Onward, Christian Soldiers
On all things wrong (and some things right) with the Catholic Church...
I wish I had better whiskey. At the moment, all I’ve got is Maker’s, which, I’m sorry, is more of a mixer. A party drink. Snobbish, I know, but I could do with a touch of existential verve. The sort of thing you sip in slouched, sighing requiem before the morrow’s heave and toil. Out in the yard, the two-log fire strictly ornamental against the crisp flagellation of a mid-autumn’s eve…
Woodford, neat. Make it a double.
In the dizzying wrath and revelation of Election 2024, one thing is clear: when it comes to the core project of the institutional US Church, the Gospel is no longer a mere trifle; it’s apostasy. We’ve long since descended from deniability and hypotheticals: we know how this false prophet greets the stranger, have no doubt who goes hungry and thirsty, are all too familiar with his grim visitations upon the prisoner. We have experienced the Gospel of Donald Trump — in visceral, excruciating definition. Are we now to doubt what to expect from his resurrected reign? Where peacemakers be damned, and the god of mammon sneers upon creation?
All of it, to be clear, is not only antithetical to Church teaching, but openly antagonistic to the advocacy and social policy arms of the domestic church. The Bishops, with all their tacit (and not-so-tacit) fealty to the incoming Administration, have thumbed through the pages of the Official Catholic Directory, redacting every “least of these” listing.
The good news is, we can now stop pretending. Our Church leaders, for whom “pro-life” sharpens iron and monstrances make perfect idols, have drained the font, diluting the sanguine source like swill milk and surface mining the summit of Christ’s sacrificial body. All so they might lord their rule — political, judicial and cultural — over the new Gentiles of secular pluralism. This was true before November 5th — now, they reap the spoils. Having once again captured the emperor’s shrapnel-grazed ear, their armadas can set sail for the greedy, godless glory of anti-Christendom. After all, when the devil’s on your side, fire and brimstone are a hell of a good time.
To make matters worse, they’ve conscripted new acolytes. One wonders how the nauseating lurch of the Catholic vote, towards the same vile predator whom the majority rejected just four years prior, coincides with overall increases in Catholic affiliation. Everyday, while weary, persecuted and pissed-off cradle Catholics finally throw in the parochial towel, they are supplanted (and then some) by the exact sort of people you’d expect to glom onto an institution with this sort of public image and comportment. Maybe Bishop Barron is a better online evangelist than I give him credit for, and the only thing more distressing than a rotting church is its resurgent zombie husk.
Still, we press on. The US is hardly the only nation lousy with fascists, not to mention the goblins, ghouls and grafters who clamor to sit aside their thrones. Nor are we the first congregation whose high priests have tossed in with Caesar. Our forebears traveled in twos among wolves, performing acts of radical, illicit compassion, and rejecting the virulent norms of exclusion, hierarchy and indifference. They ate of the bread and partook of the cup, binding their lives and redemption to the cross and Resurrection. As do we. Our sullied shepherds may know not what they ask, but we understand what it means to drink. Gospel work has always been margins work, the work of subversion and sacrifice. We abide in hope, righteous and indignant for the true Reign to come.
G. Fault