The Democrats swept the off-year elections on Tuesday. Of course, all they swept were in blue states and cities anyway, so that is some consolation. I had thought, however, that there might be a repudiation of Democrats in these areas. The contrast between the Biden years (which was just an extra term for Obama) and the Trump years is stark in policy terms. Trump’s policies enhance peace, prosperity, stability, and liberty. Obama/Biden’s policies fomented war, misery, chaos, and authoritarianism. It is clear which policies are superior – and by a wide margin. Yet the left and the Dems chose to double down on what has been chaotic and ruinous…and they had sufficient followers to cheer them on while going down the road to ruin.
Most of my lifetime, American disagreements were over policy…and voters generally chose those who they thought produced the best policies, even though voters sometimes (and even often) got it wrong. But when voters DID get it wrong, they would course correct based on how the policies affected them. What this election showed is that we are, indeed, in revolutionary times. This is not about policy, but about a contest for power regardless of consequences.
The advantage the left has is their revolutionary fervor, unconcerned about results or consequences, only the will to power. Every one of them, from the masterminds to the minions, believe that they will be in positions of authority, dictating to everyone else how things must be done. Their disadvantage is their lack of knowledge of actual history, which shows that when such a revolutionary movement prevails, one of its first priorities is to purge itself (through jail and executions) of its most belligerent adherents to keep them from overthrowing the new powers that rule when the inevitable disasters start rolling in. Their further disadvantage is that their policies, no matter how well marketed with virtue-signaling and pseudo-intellectualism, are uniformly ruinous – and will further drive ordinary people away from them.
The advantage the right has is that they remain policy and results based. They will get some things wrong, but their template is to judge on results (for the most part). What they do usually works – and is rarely ruinous. That will drive more and more people formerly in the middle and who were simply liberal, but not frenzied leftists, into the conservative camp, even if only temporarily. The disadvantage the right has is that it lacks the constant, white-hot fervor the left has. It also suffers from complacency from those moderates who think a win means final triumph or that everything will work itself out. The right has only sustained itself in focused action when it is suffering from actual oppression.
So the left and the media will delude themselves that victory in leftist enclaves means the momentum with them is unstoppable. Meanwhile many on the right will delude themselves that, because it all happened in leftist enclaves, it is meaningless. Both are wrong, but hey, have at it. Delusion breeds deadly overconfidence, and I am content to let the delusional be. Besides, I am way too old for their frantically earnest explanations of why, though they are wrong most of the time, this time they have got it right, for sure.
I have called this Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil before the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. Significant problems on that are that many secular (and frankly, many religious) people do not even consider that a possibility. A further problem is that those who do tend to think that the Triumph will come whatever they do – and this breeds complacency. They are right…but not in the way they think. The Triumph WILL come, whatever we do BUT what we do determines when it will come. We could have a generation or even more of chaos and deepening suffering, or this could be over in a couple of years. That depends on us.
I have been gratified by our victory last November. As the battle begins, we have a man at the top of our government who is culturally and politically aligned with normal people. Frankly, he is more religiously aligned with us than many religious leaders. That is no small thing. Throughout this year, as I have celebrated that, I have also warned that the battle lines are now being formed…finalized, actually. Some thought that last November’s victory meant there would be no battle. Of course, there is. And it is slowly ramping up. Woe to those who are complacent and unprepared!
I think of Jesus, when He found that His disciples were sleeping as He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asked them plaintively could they not remain with Him for even an hour? But then, in what I think is one of the most touching passages in the Gospels, He looks at them with affection and leaves them to sleep. He knew that, weak and faltering as they were, they would rise to the occasion later, when it counted. Of course, I can’t see such things. I know that some will rise, others will fall, and people I care deeply about will fall into both categories. It troubles me.
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I rarely read the Signal channels associated with CORAC. Originally, I chose to do it that way so that folks could express themselves more openly without me checking in. But I do glance at them from time to time, to catch the mood. I saw the other day that some in CORAC thought my last post was just a rant. Those who thought that badly misread what I was doing. While I was saddened by what I was seeing, I was not angry.
