Church Militant The Vortex Feed

TRANSCRIPT

After managing to set the stage, behind the scenes, for winning elections, the Marxists are now onto the next phase — the use of violence. We got a foretaste of all this in the summer of 2020, but now we are beginning to see it carried out in specific circumstances, aided, of course, by the media, who really have developed into the enemy of the people.

Let's start with the Tennessee killings, carried out by a woman pretending to be a man. The mentally ill woman shot and killed three children and three adults in a private Christian school. As horrible as the trans assassin's actions were, they are not singular. In 2018, 26-year-old Snochia Moseley shot and killed four people, including herself, at a Baltimore suburb Rite Aid. Mosely was a lesbian, who had begun transitioning to a "male."

In Colorado Springs, in November last year, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary, shot up Club Q and killed five people as well as injuring 18 others. In Denver, in 2019, 16-year-old Maya Elizabeth McKinney, who identified as male ("Alec" McKinney), shot and killed one teen and injured eight others at a STEM high school. That's four cases.

But these are not the only cases of violence (committed against innocent victims) emanating from the Left. Just a few days ago, Phillip Todd, a 26-year-old assistant of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, was stabbed in broad daylight in Washington, D.C. He is currently recovering from the brutal attack.

And, of course, there is the hideous case of Jane Fonda (who should be behind bars for her Vietnam-era treason selling out U.S. soldiers to the commies) who, while recently sitting on the show for brain-dead women The View, said that pro-lifers should be murdered.

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"Hanoi Jane" later backpedaled, in the face of withering criticism, saying she had just been kidding. But is calling for the murder of people who disagree with the communists something to joke about, or is there actually some truth to all this?

Here in Detroit at Wayne State University, earlier this week, professor Steven Shaviro tweeted this out: "So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down."

Wayne State University's response to their professor's call for murdering conservative speakers? Send an email to the entire campus saying "That's not our policy" and then place him on paid leave while they "investigate" — not sure what more there is to investigate.

Then there was the flurry of violent attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers around the nation, following both the leak and the actual ruling coming down in the Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade (which legalized abortion throughout the country).

The Left has no problems engaging in violence if they determine it will advance their cause. The trans community is launching a virtual assault (on social media), with a comprehensive list on Eventbrite for multiple protests around the country this weekend they are calling "trans vengeance" and "trans visibility."

And unsurprisingly, the Left's mouthpiece, the Marxist media, is actually siding with the trans assassins over their dead victims. For example, in the Nashville case, NBC had the gall to post a piece suggesting transgenders are living in fear of being attacked, while a slew of dead bodies who had actually been attacked and murdered was barely cold.

Here is the highly inflammatory piece whose headline reads, "Fear pervades Tennessee's trans community amid focus on Nashville shooter's gender identity." And the more galling sub-headline, "'We were already fearing for our lives. Now, it's even worse,' one transgender advocate in the state said."

In the wake of the trans violence, Arizona's Leftist Gov. Katie Hobbs, whose questionable election is still being disputed, had the embarrassing duty of accepting the resignation of her press secretary. With the Nashville murders barely a day old, Josselyn Berry tweeted a threatening image directed explicitly at people opposed to the transgender cult, whom they call "transphobes." The image, as you can see, shows a direct threat of gun violence if you disagree with them.

It's also noteworthy that the media are reporting on the trans killers and assailants and identifying them by their preferred pronouns, not their actual biological sex and names. And as multiple states begin passing and signing into law measures to curb or eliminate trans surgeries and drugs for children, the Left is losing its collective mind, staging protests and disrupting various lawmakers' speeches and appearances.

The bottom line on all this is pretty clear: If you are the commies, the use of violence is a form of free speech. If you are conservative, free speech is a form of violence when you disagree with the Left. See how this works? Conservative values are violent. So a violent response to them is justified as "free speech."

We are entering a whole new era on the American cultural scene that has, so far, been deadly. Given the volatile conditions, there is nothing to suggest this will come to an end anytime soon. The moral fabric of America is unraveling, and the time has come for good people to step forward and make whatever sacrifice is necessary to end this insanity. The country is beginning to resemble a powder keg, and it's clear the Marxists have zero concern about that.

