Rod Dreher recommends what he calls“the Benedict Option.” “build resilient communities within our
condition of internal exile”
Fine as far as it goes. Let’s call it
necessary but not sufficient. Dreher writes, “Benedict of Nursia, a pious young
Christian who left the chaos of Rome to go to the woods to pray, as
an example for us.”
The local communities of lay faithful who had
to battle to keep their families together and faithful while
continuing their occupations in the World continued outside of the
monasteries. They suffered but survived.
It seems, after the last week or two, that the speed or momentum of the Left’s assault on American culture has accelerated. As I thought about this, I remembered a couple of things: the term Iron Fist and the fact that as a grip closes, it gets stronger. We have been surrounded and are being crushed from all sides. History, morality, economy, the very concepts of identity all are collapsing in on themselves and on those Americans who merely wish to live their lives according to their Faith and to the principles that first made this country exceptional.
Dreher continues, “LGBT activists and their fellow travelers really will be coming after social conservatives. The Supreme Court has now, in constitutional doctrine, said that homosexuality is equivalent to race. The next goal of activists will be a long-term campaign to remove tax-exempt status from dissenting religious institutions. The more immediate goal will be the shunning and persecution of dissenters within civil society. After today, all religious conservatives are Brendan Eich, the former CEO of Mozilla who was chased out of that company for supporting California’s Proposition 8.”
I’m sure the briefs are already being delivered to the court houses to enforce the new regime on the recalcitrant. Bakers, florists and photographers have no leg to stand on now. KofC reception halls are an obvious target. The preliminary work to remove tax exempt status has also begun. It will probably follow the same route as SSM has: localities like San Fran, Berkeley etc will take action at the local level. A publicity campaign will proceed with the MSM and opinion shaping information gateways shaping news and information to push popular opinion in the preferred direction. Court cases will be initiated in friendly districts. Bills will be introduced in Congress with little immediate hope of passing, but in order to get people used to the idea, get the ‘correct’ arguments out at the national level and to position opponents as defenders of bigotry. The IRS may start investigating some more fringe-looking independent churches. Cardinal Dolan will be presented as equivalent to Westboro Baptist Church. I don’t know how long it will take them to get everything in position, but sooner or later, either an Obama-esque executive decision or a Supreme Court decision will remove the tax exempt status for religious organizations. If going directly against churches seems like too big a jump, they will start with schools and charities. In each case, the squishier ones have already gone over. If there are any Methodist or Episcopalian schools and hospitals left, I’m sure their policies are already in line with the current fad. Progressive Catholic institutions will fall easily. Large organizations will also fold because to lose tax exemption would be fatal and they are too big to fail. Georgetown, Notre Dame etc. will make headlines and remove any vestige of cover for smaller orthodox schools and organizations. Catholic Charities will fold like a card table. Catholic schools will fold or close. The parishes will probably be the last to go, but they will not be allowed to remain outside the control of the State’s new orthodoxy. But whatever havoc that causes to non-state, religiously motivated organizations and churches won’t satisfy their urge for total surrender. Any organizations or churches that manage to survive without tax exemption will then be hit with discrimination suits and violation of civil rights laws. They won’t be satisfied until the Archbishop of New York is a married homosexual or the Catholic Church is totally suppressed.
Actually, they won’t be satisfied
even then because that is the nature of the Progressive beast.
Think I'm paranoid? I wish!
That didn’t take long…
But, First Amendment! Religious
Freedom!
Not for you, you filthy Christian!
“When,” Mr. Shaw, not “if.”
Of course, we really have no real
choice. Recognition of reality, our duty to our Creator and to our
fellow souls demand that, “We are obliged to RESIST! “Clear and
emphatic opposition is a duty””
The CDF, has a much much more coherent
argument than the USCC majority. Just sayin’.
Oh, and as the dissenting justices and
every other sane human being saw coming for the last 10 years,
SSM
isn’t the end, it is just the beginning:
Incest will follow like clockwork.
Abnormal is the new normal. Making
normal seem very strange.
Decline is a choice. This country has
chosen.
Utopias, literally, “No Place” are
promised in the Brave New World envisioned by the totalitarian
Progressives. Distopias are all too real. Gird your loins, folks.
Did I mention publicizing
self-identified Catholics exhorting all of us to be tolerant, loving
and go along to get along? How could I forget that old saw-horse?
I just kind of have a feeling that the
game plan for all of this was laid down about 20 seconds after this
had taken place:
And lest we forget that this is more
than merely a catastrophe for our culture, our public morality and
the freedom of citizens to peacefully live out their faith, it is
also a catastrophe for our Constitutional republic and the rule of
law. Bonus!
Nothing good, I don’t think. At least
not if you aren’t enthusiastically with the program. Oh, yeah.
That’s another aspect of Progressivism (shared with Communism and
Fascism): it isn’t enough for them that you refrain from dissent.
You have to be enthusiastic. You have to be “for” what they are
“for” and against what they are against with emotion.
As compared to Justice Kennedy’s
gobbled goop (use Scalia’s phrase).
A bit of good news by way of
intermission amidst acts 1 and 2 of doom and gloom:
Sure, it’s a publicity stunt and sure
it’s Japan, but nothing this side of the chick who married a bridge
and a building (was it the same woman?) indicates better the
dissolution of the very concept of Marriage as a particular thing.
Kennedy says something about defining
our own realities, Well, Bruce/Caityn Jenner has exercised his/her
right to do that – and radical feminists object. Donezal has her
racial identity and Blacks protest. The DoD has tried to follow the
old RadFem line that gender is a construct and yet Ranger School
among other inevitable experiences continue to flout the attempt.
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature, and there is no fooling your Creator.
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