I have seen some religious and other conservatives think that gaining some victories meant that we were now holding the upper hand…and that we would (and should) impose our will on everyone. I have read more crackpot treatises on how the answer to everything is to…require only the Latin Mass, repudiate the Vatican II Council, acknowledge not just that the smoke of satan has entered the Church, but that he is running things completely, blah, blah, blah. Politically, there is the great emphasis on who to cast into outer darkness…some for disagreement and others because they are “Jooos!”…or have other immutable characteristics the super-conservatives don’t approve of. Funny how usually the people with the least actual knowledge of the Scriptures and the Magisterium demand the most rigorous and unforgiving panaceas for everyone else. I did not sign onto the conservative movement to replace the left’s thugs and bums with the most bummish thugs we can find on our side.
Besides the business with the Jews, I have seen some triumphalists and supremacists write angrily about how the adherents of non-Judeo-Christian religions are worshipping demons…and so must be crushed. Well, often they are worshipping deities that don’t actually exist. Demons, opportunistic creatures that they are, often go in to fill the gap and deceive them, so the critics are right that many worship what, in actuality, are empty deities filled by demonic entities. But it is not as relevant as you might think. The critical question is what the worshippers’ intent is. If it is to know and follow God (which it usually is, no matter how errant it might be at the moment) then such worshippers are NOT to be cast into outer darkness, but to be appealed to, just as St. Paul appealed to the pagans at the Areopagus, first complimenting them on their piety, and then telling them about Christ. If that is St. Paul’s approach, why does anyone think they should form themselves into a heat-seeking missile against perceived error? Even more important, before St. Paul ever got started, Jesus was already preaching to Samaritans, who were considered the faithless lowlife Gentiles of the time. If you don’t believe me, tell me what manner of Jews kept herds of pigs. None did…so to whom was Jesus ministering to when He cast Legion into a herd of pigs?
The fact is that Jesus, Himself, never advocated for any sort of theocracy. He is adamant about respecting our free will…and we were to convert by evangelization, persuasion that what we preach is true and brings life. Do you not know that if you preach any other way that you are as errant as the religious leaders who now try to tell us that active, intentional homosexuality, gender ideology, and abortion are acceptable in the eyes of God? And having preached a different Gospel, you will be as accursed as the errant hierarchs and the fallen angels if you do not repent of it?
I was not then, nor am I now, venting my spleen. Rather, I was fulfilling a sacred duty. If I see people who could easily do well engaging in that which tears away their humanity and can destroy their souls, I am obliged to tell them…first gently, then candidly. If I fail to do that, I believe I will be held responsible. Once I have fulfilled my duty, they may well continue on the way to perdition, but I am relieved of guilt.
Some people, both religiously and secularly, are WAY too similar to Job’s pious friends, thinking they are defending God when they are frantically only defending their preconception of what God must be. It is a vanity of the first rank…and a major reason why I recently posted a reprise of my piece on Job, Into the Whirlwind, to give you a foreshadowing of where I was about to go.
I saw, clearly, decades ago that as we entered into this, the most terrible of all the periods through which we were being renewed, the satan would glean many in his final efforts to ruin souls, including some for whom I care greatly. It has been more sorrowful than I expected watching it begin to play out in real time. If you are among those given to that sort of triumphalism or supremacism I pray you learn to bridle it. If you don’t – and don’t repent – you will be shocked to find yourselves among those Jesus will tell the He never knew – and will be lost to eternity. Much of what I have written this year has been to elucidate that reality. If some of you continue on that path, I will grieve copiously, but I will not be responsible. That is all that is going on.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
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On Sunday, December 7, we will hold an international CORAC Forum via Zoom. I will make some remarks and then take your questions and comments. Our executive director, MP, is working to put it together right now. I will give you more information as we get closer to the time for it.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on X at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
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