TRANSCRIPT

The Catholic identity has been so watered down throughout the West that, with rare exceptions, virtually no Catholics have any sense of duty to the Church, to Christ. In fact, the very opposite is often encouraged by the clergy. And at the very least, there's no other message Catholics could reasonably conclude other than, there's no big deal about being Catholic.

This is best demonstrated by looking at what's called the walkaway ratio. The walkway ratio measures the number of people who leave a religion compared to the number of people who convert to it. To their everlasting shame, the U.S. bishops own the highest walkaway ratio of any religion in America. No one else is even close.

When this apostolate began in 2006, the walkaway ratio was 4-to-1, meaning for every convert to the Church, four were leaving. In 2018 — five years ago — the ratio jumped to 6.5-to-1. In raw numbers across the population,13% of the U.S. population are former Catholics; only 2% have come into the Church.

But those numbers, as we said, are five years old, and some early estimates for more recent years put the number even higher at eight walkaways for every convert. The percentage of Catholics relative to the overall population has fallen from its traditional level of 25% to barely over 20%. One out of four used to be Catholic; now it's one out of five — and falling. So, a little examination of conscience is necessary here.

By the way, about half of Catholic walkaways join some Protestant group or another; the other half abandon religion altogether. Both of those statistics tell you one thing: Those hordes stampeding for the exits don't understand what the Church is and, therefore, feel no compunction to remain. In short, they have no — zero — identity as Catholics.

They don't see themselves as belonging to the Church established by the incarnate Eternal Logos. The sacraments instituted by Christ are essentially nothing to them. The Blessed Sacrament is meaningless to them. If you belong to a religion — at least, if you are intellectually honest — you believe it to be the true religion. Why else would you belong?

You could say that whether it's true or not doesn't really matter to them, that they just want to have "fellowship" in some generic congregation that has a decent "pastor." But that's a really dumb reason for joining a religion whose chief goal is God — not the person sitting next to you. For all the emphasis Church leadership in America has placed on education over the last 200 years, they certainly didn't help Catholics become smart.

What we have now is an emasculated, almost childish view of God and religion, which has adopted all the woke views of the world. Notice that when it comes to professional athletes, for example, it's never a big-name Catholic out there opposing the LGBTQ agenda. Notice that when the pandemic garbage was going on, more Protestant communities protested and stayed open than did Catholic ones.

In fact, there is hardly ever a peep from Catholics of any sort in the world of the culture wars, certainly compared to Protestants of a more conservative stripe. Given that, it's hardly surprising that the half of Catholics who walk away, walk to socially conservative Protestant congregations. But regardless of what may be attractive socially and culturally, or even emotionally or psychologically, one thing is absolutely certain: Theologically, it's a shipwreck.

No one who understands Who the Catholic Church is could ever walk away from Her. In fact, to do so would be to ensure damnation, as plainly stated in the catechism:

He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. (CCC ¶ 846)

No Church, no salvation — for those who know. But, there's more: For Catholics who "stay" in the Church, but not with the sincerity of charity, it's hellfire for them, as well. From the same document:

All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

In sum, you are damned if you know the truth of the Church and either walk away or don't ever come in or stay in lukewarm. There is nothing more serious than all this, absolutely nothing on earth. So let's go out on a limb and say that only the biggest fool would understand all this and still walk away — which means the vast majority of those walkaway Catholics do not know. And it's a safe bet that those around them, family and friends, also do not know.

And it's also a safe bet that much of the clergy either doesn't know it or is too cowardly to preach it. The fangs have been ripped from the mouth of the Faith, as though being nice is all that is needed — when it clearly is not. Most Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence, the Devil (at least as a personal being), the teachings on sexual morality, the sinfulness of deliberately missing Mass, the need to die in a state of sanctifying grace to be saved — none of it.

Catholics who do know all this are now under an even more intense obligation to lay themselves out for the Faith — to speak the truth as clearly as they can, to put some fangs back into the Faith in its battle against Hell. What we are talking about is defending the purity of the Church, of the Faith, at whatever cost is required. While it's true many Catholics do not know, it is also true that many don't want to know.

