply projecting my own dreams onto my meditation that day.

Now, today, as somewhat of an outcast -- not successful in the political arena (where I thought I wanted to work until I met blood sucking politicians behind the scenes), not successful in academia, where I realized the pride of life parades with fangs and claws, and now unemployed (of course, unlike our non-self reliant parasite anti-American ideal culture, I am seeking employment rather than the opiate governmental handout).

As an outcast, like my Lord Himself, I have decided to follow those words that were either my imagination or the Pantocrater Himself, and write. Together on this journey, we shall see whether it was internal desire or not.

As a child, I was enamored with poets and poetry. Half of the time I had no clue what poets were writing about, but I loved the esoteric nature of modern poetic verse. It was like pursuing some lost treasure in some far off sea; it was the beginning of wonder. I became enamored with an "American poet" who was the lead singer of the rock band, The Doors. This group, after having studied philosophy, was a manifestation -- the near perfect manifestation -- of Nietzschean existentialism. They would often play rythmic tunes while the singer, Morrison, would spout off "spontaneous panagyrics" as the Greek poets themselves used to do. All in all, it made for quite an artistic expression, but I realized in following these false idols, and I did, I had followed them right into the slavery of Nietzschean morality. Everything from my sophomore year of High School, until I was about 26 years old became a boozy halo.

Enough about me, but I realized that slavery was in the self-creative morality; in moral neutrality; in the "dictatorship of relativism." On my journey home to the Church, and for me it was merely an intellectual journey; I sought truth with an open heart and mind and landed squarely back in the Church that I was raised in; thanks, in part, to both of my mothers. That is, thanks to my biological mother who was constantly on her knees begging the Lord for my return, and the mother who she was praying to, the sedes sapientiae or Theotokos -- Mary, the serpent crusher. Personally, I have never had any mystical experiences, just practical advancements. The slavery's that I was accustomed to indulging -- for me they mostly related to the concupiscible power or pleasures of the touch (food, alcohol, sex) -- Confession has eliminated even the desire for inordinate use of this power. Of course, I still struggle, and will until the day that I die, but the devil indeed has been vanquished, if we only ask our Mediator for help.

In pursuing graduate studies, I was able to live in different locations throughout the country. What I found was that, in many instances, dioceses had non-ordained people working within diocesan walls who were living the Nietzschean relativism, unconciously, and directing the eyes and the ears of the bishops. Whenever I've seen or heard bishops speak, I am always delighted with the orthodoxy of their words. But their actions, in many instances, do not match their words. I am convinced this is for two reasons, 1) the people advising them are imbued with the Leftist doctrines of modernity, or 2) a problem of courage.

The second of the two is all our problems. The good people, because of the Halinksi model of intimidation, have been far too silent for far too long. I have been a coward, many laypeople have been cowards, priests and deacons have been cowards, and unfortunately so have bishops. Let us, together, with this blog, end this fear. If we had been more vocal, so would our bishops. If we swear allegiance to our Pope and defend his cause vocally, we can end our slavery.

As to number 1, it is a problem that is not easily overcome. I'll give a few examples of what I mean from personal experience. I currently live in a diocese where much attention is focussed on an immigration raid that happened nearby a few years ago. The United States Government busted up a plant in our diocese that was hosting illlegal aliens. The fallout was indeed tragic. Children were orphaned, families were separated. But this has been at the attention of our bishop, meanwhile Planned Parenthood has moved into our backyard, and the bishop has done nothing. What should get more attention? The murder of innocents, or the sorrow of families who are in their situation because they broke the law? Both deserve consideration, but one deserves priority. I do not suspect that it is the bishop's fault entirely. I suspect that those advising him are telling him that the immigration problem needs his attention more than abortion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In this diocese, as well, the ethics committees are made up of people who have feminist histories (feminist in the modern sense of that term which should really be masculinist). They look for loopholes whenever contoversies come up regarding moral issues; for instance, the rubella vaccine that was cultivated from an aborted fetus was given a pass in our diocese because the Church had said in instances of pandemic, where the only way to stop the disease was with this vaccine, then it could be used. In our diocese, where there certainly was not a pandemic, it was allowed. Bad air!

I have even heard that they would eliminate jobs of those who didn't by into their political ideals. I know of at least one instance where an orthodox Catholic had her job taken away because she didn't toe the 'social justice' line. The couragous priests in our diocese, who remain faithful to the Pope vocally, are kept under a watchful eye with suspicion because of their orthodoxy. I saw this everywhere. It is not limited to my current home.

And so, the tea partiers gave me hope once again. If we, as lay people, can be courageous and bring to light happenings of the nature I have described, corruption within the Church, heterodoxy within the walls, can be eliminated. The sorrow of living this relativism, this cafeteria Catholicism, this cafeteria morality, is that it creates real victims along the way.

