Antonio Gramsci and his Influence on the Cultural Revolution in our Time.

Antonio Gramsci and his Influence on the Cultural Revolution in our Time.

Taken from: http://itinerariummentis1.blogspot.mx/2012/10/antonio-gramsci-y-su-influencia-en-la.html

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

Degradation of the culture and values in our time

The degradation of our culture and values in our time, in the pursuit of a single way of thinking and a new world order, forms part of an intelligent strategy devised by Antonio Gramsci.

1. - Who was Antonio Gramsci?

He was an Italian politician and thinker, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party.

He was born in Sardinia in 1881 in a very poor family

Attended the University of Turin from 1911 to 1914 and abandoned his studies because of health problem

Together with Emilio Togliatti, he founded the Ondine Nuovo daily,in 1919, which later became the organ of the Italian Communist Party founded by him.

From 1921 to 1924, worked for the Socialist International in Moskow and in Vienna.

Returns to Rome in 1925 and opposes Benito Mussolini´s dictatorship. Was arrested in 1926 and put in jail in 1928.

1928-1937: disseminates his revolutionary ideas from jail by means of handwritten notebooks which were not published until after his death, under the name of Prison Notebooks (1948 and 1951)

Died in the jail hospital in Rome in 1937

2. The Gramscian strategy.

Gramsci claimed that no ideology could be imposed by force. A very violent revolution generates, as an immediate response, a counterrevolution that weakens and may even surpass the force of the first one. All change requires a previous persuasion for it to fertilize the land where the change is to flourish. The Marxist ideology would not escape this rule.

This is why he designed his strategy this way. To impose an ideological transformation it was first necessary to begin by attaining a modification in the way of thinking of civil society' (the people or inhabitants of a given country) by means of minute changes in the field of culture carried out over time. It was necessary to build up a new thought. Create what he used to call the people´s common sense, understood to be the common way of thinking of the people, which historically prevails among the members of the society. Making civil society attain a new way of "seeing life and its values" is what was necessary. To Gramsci, this is more important and of greater priority than achieving domination of political society (set of organisms which exercise power from the judicial, political, and military fields).

To make civil society (the sovereign people, public opinion) get to share a common way of feeling (the common sense) it was necessary to appropriate the organisms and institutions where the values and cultural parameters are developed: communications media, universities, schools, art. It was necessary to aim towards that. With patience, educating the new generations from childhood, over time (as, for example, in Mao's China or Fidel Castro's Cuba).

Once this process was to have been accomplished, acquisition of political power would fall of its own weight, without armed revolutions, without opposition, without counter-revolutions, with no need to impose the new order by force, as it would enjoy a general consensus.

3. Obstacles to overcome for the success of the Gramscian process:

Gramsci himself pointed out that, for the process to be successful, two obstacles would have to be sorted out:

The Catholic Church and the family.

3.1 Why the Catholic Church? Because, not without reason, Gramsci thought the Church´s permanence through the centuries was supported on the three following pillars:

a) The profession of a firm and unshakable faith, without concessions, and the constant repetition of the same doctrinal contents. In this way, it had achieved a strong common sense (way of thinking) among the peoples over the centuries.

b) Its having been able to amalgamate the illiterate people as well as the middle classes and the intellectual elites in its bosom. Indeed, no immanentist philosophy, including Marxism, .had managed to unite the intellectuals and the common people, the doctrinaires and the practicing, the experts and the neophytes (or 'initiated'), in a single common sense or belief. In this, Gramsci envied the Church.

c) Lastly., while Marxism required men to fight to achieve a classless society here and now, since everything ended with death; the Church had managed to convince men to look towards transcendence, to the hereafter,.and with it not only had it given an answer to the meaning of life but also to the meaning of death.

3.2 Why the family? If the strategy consisted in the formation of a way of thinking through educating in the new revolutionary values, it is clear that the family, primary educator of man in the first five years of his life, was an intolerable impediment.

4. Gramsci's strategy to overcome these obstacles.

4.1 Discredit the Church, if possible disqualifying its doctrine ("religion is the opium of the people") as well as its hierarchical members (clergy and religious of consecrated life).

4.2 Destroy the family, presenting it as an institution of the past, now left behind, incapable of educating. Separating children from the influence of their parents at their most tender age, by means of massive education in the "new culture" (experience in collective farms or distance education). Or intervening in the fundamental aspects of the child's life, from the school, and without the participation of the parents. Promoting the absence of the parents by subjecting them to unavoidable work commitments, so that children be left under the influence of counter-values education through television.

5. Some of the socio-cultural consequences of the de facto application of Gramscianism.

We cannot but recognize "that many of the efforts and predictions of this Sardinian philosopher and politician have materialized in such a way that they are now elements forming part of the common atmosphere that we breathe these days. There is an unconcealable secularist hegemony which saturates the minds of large segments of current society — beyond the various shades and variations by country, region, and town — and it is making possible, day by day, that what once had been seen as unacceptable, negative or even aberrant, be now seen as "normal", positive and even commendable, in more than one occasion.

Let us examine some examples, easily observable. Gramsci postulated that the only reality which can (and should) be spoken of is that of the "down here" (totally shut immanence), that the secularist writers and thinkers should exercise predominance in the massive communications media (it suffices to turn on the television set, to listen to certain radio programs or to take a look at any newsstand), that an end be put to the prestige of authors, institutions, communications media and publishing houses faithful to traditional values and, consequently, opposed to the secularists and modernists.

Gramsci even foresaw the defection of numerous Catholics who, blinded by the secularist Utopia, would accept the diverse forms of historical commitment." The acute Italian intellectual knew quite well that greater gains would be achieved by these gradual means of slow but sustained transformation of mentalities than by means of open persecution. A veritable war of position skillfully conceived and strategically executed. But too poorly understood and countered by those who had the obligation to do so.

It would appear that we live in a world designed (and tailored) by Gramsci: The moral and political values have been inverted. It is sought to de-hierarchize everything of value and to exalt everything that implies "horizontalism", the healthy philosophical and theological thought is "deconstructed" in such a form that it is left pulverized in a multitude of new ideologies and 'philosophies', the sole aim of which is to "de-mythify", "secularize" and "de-sacralize" everything.

Antonio Gramsci would certainly be pleased — and much — if he were able to see the full process of carrying out (of actualization as Gentile would call) of something he once prophesied: The end of religion would have to be by "suicide", by diluting the limits of Christendom with respect to the modern world. While some men dream that what has been occurring is the "Christianization of the world", what has been actually happening is exactly the opposite, considerable segments of "Christians" have become worldly, adopting the parameters and criteria proper of a mentality entirely inserted in a secularist and profane world view. Although it is not always explicitly denied, they live as though the transcendent world did not exist, as though everything started and ended "here below."

The program was (and is) quite clear: "attain the discrediting of the hegemonic class, of the Church, of the army, of the intellectuals, of the professors, etc. It will even be necessary to raise the flags of the bourgeois liberties, of democracy, as openings to penetrate civil society. It will be necessary, in a Machiavellian way, to appear as champions of those democratic principles, but knowing well that they are considered only an instrument for the general Marxistization of the common sense of the people".