Which are which is up to God to judge, but it is easily apparent that many fall into the camp of the willfully ignorant, not the invincibly ignorant. There is a certain comfort that comes along with not fighting, with being toothless, being defanged. It makes life easier, oftentimes much easier. The only cost involved is your soul, for eternity.

Get into the fight like a roaring lion to meet the Devil face-to-face. Call a spade a spade. Call out heresy. Call out phony ecumenism. Call out the destruction of souls. As the Church says, anyone who does not remain in Her, in charity, will be damned. Doing all those things is charity. They are called the spiritual works of mercy.

TRANSCRIPT

Now that we are firmly ensconced in the 2020s, this would be a good time to look back a century to the 1920s — that exuberant, over-the-top decade known as the roaring '20s. While flappers were kicking up their heels to the Charleston here in the United States and bootleggers like Joe Kennedy were making a fortune with illegal booze and speakeasies during Prohibition, on the other side of the Atlantic, communism was firmly implanting itself.

Joseph Stalin came to power in Russia in 1924 following the death of Lenin, but in the lead-up, had been consolidating his power from his position then as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Marxism as a theory was already, at the time, gaining traction in the United States. World War I, for example, was barely over, and already, Marxists established the Communist Party of the United States in 1919.

At the same time, in Mother Russia, communism was asserting itself as the dominant influence, and by the time Stalin seized control, all bets were off. Communism, like Christianity — specifically, Catholicism — has as its goal world dominance. The glaring difference, of course, is that communism employs mass murder. Catholicism employs mass instruction.

From its earliest beginnings in the 1920s, Marxist communists immediately sought to undermine all things Catholic — the natural virtues of religion and patriotism, to name just a couple. That's why the latest findings of that Wall Street Journal poll are so revealing. In just a quarter of a century, a little less than two generations, the percentage of Americans who say patriotism is very important to them has been cut nearly in half from 70% in 1998 to just 38% today.

Same trend with religion — while not quite as precipitous a drop as patriotism, religion being considered an important value also took a walloping, down from 62% to 39%. The same trends exist with both having children and community involvement.

What is perhaps most telling, however, aside from the actual decline, is the common thread that all four of those traditional American values now have less than majority support, whereas 25 years ago, they each enjoyed the support of a majority. That is a major sea change and, frankly, a siren call to the end of a nation — at least, the end of this nation.

But also telling is that the greatest lack of support for these traditional American values is among those younger than 30. To be certain, all age groups saw a drop in support for these values, but those under 30 show the least enthusiasm for them. Any notion of America, as historically understood, no longer exists.

Even a pollster who worked on previous versions of this poll had this to say: "These differences are so dramatic, it paints a new and surprising portrait of a changing America." We are in a great transition at the moment. What we are transitioning to is yet to be fully seen, but it is coming into focus. And it isn't pretty.

So why would we look back to the roaring '20s to understand all this? Because that is when the seeds were being planted in American institutions. It has taken a century for all this to come to fruition, but only the most blind would refuse to see all this. The aim of the communists 100 years ago was world domination. That hasn't changed. Even if the Soviet Union has fallen, the driving force behind it is actually stronger than it was then.

The founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci, correctly identified that to accomplish the goal of a world takeover would be a long and arduous task, and the West would have to be completely decoupled from its Catholic roots. While he himself did not coin the phrase "a long march through the institutions," it remains, nevertheless, the correct strategy and has proven wildly successful.

America's law school faculties, for example, became targets for the commies in the '20s and '30s. So did labor unions, higher education, the media, the government and so forth. As time rolled along, by the time anyone really recognized what was going on — around the 1960s — it was probably too late. There was, of course, a religious and patriotic resurgence of sorts under Reagan in the 1980s, but that looks like it will go down as the final rallying of a dying nation.

Reagan won by a landslide in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter 50% to 41% and registering an obliteration of him in the Electoral College vote: 489 to 49. Reagan won the popular vote by more than 8 million of the 80 million votes cast. The 1984 reelection was even more spectacular — dispatching the idiotic Walter Mondale by 59% to 38% and winning the second highest Electoral College vote in U.S. history, 525 to13, and destroying Mondale in the popular vote by 17 million out of roughly 92 million votes cast.

