The World Turned Upside Down

 

You may recall, if you have read all this from the beginning, the biggest problem I had with being Catholic – with being Christian – before I stopped calling myself these things in 2007.

That was the idea of ‘extra Ecclesiam nulla salus’ – that there is no salvation outside the Church. The idea of Hell revulsed me – as it still does. The idea that anyone could be condemned to such a fate, not because of anything they had done, but because of what they had ‘believed’ – what they had professed in thoughts and words to be the nature of reality -  was a thousand times worse. This seemed to me utterly incompatible with my understanding of God – as it still does.

If this were really so, if God had ordained that human beings were to live or die eternally on the basis of whether or not they had explicitly accepted our Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, then that god would not be God. He would not be the ‘I AM’, the one self-existent being, but a creature, a malignant subcreator playing with a toy universe, and I would fight him with every fibre of my being, in obedience to the unseen and unknown God. Even if that God existed only in my mind.

So then. How have I come to reconcile my rampant universalism with the teaching ‘extra Ecclesiam nulla salus’? What do I understand this teaching to mean?

What it means is this: The Church is indeed the sole instrument by which Christ works the World’s salvation. The Church is the mystical body of Christ, the means through which salvation comes to the World. This salvation is a supernatural work, not limited by space or time, in which the members of the Body of Christ participate. It is something entirely different from enrolling additional members in the Church.

I am not told anywhere that I cannot believe this, so I will go on doing so.

Consider how our Lord behaved during his time on Earth:

• He did not teach at all until he was thirty years old

• He spoke in parables and seemed quite content to be misunderstood by most of his hearers

• He said that he was sent to the lost sheep of the children of Israel, and not to the gentiles

These are not the actions of Someone who requires people to assent intellectually or emotionally to a proposition to avoid eternal torment. These are not the actions of Someone who wants to get that proposition out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible so that they can be saved. These are the actions of Someone who has all the time in the world.

Consider some of our Lord’s teachings about the Kingdom of God:

• It is like salt

• It is like light

• It is like yeast

Salt is not any use without something to make salty; light is not any use without something to illuminate; yeast by itself is not a particularly attractive foodstuff. These things are all important because they act on something else and transform it: they do not make it into salt, or light, or yeast.

Consider what our Lord said about His Church: 

• The gates of Hell will not prevail against it

Gates are not something that comes after you and knock you down; gates are something that you come up to and knock down, God willing. This does not mean (only) that Hell will not overcome the Church; it means that Hell will be overcome. It does not have a chance in itself against the Church.

Consider some of the things we are encouraged to pray:

• The Fatima prayer, in the modern Rosary: “Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy”

• The Chaplet of Divine Mercy: “Have mercy on me, and on the whole world” 

Why would be encouraged to pray that all souls be led to Heaven, unless such a thing were possible? Why would be encouraged to pray that God have mercy on the whole world, unless He desires to do so?

I believe that you do not have to be a member of the Church to be saved. I believe that it a good thing to be a member of the Church, because you have to be a member of the Church to participate in our Lord’s glorious supernatural work of saving others. Your prayer and fasting now can help lead to heaven someone you have never met, who died thousands of years before you were born on the other side of the world. Because Christ is fully God and fully Man; and God is outside of space and time; so the Body of Christ extends outside of time. Phillip K. Dick is right: ‘The Empire never ended.’ Through the Body of Christ, the 1st century martyrs are connected to us, and we are connected to them. Our prayers can help them. It is not crazy to pray for the conversion of St. Augustine. It is not crazy to pray for the salvation of Caligula, or Mao, or Ozymandias. 

That is what I believe is meant by ‘extra Ecclesiam nulla salus’.

So this world, with its armies and navies and harbours and highways and empires and republics that loom so large and important, is really hanging by a thread of prayer and penance. 

This thread is spun by God from a tiny minority of souls in a state of grace, whose participation in the sacrifice of Christ advances the salvation of all the world. The contemplative orders, which seemed so pointless to the younger pragmaticist me, are the most important thing.

From this point of view the suppression of the contemplative orders by Joseph II of Austria – by the Holy Roman Emperor, the highest temporal power in Christendom – was the greatest catastrophe of the modern age. I do not think is a coincidence that this suppression coincides temporally with the unleashing of the demonic forces that are still convulsing the world today. The one man whose primary duty is to watch over Christendom so that the nuns may pray in peace plots to close their convents; and across the ocean, the rebel armies of an infectious individualism that will eventually reduce Christendom to an atomised mist defeat their lawful sovereign. The spirit of revolution infects Europe; Yorktown is followed by Valmy; the map of Europe is redrawn, the Holy Roman Empire is no more, and one generation of insane fads follows another down to our own time, while the bodies of the innocents pile up in the tens and hundreds of millions.

