The White Lily Blog

It certainly seems that we are at the end of the world. We won’t be surprised at the popularity of that new film 2012, even with its really bad special effects and uninspired acting. People from all political and religious persuasions will flock to see it, because we are truly frightened now.

There are so many signs of gridlock–economic, social, cultural, and religious. Every value that once glued civilization together, from honesty, to fidelity to spouse, to fidelity to business contract, to the sanctity of the single human life, has fallen. Socialism has failed. Capitalism has failed. We seem to stand naked and small on the edge of a chasm filled with smoking hell.

But such fears need not be accurate. Rather than facing the end of civilization, we might be in fact only facing the end of the viability of the secular state.

We forget the secular state was only an experiment following the madness of the French Revolution; we forget to entertain alternatives. Some of us do not even realize we are in a secular state. We keep arguing that the constitution calls on God now and again, why cannot we keep our crosses in our parks?

Europe, too, formed by centuries of a civilization in which the state and the Church partnered in meeting the needs of the flock, has not yet come to terms with the actual state they have erected on the ruins. But perhaps the time has come.

Perhaps the time has come to suggest a third party that proposes to replace the secular state with a religious state imposing the values of Christianity while tolerating the values and exercise of other religions, with limitations, those limitations spelled out in the policies of the party platform.

The most obvious limitation would be the end to the killing of the unborn, the re-imposition of the protective mantle Christianity places around the human person (and shares with some, but not all, other faiths as they have come to be so loosely defined, constituting merely personal beliefs that allow one to kill, in this particular instance, a human life distinguishable from one’s own).

Another could be the reassertion of the traditional definition and purpose of marriage, rolling back the changes the homosexualist mafia has imposed on the culture, and forbidding the further free proselytizing for the gay life style through the media . One place to start would be an end to no-fault divorce. Another could be re-control of pornography. It would also be possible to re-position marriage as central to our culture by curtailing the “rights” other forms of casual unions have demanded with legislation as simple as simply allowing the refusal to rent housing to unmarried couples or to extend benefits to them. If all that seems harsh, consider how harsh it is to be an African-American woman now, whose chances of marriage are only one in seven. For those with good hair. For those with money. Here is the real racism.

Such a third party actually has a wealth of economic strategies loosely known as distributism and characterized by what one might describe as the opposite of globalism: decentralized ownership (made possible by taxation policies that penalize concentration of ownership–think higher taxes after the third pizza franchise, or limitations on inheritance). Some benefits would be lost–no one disputes that Walmart can offer cheaper prices, but neither is it disputed that the health of the community is not made worse by more expensive commodities and more available jobs and smaller businesses owned by more people.

The Catholic Church, as Michael Moore’s most recent movie highlights, has never been in bed with either unfettered capitalism or socialism, but favors a system in which class warfare is discouraged and classes are organized together into productive guilds where the needs of both capital and labor are met. The Church has considered neither profits nor wages outside the domain of the state when curtailments benefited the common good; the caveat, as Pius XI pointed out in Quadragesimo Anno, is that the administration must be by a state with firm moral values. Our secular state fails that test, and it is thus that we are gridlocked. We simply cannot trust our state; it’s instinctual, we know our state can kill, we know it lacks that bright good respect for people, we know its armies and police forces are capable of the most enormous and casual cruelties. We try to keep them hidden, but Abu Ghraib reveals the truth. What happened to the citizens after Hurricane Katrina reveals the truth (pick up Zietoun for a chill). What happens every day in our stalemated state and national legislatures reveals the truth. We have lost our way. The secular state has failed.

A third party such as this could find supporters outside Catholicism and what is left of protestantism. Muslims understand the danger of a secular state, and it is arguable that Muslims would find life under a state with firm Christian religious principles preferable to one under an atheistic secular state that continually offends their deepest beliefs–such as ours does presently. That may be said about those Muslims living in our country. To Muslims in their own countries, some secular states, some religious, it might be a relief to be at war with invaders who at least do not set up their instant portable satellite dishes to begin to beam their pornography death rays to their armies–who invite the neighbors! Here, take a look at freedom! Isn’t it grand? This happens!

Perhaps in the end it must be war. But the prospect of peace seems greater when these religious issues (for the so-called ‘western lifestyle’ that drives Muslim mad are in fact religious issues, our lack of it, that is) are not the point, as they are made to be now.

Such a state might not find support, on the other hand, among all Catholics. Vatican II elevated the secular state to pride of place, and there are those cognoscenti , those who really understand what the constitutions of Vatican II actually say under all the pretty words, who would fight for it–and one cannot help thinking of how well all that “freedom” and all those “rights” lavishly granted in the constitutions of Vatican II were covers for the homosexual plague that immediately overtook the Church and has not yet abated. Yes, they might fight. Such a free ride as they have enjoyed is perhaps worth everything.

Would the ordinary Catholic, if he understood what is at stake, fight for it? That is debatable. The ordinary Catholic on his ordinary blog, at least, is apparently bewildered by what he sees, counting the ‘irrational not-Catholicism’ he views among pro-abort Catholic politicians and pro-mixed dormitory Catholic universities where buddha has taken the place of Our Lady at the gate, and “post-Christian” nuns who teach that Christ is only one of God’s sons, as non-Catholic, rather than realizing they are merely the new Catholics unleashed by Vatican II. They say so, over and over (please see an earlier blog, The Council Pow-Wow and Pro-life Catholics). Nor does the Vatican contradict them even as it laments abortion.

But the ordinary Catholic is still asleep.

It goes without saying that nothing could be closer to this discussion than the talks soon to open between SSPX and the Vatican. For the secular state as addressed by Vatican II is on the table, whether Rome wishes it or no. SSPX knows what is at stake. They have sworn their fealty to Christ the King and no stinking sixties-intoxicated love affair with the secular state will sway them. The word “Freedom” does not make them swoon like disobedient schoolboys. They do not wish to be ‘free,’ they wish to be bound to the King.

Let us propose a third party. Our Lady’s party. Our Lady’s Lions? Mary’s Martyrs? (It would come to that, have no doubt; even as I type it I expect the server to crash and Satan to fly in through the window.) Suggest something to call it and email me and volunteer. We could win. People are that fed up. We could have health care reform by forcing a constitutional amendment forbidding abortion and euthanasia. We could have prayer in schools (God knows they’ve tried everything else to help the situation in education in this country!). We could fight successfully on so many fronts. We might not win elections but we could influence the discussion mightily, and that’s what third parties are all about. We might then suffer through our economic distresses poorer, but not more terrified that they are coming for us in the night.

Down with the separation between Church and state. We need a third, Catholic, party!

Down with the secular state. We need a third party!

Down with liberalism. We need a third party!

All hail to Christ the King!