Telling — exit polls revealed that even those who disagreed with Reagan's policies voted for him, they said, because he evoked a sense of patriotism. Compare Reagan's victory, appealing to American greatness, with Trump's similarly themed Make American Great Again campaigns. Trump never won a majority —  never even won the actual popular vote — and had to rely on an all-or-nothing Electoral College strategy to eke out a 2016 win.

You, of course, take the "w" wherever you can get it, but, the point is, this isn't the 1980s anymore. That WSJ poll also had another revelation in it: The idea of American exceptionalism is fading just as fast. More people, 27%, believe other countries are "better than America" than people who say "America is the best," 21%. The remaining half say we are just as good as other countries.

In short, four out of five Americans polled reject the idea that America is the best country in the world, and, yes, the bulk of those who do believe it are older. This is the triumph of world communism.  America, because of its traditional values, which have been Christian generally and Catholic specifically, had to be defeated.

The commies, back in the day, detected a weakness in the American ideal — a weakness, really, of human nature in general that could be exploited — and that was selfishness. The roaring '20s were a decade of decadence, sexual license — the slow beginning of a decline in morals in general, all of which were being replaced, just a little at first, with a materialism that would become the center of American life.

A love of money and wealth so intoxicating that even so-called conservatives would pay no heed to the wipeout of their own civilization because they were and are so fixated on money. Therefore, it cannot be surprising at all that the journal's poll found that only money saw an increase on the scale of "most important," approaching a majority at 43%. Saint Paul was right: The love of money is the root of all evil.

While no WSJ poll exists on all this for the Catholic Church in America, it does't take a genius to see the parallels. What was once viewed as traditional Catholic values are gone. And a sense of Catholic exceptionalism — because the Son of God established the Catholic Church — no longer exists. Instead of the bishops seeking to convert America, especially in the face of communism, they simply tied themselves to the political Left and helped bring about an end to America.

It's only fitting, therefore, that the Church in the United States will suffer the same fate as the United States. Unlike nations that come and go, the Church will always remain, protected by the divine promise. But that promise does not extend to the existence of the Church in a given nation. The early Church converted the Roman Empire out of love for Christ. The U.S. Church hopped in bed with the communist takeover of America out of a love for self.

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Just before we begin today, if you could please remember my mom in your prayers — today would have been her 89th birthday. Thank you.

Roughly one-quarter of the U.S. population identifies as Evangelical. That translates to about 80 million people. Evangelicals are not their own Protestant denomination, but rather a movement within Protestantism overall. As such, it draws on various denominations for its support.

Evangelicalism has deep roots in America and worked to transform society in different eras, notably compromising the backbone of the abolitionist movement. Evangelicals became notably political as big cultural, moral changes began developing in the late 1950s and especially the 60s, moving forward. They were the main ingredient, for example, in Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority helping Ronald Reagan twice into the White House.

Since the 1990s, however, their political clout has somewhat waned, and by the time we arrived at the 21st century, that so-called Christian Right had splintered to the point where a portion of those calling themselves Evangelicals also identify as "progressives." However, despite the waning influence over political policy, they are still a strong presence in the theological and cultural spheres.

Evangelicalism has a number of core holdings that include, as the name implies, evangelizing but also, the inerrancy of Scripture as well as the need to be "born again." These terms and labels are really nothing more than Martin Luther's original "Sola Scriptura" and "Sola Fide" — Scripture alone as the authority, as well as simply believing as the only required response.

What supporters, however, fail to realize is that building a religion on those premises is doomed to failure, not only as a religion but, ultimately, as a nation. The idea that Scripture — the Bible — is its own authority is beyond spiritually insane — it's destructive. It's not only interesting but also important to note that not a single book in the Bible claims to be inspired by God.

The closest anything ever gets to that is when St. Paul says all Scripture is inspired. But when he wrote that, he was talking about the Old Testament. And moreover, he hadn't even finished writing his own letters, and a good portion of the New Testament hadn't even been written yet.