Another regrettable fact, easy to observe in diverse cultural environments in the West, especially in the Latin and Latin American countries, is what has become known as the 'betrayal of the intellectuals.' This is being accomplished by various means, whether by granting them favors, perquisites, sinecures, and praises of all kinds, or else by the opposite tactic, which is the one followed with the intellectuals and professors who do not yield before these forms of preemption, for them is the pressure, blackmail, threats, boycott when not plain discredit, calumny, and defamation.

And this is because in the Gramscian strategy it is fundamental to break the opposing intellectuals in one way or another. Let's read what Father Alfredo Sáenz has to say: "Gramsci considers a great battle has been won whenever the defection of an intellectual has been accomplished, whenever a traitorous theologian, a traitorous military man, or a traitorous professor, has been conquered to his worldview. It is not necessary for these 'converts' to declare themselves Marxist, what is important it that they are no longer enemies, they are potable" for the new worldview. Hence the importance of winning over the traditional intellectuals, those who, apparently placed above politics, influence decisively in the propagation of ideas, since every intellectual (professor, journalist or priest) drags behind him a considerable number of proselytes."

"Which religion, matters not", "everything is as you see it", "do what you wish, as long as you are authentic", "everything is permitted now"; and at a philosophical level "there is no human nature, only history", "I give my own essence myself", "there is no being, only becoming"; "there is no truth; everything is reduced to multiplicities", "there is no writer, only text", "there is no subject, only structures". That, in the predominant mentality of our times, at the popular level, things like these and other similar nonsense and absurdities (the catalog is endless) should prevail, means that a camouflaged Gramscianism, in invisible alliance (deliberate or not) with the New Age movement and other ineffable adherences, keeps imposing itself full-line, beyond the ever more scarce public mentions of this Italian author, both on the part of those who support him as on that of his detractors.

As we have seen, Gramscianism represents the most aggressive, caustic, and dissolvent attack against all forms of transcendent religion, and in particular against Catholicism. Much of the current de-Christianization results in good part, from the destructive and semi-concealed action of the "organic intellectuals" a la Gramsci, positioned strategically, an action geared to the "alteration of the common sense" theist and Christian so that its opposite take its place.

This implies the "internal decomposition of Catholicism", "to make the Church break up from the inside" and totally liquidate "the old conception of the world" inherent in the Catholic Christian culture.

Finally, it is worth noting that few things contribute so much to the advancement of secularism as the defection of theologians, professors, thinkers, journalists, or writers. This is why one has to think in congruence with the principles one claims to profess, but, not less important, it is also necessary to lead a coherent life that does not detach and incommunicate the various dimensions of human life "he who does not live as he thinks will end up thinking as he lives."

Hidden repentant

Hidden repentant

By Irene Tauch

Taken from

https://radiocristiandad.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/poesias-desde-la-inhospita-trinchera-oculto-arrepentido/

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

Rough as a gray slab in the graveyard,
Withered like the grass in the cold winter,
Like an old, slumbrous derelict, a vagabond,
I see myself one day on this bed lying.

You can hear my breast's piteous creaking 
And of my lips, the silent galloping,
I want to hear at least one single praise,
So I can think I am and am alive.

I want a bit of tenderness and bosom.
Today, I think and feel just like a toddler
And though they tell me I am the experience,
To me no longer cares anyone to listen.

It's that, at times, my conscience feels remorse
For everything that in this life I have lived.
Recollections bring me back my prudence
And the truth that enlightens me is forgetting.

I no longer know if there is no infinite,
Although I have sustained this at each step, 
And I know I am now close to the scaffold,
And it´s hard to imagine I am finite.

And it´s now in the hour of my death,
That I cannot say that I am with You
Is the greatest of sorrows ever suffered,
And the pain that I suffer at every instant. 

My pride bars me from confessing You
And to tell the world that I adore You.
This is why I have deserved
Not to be up to contemplate You someday. 

Your Passion, through which You redeemed us
I failed to accept. Oh God, what nonsense!
How do I wish that I could be serene,
To form part of Your army of saintly souls,
To worship You eternally, but in the meantime

To be a simple and repentant mortal.

The Bereaved Peoples

The bereaved peoples

by Bonifacio Byrne

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

God of Mercy, forasmuch as You exist,
put Yourself on the side of the bereaved 
and they will rid themselves of their tormentor.

Let them that, by breaking off their chains,
they may shake off the sorrows from their spirit.

And that they stand up, as the courageous,
And to You will go up their benedictions,

And on this earth, there'll be many more lions
but there will also be much fewer serpents.

On the Temptations of Christ

On the Temptations of Christ

By Father Leonardo Castellani (1899 - 1981)

From: 'El Evangelio de Jesucristo', Itinerarium, 1956

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

About the temptations of Christ much can be said; but let us be brief and note three major points: the tempter, the Tempted, and us.

The malignant spirit did not know for sure whether Christ was or was not the Messiah and much less whether He was God or no. It seems incredible, with the talent the devil has, and knowing the messianic prophecies better than any rabbi, that he did not draw the conclusions that many men drew. But it was so, it suffices to read the Gospel; in addition, Saint Paul expressly says that the devil would not have — by means of the Jews — crucified Christ had he been aware that He was the Son of God (I Cor II, 8).

That a God be made man is an Absolute Mystery, it is, shall we say, an Absurdity; it is beyond the comprehension of any created mind. That mystery cannot be discovered and known if it is not by means of a supernatural act of faith, an act which is impossible without God's grace, which the devil lacks.

That is why the purpose of the Tempter was, as it clearly appears, not only to make Christ sin but also to rid himself of that doubt, which he was unable to accomplish: "If you are the Son of God, make these rocks turn into bread." It must be granted that the devil's audacity is infinite: he is a scoundrel because he no longer has anything to lose. Suspecting Christ to be a divine person, having, however, grabbed Him and taken Him to the Belfry! "How scared must the wretch have been — says Saint Theresa — as he went flying!"... But we don't actually know whether he went flying.

The devil has enormous power — this is what this Gospel says — but on the other hand, it is a vain power because it can be overcome "in words", with the Word of God.

Great praise of the Holy Scripture is contained in this Gospel: Christ overcomes the three temptations with the weapon of the Holy Scripture. But the power of the devil is tremendous against those who go unarmed. When he told Christ: "All this is mine and to whomsoever I wish, I give it", showing him the kingdoms of this world — in politics it can be said that the devil has no competitor — Christ did not respond: "Liar! All this is God's, not yours", He did not get into an argument with him, because in a certain sense all this is, indeed, the devil's; in the sense that, because of our sins, he meddles with everything these days. He is the Armed Strong Man, the Powers of Darkness, the Prince of this World, as Christ called him elsewhere. It is likely that, on birth, Satan was the Archangel who had been predestined to maneuver and control the material world; or at least of this planet; and not for having sinned did he lose that connatural power over this silent planet (Castellani alludes to  C. S. Lewis' 'Out of the silent planet' theological novel). But all power is God's.

That which our elders used to call "selling the soul to the devil" is possible: it was the transaction proposed to Christ in the Third Temptation. When an evil man does incessantly well in this world. you can tell he is a possessed; to the common iniquitous men, morality imparts punishment in the short term. If God does not prevent him, the devil can do the strangest things to man, and that I know from the books, but if I were to say that I know it only from the books, I would be lying.