Perhaps I need to be clearer as I could be accused of being "cafeteria" myself for looking at abortion above and beyond caring for the poor, or diversity, etc. If you need to discuss diversity, then you might as well not be Catholic. We hold that every human being is of dignity in the image of God, so it is a distraction to have to keep coming back to this. It is the creeping secular death within the walls of the Church.

I simply see that there are a hierarchy of violations of justice. There is no question that nothing is more serious than abortion. Any crime that takes the lives of innocents is more serious than a crime that harms them. It would be as if the US soldiers, upon arriving at Auschwitz, went and arrested the petty theif who stole fruit from the market, instead of apprehending the murderers in the death camp. All crimes are crimes, but some are more serious than others. Our attention has for too long been in the wrong place, mostly because we have been intimidated by a beast press that herds us like sheep and frightens us like the wolves that they are. I am here to say, "No more!"

Enough of this false compassion! Enough of the deceit! Enough of the silencing! Enough of the real haters! Enough of the existentialist morality; the creeping death! Enough of political ideology replacing Catholic orthodoxy! If you are sick of it, like myself, then come with me and expose it to the light. Let us cut out the disease, and live long and prosper.

Diagnosis...

While completing my philosophical studies, I used to imagine myself pushing the "Dumb Ox" (Thomas Aquinas) carrying a large shield in front of me, warding off the arrows of modern philosophers. Indeed, the image was generated because of the famous words of Leo XIII who said that Aquinas wrote in such a principled manner that he effectively put to route every error that could come before him or after him. (See the encyclical Aeterne Patris). Leo XIII, like Chesterton would just a few years later realize, the problem of modernity was a thinking problem, not a moral one. The two, however, are inseparably linked. Truth, as we Thomists are taught, is simply the adeqatio mentis rei -- making the mind commensurate with the thing. Truth is the recognition, as we relate to the outer world, (ens reale in Thomistic terms) of being in its essential order. In order to do the good, we must first know it; we must first recognize the order that actually exists in the outer world (ens reale). For human beings, this order was apply described by Thomas in what is probably his most famous ethical passage on the natural law. (I-II q.94 a.2) Of course, he borrowed a lot from Cicero, but nevertheless in the typically precise Thomistic way, he refined and purified.

Nonetheless, at this point I am not here to discuss the natural law. We need merely make mention of it because it represents an adequate case of a philosopher naming things as he knew them, rather than knowing them as he named them, which incidentally is the problem with all of modern philosophy and its solipsistic tendencies post-Descartes. To develop an ethic, there must be knowable being, and that being must be intelligible. When you destroy metaphysics, ethics quickly follows. As moderns and even post moderns, we have destroyed metaphysics, which is why we find ourselves in the ethical malaise of Nietzschean relativism.

If we are going to root out the enemy, if we are going to diagnose post-modernity, we must first recognize the poison by its symptoms. Then we must catch the snake in order to provide the antidote. Finally, we must administer the antidote. Fortunately for us, 27 years ago a Scottish analytic philosopher diagnosed our modern culture, and his name was Alasdair MacIntyre. After Virtue is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand our modern ethical landscape and how to deal with nihilism in its true form.

MacIntyre demonstrates that the world has fallen into 'emotovist' morality because of losing the common language provided by the Aristotelian philosophical corpus. In moral controversies today, MacIntyre argues that our argumentation, indeed even our words, come from disparate traditions and as a result of having no common foundation upon which to argue, we talk past each other. After Descartes convinced his contemporaries to jettison Aristotle, the Enlightenment philosophers, one by one, attempted justifications for morality without recourse to any form of teleology (purpose) in nature. He says that, in order to have a rationally justified ethics, there needs to be consideration of 1) man as he is in an imperfect state, 2) man as he can be when perfected, and 3) rational justification for getting from point 1 to point 2.

Hidden in what MacIntyre claims is an idea that Catholic thinkers for the last 100 or so years have alluded to, and that is that religion is the basis of culture. Christopher Dawson is the first that I am aware of to promote this thesis, and he does it everywhere, but the best example comes from his Progress and Religion. Chesterton is perhaps the most famous proponent of this thesis. Nonetheless, this idea is echoed in MacIntyre because he says that following Protestant and Jansenist theologies, each of the Enlightenment philosophers abandoned the notion of purpose in ethics. For Kant, following the categorical imperative was the cold answer to ethical dillemas (ultimately for him happiness was beyond our reach and provided to telos for human action); for Hume, the emotions led the way, and on and on.

So there was an "Enlightenment project" of justifying morality, but on MacIntyre's account it failed. Indeed, on Nietzsche's account, it failed. And so, MacIntyre rightly relates that Nietzsche was the first philosopher to recognize the failure and that he took that as a failure of morality as such, and so he ushered in the age of personal preference morality.