How can his passage about inspiration be laid over parts of the Bible that didn't even exist yet, nor did he know would exist when he wrote that line? The answer is, it can't. In order for followers of Christ to say all Scripture is inspired, there has to be a definitive authority to declare that St. Paul's writings are inspired. That authority is the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church alone.

Yet here is the problem: Only a few Protestants accept that on its face, and the few who do, do so grudgingly and then quickly pass on. And yet, this is the key, the main point of Christian theology — from which falls morality and ultimately the life of a nation — for a nation does rise or fall on its moral code.

If the authority of the Catholic Church — not individual leaders here or there, but the teaching authority of the Church — is denied or ignored, then you have theological chaos. That theological chaos, sooner or later, translates into social and political chaos, which is what we see playing out now. Drag queen story hours, for example, have a direct line straight back to Martin Luther, as does every social and political evil afflicting the modern world.

Protestantism, simply put, allows each man to decide for himself what is right and wrong, what Scripture means, what it doesn't mean, Who Jesus is and Who He isn't. Despite all the good and well-meaning intentions on the part of the Evangelical movement within Protestantism, in the end, it will fail because, at its core, it is incomplete.

It does not have the stuff of being able to withstand the assaults of the Left, of communism. The reason, ultimately, why is, communism is the fullness of the lie against humanity, and Protestantism, within which Evangelicalism is a movement, rejects the fullness of truth about Christ, owing to individual interpretation.

In short, it is philosophically flawed. It is a house divided against itself. Communism is never divided against itself on its march toward global domination. It is divided, obviously, against the truth but certainly not within its own realm. As you look over social media, you see an abundance of preachers and systems and postings about this version of Christianity or that version of Christianity. Follow Jesus this way, follow Him that way.

Sign up, get the app, join in — all of that. And, for the record, there are scads more of these that are Protestant than Catholic — not surprising in a Protestant-dominated culture — but still important to know. They will rise or fall based on a combination of their content, how it acclimates to the current culture, and the personality of the preacher.

What none of them will provide is the complete picture, because if they did, they would be Catholic. So on social media and all those religions, preaching sites and personalities, what you have is the old adage: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Catholicism has always been at a disadvantage in America. 

Despite the New World first being settled by French and Spanish Catholics in the 16th century, it was the arrival of the Puritan British and their eventual dominance from which the nation sprang. True,  some of the original anti-Catholicism had waned a bit between the arrival of the Mayflower and the War of Independence 150 years later, but not that much.

Catholics in the United States were still marginalized and even despised up until the aftermath of World War II. It was only when they traded their Faith for a place at the table of the dominant American culture of Protestantism that things got better, materially and socially, for us. By then, it was too late. Too many generations have now passed. There are too few authentic Catholics to change the dominant Protestant ethos and, most importantly, beat back its consequences of atheism and put the nation on a path to true righteousness.

Still, it is curious how few authentic Catholics, aside from the heretical ones, are actually in the fight. Yes, there are small efforts here and there — and they are certainly praiseworthy and even to be lauded — but for the most part, most "Catholic" attempts in the land of social media are almost indistinguishable from Protestant efforts.

The internet — social media — is where all the ideas and opinions are clashing and rubbing against each other these days and forming the basis for some kind of counterattack against the communist Left. It's too bad there are very few organized Catholic efforts, and even more sad that what few individual Catholic voices are present are relatively weak.

For example, how has erroneous Protestant theology helped accelerate the decline of the nation? The acceptance of divorce and contraception, first embraced by Protestantism, beginning about 100 years ago, and then eventually by Catholics, has wiped out any notion of family.

The destruction of the traditional family has given rise to a massive welfare state run by the communists, which is now used to pummel the last remaining holdouts of any true understanding of Christianity. When a nation walks away from truth, it's only a matter of time. It's not enough to make nice with Protestantism. It's a heresy, and those individual Protestants who are of goodwill, but simply don't know the reality, must be taught the truth, the reality. Chaos is in control politically because chaos is in control theologically.