Why did he tempt Christ with those things? With the Dumbobrigida (referring to Gina Lollobrigida, a popular Italian starlet of Castellani's time — translator's note) or with some other of God's little female creatures which give us the honor of amusing the rabble of Buenos Aires, with the key to the Central Bank; with the urns full of votes in Congress, I can tempt anybody. But with rocks, with motorless flights, with fantastic promises of universal empires?...

The devil knew that Christ was a saintly religious man — he had seen Him prepare Himself for His religious mission with Moses' fasting, he had seen him burning like a great bonfire in continuous prayer —; and he tempted Him as a religious man, on a religious plane, not on the carnal plane. A note on the Gospel translated by Straubinger says: "the first one was a temptation of sensuality"... This is an error. The three of them were temptations of pride. The devil tempts those who do as rigorous Lents as Christ did, with temptations of pride, not of sensuality.

The devil tries to ape God since his fall was from wanting to be like God and this is his constant obsession. The devil tempts promising or giving God's things; the same that God is to give us if we have patience and fidelity. Christ could have gotten bread by waiting a bit — "and the angels served it to Him" — without the need of a miracle. The devil pushes us, he hastens us, he is the spur of the world: he invites us to anticipate, to abuse, to get there first. To the first humans, he said "You shall be like gods" which is what God proposed to do and does with man, by means of divine adoption (sanctifying grace) and of the beatific vision. "We will then be like Him because we will see Him as He is", says Saint John. Eve sinned because she coveted an anticipation of the divine vision, We cannot be tempted but according to our own nature.

Thus, he tempted Jesus in accordance with what was natural of Him, with the same that He was to attain one day. Christ was to convert the rocks of gentility into the bread of his Mystic Body, according to that: "Do you think that from these rocks I cannot get sons of Abraham?". Christ was to fly visibly to heaven in front of his apostles and some five hundred disciples. Finally, Christ will someday be Universal King of the whole world as he is already by right and hope.

The devil is now tempting humanity with a Universal Kingdom to be achieved without Christ, with the force of man alone. All this great movement of today's world (the UN. UNESCO, the World's Council of Churches, the great imperialisms, the promises of a thousand years of peace on the part of the Leaders) represents that unstoppable yearning of humankind for the Millennium, for its natural and peaceful unity, for its integration as the Human Race.

It is useless to oppose that most present yearning — ultra-nationalists are wrong — because it is a yearning contained in the bosom of the world's historical evolution as it is a divine promise. But the devil wants to get there first. We Christians know that this will come, but it can only come with and by Christ; and that this manner, as it is being done now, we cannot accept, because it is the vast preparation of the Anti-Christ. "If this is serving the country, the how, to me does not tally" (a paraphrase of "si eso es servir al Gobierno, a mí no me gusta el cómo" from José Hernández novel 'Martín Fierro' — translator's note). So we give the appearance of impotent on the one hand, of backward reactionaries on the other.

The Church appears to be in a downright crisis these days; she cannot achieve the peace of the nations, the most urgent of the world needs, she is bruised within herself, she does nothing but take apparently negative measures: Syllabus, Anti-modernist oath,  forbid this, forbid that. She is not at the head of "civilization" as in other times; she does nothing but to pull backward: this is because "civilization" has taken the wrong road, that of the Tower of Babel. A satanic road.

"All this is mine and I give it to whomsoever I want; all this I will give you if, prostrating at my feet, you adore me." Some man someday will accept this deal. I know not when. A friend of mine who pretends to be a prophet says that this man will be born in 1963 and will become Emperor in 1996. I think that neither he nor I know when. I, at least, don't know.

It is not necessary to know much Latin of Greek to predict that the Church will be tempted, if Christ was tempted, and it will be with the same temptations of Christ.

We could perhaps say that the first one was in the Middle Ages, the second one in the Renaissance, and the third one now. This so that we may understand each other, although the three work together.

The first temptation is this: by means of the religious procure material goods for herself — as if we should say to trade miracles for bread — which may go to an extreme called simony, or the sale of what is sacred. But the priests also have to eat and the Church needs goods. I do not deny that the Church needs goods, what I do know is that there is a very fine line, beyond which the "goods" become evils. Being the effect rather taking the bread and turning it into stone, a backward miracle, as for example making great stone temples where the bread of the Divine Word is lacking, of which as from bread, man lives, responded Christ to Satan.

The second temptation is by religious means attain prestige, power, pomposities, and "the glory that men give" (John 12:43). And it is also true that the Church needs a good name since one of the distinctive notes of the true religion is for it to be saintly. Thus one of Saint Augustine's major arguments against the heretics and pagans were the admirable 'customs' of the primitive Church as opposed to the evil customs of them. See his books De Civitate Dei, De Moribus Ecclesiae, De Moribus Manicheorum.

But one thing is that others call one saint and another that one calls himself so. Days ago I heard a preacher who dared say a eulogy of the order to which he belonged, that the Belfry of the Church trembled (ie the Temple's Pinnacle) and I could not less than think: This would be better that the people were the ones who said it.

The third temptation is unconcealedly satanic: prostrate before the devil in order to rule the world. Can the Church be so tempted? The Church is not greater than Christ. Cruelty, for instance, is demoniacal. The saintly and the demoniac are opposites and consequently, they are both on the same plane, and corruption of the best is the worst. Talking about Savonarola, Cardinal Newman said: "The Church cannot be reformed by disobedience." and his interlocutor answered: "Much less by cruelty, my dear Cardinal" The Ascetic can be tempted of hardness of heart, of inhumanity, of cruelty. "My daughter has become cruel as the ostrich", says God through His Prophet.

This is the last temptation, of which God may deliver and guard me, and above all, may God deliver and guard the others: As Ramón Ibarra, the man from Jachal, in a knife fight with Dionisio Mendoza said: "Hold him! Hold him! Hold the other one! As I, whether well or bad, can hold myself alone."

Chronicle of a Plot against the Church

Chronicle of a Plot against the Church

by Sofronio

Taken from https://materinmaculata.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/cronica-de-un-complot-contra-la-iglesia/

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

This article is related to a previous one titled Viduy, teschuva y tikkun, which I recommend to readers interested in understanding the Synagogue's modern strategy against the Church better.

In contrast with other magisterial texts of the Church, the document known as Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council (hereinafter VC2), issued on October 26, 1965, never quotes any of the writings of prior councils or of the popes who preceded the pope who issued it: Paul VI. The practice of quoting, whether in the text itself or in marginal notes, references to preceding magisterium has the purpose of showing, as is well known, continuity in Church doctrine and tradition. Now then, in the declaration on the Jews there is no reference to any positive precedent, be it councils, popes, Church Fathers, or ecclesiastical writers. It was, then, a compromise text which for the first time presented a daring positive image of the perfidious Jews, in flagrant rupture with the doctrine of the Church of almost two thousand years.

It was a compromise text following a terrible unprecedented doctrinal fighting that took place in the preceding years. Involved in this war were members of the influential Curia and Conciliar Fathers. Numerous libels were not lacking to defend the salvation theology taught by the Church for two thousand years against assault attempts and infiltration by Satan's Synagogue against the bride of Christ. In words of André Chouraqui, " the Church, having been afflicted with a, more or less total, amnesia for over two thousand years, suddenly reinstates the primogeniture in the context of the family of the People of God. In addition, the Church categorically rejects all forms of proselytism with respect to them, proscribing what previously had been admitted." Even considering that instead of "the Church" Chouraqui should have written "the men of the Church, We will try to respond to this question." it is perfectly understood that the Jews have realized that those men of the Church have proscribed the previous doctrine and betrayed the mission that Christ gave to his disciples. The seed of the chaff had been planted and it has been growing fast. But how was this novel doctrine reached? How was such Trojan horse introduced in our fortress? We will try to answer this question.