Nothing and nobody is any longer in the right place; men no longer recognize any effective authority in the spiritual order or any legitimate power in the temporal; the profane presumes to discuss what is sacred, and to contest its character and even its existence; the inferior judges the superior, ignorance sets bounds to wisdom, error prevails over truth, the human is substituted for the Divine, earth has priority over heaven, and the individual sets the measure for all things. (René Guenon)

But the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church of Christ.

And somewhere in the future sentient gila monsters are praying for us on Luyten b. 

A Meditation on Scrupulosity

 I admire those who walk away from Omelas.

I admire those who refuse to co-operate, however remotely, with some evil so that good might result. Those who because of one distant crime, committed against one unknown innocent, are willing to forfeit their livelihoods, leave their homes, be abandoned by their friends and reviled by their enemies.

I admire those who are not willing to do nothing, who are prepared to draw a line in the sand and say, thus far, and no further. 

I admire those who walk away from Omelas. But I have not followed their example. I have told myself instead that their refusal is only a quixotic scrupulosity, and sometimes believed it.

I know that if we do nothing, the ghoulish use of fetal cell lines in medicine will continue. But I have gone along with everyone else and gotten vaccinated, as a condition of entering my workplace, as a condition of travelling on domestic aircraft. I have justified this decision to myself in two ways:

The first and greatest rationalisation (and O, how Dr Clam of years past would be disgusted with me) is obedience to authority. For I have come back to the Church of my ancestors precisely to put myself under authority, to put a bridle on my reason, to muzzle my logical and self-consistent consequentialist morality, since I needed some reason other than cowardice not to kill abortionists. So I have therefore to listen to the voice of the hierarchical Church. The Pope, and a fortiori to me the Pope Emeritus, have been vaccinated and encourage me to do the same. So I comply, following St. Loyola's principle, 'What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines'.

The second rationalisation follows the principle of William S. Burroughs, 'to live is to collaborate'. I do not see how we can get away with remote co-operation with evil so that good may result. My logical and self-consistent consequentialist morality is still there, ticking away. It seems to me that there are more serious ways in which most people in most Western countries co-operate remotely with the evil of abortion.

Leaving aside the obvious abomination and far from remote co-operation of voting in the monstrous fiends who advocate such things: most people in the West pay taxes, and most people in the West lend legitimacy through participation in the electoral process to governments that allow abortion. 

Civilised countries have government-funded healthcare, and civilised countries that are shot through with Satanic barbarism fund abortion. Money is fungible; so we pay for it. If I were to lose my job, I would have to go back to Australia and pay taxes.

Then there is that hard saying in Romans 13:1-2 about obeying the government. I can accept this without too much trouble if the government is an authoritarian one, since sovereignty is given by God. But a representative government makes the heretical claim that sovereignty derives from the people. In doing so, it claims to be acting in my name, and thus pollutes me with its crimes - with what it has done, and with what it has failed to do. Maybe this seems an insane scrupulosity to you. A brief anecdote: I voted for the more conservative candidate in a New South Wales state election, and a more conservative government was formed. Hooray. The more conservative premier proceeded to ram through legislation decriminalising abortion and bringing New South Wales into line with enlightened states like North Korea and the Renegade Mainland Provinces. Ffffff.... I mean, thank you, Gladys Berejiklian. I gave you a mandate and you used it to act diametrically opposite to everything I believe in. (Note to self: pray for soul of Gladys Berejiklian). If I were to lose my job, I would have to go back to Australia and participate in an electoral process that legitimised an abortion-allowing government.

So, those are my justifications.

A ninety-something German I have never met said it was a good idea; and if it is a bad idea, then there are other things  that seem bad to me that I would have to do if I didn't do it. 

Feeble justifications, or not? 

Is it a quixotic scrupulosity, to walk away from Omelas?

Pray for us, Blessed Johanna Vera Alderliesten.

Adam of Saint Victor's Song for the Patron Saint of Philosophers

Vox sonora nostri chori

Nostro sonet conditori

Qui disponit omnia

Per quem dimicat imbellis

Per quem datur et puellis

De viris victoria

Per quem plebs Alexandrina

Feminae non feminina
Stupuit ingenia
Quum beata Catharina
Doctos vinceret doctrina

Ferrum patientia

Haec et gloriam parentum
Pulchrum dedit ornamentum
Morum privilegia  
Clara per progenitores
Claruit per sacros mores  
Ampliori gratia

Florem teneri decoris
Lectionis et laboris
Attrivere studia:
Nam perlegit disciplinas  
Saeculares et divinas
In adolescentia

Vas electum vas virtuum
Reputavit sicut lutem
Bona transitoria
Et reduxit in contemptum
Patris opes et parentum
Larga patrimonia

Vasis oleum includens
Virgo sapiens et prudens
Sponso pergit obvia
Ut adventus ejus hora
Praeparata sine mora
Intret ad convivia

