Am going to be busy, I doubt I will blog much.
As my posts of late have been marked with a certain anger and lack of charity, probably just as well.
I have to come to realize that the central battle in our culture is essentially one over truth. Can truth be known, or is it unknowable?
I think that our culture has come to the conclusion that truth is unknowable -- that it either doesn't exist, or is a relative thing. If this is so, then it follows that all discussion is essentially reduced to a discussion of politics. We see this in our universities most clearly of all; where subject after subject falls to political analysis. English therefore becomes not a discipline about the language, but a discipline about politics. Philosophy becomes not a search for ther truth through reason, but a discussion of politics. All knowledge is seen as if through a prism of cynicism, a prism of cynicism ending in an 'ism.
If there is no truth, all that is left is reason and power, and as on Orwell's Animal Farm, we know how that ends. It ends in the destruction of individual rights and of freedom. It ends in the rule of the pigs.
Some people look at that end, and say "So let us be the strongest pigs possible." I look at it and say "There simply must be more; that way is false, and leads to our destruction."
I have come to embrace that truth is knowable, but not through reason alone -- it must be revealed and received through faith. Central to reception of truth is an act of humility and the recognition that man is simply not God. The fruits of that act, no matter how simply made, are great.
Our country hangs all of our rights on the simple notion that there is a creator, and from him we derive inalienable rights. For otherwise, no rebellion against tyranny can be justified. So great was the honor and dignity of our country's founders that this simple truth made them fight a war against one of the world's least tyrannies.
Today, we instead seem unable to resist the worst of tyrannies.
But we don't seem to see it anymore.
I have stumbled across revealed truth. I am in the habit of saying that I believe in two propositions -- "I believe that Christ is who he says he was" and that "I believe The Catholic church is what it says it is." I can now reduce that proposition to one, for I have worked out for myself how the latter can be deduced from the former. Quite simply, it is that Christ would not permit his Church to fail; lest we in the future, 2000 years from his crucifixion, be denied his grace through the failures of men. And if I believe he let it get degraded to the point where 1500 years in, the truth was unrecognizable except to Luther, I would have to think his mercy was little and that the souls condemned to hell are many. I simply do not think he would permit such a thing. He did not intend to reveal truth for an instant, and then hide it under a dirty bushel. He intends our salvation, therefore his truth must be visible today. As a consequence, while I can recognize that many sects and many faiths contain elements of truth, those truths are only true in that they are either derived from the Church, or in accord with the Church.
All other propositions can be judged in accordance with the simple truth.
To the extent that anything denies Christ, it is untrue. To the extent that anything attacks the Church, it is untrue. And while the church is in need of constant renewal, for the world is not perfect, and Christ has not yet returned to relieve the Church from its battle, all that renewal must come from the Spirit within. And the Spirit is eternal -- it does not change its mind, it does not bow to the blasphemous minds and hearts of men, or fail because its priests are sinners or even the occasional Borgia pope takes a bribe. The spirit constantly renews the church so that the sacraments are effective and the truth may be revealed to all.
As I look at our debased and degraded culture, the shocking immorality of our art and literature, the falsehoods and sophistries pouring out from our universities, and the naked worship of political power, I feel I have to retreat a little bit more into the bastion of truth.
Were I only to read books that have an Imprimatur and a Nihil Obstat, were I only to retreat ino the library of the fathers and the saints and the sacred liturgy, I would still be a vain, corrupt, lazy, gluttonous, slothful man. But I would not be living through denying the truth. I would know that I was surrounded by truth. And at some level at least be nourishing the soul.
So, with these thoughts on my mind, you might not hear from me for a bit.
But trust me, I am well.