It might seem overly audacious to borrow from the title of a book that is hardly consonant with Christ and His teachings, but it has often been said that we are to learn from our enemies. The book in question is "Rules for Radicals" by the Jewish writer Saul Alinsky, a book that had among its adherents many liberal Catholic clergy after the Council, and count among its modern disciples Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, to name but a few. Unfortunately there must be a number of Catholics, even in high positions, that still look to Alinsky to teach them about how a radical is to think, and act in consequence. Now this article is not going to be a critique of Alinsky's book; that would take a good deal more time and length than it seeks to encompass. However, it might be a launch point, at least in its title for prodding Catholics to take up a position which is radical in its truest sense- that is, that Catholics abandon the errors of their enemies, and return to the roots of true Catholic thinking. Too often have American Catholics taken for granted "truths" that have their origin in its very enemies, and neglected as old-fashioned or naive, those teachings that the Church have defended throughout the course of the history of Christendom. Of course, now the leaders of the Church have abandoned Catholic principles in favour of modern thinking, and that goes for leaders far removed from the Western Hemisphere.
We remember the dedication that Alinsky makes in his book and recall that we are called to dedicate ourselves to the source of all true authority: The Blessed Trinity and Christ the King, God Incarnate, who rules by right of nature and of conquest. Alinsky dedicates his work to Lucifer, the first revolutionary, while Catholics must dedicate themselves to the rights of God and His authority over man and all his works. One of the problems of Alinsky is that he is not radical enough. He draws most of his principles from modern liberal and materialist thought. Despite his admiration for luciferian revolution, he lacks luciferian wit, wit enough to know that the supernatural order is very much alive. So we pass on from modern decadence of thought to the principles of true radicalism- the principles derived from God both in the natural and supernatural orders, for He is author of them both.
What might be termed the rules of Catholic radicalism? This is an important question. Certainly such rules entail a break with those manners of thinking and acting that attack and attempt to subvert the principles of Roman Catholicism. That unfortunately has not been the case with myriads of Catholics in America in the past, and this cancer of the intellect has passed over to Europe and combined with the enlightenment thinkers already at war against the Church. Its first fruits were the revolutions beginning in 1789, and its high point was the Second Vatican Council, where prelates closed the past off to Catholics and tried to build a new and brighter world hand in hand with its very enemies. We will leave it to the reader to decide whether the result has been a happy one. Let us look then at the rules:
1. Firstly there is need to recognize that there is indeed a supernatural order revealed by God. God has given the blueprint of human salvation to mankind, and this blueprint includes the true nature of many things in the natural order, such as politics and economics, family life and the role of the sexes. The important thing to remember is that Catholicism is not a human fabrication, more or less in need of a gradual perfecting of principles and casting off of error. It is God Himself revealing the truth and becoming man in order to order man again to his true end.
2. Once there is this admission, the Catholic must look around him at the other claimants to the title of religion. If God has revealed His religion, then the others that conflict with that true religion must be false. It is not to say that all that is said is false, but that what truth there is in the false religion becomes all the more lethal as it turns man away from either the end proposed by God, or from the truth necessary to reach that end. Sincerity does not replace truth. We have only to look at the thousands upon thousands of bloody sacrifices by the Aztec religion to see that there is divine truth in the verse speaking of the gods of the nations as demons. There is the evil of satan and his minions, and the evil within man himself as he seeks to create his own "truth". Ecumenism then is a grave falsehood, a falsehood many times fought by the Church. To fight heresy or infidelity is not inhuman but the act of charity seeking to keep man from an eternity of torment.
