We live in a time when power is evinced by power of office, of wealth, of clout. How many divisions does the Pope have? is a question not only asked of a former Communist dictator, but every government that is a functionally atheist regime. That is, powers and principalities that look neither for an ally in Heaven nor to be judged by the same on terms not of their own choosing, but that of Heaven's (name one that does, please).
The only major world power that does - save (I hope) Israel - is no longer a temporal power in the normal sense of the word. It is the one, holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church. It occupies very little land, sum total; yet it purports to hold forth on matters magisterial to the entire human race - every man, woman, and child made in the image of God, imago dei.
That it should be such a target of venom and vitriol, such concerted efforts to divide and castigate it should - should - make every man, woman, and child made in the image of God wonder why. Why should the Catholic Church be heaped with such scorn and spite if it is merely an antiquated remnant of medieval superstition?
But, as Mark Studdock discovers in C. S. Lewis's prescient novel, That Hideous Strength, along with the powers and principalities that desire so much to arrogate and usurp for themselves the cult of power, persuasion, and permanence, the Normal (along with the True, Good, and Beautiful) has a remarkably tenacious way of rebuffing them, outnumbered, out-strategized, and out-gunned though it is.
This might be remarkable as a talking point, but right now the people of the biblical faiths - Judaism (and Israel is particular) and Christianity (and the Catholic Church in particular) are being attacked with a renewed vigor by a great many of the "functional atheist" regimes and peoples mentioned above. Even the most powerful man on the planet, President I Won, is catering hugely to Judaism's and Christianity's largest foe: the Scimitar.
Like all good politicians, he knows which way the (foul) wind blows, and he thinks he can harness it for his pitiably puny understanding of what is "good" for everyone. In this way, he merely another Protestant: he has studied under the finest progressive minds of post-modernity and has found Catholic truth, faith, and morals not to his liking. Therefore, he eschews them (read: rejects them) for another Rube Goldberg contraption. Which is passing strange, since his progressivist ideology can't possible assimilate the Scimitar's fervent intolerance for his permissive, Dionysiac values.
What they surreptitiously have in common is ... a common hatred for biblical truth. And it is always of value in politics and anthropological dealings to have a common scapegoat: someone or someones we can agree to sub-humanize and upon whom to cast blame.
And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day: for before they were at enmity between themselves. - Lk 23, 12
I think you know, gentle reader. Judaism and Catholicism.
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