We will limit ourselves to show what refers to the Twentieth Century on this topic, assuming that the reader knows it was the infidel Jews, those who cried for the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and let His blood fall on their heads and those of their children. We likewise assume it is well known that the Synagogue has been behind all of the persecutions of the Church; since Saint Stephan's martyrdom to Nero´s persecution, passing by the Reformation, the liberal Revolution of 1789, the Bolshevik Revolution, in which the greatest portion of its leaders were Jews, and that of the "cape and tiara" begun by the Carbonari in the Nineteenth Century and continued by the modernism which triumphed in VC2.

Upon the end of the Second World War, the Jews resumed the defiance of the Church, demanding that she revise her teaching on this perfidious race.

1946. A conference took place in Oxford under the auspices of powerful British and American Jewish organizations; among those who attended were representatives of the Catholic Church and Protestants.

1946. Sixty participants of that conference met in Seelisberg, Switzerland, to discuss the topic of antisemitism. Father Journet was among the Catholics who attended. Jaques Maritain had been invited and though he was unable to participate, he sent a message of encouragement. The central personage was Jew Jules Isaac. It concludes with a ten-point agreement of which the following one stands out: "Christians need to diligently revise and purify their own language, as a not always innocent routine filtered absurd expressions as deicide race, or a more racist than Christian manner in which the history of the Passion was narrated...

1948. Jules Isaac founds the Judaeo-Christian Friendship, the object of which is to "rectify Christian teaching". Many liberal Catholics take part in their meetings, disseminating the ten points of the Seelisberg Conference around all places.

1948. Liberal Catholics convince Jules Isaac to request being received by Pius XII.

1949. On October 16, Jules Isaac is received by Pius XII to whom he exposes the ten points of Seelisberg. The outcome of the meeting is short of satisfactory. It is necessary to wait while the spider net keeps weaving.

1959. The founders of the Center for the Study of the Current Problems, organization linked to the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, right-hand of the Jewish masonic organization B'nai B'rith, meet with Jules Isaac to speak of the possibility of contact with John XXIII. Jules approves the proposal.

Let us recall that a few months earlier, John XXIII had spoken about the possibility of convoking a council. Also, that cardinals had advised Pius XI against a similar convocation in 1923. Cardinal Billot had warned the pope: "Ought we not fear that the council is manipulated by the worst enemies of the Church, the modernists, who as reports demonstrate with evidence, are getting prepared to take advantage of the States-General of the Church (this is to say, a council - translator's note) and carry out a revolution, a new 1978?" (quoted by Mons. Mallerais). However, a counter-council was being prepared which should supplant the first when the time came. The proof of this coup against the initial schema of the council is overwhelmingly abundant in The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber by Ralph Witgen.

1960. Monsignor Julien advises Jules Isaac to go to Cardinal Augustine Bea, a German Jesuit. After his interview with the Cardinal, Jules admits: "I found in him great support". "What the evil tongues used to say about Cardinal Bea: that he was a Jew at heart, is true". Isaac succeeded in getting an audience with John XXIII in June of that same year. At the meeting, he delivered to John XXIII a memorandum titled Need of reform of Christian teaching with respect to Israel. Isaac recalls: "I asked John XXIII if I could have some hope", to which the Bishop of Rome responded that he (Isaac) had the right to have something more than hope, but that he (John XIII) was not an absolute monarch. After the interview, John XXIII wanted to make the Curia know that he expected a condemnation of antisemitism from the Council. From that moment on, many encounters took place between the commissions of the Council and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish masonry of the B'nai B'rith.

As Joseph Roddy narrates in his article titled How the Jews Changed Catholic Thinking, these Jewish organizations were able to make their voice be listened to in Rome quite frequently. But Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, who for over thirty years had heard about the Jewish heart of Bea, by then already a cardinal, worked hard in favor of the Synagogue. The two, meeting in Rome, talked about certain documents prepared by the American Jewish Committee. One dealt with the image of the Jews in Catholic teaching, the other with the anti-Jewish elements in the Catholic Liturgy. Heschel declared afterward that he expected a declaration from the Council saying that in no way should the Jews be exhorted to convert to Christianity. Likewise, Dr. Goldman, head of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations, let his desire be known by John XXIII, while the B'nai B´rith exerted pressure for the Catholics to reform their liturgy and suppress all expressions unfavorable to the Jews from it. Much could be said about the years of preparation of the Council, men, nets, plans, friendships, enmities, but let´s go on.

1962. Monsignor John Osterreicher and Father Baum, front men for Cardinal Bea prepared the text on Judaism with consent from the World Jewish Congress (WJC), declaration of which was to be presented in the first session of the Council, and which acquitted the Jews from the accusation of deicide. The WJC expressed its satisfaction and sent Dr. Cain Y. Ward to the Council as an unofficial observer. But the reaction of the Arab countries in face of the privilege intended to be granted to the Jews was swift. The numerous protests made the Vatican's Secretary of State remove the project from the Council´s agenda. In face of this treason to Christ, exculpating the Jews from deicide, a group had a 900-page book titled Plot against the Church and written under the pseudonym Maurice Pinay delivered to 2,200 cardinals and bishops. The book tried to warn the Council Fathers that the Jews, who had always tried to infiltrate the Church to change its teaching, were about the achieve their goal.

1963. This fiasco did not discourage Cardinal Bea. On March 31, under maximum secrecy, he met with heads of the American Jewish Congress at the Hotel Plaza in New York, who pressured for the bishops to change the Church teaching on the History of Salvation. Before the Committee Cardinal Bea refuted the traditional accusations of deicide of infidel Jews. and calmed the rabbis. The Jewish pressure was in crescendo. A short time afterward, Rolf Hochhut's film, the Vicar, casting slanders against Pius XII for his actions during the Second World War, was released with the intention of influencing the Conciliar assembly.

1963. Autumn. The Council Fathers received the declaration on the Jews as Chapter IV on ecumenism for it to pass unnoticed. The declaration on the Jews and the matter of religious liberty were subjects of very heated debates. At stake was the Church´s renunciation to the monopoly on the only truth. The oriental patriarchs defended courageously the Church´s traditional teaching. We do not quote any of them because they were many, but they stood out ahead of the westerners. Likewise, other representatives of the Catholic Orthodoxy distributed several volumes of the work entitled The Jews through the Scripture and Tradition with the purpose of alerting on the manipulations of the enemy. The text had to be withdrawn.