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Dries Van Langenhove is Belgium's leading activist. He came to his choice after being the youngest  member of the Belgian Parliament, which he has since resigned from, believing that politics in and of itself is insufficient.

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At the young age of 29, Dries has correctly identified the root cause of his nation's descent into immorality. In fact, it was not only his arriving at the truth of the matter but then voicing it that got him kicked off the University of Ghent Board of Governors and out of the school, very close to graduation.

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It was after being kicked out, essentially for his political views — greatly shaped by the Catholic faith — that he ran for and won his seat in Parliament. But having tossed in the towel on politics, he now focuses more on his own growth and doing more grassroots activism. He's opened a gym and uses it as not only a physical training ground for young guys but also, more importantly, as a way to open their minds.

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Dries is, easily, the most famous conservative activist in Belgium, commanding a massive following on social media, with up to a million views each week. He is of the mind, as we are at Church Militant, that some people who are of goodwill and, as a result, open to the truth, will listen when you present it to them unvarnished and begin to embrace it. They just have to hear it, which means someone has to say it.

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Of course, he's not naive about being the one saying it, telling the truth. Like those of us here at Church Militant, he has had first-hand experience of what happens to you when you get on the radar of those who oppose the truth. Nevertheless, Dries has a small piece of advice, rooted in the necessity of the Catholic faith.

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Keep Dries and his developing Belgian youth movement in your prayers. The fight is real — it's intense — but it contains within itself its own reward and glory. Thank you, Dries, for your work. Keep it up, brother, and when the inevitable discouragement begins to encroach and hem you in on all sides, remember your original zeal and tap back into it as often as need be.

Wherever you are in your faith, grow even stronger. The Faith is not a weapon for just changing the culture, which is, of course, a noble goal in and of itself, but Catholicism is an end in itself, changing men. It is changed men — changed from sinful creatures into fully alive sons of God — who will change the culture.

Even in an intense struggle for the country, it must always be faith first. It is faith that changes nations. Nations and their citizens cannot simply use the Faith. In the end, God will judge us on our unfaithfulness, not our patriotism. Country? Yes — but God first.

If you'd like to watch the entire interview, just click the link.  

TRANSCRIPT

Starting premises, first principles, foundational things (whatever you want to call them) matter. And by matter, we mean they really matter because everything happens because of them. As my dad — God rest his soul — used to say, when you begin the game of chess, there is a huge number of moves you can make, but once you make that first move, all future moves are contained in it.

Stretching that further, as you make move after move, the number of possible moves keeps shrinking, keeps being reduced, until there are no more moves, and the game is over. In short, the final outcome is actually baked into that first move, so you'd better make the right first move, believe the right first premise. That's how it is with life, both on earth and, most importantly, the next life. So let's focus on the starting premise, which will contain within itself the final outcome.

First, God is a trinity, an undivided unity of three divine persons. That immediately eliminates all world religions except Christianity from any kind of consideration as being worthy of belief. Hinduism, Islam and so forth, are false because their starting premises are false and, therefore, lead to a false final outcome.

Then, within Christianity, based on the premise that the Eternal Logos incarnated to save humanity from its fallen state and consequent damnation, Jesus Christ established a Church — one Church. That immediately eliminates all other brands or flavors of Christianity except Catholicism from any kind of consideration as being worthy of belief because it was and is the Catholic Church alone that He established.

The Founder of the Catholic Church, being divine, therefore gives to the Catholic Church a single identity and purpose not present in any other religion or so-called church, no matter the intentions or goodwill of its members. See how the starting premise eliminates everything else very quickly. As the 19th-century Spanish philosopher Juan Donoso Cortés said, and we have repeated numerous times, "Catholicism is the law of life, the life of the intelligence, the solution of all problems. Catholicism is the truth, and everything that departs from it one iota is disorder, deception and error." 

It must be that way if the starting premise is correct. Philosophy is very much like mathematics in this regard. The final outcome was, is and always will be just one correct answer. There cannot be many right answers. So where does this bring us with regard to the Church in the world (because in its material dimension, the world is where the Church exists in history and the day-to-day affairs of man)?

