By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Some of our readers may remember aspects of the history of my Twitter exploits a few years back. I built an account up with a very large follower to followed ratio, almost 25k to 83. This is calculated to impress, Twitter being a superficial medium that measures reality in terms of follows and likes. It’s fueled by much fruitlessly expended CO2, so to speak. Many opinions, but often little context. A lot of talk but little action or real effort results from much expended “gas.” But one can, with patience and fortitude, find a pool of folks who don’t follow just to get a follow back, tit for tat, and who want to hear what a priest has to say. Granted I offered a unique “brand,” as it were, telling the story of my experience of relaunching the integral Catholic tradition within a parish context. And that’s the real point of this column. The “real.”
After a few incidents involving my account I was asked, or rather told, to stop posting. Or else. On behalf of whom this was communicated it is better not to mention. The reason for going back in time and delving once again into the late unpleasantness is to make a point. I was making Twitter less fun because I was boldly challenging one of the more widely known and “followed” heresiarchs who presents himself as a Catholic and is treated as a priest in good standing by his religious community. He is well liked by the Pope and treated to personal audiences, photo-ops with His Holiness, and hand-penned congratulatory notes. All of these are, of course, posted on his Twitter account.
You may guess of whom I speak. Or not. It doesn’t really make a difference in the end. Why? The real protagonist in this and all matters Catholic is the Faith, the truths of the Faith. The Logos, our Lord, is the center of our lives. And this is important for the sake of the souls whom Christ sent the Church to save.
On another occasion I made a point about modesty in this forum that offers little to no context. Latin Mass Catholics inhabit a largely lost world, where men and women use clothing for a similar purpose in a true equality long forgotten by a society that measures freedom in terms of license. Thousands of consumers of information on Twitter with no experience of a Latin Mass, or the unique experience of community enabled by it, had little to no capacity to understand how one person with skin exposed in a sea of people can provide a considerable distraction at Holy Mass. That was the point of a tweet that drew international ire and caused a Twitter mob of deranged thousands to swarm and attack a single priest.
But what drew official opprobrium, in part as the result of a phone call to an archbishop from a religious superior “defending” the advocacy of perversity on the part of a subordinate, was a defense of Catholic faith and morals on my part. That was unforgivable. The destroyers on the inside, in league with the worldly, have claimed the Internet for themselves and are fighting strenuously to ban the true and integral presentation of the faith in many online social networks, Twitter in particular.
As with politics, when raw power becomes the raison d’être, the truth and the real purpose of a government by the governed must be prevented at all costs with lies, crimes, and corruption. So, the heretics on Twitter must use every means possible to create the illusion that they alone speak authoritatively for the Catholic Faith. The “dissenting” voices of traditional, orthodox, or even “conservative” Catholics must be silenced. Or “ratioed.” Which means piling on like a bloody mob to insult, shout down, and overwhelm the unwelcome truth with overwhelming numbers. Again, more is better in the “Twitterverse.”
When we make the faith about personalities and their popularity, or not, as is so often the case on social networks, we miss the point and pervert the true purpose of being Catholic. And we also fall into the danger of thinking the virtual world is where the faith is worked out for souls and salvation. Salvation is in real life, not on Twitter.
A worldly parallel is found in the so-called Beltway mentality for which the nation’s capital is famous. It is a chauvinism that lives and thinks and acts as if it were the center of the universe and uses all the power and money at its disposal, and there is quite a lot of it, to maintain the illusion. If you grew up in and around DC, participated in events like Boys’ State, still held at the Naval Academy when I took part, served as page at the State House in Annapolis as did I, worked at the Pentagon as a summer hire during college and then again there on orders as a second lieutenant and again later at the old Military Personnel Center in Alexandria, as did I, you marinate in that closed hothouse mentality.
But if you get in your car and drive west the illusion begins to fade, and by the time you cross the mountains and begin to experience the vast landscape of the U.S. interior, dismissed as “fly-over country” by the coastal elites, you can almost feel the tentacles of the DC illusion loosening its grip. And it is reconfirmed, or made obvious for the first time, that DC exists for the sake of the whole. DC draws its existence from the people of the entire nation vast in scope, from their energy and ideas and money. Without these it would sink back into a collection of dusty monuments and museums reclaimed from a muggy, mosquito-infested swamp.
Social networks create their own inner world of echoing repetition, where the ego is a king who feasts on a nearly endless banquet of narcissistic agreement. It’s not the real world. But it has lulled many into a drugged, somnolent state of half-existence that leaves them coasting along in a state of delusion. The Catholic faith happens, gets results, makes a difference only in the real world, where the rubber hits the road. Ot, rather, where the knee hits the pew. Or the Communion rail, as the case may be.
The actual “social network” of the Church is the family and the parish in a symbiotic relationship. The real Church happens in praying the Mass, receiving the sacraments, living the virtues and seeking Heaven. It is also found in vocations to religious life and Ordinations to the priesthood. This month my parish proudly sends off a vocation for priestly formation. The young man was largely formed by participating in our Traditional Catholic parish life for seven years. This is the work of the faith and the Church that you cannot find on Twitter, social networks or the Internet at large.
Gerhard Cardinal Mueller is making a difference and modeling the “real.” He recently ordained men to the priesthood in the ancient rite, helping to keep the flame of our ancient faith alive. As reported by Gloria-TV, he “ordained on June 24 six priests from the Institute of the Good Shepherd in Saint-Eloi, Bordeaux.”
“He used the Roman Pontifical, which Francis is said to have ‘forbidden.’ Mueller already ordained in 2021 in Le Barroux and in 2022 in Courtalain.
“In his homily, he noted that ‘even bishops’ are pushing for the Protestantization of the Church in order to bring it into line with nihilistic-materialistic sentiments that are being pushed in the present time.”
The fight before us is against the principalities and powers of this world. Against the hostile takeover by means of the synods.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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