1964. The Jewish interventions multiply themselves before Paul VI, standing out the meetings he had with Joseph Lichten of Anti Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Zachariah Schuster and Leonard Sperry of the American Jewish Committee, US Cardinal Spellman, Arthur J. Goldberg, US Supreme Court Justice and rabbi Heschel According to Roddy's revelations, "before the Third Session, six members of the American Jewish Congress were received by Paul VI. The Holy Father manifested to his visitors his approval of Cardinal Spellman's declarations about the Jews' lack of culpability." Further on, he underlines that "Heschel interviewed Paul VI in the company of Schuster, energetically speechifying about the deicide and the culpability requesting the Pontiff to exert pressure so as to obtain a declaration prohibiting Catholics from any kind of proselytism with respect to the Jews". On November 20, bishops and cardinals voted on a provisional schema dealing with the position of the Church vis a vis Judaism. 99 conciliar fathers voted against it, 1650 for it, and 242 with reservations. The Catholic forces began to give in. The Oriental fathers voted in block against any kind of conciliar declaration on the Jews. The final scrutiny would take place in 1965. The last warning about the change in the doctrine which was being attempted to be imposed came from the hand of Leon de Poncins in a pamphlet titled The Problem of the Jews at the Vatican Council. Poncins warns that "among a portion of the Conciliar Fathers there is a deep ignorance of the essence of Judaism". But the document only produced the effect of deepening the arguments against the schema and substitute the paragraphs which most directly attacked Christian teaching.

1965. Finally, the definite text of Nostra Aetate, a compromise text was voted on the fourth session on October 28. 2,221 voted in favor and 88 against. With Nostra Aetate, the bishops of the Catholic Church for the first time in history presented a positive and daring image of the perfidious Jews. "The discussions following the taking of conscience of VC2 were preparing the Christian world, little y little, to assume a new theology about the relations of the Church with Judaism. The purpose of the Vatican's and the episcopates' guidelines in the last fifty years was directed to transform the mentality by means of a great education effort of the peoples of the Christian space" (Michel Laurigan). This effort tends to

• Recall the perpetuity of the first Alliance (anathematized affirmation)
• Inculcate an appreciation for the infidel Jewish people, "sacerdotal people" (which cannot be saved if they do not believe in Christ)
• Renounce to the conversion of the Jews (against Christ, Saint Peter and all of the Apostles)
• Familiarize constantly with Jewish cooperation (pure Pelagianism)
• Prepare the road for the Noahide religion (deprive Christ of His divinity)

The rest, what we suffer today of the false shepherds, is the rotten fruit of having betrayed Christ. Let us recall a few among thousands of nauseating products of this gigantic treason; in an almost telegraphic manner:

• Heretical text of the French Commission for the Relations with Judaism of Easter 1973, which states that the first alliance was not abrogated by Christ's new one (a declaration which falls under the anathema of the Catholic Church)
• Text titled Reflections on the Alliance and the Mission, of the American episcopate, of August 2002, in which they conclude that actions directed to convert Jews to Catholicism are no longer theologically acceptable in the Catholic Church (this is tantamount to apostasy from the Mission ordered by Christ)
• Successive visits to synagogues by Roman bishops, joint prayers, forgiveness requests from Jews, participation in Talmudic liturgies, suppression of prayers in the Catholic liturgy, as that of Holy Friday.

Here is but one example of the rupture which has taken place:

Holy Friday's prayer of the Missal of Saint Pius V:

Let us pray also for the faithless Jews, that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Oh almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from Thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness, hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that, acknowledging the light of Thy truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

New Holy Friday prayer:

Let us pray for the Jews, to which God spoke first so that they progress in the love of His name and fidelity of their alliance.

Once the 'catholic church' by means of that great educational effort, following the Jewish plan, gets to reform its vision of the deicide people, preach only a human Christ which comes to bring happiness moral to all men, that is, renounces to confess His divinity, and reinterprets the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the 'catholic church' will be, in the words of the Jew Benamozegh, the one in charge of propagating noahism. Judaism believes all people are obligated to observe a universal law. This universal law will be Noah's seven commandments:

1. Establish courts of justice so that the law rule society
2. Prohibition of blasphemy
3. Prohibition of idolatry; Adoration of Christ, and the Trinity being considered idolatry.
4. Prohibition of incest
5. Prohibition of the shedding of blood
6. Prohibition of theft
7. Prohibition to eat the flesh of certain animals

The new mission assigned to the church would consist of evangelizing the peoples in that Noahide humanism and propitiate their unification. The primacy of Rome would be facilitated to achieve the unity of the Christians, for the reunited church to preach a religion of natural morality without Christ, by means of which its adepts could be saved. Remember that the seven commandments of Noah are the minimum common of the three religions of the Book. The non-Jews should not try to convert to the religion of the Talmud, reserved to the elected, the racial Jews.

Here, then, in synthesis, since the Nostra Aetate declaration of VC2 , we walk the road contrary to that of Saul, who became Saint Paul; our shepherds lead us back to Damascus, to the Supreme Priest, to ask him for a charter to end the resistance of the true Christians who confess only one Lord, Jesus Christ, one God whose substance is Trinitarian. Persecution will be directed against us. The enormous Jewish finances, the fruit of the gravest sin, of usury against the poor, which cries heaven for justice, will undertake to brighten up the few reluctant men to stoop to the intentions of Satan´s Synagogue. Oh, City of the Seven Hills who has permitted the dirty and usurious hands of the deicide Jews to fall in your squalid purse! You have relinquished your liberty for the salvation of the souls to your worst enemy. Only one hope remains because Christ never abandons His Church.

Note: The content of this article is a modified summary of Michel Laurigan´s text titled 'The Myth of the Substitution to the Noahide Religion', with a mixture of his numerous notes.

Elections in the Animal Kingdom

Elections in the Animal Kingdom

 a fable 

Author: unknown

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

The lion has died. What a dreary catastrophe!
And in the purest sense of a democracy,
a new king will be elected by the animals.

Pervasive was the election propaganda.
Pie in the sky was promised by the speakers.
And … here you can read about some of the winners:

Though you might call them nothing less than fools,
the lambs' vote went to favor the wolf 
their heart being Oh, so incredibly soft! 

For the cat, were the mice those who voted.
And, in spite of her fame — wily and cunning,
for the fox voted the hens and the chicken.

The dove, being  so remarkably innocent,
voted for none other than the serpent.

The flies, dreading the election being won by the tiger,
saw a lesser evil in voting for the spider.

Yearns the toad, dreams the frog, 
of the delightful kingship of the stork

With a worm
who slithered slowly to vote for the mole,
bumped the mole into, without so much as a whimper 
but his vote goes to favor the weasel.

The fish, whose great home is the sea,
quite content gave their vote for the seal.

The horse and the dog did, no wonder,
cast their vote to be ruled by the human.

And with the most deep of sorrows
for not being able to trot to the ward,
A moribund ass dragged his body 
To go cast his last vote for the buzzard

Dear readers who inconsistencies note:
Say, don't you do the same thing when you vote?

Libidocracia Americana

Libidocracia Americana

Por John Lyon

Tomado de New Oxford Review

Traducido del inglés por Roberto Hope

John Lyon ha desempeñado puestos académicos y administrativos en diversas universidades, incluyendo Notre Dame, Ball State, Kentucky State y St. Mary´s (Minnesota). Más recientemente ha sido profesor de literatura e historia en una academia clásica en Wisconsin. También ha sido agricultor, cultivando moras, flores, verduras y manzanas, y ha operado un puesto en el mercado campesino de Bayfield County, en Wisconsin.

