The New Year Beckons, Burdens And All

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

Let’s face it. 2021 will bring unprecedented challenges. Its chaotic moments will test the nation’s already eroded habits of order and civil comity. Yes, the past year has seen unprecedented, even punishing assaults on truth, liberty, and Faith. Even as the curtain has been pulled back on the destructive designs of the resurgent Left, our powers to resist, much less to defy and to counterattack, have been diminished to the point of abject surrender. The ubiquitous shambles resemble the aftermath of war, but the devastation has been wrought behind a façade of feigned compassion and incarceration “for our own good.” All in all, the year has been an endless cacophony of lies.
And the China Virus? Well, it’s no surprise that Jane Fonda called it “God’s gift to the Left.”
Meanwhile, what we have come to know as the Deep State has not only survived, but prospered. Not one Bolshevik bureaucrat has lost his job, but millions of Deplorables have. And by design, one of those casualties might well be President Donald Trump, who has unmasked the rot of the elites more than any other politician of his generation. The Barabbas Brigades can’t wait to see him go so they can build their own Tower of Babel on the bones of millions of the unborn. Catholic Joe Biden, the desiccated husk they have shoved onto the stage, will gladly help them bring Obamanation’s worst nightmares back to life. Then, before long, Joe will graciously slip off the stage into full-blown senility.
They can’t believe how easy it’s been already. Why, they barred us from Holy Mass for months — without a fight! We crept back into our closets, millions lost their jobs and millions more businesses closed for good (the National Restaurant Association reckons that as many as half of America’s restaurants will never open again). Meanwhile, Big Tech, Big Biz, and Big Government enjoy boom times.
In the face of it all, should we be hopeful? Well, hope is a theological virtue, and there we should persevere and grow. On the other hand, grounds for optimism are scarce, and at times of crisis we can’t afford to be serendipitous. The elites have longed for “After Trump” for years. They will continue to rule and to plunder and to hate. That hate will now be transferred to Trump’s supporters — numbering over some hundred million. Already, prominent Democrats are calling for North Korean-style reeducation camps for the MAGA Diehards. The elites will target us with the same venom for years. What else are they good for? In fact, with Trump out of the way, they will be more vicious than ever.
The question arises, are they really Marxists? After all, for decades we have warned and been warned that our country is in danger of embracing Marxism. Not any more. After 2020, we must now admit that we already live in a largely Marxist country. And this critical moment is where Hegel’s “movement of the concept” picks up speed. If our own Jacobins implement past patterns of revolution, they will destroy the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Electoral College within a year — all in the name of Democracy. “One man, one vote, once.”
With that, the prospect of more thoroughgoing evisceration will drive them ever onward, and downward. In recent weeks, the stunning reality of our collapse has caused talk of separation or outright secession finally to pierce the noise of the universe and become a goal widely embraced, even cheered, by men of good will. Failed leftist cities and states have lost millions of residents nationwide already, right? But don’t expect the Kommissars they leave behind to be chastened. Did Satan slink off to Hell after St. Michael sent him like a shooting star from Heaven? Hardly.
No, he was enraged. And they will be too.
And why shouldn’t they? Why should they allow the sane half of the country to declare independence, when power over the sane is the Prime Mandate of the Leviathan? We must recall that the love of power has an evil twin: the hatred and envy of the virtuous and free. The Left will be no more likely to leave us alone with our love of liberty than Cain was to envy Abel quietly from afar. It won’t happen.

Do We Want Peace At Any Price?

We cannot deny the fact: we are in the midst of what Angelo Codevilla has called a “Cold Civil War.” That war gets hotter every day. The revolutionary spark, Lenin’s “Iskra,” has yet to ignite, but the prospects of a peaceful reconciliation with the Left are less than slim. That doesn’t mean that peace itself is out of the question. In 1964, “peacenicks” abounded. “Peace at any price” was a common chant and “peaceful coexistence” was an agitprop favorite of the Soviets. But “there is peace in a jail,” Barry Goldwater responded. And that is true today. A lot of folks would like to see us in jail.
Consider: in the past year, we have been “peacefully” placed under house arrest for months on end. Our bishops have peacefully – indeed, willingly and silently – acquiesced to Caesar’s fondest dream — to shut down Holy Mass for tens of millions without having to create a bunch of martyrs like Miguel Pro and Cristóbal Magallanes and their companions. After all, martyrs have a nasty habit of inspiring heroic virtue and fierce opposition among the masses.
Caesar’s appratchiks had no need to worry about that these days. Were there any martyrs in 2020? Did even one shepherd defy his pro-abortion, pro-infanticide governor, call a press conference on the steps of the Cathedral, and announce that it would be open to all the faithful 24-7?
The answer is no. Several non-Catholic Christian leaders did. They went to court, and many won. But Catholic shepherds, long groomed and tamed by their Democrat paymasters, did not. After all, weren’t our incarcerators just “trying to keep us safe”?
Facts hurt. Here’s one. Our hierarchy has cast its vote for a secular socialist future for our country. In coming years this unfortunate commitment will require our attention in these pages, especially because our bishops’ agenda perfectly corresponds to that of Pope Francis. The Holy Father has made clear that he will dedicate this coming year to his program for worldwide socialist destitution for the masses with the final triumph of the godless elites and their “Global Reset.” Francis is quite candid about it, and we should be too.
Our bishops will act in spiritual matters as they have in secular matters, where they have bent the knee — in many cases, literally kowtowed — to secular Caesar knockoffs.
Let’s look for a moment at what “kowtow” means: the term means “hit head.” It refers to the requirement that any subject desiring to see the Emperor must kneel before him and hit his head, ten times, on the floor, each time so loudly that the emperor can hear the head hit.
Oh, but doesn’t that hurt? Don’t worry, it’s not so bad. And consider the comfort of complaisant camaraderie with comrade Catholic Joe Biden. “Biden could redefine what it means to be ‘a Catholic in good standing,’” said the Washington Post last week, pointing to the Democrat Left’s agreement with “Catholic teachings [sic] on poverty, refugees, and the environment.”
Surprised? We shouldn’t be. For years atheists, abortion advocates, and others among the “Social Justice” Left have used this hackneyed “Catholic” playbook to advocate more of their U.S. taxpayer funding. And Catholic bishops have worked alongside them for years, grifting at the government trough.
The challenges will come, thick and fast. Let us pray that we can meet them with the Faith of the martyrs.