Good Friday by Ermes Dovico
UNITED STATES

Thanks to the FBI, Catholics discover their role in resistance

The "confidential" document of the American Federal Police which considers anyone who follows the Mass in the old rite and prays the Rosary "dangerous extremists" has worked to galvanise them. Now they know they are the true soldiers on the front line in the fight against the terrorism practiced by the very state bodies once the government of the United States.

Religious Freedom 18_02_2023 Italiano Español

On February 8, a "confidential" document from the Richmond FBI (dated January 23), and later retracted, was leaked. It targeted Catholics. In the crosshairs, the faithful linked to the traditional Mass and the prayer of the Rosary, were primarily associated with "dangerous extremists". The FBI then declared that the document was not up to standard, but the shadow of an instrumental use of intelligence remains, in an anti-Catholic key and for the purpose of repressing dissent towards the Biden administration. Here's a comment from the US.

Fears regarding the next possible assault on the Roman Rite of Mass aside, the many groups of traditional-minded Catholics in the United States with whom I am in regular contact have never felt better. Finally, they have been placed in the limelight, identified for what they are, with their invaluable mission as frontline soldiers in the war against terrorism and the incredible efficacy of the weapons at their disposal publicly revealed.

It has been clear for many years to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear who forms part of the terrorist band they battle. The FBI happens to be at center stage at the moment, but it represents only one segment of a broad gang of hooligans that also includes the CIA and, quite frankly, most of the organs of what was once called the government of the United States.

All of these institutions, along with the apparatchiks manning them, are now simply the pathetic tools of a materialist and libertine oligarchy that now openly demonstrates its commitment to total irrationality and the triumph of the will. While long at work dynamiting every spiritual, intellectual, and natural authoritative pillar of a properly ordered society on behalf of that oligarchy, they continue to cover up their terrorist activity with a rhetoric emphasizing their service to individual freedom and the common good of the whole of the population. But even though this has more and more entailed assaults on specific matters dear to believers’ hearts, they have never openly “cut to the quick”, proclaiming the essential danger that traditional Catholicism as such constitutes for their project.

Now, however, they have come clean, and the joy of my fellow Catholics---and mine as well---is unbounded. Justice has been done! We now know that the irrational, willful terrorists who continue to masquerade as the sole, legitimate voice of a nation gone mad have understood that their path to the abyss is seriously blocked by the Traditional Latin Mass, the Rosary, and the embrace by those who attend and say them of the entire cause of Christ as King. At long last, we can begin to look our Mexican brothers and sisters in the eye and say that we, too, whether we voluntarily chose this militancy or not, are being looked at as frontline soldiers in the war for the defense of both Faith and Reason; that we are potentially as dangerous as the Cristeros, Blessed Fr. Miguel Pro Juarez, and all those many ordinary non-belligerents who stood firmly behind them in the 1920s and 1930s.

I am writing this brief piece from one of the “training centers” for the service of traditional Catholicism in the Diocese of Richmond, whence the revelation of the terrorist plot against the Faith first came to notice, and I can tell you that I am not exaggerating the sense of relief that the mask has been pulled off the face of the apparatchiks of the oligarchic enterprise. Yes, so far only twenty attorney generals have protested against the anti-Catholic assault, so that one can wonder what the other thirty are up to. Yes, one can also legitimately lament the fact that the outcry among the successors of the Apostles in this land has not been completely Athanasius-like in its volume.

Nevertheless, essential Catholic beliefs, practices, and devotions are once again out there in the public sphere, not just with respect to their impact upon the crucial battle of the forces of life against those of mutilation of the body, abortion, and euthanasia, but with reference to the entire conflict of the City of God with the City of Man. In short, it seems to me that our frontline forces are more ready and willing to go into action than ever before in my 72 year lifetime.

That lifetime has been one spent in the company of Catholic believers who have honestly tried to understand what brought about the destruction of Western Christendom, so as to work effectively on the intellectual level to revive appreciation of its glorious achievements, which have only been due to commitment to Christ, Christ’s Church, and the development of any and all “Seeds of the Logos” that can be found in the natural world around us.     

This also happens to be what the “pioneer” analyst of the “frontline soldier” experience in the First World War ultimately dedicated himself to as well. Ernst Jünger, the author of the Storm of Steel (1920) a man who became a Roman Catholic only at the very end of his long life of hunting for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful tells us this in his powerful novel, On the Marble Cliffs (1939) which discusses the battle of a decadent but once great civilization against the terrorism threatening its final destruction. The protagonists in this novel grasp the fact that is only by going back to the roots of what really counts, and working in common with others doing something similar in a spirit of calm joy---Heiterkeit--- that seemingly overwhelmingly evil forces can be crushed. I re-read that book once every year to remind myself of this truth that Traditional Catholics in the United States should keep always in mind today:

"Now battle had to be joined, and therefore men were needed to restore a new order, and new theologians as well, to whom the evil was manifest from its outward phenomena down to its most subtle  roots; then the time would come for the first stroke of the consecrated sword, piercing the darkness like a lightning flash. For this reason, individuals had the duty of living in alliance with others, gathering the treasure of a new rule of law. But the alliance had to be stronger than before, and they more conscious of it."
(Ernst Jünger, On the Marble Cliffs, XX).

I thank the FBI for having made this truth crystal-clear for Catholics and pray for its conversion to the cause of God and country. Viva Cristo Rey!