It's very simple, actually — since the Catholic Church was established personally and directly and uniquely by God Himself as the sole means for salvation, then it is at odds with the world, which is under the sway of Satan. The Church brings order; the world brings chaos. And these two are at war with each other until the end of time. It is only the civilizing influence of Catholicism that keeps the chaos at bay.

But there is a truthful extension here, a logical conclusion flowing from all this. If the world is descending into chaos, then the Church is in retreat. And, therefore, a second conclusion can be drawn: The state of the Church influences the condition of the world. In short, if you want to know the condition of the Church, just look at the condition of the world.

The world is in chaos today precisely because the Church is. Or, as we are fond of terming it, at the moment, the Church is a dumpster fire. For the past century or two, the world has been advancing on the Church at an ever greater rate, and the response of the shepherds has been not to push back and attack, but to fold and surrender.

African Cdl. Robert Sarah has put it very succinctly: "The Church is dying because her pastors are afraid to speak in all truth and clarity. We are afraid of the media, afraid of public opinion, afraid of our own brethren! The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep." That statement clearly defines the battle lines between the Church and the world. And notice who the esteemed cardinal identifies first as being "the world" — the media.

The proxy war being fought between the world and the Church is the one between the media and the cowardly bishops who will not stand up for the truth because of what will come their way. Remember that starting premise — it's the Church established by God and the world at war with each other. At any given moment, one is winning and the other is losing.

God permits the world to engulf the Church precisely to draw out, to bring forth, to summon from His faithful, to awaken in them, a sense of their true identity as warriors. As Pope Leo XIII so aptly put it: Catholics are born for combat. Given the ever-increasing advance and encroachment of the world on the Church, it is blindingly clear that too few Catholics are learning their lesson.

The Church is dominated by cowards and beta males, up and down from shepherds to influential laypeople. The cowardice and sense of "decorum" from those in high places inevitably trickles down to the common Catholic who thinks compromise, disguised as "charity," is the correct response. It is not — not even close.

You are only allowed to temporarily tolerate evil while at the same time working to eradicate it. A faithful Catholic (truly faithful) can never compromise with it, make peace with it. There is complete denial on the part of these leaders — bishops and laymen — that the world seeks to destroy the Church. That denial arises from a false starting premise, actually, many false starting premises.

But what is going on and advancing rapidly is undeniable and, most importantly, is being aided and abetted by these cowardly, weak men. When the Church is losing, then order is replaced with chaos. Take a look around and judge for yourself.

Today's Vortex highlights the Church Militant Spotlight revealing the connection between former Cdl. Theodore McCarrick and Robert Chambers (New York Preppy Killer).

Back in February, Anglican Dcn. Calvin Robinson shook the elites and their established order at a speech he gave in Oxford, England, where he promoted adherence to gospel morality. Church Militant sat down with Dcn. Robinson to get his reactions to the blowback.

TRANSCRIPT 

There is a commonly held expression, at least in political circles, that a conservative is nothing more than a liberal, just five years behind — true. When it comes to the great battles of our day, we need to realize that those driving the bus are the commies, the Marxists. They have almost total control of everything, including large parts of the Church. How have they accomplished this?

In a word, they are extremely aggressive and relentless. They never stop pushing forward. It's what you could call a Marxist march. Through a combination of understanding so-called conservatives' mindset, human nature in general and excessive cunning, they have gotten most (meaning, nearly all) of the culture to accept varying degrees of their agenda.

Once a person comes to accept part of their agenda, they generally move on to accept all of the agenda. Not every single person — but then again, they don't need every person — just enough of them. You don't need to win the game by five touchdowns; a field goal works just fine. A win is a win.

In the meantime, so-called conservatives have offered next to nothing in the way of resistance, pushback or even much of a fighting spirit. A few, certainly, but, then again, nowhere near enough. Apparently, it is the nature of these conservatives to be little else than beta males.

They have little to no vision, no forethought, nothing beyond an ideal of what they want or think the world should be — but pitifully little ambition to make it happen. They also seem to be all but completely oblivious to the forward march and even doubling down of the Marxists, even seeming to go along with parts of it.