In a book that I have been writing, I trace the fundaments of our culture ultimately to the Protestant religious narrative, as that provided the framework for liberalism (in the classical sense of that term), and that Nietzsche's philosophy represents the most radical extension, the place where liberalism without proper relations to any kind of truth, will extend. Indeed, Nietzsche's philosophy is the fate of all liberalism if it ignores metaphysical and religious truth. Nietzsche is liberalism without truth. It may, prima facie, seem a mischaracterization because the fundaments of liberalism are the dignity of each human being; they are democracy and freedom without interference. Democracy without orientation to truth represents nothing but a will to power. When the blathering politician argues on the evening news that 'we have to agree to disagree' he recommends Nietzschean relativism. The dialectic, without any bearing on truth, simply becomes a clash of competing wills where the most powerful is the winner. Truth, in this situation, is self-created. Democracy lends itself to the domination of the weak by the strong when there is no orientation to the truth of the human person. Following Nietzsche, we have all become self-creators of our own natures, which entails self-creators of our own morality; we have become natureless. Without nature; without internally directed order to our beings; without the natural law; personal preference morality becomes the only philosophical orientation we can have.

The question of whether Nietzsche was that influential, or if the state of our western cultural ethic is the result the natural progression of liberalism, we may never know. Nietzsche, the greatest atheist genius there ever was, certainly has readers. Nonetheless, most people are unconscious to the fact that they are living his ethic.

So let us take this as the diagnosis. What is Nietzsche's philosophy? In a nutshell, being is unintelligible; there is no metaphysical truth because there exist no metaphysical objects; metaphysics is but a chimera of the human imagination. All existence is merely a haphazard becoming, a burgeoning of a more powerful thing overcoming a weaker thing. It is the human mind that imposes order on reality, but in actuality, there is no order. Seeking to know for human beings is a "Socratic optimism.' That is, all intellectual pursuits are merely a game because existence is unintelligible outside of a will to power. He is known as the inverted Platonist -- I would call him the inverted Christian.

In his ethics, there is a dialectic battle between the golden aristocrat and the beastly slave. The slave morality on Nietzsche's account is that of the priestly castes, and those who are simply weak. The slaves invent things like justice and truth, only to hold the true aristocrat down. The aristocrat is the man who lives for action, the hunt, the prowl, the orgies; in short, he is the person who does that for which he is strong enough. He is a 'happening.'

What it really comes down to, though, is that a person is free to choose to do whatever they want with the only limitation being their own weakness. With Nietzsche and the other existentialists, order is merely imposed by the human mind on what is ultimately a haphazard becoming in reality. As such, there are no "natures" in reality. As human beings, we are only what we make ourselves. We are self-creators. This ethic is the foundation of personal preference morality; a emotivist morality; a selfish-relativism. This I argue, along with MacIntyre, is western humanities modern common cultural ethos. This, unbeknownst to Nietzsche, is the real nihilism.

We have heard the term "cafeteria Catholic," but what modernity is really facing is "cafeteria morality." This plague; this disease; this inhuman scourge has reached even into the depths of the Catholic Church. This "will to power" liberalism, seeks to intimidate our shepherds. As someone with dyspepsia over the haters, blind to their own Nietzchean outlook, have taken seats of power, whispering with their forked tongues into the ears of our bishops and priests. They have taken over, in many instances, the institutions of culture. Knowing that human beings are great imitators, the beast was wise in taking over diocesan Catholic newspapers, Catholic colleges, and in some cases even archdioceses. The makers of our culture are moral self-creators, and these liars have taken some of the seats of power even in the Catholic Church.

I have often dreamt of starting this "Soldiers of the Magisterium" as a press organization for the orthodox. I have dreamt of being the eyes and the ears of the bishops from an orthodox perspective. In order to do this, though, is to be soldiers of the First among equals. That is why I propose and organization of Catholics who are tired of the power brokers of our day silencing dissent for anti-Catholic behavior in Catholic institutions. The dream may never be realized, but let us hope; let us dream.

A brief introduction...

The seeds of this blog have been germinating for many years. Both through the promptings of the Spirit, and an internal desire to become a warrior as Paul exhorts us to in his famous letter to the Ephesians.

I have long been silent, like numerous other soldiers intimidated from demonstrating thier faith because of "something in the air." The principalities, thrones, and powers, have wised up by putting Christianity herself out of vogue; they have silenced us by changing the discourse of custom; the torrents of custom have become a dictatorship of Nietzschean relativism. As herd members of custom, we have all quieted our religious natures for fear of being offensive to reason. Meanwhile the makers of modern custom are as unphilosophic of creatures that have ever existed.

