TWO CURIOUS 'CATHOLICS'

 

Two Curious ‘Catholics’

David Warren

Friday, January 10, 2025

 

In both Canada and the United States, we have Catholic “statesmen” (I use the term almost facetiously) retiring after many years of “service” (ditto). They are Mr. Justin Trudeau, up here in the Great White North, and Mr. Joe Biden, down there in the. . .south.

Both became extremely unpopular, and “good riddance” has been expressed pretty much across the spectrum of opinion. Yet curiously, neither experienced a spot of trouble for being a Catholic, or at least, telling us that he was.

Indeed, Mr. Biden sometimes entered churches, wore ash on Ash Wednesday, and, I’m told, sported pocket string beads sometimes described as “a Rosary.” He proclaimed himself a very devout Catholic, while collecting a few votes for it. He also declared himself a devoted supporter of the woman’s “right” to abort her children.

In this respect he was just like Trudeau, another public feminist, and an enthusiast for abortions.

Both were supporters of men who surgically “transitioned” into women, and women who surgically “transitioned” into men, including children against their parents’ wishes.

They were “post-“ in several ways. Mr. Trudeau liked to claim that he was “post-nationalist,” and a friend to all “peoplekind.” Mr. Biden mixed his disgendering principles with being the commander-in-chief of the world’s most formidable military. He welcomed various DEIs and “post-whatevers” into its ranks and officer corps.

Nine years we endured Justin Trudeau in Canada (he still hasn’t gone), but the Americans had to put up with only four of Joe Biden.

Or perhaps I should say that I and a few friends endured Justin, who won three national elections, and thus became one of many irresistible arguments against democracy. The peoplekind voted, until recently, in favor of his “good hair,” and for nothing else they could articulate.

Nevertheless, a merciful God has provided that even the most incompetent and disastrous leaders should exhibit some virtue. Had Trudeau and Biden never been, we would not now be celebrating the victories of what they called the “far right.”

We haven’t seen the back of Mr. Trudeau yet, nor received his “Conservative” replacement. Under Canada’s British parliamentary system, an election could happen at any time. But under the distinctly Canadian version of it, the prime minister has near-totalitarian powers. This is why parliament has been “prorogued,” and we are still waiting for the election to be called.

Too, the governing Liberals might actually win the election, by choosing another “pop star” with good hair as a successor to Trudeau. Whereas, Ms. Kamala Harris did not prove enough of a pop star to succeed Biden.

Perhaps I should have warned the reader that I am somewhat biased. I am opposed to being ruled by idiots, especially malicious ones, and heretical, although almost as an afterthought.

One might read The Art of Being Ruled by Wyndham Lewis, to decide what degree of complacency to adopt.

 

Margaret Trudeau with Pat Nixon holding Justin Trudeau at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, 1972 [via Wikipedia]

 

Lewis, who shared approximately my view of democracy, argued that instead of being “the crowning achievement of Western civilization,” it was the means of suppressing the true wants and needs of the populace.

By suppression of caste legitimacy, and vocational distinctions, and imposing universal propagandist education, democracy created the “post-humanist” mass man, who seldom even longs for freedom. He is only “institutionally” free, as part of vast regional voting blocks that may pool their resentments. Their freedom does not belong to them, but abstractly to a constituency.

Men without chests or faces control them through number games. Only occasionally a man with a face shows up to inspire chaos and confusion. But he, too, is a “Magister Ludi,” playing the political game.

Wyndham Lewis wasn’t a Catholic, though he was sympathetically drawn to Catholicism throughout his life. What I think the religion could have done, was to enlighten him on the role, in society, of the Devil.

Democracy presents a rich field of opportunity for the Devil, who is involved in the formulation of every aspect of government policy.

The feminism that, until recently, dominated every aspect of progressive, “left-wing” thought, is an example of the Devil’s work; but paradoxically, more for its effect on men than for its effect on women.

Lewis himself had to outgrow his early enthusiasms, for fascism and the like, and for the opposite of whatever he had last saluted. But he is consistently penetrating, especially when most annoying.

And he was consistently repelled by the fashionable attitudes that constituted democratic snobbishness. These tended to embrace the latest “fascist” or “leftist” collectivism, by which the common people might be organized as a slave force – crushed by debt and bombarded by mass media.

“Ninety percent of men long at all times for a leader. . .for someone who will take all responsibility off their shoulders and tell them what to do,” as Lewis wrote in Left Wings Over Europe, or How to Make a War about Nothing.

The art of ruling – which Trudeau and Biden seemed to float through temporarily – is less sophisticated than the art of being ruled, which requires patience and historical knowledge. The latter is more appropriate to a Catholic sensibility.

To know, at best, what is or might prove the good for man, and yet also to know that it is unobtainable in this world – and that every progression towards it will be reversed – this is not the easiest political position. It can even be acutely uncomfortable, sometimes.

Yet it is, I think, the only position that is compatible with a religious – specifically, a Catholic – outlook.

One must begin by suspecting the work of the Devil, who summons in all his acolytes the ambition to be little gods. The contrast, to serve God and man, modestly, is often nearly invisible to our contemporaries.

Nevertheless, there is better and worse, and at the moment we may be skipping into a holiday, when it is unnecessary to lie about elementary realities, and we are not caught in oppressive decline. Enjoy!

__________https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/01/10/two-curious-catholics/