In the area of sexual morality, for example, where the commies have made their greatest strides, virtually every conservative, or at least sufficient hordes of them, accept the narrative of sexual license, that what happens in the privacy of the bedroom is somehow totally unconnected to the common good. Take, for example, this startling video of Dave Rubin, hailed as some kind of liberal turned conservative.

Rubin and his gay partner (civil "husband") — because all of that is now OK in conservative circles — he and his man killed a number of embryos in order to get their rent-a-womb pair of embryos through in vitro fertilization — also accepted and embraced by conservatives. Notice the trend here.

But what's very alarming here is his reason for making the video — to defend Ron DeSantis against charges of gay hate because — wait for it — the conservative Ron DeSantis is completely accepting of Rubin, his shack-up buddy, their having a family and the method involving the killing of embryos. DeSantis and his wife even sent the gay couple onesies for the babies. Did you catch that?

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One clue that the path of transformation always flows from conservative to turning into a leftist is what pro-lifers have seen on the Supreme Court for decades. Never has there been anyone sitting around pondering why justices who were liberal when appointed became conservative — it never happens. It's always the other way, in every single case. Why is this? Why is it always so-called conservatives who are always in the process of being transformed and almost never the other way around?

Even in the case of someone like Dave Rubin, it's never any kind of transformation of significance; it's only economic policies or some archaic constitutional principle with no real day-to-day impact on the life of the nation. All of this was the underlying unrest about Kevin McCarthy being elected Speaker of the House. A handful of moderate conservatives didn't believe he wouldn't transform himself when the rubber hit the road.

Conservatives will claim they are too busy just leading their daily lives, raising their families, going to work, acting as though the framework of American life is still Leave It to Beaver. What they don't realize is they are being picked off, one by one — taken out, a man or a family at a time. The Marxists are winning — big-time — and it's because enough good men are doing nothing of serious import, and there aren't actually that many good men.

Then there's all the talk and chatter of a "national divorce." Really? Just what would that look like? You can't do anything geographically. The red state–blue state dichotomy isn't really a dichotomy at all. Red is just the color you temporarily are before eventually turning blue, or, at least, some shade of blue.

Is there a state in America ready to secede — declare no-fault divorce and divorce and remarriage illegal, ban contraception, forbid abortion, make gay "marriage" illegal, get rid of porn; and kick out those who do support all this? Because you've got to kick them out.

If not, they will sit there, slowly poisoning the well just like they did previously. In short, not one state in America is prepared to abide by and enforce the natural moral law, so all this talk of a national divorce is pie in the sky because it's not based on reality.

Remember, a conservative who accepts any part of that agenda today is nothing more than tomorrow's Marxist and joins in their march. Total, absolute purity is the only way to combat taint of any kind. Conservatism in the culture and the Church was long ago diluted. And without a massive resistance to it — and soon — pretending it's going to be different sometime down the road is fool's gold.

TRANSCRIPT

Just a quick reminder — tonight at 7 p.m. ET is the debut of our Membership Mondays where we will be holding a live chat to talk about various timely issues and give you the opportunity to check in with your questions or comments as well. Anyone can view the show, but to get into the live chat all you need to do is sign up to become a Premium member.

Again, that's tonight at 7 p.m. ET. We'll see you over there. Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the pontificate of Francis — a tumultuous time for the Church. But one positive thing that has happened is awareness.

Just as most politically conservative Americans would still be blissfully unaware of and willfully blind to the communist undermining of the government had it not been for Donald Trump, the case can also be made that, had Francis not arrived in Rome, the massive corruption stretching back more than a century would likewise have remained largely unknown.

Most Catholics — in the West, anyway — have simply walked through the world brain-dead to the evil of an overwhelmingly corrupt hierarchy. Pope Francis did not just drop out of the sky. He is the product of an ecclesiastical swamp even more dangerous than the D.C. Swamp.

And for the shortsighted silver-bullet crowd, take note: This malignancy, barring a stunning supernatural intervention, is not going away when Jorge Bergoglio is no longer pope. Last Friday, Church Militant aired our special on the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' reign, and we touch on some very salient points worth your consideration.