We soldiers have been silenced out of our own fear; out of cowardice in the face of truth. How many of us have not signed the cross in traffic for fear of looking archaic? How many have, like Peter before us, denied Christ on account of fear? How much silence is too much? Have the demons been feasting, gathering souls, prowling like the blonde beasts because we have refused to stand?

I was, until today, a silent soldier for the Catholic faith, but no more. I will no longer weep in silence over the latest injustice; over the latest abortion; over the latest murder; over the latest lie; over the latest victim of the real slave morality of modernity.

As an orthodox Catholic, I am sick of being shepherded by the wolves; I am sick of the false claim of Catholicity for revelers in pagan ideation; I am sick of cafeteria morality. I am sick of conscious mongering self-appointed popes parading their darkness in the guise of light. I am sick of the moral self-creators who are all the more slaves because they are unconscious. I am sick of the blatherspiting emotional ignoramus' and their psuedo-sophistication undermining papal authority. I am sick of the existentialists! I am sick of weakness parading as strength. I am sick of the chimera of emotion and sentimentality detached from the barometer of truth disguising itself as ens reale.

How often have I seen some blathering hater of modernity, so blinded by their liberal dogmatism that they are unconscious of their hatreds, claim they are Catholic while disrespecting the Magisterium? How often have I seen, in my own diocese, and dioceses elsewhere, the blatant disregard for the Magisterium? The creeping secular death has slithered its way into the positions of the highest power even within our Church. The boozy stench of unreason, of moral neutrality, has reached the ears of those who are supposed to be our comedians -- our bishops.

I have seen it far too often, the magician haters have the ear of the apostles, and with slithering tongues they distract and detract in the name of the creeping secular death. "Social justice!" they exclaim, but preferring to be democrats as opposed to Catholics, they tolerate abortion, "homosexual marriage," stem cell research, contraception, euthanasia, and all other Catholic non-negotiables. Let us not worry about the murder of millions of innocents; let us not worry about the new ideologies of evil attacking the safety net of social unity (i.e the family.) No, let us worry about creating more parasites. Rightly, they exclaim, we must worry about the poor, but let us feed the idolotrous state. Let the state be the Church. Let the state be Christ and let us go scott free.

The real problem with this creeping secularism is one of priority. Where is "social justice" most gravely violated? The snakes will say homelessness, joblessness, immigration, woman's rights, or something of the like. All of these are noble and worthy causes, but the secularist Catholic in feigned open mindedness, will pick these from the cart ignoring the gravest violations of justice being done to God's children. The problem is that the battle is being waged and won by the powers of darkness because distracted by the liberal tradition, the Leftist cafeteria Catholics have placed our attention in the wrong place. We are looking to the left while the devil strikes from the right. And it comes down to the snakes who have infiltrated diocese after diocese preferring to be democrats to being Catholic. It would be as if as Catholics we turned a blind eye to capital punishment because that is what Republicans wrongly espouse.

In Catholic institution after Catholic institution, somehow the haters who have bought into the modern existentialist narrative, seek to poison the Church from within her own walls. Of course, the Pope and his magisterial teaching are impervious -- are bullet proof -- to the threats of these 'democratic' souls; to the threats of the moral neutralists; to the threats of real nihilism, but it seems the 'self-creators' of morality have bellowed long enough and loud enough that they have in many instances deceived our leaders.

Who else has acid reflux over the slithering snakes silently stalking, whispering, secluding, and seeking to intimidate orthodoxy? How is it that leftists have become the elite? There seem to be more people today who would rather be partisan than Catholic; people who would choose their political party over their faith.

I am here, then, to call forth the truth seekers. I am here to call forth the warriors, who until this day have been silent; who until this day have been intimidated. As a soldier of the Magisterium, I will humbly submit to the beckoning of the Pope, and not try to "change" from within the eternal teachings of the Church.

It is time for effiminate Christianity to take a back seat; it is time for Catholicisms strength to be realized. This is not a disparagement on women or femininity. In virtue of the Church being universal there is a time and place for everything; we have lived in the era of feminized Christianity with its noble virtues of courtesy and understanding. The time and place for this era should, for the time being, be put to rest. We need the calculating and cold Christianity to step forth -- the masculine Christianity; the warrior Christianity.

The era of tolerance -- of moral neutrality -- is over. Let us call forth the truth, brandish our swords, and put the beasts to route. Let us put on the whole armor of God, and with the sword of the Spirit, flay the words, the deciets, the lies, of the modern blathering haters. As slayers of the existentialist slave morality, we must put on the armor of the Magisterium and become warriors.

It is time for the tourney, for the hunt; we must become hunters, root out our prey, and slay them with the light; with the Sword of the Spirit.

Come now, run with me.