Sistitur imperatori
Cupiens pro Christo mori
Cujus in praesentia
Quinquaginta sapientes
Mutos reddit et silentes
Virginis facundia

Carceris horrendi claustrum
Et rotarum triste plaustrum
Famem et jejunia 
Et quaecumque finut ei
Sustinet amore Dei
Eadem ad omnia

Torta superat tortorem
Superat imperatorem

Feminae constantia
Cruciatur imperator
Quia cedit cruciator
Nec valent supplicia

Tandem capite punitur
Et dum morte mors finitur
Vitae subit gaudia
Angelis mox fuit curae
Dare corpus sepulturae
Terra procul alia

Oleum ex ipsa manat
Quod infirmos multos sanat
Evidenti gratia
Bonum nobis dat unguentum
Si per suum interventum
Nostra sanet vitia

Amen

And then, foolishly inspired by the Ballad of the White Horse:

To the songs of old Sonora

Neither Alkoran nor Torah
Brought the Maker’s secret name.
Men of desert and of river
Had no prophet to deliver         
Wisdom from a bush aflame.  

Man must serve some truth or error
When he wakes to awe and terror
Like the grass upon the rain:
In the south of changeless weathers
Cruel men of gold and feathers  
Served their gods with blood and pain.

  
Spirits of the wind and water 
Cactus wren and bear and otter 
Had no hunger for the slain.
Men of desert and of river
Sung of Elder Brother, giver
of all arts that men can claim.

Elder Brother uncreated
Who the men of old had hated
Who had died and rose again.
But he was a shadow only
Of that Elder Brother holy
Who was God and Man the same.

Just an echo of that other
Everlasting Elder Brother
Who told stories when he came.
Stories of the world’s restorer
Brought at last to old Sonora
From the Virgin’s second Spain.

From beyond the furthest ocean
For the one true good’s promotion
Came a herald of His reign:
Men of desert and of river
Heard the news of their forgiver
Who had healed the blind and lame.

In that time of new creations
For the use of distant nations
Father Kino gave the name
Of his elder sister’s patron
To fair mountains which that matron
Never saw above the plain.

The Mountains of the Frogs they knew
He christened for a maiden who
Had won a martyr’s lasting fame.
And so for many times and places
Babad Do’ag it replaces
And a Christlike girl proclaims.

Raise your voices loud in chorus
To Him who made all things for us!
Praise His high and holy name!
He who from the meek and lowly
To His glory, surely, slowly  
Puts the strong and proud to shame.

Long ago they were astounded
At that maiden who expounded
Truth against the sophists vain.
Who confounded each deception
With a crystal clear perception
For both faith and reason’s gain.

There in Alexander’s city 
She made known the boundless pity
Of the God who knew Man’s pain.  
Made more noble on the basis
Of His overflowing graces  
Spirit flaring into flame.

Tender in her youth and beauty
Yet unsparing in her duty
To those queens of science twain:
All the learning of creation  
And the Father’s revelation
By her labour did attain.

Chosen vessel for His glory
Scorning all the transitory
Goods that others strive to gain.
Caring nothing for those riches
Earthbound men aspire to, which is
Madness to the carnal brain.

Like the virgins that He told of
Who their lamps kept prudent hold of
And good store of oil retained
Watchful for the King’s returning
So that with their lamps bright burning
They might herald in his train.

Brought before the mighty Caesar
Yet the cruel judgment pleased her
For a martyr’s crown remained.
Fifty sages held enlightened
Only stood like rabbits frightened
As she scorned the world’s refrain.

 
Cast denied of all provision
In a foul and noisome prison
Flayed by blows that fell like rain  
For the love of God enduring
Scourging, starving, and immuring;
Never broken by her pain.

Seeing how she bore her torment
Stirred the virtues lying dormant
In those come to watch the game.
Each one humbled to repentance
Was sent down to share her sentence
As cruel Caesar’s rage inflamed.

Broken by the tyrant’s hatred
With her dead she extirpated
Death to rise again like grain.
Angels bore her body yonder
To a mountain safe from plunder
There to wait the trumpet’s strain.

Oil there from her body flowing
Healed the ills of pilgrims going
To that mount where man attained
Knowledge of the law of Moses:
Even so her virtue shows us
How our loss can be regained.

You who dwell beneath her ranges
Serve the God who never changes
But all changing things sustains.
Sisters, brothers, do no falter!
Burn no incense at the altar
As each new Augustus reigns.

With no answers to refute us
They can only starve or shoot us
And such ills we should disdain.
Those who serve this world’s deceiver
Argued thus with each believer
Ever since the time of Cain.

Men of desert and of river
Call to mind her name and give her
Joy by sharing in her aim.
Blessed Santa Catalina,
By His grace may our demeanour
Show we heed our Master’s claim.

May she joy as we delight
Remembering her blessed name.
And may we share her future bright
Together always in the same
Eternal city in the sight
Of He who took away our shame.

Amen