"Lo primero que llama la atención cuando se observa [el mundo democrático moderno] es una innumerable multitud de hombres, todos iguales y parecidos, tratando incesantemente de obtener los placeres baladís y mezquinos con los que hartan sus vidas... Por encima de esta casta de hombres está un poder inmenso y tutelar que se arroga él sólo la tarea de procurarles su gratificación y de cuidar su destino. Ese poder es absoluto, minucioso, regular, providente y leve."  — Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracia en América

Nosotros, el pueblo de los Estados Unidos de América, somos una nación concebida en libertad y nacida en parricidio. No debe ser sorpresa, pues, que desde un inicio, nunca hayamos sido de una misma opinión. Somos internamente contenciosos, y en política exterior, indecisos. En religión hemos sido siempre antagónicos, nuestras divisiones sectarias y entre denominaciones protestantes se añaden a las tensiones de clase y económicas, y se suplementan con rivalidades regionales, y todo ello está impregnado de divisiones raciales.

Nosotros  — hasta el referente del pronombre plural es incierto. ¿Qué o quiénes somos nosotros? ¿Hijos de una idea, concebidos de manera harto maculada en libertad así como regicida? ¿Los elegidos de Dios en nuestra ciudad asentada sobre un monte? ¿Una función conglomerada, predeciblemente accidental de la geografía? ¿Miembros auto-elegidos de la más grande unión expoliadora del mundo? ¿El miserable desecho de extrañas y atestadas tierras? Somos un pueblo dispar, de todas formas oscilando siempre entre una transigencia confinada dentro de límites de principios asumidos pero no enteramente examinados, y una guerra civil. Nos hemos mantenido unidos por algún tiempo por una clase sociopolítica hegemónica con una periferia semi-permeable, cuyas funciones aristócratas han sido las de evitar un fratricidio organizado,

El derecho divino de los reyes se esfumó en el mundo de habla inglesa entre los años 1640s y 1780s, y con él se fue, en este país, toda jerarquía y orden heredable. Cuando matamos a nuestro padre el rey (1776-1783) y luego nos rehusamos a reemplazarlo con un sucesor de significancia siquiera simbólica, nos asentamos en nuestra paz regicida cual una banda de hermanos, nominalmente iguales ante la ley y en cuanto a derechos. (Ése era el caso aun cuando, por ejemplo, el documento que nos constituyó especificaba que algunos hermanos eran equivalentes en sólo tres quintas partes a los demás hermanos.)  Ningún individuo, familia o clase podía reclamar apodícticamente un "derecho a gobernar," habiendo el Dios de la revelación muerto públicamente junto con la mano derecha de la monarquía. A pesar, o además de la inmensamente importante herencia del derecho consuetudinario inglés, aquellos derechos civiles que teníamos habrían ahora de derivarse "de la naturaleza y del dios de la naturaleza", generalidades que habrían de probar ser no menos abstractas y maleables que aquéllas de la divinidad que anteriormente otorgaba derechos a los reyes.

Aun cuando este paso hacia la igualdad democrática pudiera haber sido políticamente necesario, dada la lógica de los tiempos, fue también el primer paso hacia el totalitarismo democrático: dividir a la naturaleza como algo independiente de Dios, hacer de Dios una función, un derivado de aquélla, hacer de la creencia en la divinidad un asunto privado, de la creencia en la naturaleza un asunto público. La creencia pública en la naturaleza va también a desvanecerse gradualmente, pues la cancha de juego en las democracias no es pareja, se inclina para abajo y hacia la izquierda, y es ahí donde tiene lugar toda acción significativa en ausencia de fuertes medidas de la derecha que se opongan a ello.

Nuestro estilo bipolar nacional, un tipo de esquizofrenia perturbadora, evolucionó en la presencia de un orden civil racional  en gran medida derivado de un deísmo, impuesto sobre un orden social básicamente basado en principios cristianos tradicionales. Durante los primeros 70 años de su existencia, nuestra nación evitó temporalmente las consecuencias más serias de esta bipolaridad, dirigiendo mucha de su energía a someter la mayor parte del continente, Con cierta ironía, sin embargo, fue en el curso de esta expansión geográfica que las placas tectónicas, siempre en movimiento, de nuestra estructura política, erupcionaron. No habiendo probado ser nosotros capaces de mantener la tranquilidad social basada en el orden fraternal de las cosas, supuestamente deducidos "de la naturaleza y del dios de la naturaleza" nos enfrascamos en nuestra fratricida guerra civil.

Observando nuestra joven nación, Alexis de Tocqueville, en Democracia en América (1835), observó que "los hombres no pueden estar sin una creencia dogmática" y que "de todos los tipos de creencia dogmática, el más duradero me parece que es la creencia dogmática en asuntos de religión; y eso es una inferencia clara, aún desde una consideración no más elevada que los intereses de este mundo." La creencia dogmática en asuntos de religión nos estaba fallando — o nosotros a ella — aun antes de la colonización de Norte América. Se desgajó en mayores facciones ya cuando nos hubimos establecido, gracias a luchas internas dentro de las diversas denominaciones protestantes, a la creciente auto-asertividad de la filosofía de la Ilustración y a los problemas morales y políticos que se presentaban al tratar de hacer compatibles la libertad y la igualdad. Todo orden de cosas divinamente revelado era ridiculizado patentemente por la fisión de las denominaciones protestantes. Tocqueville vio las consecuencias de esto y el futuro fracaso inminente de la naturaleza y del dios de la naturaleza. "Cuando se destruye la religión de un pueblo," escribió él "la duda invade las potencias superiores del intelecto, y medio paraliza a todas las demás." Y, consecuentemente, habiendo fallado para 1861 toda estabilidad política basada en una creencia religiosa revelada, o religión "natural" dogmática, procedimos a despedazarnos.

El resultado de esto fue una reordenación de las prioridades políticas. A fin de mitigar la tensión creada al fraccionar matemáticamente a la humanidad, re-creamos un orden político en el cual la desigualdad pasó de esa distinción insidiosa a otra, todos los derechos individuales ya se hicieron iguales, pero en el campo político, todos los derechos corporativos subsidiarios fueron devaluados, Los derechos federales se hicieron más iguales que los de los otros — específicamente los de los estados.

Habiendo fallado la creencia dogmática en la naturaleza y en el dios de la naturaleza, el Gran Leviatán, ese dios mortal, entró al quite. Naturalmente. "Un estado democrático de la sociedad, semejante a aquél de los americanos, podría ofrecer facilidades singulares para el establecimiento del despotismo," observó Tocqueville. A pesar de los motivos religiosos de los abolicionistas, de los escritores del himno del Ejército de la Unión, de la perspicacia y la estrategia de un notable presidente, y de la erradicación de la esclavitud, eludimos encarar nuestros dilemas políticos una vez más, pasando nuevamente a una era de explotación del continente, esta vez una "Edad Dorada"

Dorada — enormes ganancias habrían de obtenerse de la explotación de la naturaleza, facilitadas no tanto por la naturaleza y el dios de la naturaleza, sino por una ética utilitaria/pragmática erigida sobre una filosofía legal positivista. Pero ni la "utilidad" ni "lo que funciona" son un concepto unívoco, y el positivismo puede ser negado. Cada uno significa una vez esto, otra vez aquéllo, cada interpretación legitimada por la fuerza de un gobierno nacional cada vez más grande, en nombre de la única entidad civil que aún quedaba, la colectividad abstracta de individuos anónimos, La naturaleza y el dios de la naturaleza murieron o se suicidaron. Prosperamos en nuestro avance hacia el oeste.

