At a time when it is tempting for Catholics to “circle the wagons” by forming insular communities, the obligations remains for us to create tangible expressions of the Christian West.
by Vinicius
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that refers to the disaster of having no place to defend. This is the reality of the Christian West today: there is no civil society, no place we can point to, that recognises Christ and his Church. The Church with its billion Catholics exists of course, but Christ’s mystical body and the Church militant on earth is not civil society.
A previous article (Traditional pre-Enlightenment Society) looked at the model for the Christian West’s future in the Tridentine Christian West of early modernity and Church social teaching. A clear template therefore exists for Christians who can free themselves from Enlightenment ideologies including conservatism.
But getting Catholics, even traditional Catholics, to think about social and political matters with this template in mind involves much discussion, study of history and argument against the false choices offered by the Enlightenment. These Enlightenment alternatives have been seductive and have come in many forms.
If Catholics could point to a concrete civil society today and say “That’s what we need to defend everywhere”, the struggle would be half-won. But this sadly is not the case.
A banner to defend
Most of us can readily understand and defend good principles when they are embodied in people and societies. We need, not just list of objectives and flags to express those principles, but societies, corporations that actually live under these principles. This is not merely an ideological movement, a kind of club of people with certain views who live in societies that don’t share them. Catholics, instead, are asked to live in civil society (which may or may not profess Christianity) as the salt of the earth, not separate themselves from it (as do many sects, like the otherwise admirable Amish).
Christians since pagan antiquity, however, have always struggled to achieve what Pius XI laid out (in Quas Primas) as the necessary feature of civil society; its (corporate, not merely individual) recognition of Christ and his Church. This was famously made clear by Pope Gelasius (r. AD 492-496), with his call for alliance between the two distinct societies (but not their merging, as some pretend, dragging us back to the early Enlightenment regimes).
The sad war in the Middle East today, with manifestly dishonest justifications on the part of the conservative Enlightenment regime in Washington, shows how little today’s West has in common with the Christian West. The final proof is its total disregard for Christian sacred sites in the Holy Land and for the Christians of the region, whose protection used to be our sole reason for “interfering” there.
Such things are another striking symbol of the invisibility of the Christian West as a civil society. Some leaders touted as saviours of the old West, like US Vice-President Vance, may wear membership of the Church on their sleeve, but their minds and imaginations are firmly fixed in the Enlightenment; in Mr. Vance’s case, in the “Dark Enlightenment” of his mentor Yarvin, and Nick Land, and their occultist worldviews. Christians ought to know better by now than to be provoked by the imbecilities of the woke Left into supporting the dead end of secularist conservatism.
What is urgently needed is visibility for the Christian West. Without this, the best-intentioned Catholics are endlessly co-opted into supporting “lesser evils” and organisations, causes that have nothing to do with restoring Christian civil societies.
By all means, Catholics should co-operate with others on an issue by issue basis, but the final objective of social recognition of the reign of Christ the King should be declared. Such a path might repulse some, but this clearing of the decks is to be welcomed.
On the other hand, surprisingly large numbers will not feel aversion to this. By leading effectively on issues of vital importance to civil society, Catholics could establish one of the best arguments for the Christian West to which they refer.
The lesson of Marxists
Marxists in the West have understood this very well. Overt Marxist ideology is far more unpopular among ordinary Westerners than Catholicism could be, even today. Put up something called the Communist Party of England, of Canada, Poland or Switzerland, and it will get a fraction of one per cent of the vote. It hasn’t been done for generations.
Instead, they set up front groups working on single issues involving large numbers in a strategy to advance goals which are very vaguely perceived. This allowed Marxists (who never lost sight of their ideology for a second) to have incredible influence in Western societies.
Catholics should be leading political fights on every front, but they should not be secretive about wanting to restore the Christian West; trying to influence profoundly Enlightenment-based political parties from within has borne very few fruits. Indeed, a life-time of such behaviour usually gets Christians to end up thinking the way they act.
To succeed, those working to restore the Christian West need to excel above others in the social or political field they are active in, and be backed by decisive numbers of people of the same mind in whatever organisation they lead. That is a decisively persuasive argument for the rest of society.
The issues are there, crying out for attention. Ordinary people react but don’t know which way to turn, and often get much of their “direction” from non-entities on Youtube.
On the other hand, if Catholics know the answers and want society to change, they need to take the lead. This means becoming “professionals” in whatever social or political campaign they work in. It means training those who take part on these campaigns. Above all it requires a clear view of the final objective.
Such “professionals” not only need to be very good Christians; they need to be the best at politics, and that means leading, and winning, on concrete issues and localities (the downtrodden West needs victories, no matter how small). Such outcomes begin to make the Christian West “visible” again, if only in small ways. Political struggle led by those who openly espouse the Christian West would already be a microcosm of this society precisely because it concerns civil society. Its victory on certain issues, or in particular localities, is feasible.
Above all it would be tangible, an embodiment of the principles of papal social teaching, and of the old Christian West itself. Once again there will be a place to defend.
by Vinicius. Vinicius is a Melbourne-based historian-researcher focussing on early modernity as the Christian Western alternative to ideological, Enlightenment modernity.
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