3. In face of the indifferentism toward the true religion and the true God that has enshrined itself in every modern democracy, and that is omnipresent in the thinking of Americans, whether they be non-believers or Catholics, the Catholic if he is to be a real bearer of that title, must fight for the rights of God and His Incarnate Son to rule over human society. There cannot be compromise with a system like ours that is not neutral; it actively seeks to deprive Jesus Christ of His right to rule over society. Catholicism moves the Catholic to worry not so much about the sacrosanct rights of the human person, but about the rights of Christ in society. Thus the Catholic cannot place his trust in modern political parties, for these are not in any sense trying to profess the only true God nor His rights. For all parties, the will of the majority is crucial, and this flies in the face of all truth. Man does not make the truth. God has given things specific natures that have specific ends. Man can only confess that he is a steward to a higher authority. The Catholic will never admit that authority resides in the people as in its source; rather the Catholic confesses that "all authority comes from God" as Scripture teaches us.
4. Every Catholic must find the courage to question the assumptions of this new civilization that man has built as a replacement for Christendom. He must realize that the cancer of liberalism has deeply penetrated into the vast majority of modern men, and that might very well include himself. He must search out these principles of modern thought, and have the strength to reject them. Catholics do not need to find the answer to the modern problem in hazy notions so prevalent among men and women today. The Church has taught the way to God and the true form of civilization. Pope Saint Pius X teaches us in the letter condemning the Sillon that true civilization is Catholic civilization, even as Pius XI went on to say that true education is Catholic education. But the Catholic cannot simply remain a questioner. When the answers are found in the teachings of the popes and saints, then the Catholic must act.
5. One of the biggest lies of modern civilization so-called is Naturalism. Naturalism seeks to cut man off from the supernatural order and the revealed truths of God taught by His Church. Thus it becomes possible to ignore the effects of original sin by reading books or magazines that seek to inflame the passions or attack the Faith, or to dress immodestly since there is no weakness supposedly in man, or to ignore religious differences since we cannot really know the truth of it all and natural ties are the only really IMPORTANT things after all, or to watch television shows in which the supernatural order does not exist and a whole way of viewing the real world and morality are carefully poured into passive ears and passive eyes. There is no mortification, no self-denial, only self-fulfillment. Only what can be seen and measured are the things that we should. Nothing else should be insisted upon. Those are the siren voices of Naturalism, and our society is filled to the brim with them.
6. The Catholic then decides how he can live his Catholicism in the true manner. This manner is not reconciliation with the forces that undermine the truth. Pope Pius IX had already said in the Syllabus of Errors that the Pope cannot reconcile himself to modern civilization, and that of course means the assumptions that the revolution have used to pervert mankind- freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to do this and to do that, when all these things, if divorced from the unmovable rock of Catholic truth, only lead to the death of civilization and that of every poor man that embrace them. So the Catholic does not reconcile the unreconcilable. The Catholic begins by turning to the supernatural means available to him: the true Mass, the sacraments, the Catechism, the Mother of God, the saints. With the these means he begins to be Catholic in a true sense. Then he declares war on the naturalism infecting his way of thinking of acting. He begins to take seriously the words in Job that "the life of man upon earth is a warfare" and he practices mortification and self-denial. Yet he does not stop there. Man is not just an individual. He is part of things that are greater- the family, for instance, and the State. A Catholic must strive to make sure that marriage reflects the fact that it is a sacrament, and as such leads to the perfection of the spouses, and has as its primary end, as distinguished from other sacraments, the procreation and education of children so that they might people the kingdom of Heaven. The Catholic as a citizen looks to obtain the true good of his nation. This does not mean rubber stamping the nonsense that made America the apostle of a false religion of democracy and pluralism, for that will only bring the wrath of God upon the United States. It is to work for a Catholic America, and that means making it a Catholic confessional State. It is work for the restoration of true authority in the family and in states so that the fatherhood of God is reflected in rulers of all degree and in fathers of families.
The Catholic does not lie to himself and seek to work both for God and for the devil. Republicanism will not save us, nor the Democrats, nor Labour, nor the Conservatives. There is no trust to be put in any of these chimeras. The Catholic must reclaim the natural order for Christ, and that means that when things become bad enough, there must be a refusal of any compromise with the devil. It means the rebuilding of Catholic civilization stone by stone.