El Gran Dios Pan había muerto, pero la mayor y menos imaginativa abstracción de todas seguía viviendo: "el Pueblo," que podía ser contado cuando contaba, Cada voto contaba tanto como cualquier otro, hubiera sido éste depositado por "Pap" de Huckleberry Finn o por un ciudadano sobrio y concienzudo.

Pero Pan tiene una manera de cambiar las formas inesperadamente, hasta de resucitar, y así fue que un estudiante bastante anónimo se paró en los escalones del edificio de administración de la Universidad de Berkeley, sosteniendo una pancarta con sólo cuatro letras que denotaba en inglés el ayuntamiento sexual infructífero pero forzado. Connotativamente, proponía la práctica general de esta actividad carente de objetivos en todo el universo, pues el universo era en sí mismo estéril de todo propósito o, por lo menos, así se le consideraba comúnmente y, sin embargo, era consentidor de los placeres pasajeros. La creencia dogmática en el imperio de la ley predicado en la divinidad o en la naturaleza había probado ser insolvente; el pragmatismo, irónicamente, inviable. Pues ya que ni la utilidad, ni el pragmatismo, ni el positivismo, por sí solos, seriados o juntos, habían probado ser capaces de establecer una jerarquía duradera de maximizar el placer y minimizar el dolor para la mayoría, la mayoría estaba por tomar el placer en sus propias manos, en una mezcla de libertarianismo nominalista y de programación social estatista.

América había entrado en la era de la revista cómica Mad y adoptado el lema de Alfred E. Newman, "What, me worry?" ("¿Qué, yo preocuparme?") Transferimos nuestra responsabilidad moral a la ciencia y a la tecnología (que habían estado haciendo por ya algún tiempo y bastante agresivamente con la naturaleza esa misma actividad que en inglés se indica mediante cuatro letras), cada una de ellas operando cada vez más como una agencia del gobierno federal; y pasamos a una posición Nietzscheana más allá del bien y del mal. Practicar esa actividad de las cuatro letras era usualmente placentera, mucho más que el juego de pushpin o que la poesía (las alternativas indiscriminadas que señalaba Jeremy Bentham), y, ya que la actividad no tenía consecuencias, permitía toda clase de uniones carnales, convirtiéndose así en  una actividad "sin víctimas" — a menos que uno u otro miembro de la pareja pensara lo contrario antes (o después) del hecho.

Habíamos recorrido la división tripartita de la historia que hace Augusto Comte, pasando por la etapa teológica, la metafísica y la positiva, llegando a una negación de todas las etapas, y el final del misterio, si no de la historia. La monarquía de derecho divino, el republicanismo de derecho natural y la democracia de derecho popular, habiendo cada uno de ellos fallado, nos volcamos inevitablemente hacia la libidocracia colectiva. Ya que, como lo han observado numerosos comentaristas con relación a la democracia, no hay santuario cuando "el pueblo" está contra usted, no se diga una seguridad política de mantener una postura social impopular, llegamos a sufrir una carga de políticos serviles políticamente "pero personalmente opuestos a  ..." La religión, en vez de ser aquéllo que mantiene a la gente unida, se retiró para volverse una cuestión de gustos  — y todos sabemos que ”de gustibus non est disputandum” (de gustos no hay por qué disputar). La ética, en vez de ser un código de comportamiento social predicado en la naturaleza humana común, se trocó en un precipitado de revelaciones privadas gnósticas de lo que sea mejor (o sea lo más placentero) para mí, filtrado a través de estadísticas y del azar, negociado y canjeado por un croupier federal, imparcial, por supuesto. El cuerpo político se disuelve en sus miembros individuales, y hasta el Gran Leviatán debe hacerse pasar como el ejecutor solamente del mayor bien individual para el mayor número. "En las comunidades democráticas," observaba Tocqueville "cada ciudadano está ocupado individualmente en la contemplación de un objeto muy endeble, en específico, de él mismo."

Esta es una catástrofe moral y política, como muchos lo han señalado. El Papa San Juan Pablo II, en Evangelium Vitae (1995), temía que si, como resultado de un oscurecimiento trágico de la conciencia colectiva, triunfara una actitud de escepticismo, poniendo en duda aun los principios fundamentales de la ley moral, el sistema democrático mismo sería sacudido hasta sus cimientos, y pasaría a ser un mero mecanismo para regular intereses distintos y opuestos, sobre una base puramente empírica" (N° 70).

Como Pan, el mismo dios mortal pareció estar pereciendo en la cúspide de su poderío. Pero todo era apariencias, Leviatán parece resurgir inevitablemente. Las monarquías de derecho divino, las monarquías constitucionales, las repúblicas democráticas — todas ellas pasan, con todo y sus interpretaciones letradas. Sólo las técnicas numéricas avanzan. Sólo aquéllo que pueda ser contado cuenta, y lo que cuenta realmente es quién hace el conteo. Solo la materia tiene importancia, La justicia se troca en un algoritmo. Todo el orden tradicional se lanza por la borda en nombre de una infalible (aun cuando ignorante), invencible (aun cuando apasionadamente encadenada) mayoría, expresada numéricamente, contada por actuarios federales, en nombre del fatuo principio del juez Anthony Kennedy del "dulce misterio de la vida." Hemos tocado fondo y empezado a cavar.

Las espantosas consecuencias del triunfo de la igualdad, aun cuando se le califica de "providencial," nos han llegado ya, como lo temía Tocqueville. A pesar de su aceptación de la igualdad como algo ineludible, escribió, "Mantengo que es una máxima impía y detestable que, hablando políticamente, la gente tenga derecho de hacer cualquier cosa... Los derechos de todo pueblo están circunscritos, por lo tanto, dentro de los límites de lo que es justo"

"Algunos no han temido aseverar." seguía diciendo, "que un pueblo nunca puede brincarse las trancas de la justicia y la razón en esos asuntos que le son peculiarmente propios, y que, consecuentemente, puede otorgársele un poder completo a la mayoría, por la cual está representado. Pero éste es el lenguaje de un esclavo." Concluía esta sección con la vigorosa afirmación: "El poder de hacer todo lo que se quiera, que yo debería negar a uno de mis iguales, jamás concedería a un número mayor de ellos, cualquiera que éste sea."

Vox populi, vox diaboli.

Más adelante en su clarividente análisis del futuro de la democracia igualitaria, este de lo más observador católico Normando concluía con cierta trepidación, "Por mi parte, dudo que el hombre pueda jamás soportar al mismo tiempo una completa independencia religiosa y una libertad política completa. Y me inclino a pensar que, si es corto de fe, habrá de quedar sometido, y si ha de ser libre, tendrá que creer."

Prescindiendo del ineludible, si no exclusivo, significado público de hombre en la admonición de Tocqueville, hemos reducido la fe a una función privada, donde rápidamente pasa a ser una cuestión de gusto individual y de conventículos sectarios políticamente irrelevantes. Aquéllos que han sido intimidados a creer que esta postura esquizoide refleja su oposición a la discriminación, están en realidad opuestos indiscriminadamente a todo orden público basado en creencias, sea creencia basada en la revelación, o en la naturaleza, o en cualquier otra cosa más allá del conteo de números. Son carentes de fe en la política y consecuentemente están sometidos, están libres como individuos pero creen en nada más sustancial que su creencia carente de objetivo. Las creencias dejan de tener una función pública y se desmenuzan en millones de dispensas idiosincrásicas, ninguna de las cuales tiene una práctica pública significativa, cada una de las cuales puede ser manipulada en contra de las otras por el Gran Leviatán, a fin de "asegurar la tranquilidad doméstica."

La relevancia pública de la creencia religiosa, sin embargo, como lo vio Tocqueville, es necesaria para cualquier orden de tranquilidad doméstica que no sea un orden totalitario. A la larga, la mayoría de los individuos llegarán a considerar que mantener su creencia personal resulta intolerable (como Dostoyevsky lo señaló una generación, o algo así, más tarde, en su parábola "El Gran Inquisidor") y se alegrará de turnar esa función al estado-como-iglesia. De ahí la escuela pública, que proporciona el dogma declarado y la disciplina aprobada a los hijos de los no creyentes.

Tocqueville advirtió que "las ideas generales con respecto a Dios y a la naturaleza humana son ... las ideas que, por encima de todas las demás, resultan ser más aptas para ser removidas de la acción habitual del juicio privado, y en las cuales hay más que ganar y menos que perder reconociéndose un principio de autoridad". La actual lucha política en los Estados Unidos es entre un totalitarismo de estado cada vez mayor y un orden político limitado. La cuestión principal es: ¿quién debe tener la última palabra acerca de la naturaleza de la naturaleza y, en particular, de la naturaleza del hombre? ¿acerca de las "ideas generales con respecto a Dios y a la naturaleza humana"?. La escuela pública es el seminario civil del estado omnicompetente; la Iglesia, por otra parte, es la facilitadora de un gobierno limitado por factores extra-políticos, "Dos son los que son..." en la antigua fórmula del Papa Gelasio. Es bueno estar "a dos" en el mundo el poder, pues, como dice la clásica observación de Lord Acton: "El poder tiende a corromper y el poder absoluto corrompe de manera absoluta"

Sin embargo, seguimos  avanzando, hacia abajo y hacia la Izquierda totalitaria. Comentando sobre la tendencia a la centralización y el despotismo de los gobiernos democráticos, Tocqueville escribió que "ningún soberano que jamás haya vivido en épocas pasadas ha sido tan absoluto como para haberse encargado de administrar con su propia acción, y sin la ayuda de poderes intermedios, todas las partes de un gran imperio: ninguno jamás intentó someter a todos sus súbditos a una estricta conformidad de reglamentación, o tutelar y dirigir personalmente a cada miembro de la comunidad. La noción de una empresa tal nunca se le ocurrió a la mente humana."

Eso era hasta que llegó Obama, y el adiestramiento de bacinica ordenado federalmente

El proceso proto-totalitario de discriminar a nombre de la anti-discriminación continúa bajo el eje de humo de la igualdad. "Creo," escribió Tocqueville, "que es más fácil establecer un gobierno despótico absoluto en un pueblo en el cual las condiciones de la sociedad son iguales, que en cualquier otro, y creo que si tal gobierno se estableciera por una vez en ese pueblo, no sólo habría de oprimir a los hombres, sino que con el tiempo arrancaría de cada uno de ellos varias de las más elevadas cualidades humanas. El despotismo, por lo tanto, me parece que debe ser particularmente temido en tiempos democráticos." Pues "en épocas de igualdad, cada hombre naturalmente tiene que valerse por sí solo."

En términos políticos clásicos, aquél que se vale por sí sólo es un "idiota". Se doma a los idiotas de la misma manera como se doma a los animales silvestres, desde su infancia. De ahí, nuevamente, las escuelas públicas manejadas por el estado.

La fe o la creencia restringida privadamente en, o a, uno mismo, o a su camarilla, tiene descriptores más exactos que el del lema de la "libertad religiosa": orgullo, autoestima, egoísmo, narcisismo, arrogancia. El punto de la distinción y conjunción que hace Tocqueville pudiera ser muy distinto del de nuestros incompetentes políticos, opuestos personalmente pero acquiescentes públicamente a cuestiones divisivas propuestas y apoyadas por aquellos auto-nombrados progresistas cuyo "progreso" conduce inevitablemente a Campo Siberia (por usar una figura tomada de la tira cómica Pogo de Walt Kelly). Cuando la fe se restringe a asuntos"personales", se vuelve socialmente retrógrada y políticamente irrelevante, posesión de los idiotas civiles.

Tocqueville hablaba del hombre, la criatura pública, no de cualquier posible individuo, o conventículo de individuos, a los cuales el orden público permitiera darse el gusto de llevar a cabo diversas formas de insensateces gnósticas reveladas privadamente, o de disfrutar de fantasías sexuales incitadas libidinosamente. Aquéllos que se "oponen personalmente" pero que públicamente se conforman con los ataques a cuestiones básicas como la estructura y la función de la sexualidad humana, o con quienes tratan de hacer distinciones insostenibles entre la naturaleza del hombre y la persona humana en los dos puntos extremos de la vida (haciendo eco directamente de los argumentos que se esgrimían en pro de la esclavitud hace 170 años), dejan el comportamiento ético a ser definido por el mejor postor. Este estilo esquizoide, sin embargo, como quiera que se haya arraigado en la experiencia Americana, aumenta nuestra disensión, laiciza los en una época semi-encantados lugares públicos, y las grandes interpretaciones tradicionales de lo que es ser humano se trocan en irrelevancias públicas. "Libre de creer" se troca en una "licencia de andar holgazaneando y perdiendo el tiempo", siempre y cuando a lo que conduzca no obstruya seriamente el camino a Campo Siberia, donde habrá barracas para perder el tiempo, facilitado con soma y ejercicios maltusianos.[*]

Parece no haber forma de eludir el hecho de que el ser "públicamente aquiescente" implica complicidad privada, cualesquiera que sean los límites morales de esa complicidad. ¿Dónde radica la lealtad final del hombre?¿al hombre y su naturaleza como son realmente,  o al estado y su naturaleza como se experimenta? ¿a uno mismo o a una acción pública con un propósito que trasciende a uno mismo y al estado? ¿y quién establece los propósitos? ¿qué puede el estado proporcionarnos más allá del Proceso Bokanovsky, soma, ejercicios maltusianos y trabajo interminable? Todos seremos trabajadores, incluyendo las "trabajadoras sexuales"  — en un paraíso de los trabajadores. Sin embargo, para ahora ya debiera usted saber que Arbeit macht nicht frei (el trabajo no te hace libre), y que Bokanovsky y Soma por lo menos tienen como su básica postura por defecto lebens unwürdig lebens (vida que no merece la vida). Malthus es ya otra cuestión.

¿Es aún concebible ya no más pensar, y mucho menos decir, “Dies homini non desideravi” ("No he deseado el día del hombre, " Jer. 17:16)? Sería absurdo esperar que el estado proponga esto. Quizás, sin embargo, si no se mantiene esta actitud por la sociedad, nos encontramos ya en una democracia totalitaria, cuya "tranquilidad doméstica" pueda ser esporádicamente desafiada sólo mediante llamamientos partisanos a las barricadas.

[*] De la novela distópica Un Mundo Feliz, de Aldous Huxley: soma es una droga utilizada para mantener a los ciudadanos en paz; el Proceso Bokanovsky es uno de clonación de humanos, utilizando óvulos fertilizados in vitro; los ejercicios maltusianos estaban diseñados para evitar la concepción (N del T)