'Denying the known truth' leads to absurdity, spiritual and mental blindness
When Novus Ordo apologists sink to new levels of desperation, should traditional Catholics argue against them, or leave them to the absurdity?
Novus Ordo Watch has just released an edition of its shorter podcasts, “Tradcast Express,” on the following matter:
[Two apologists] claim, in all seriousness, that the Great Apostasy predicted in Scripture as a sign of the end times that will prepare the world to receive the Antichrist, is not the loss of Faith engendered in countless souls by the beliefs and practices of the Vatican II Church, but rather, is the traditionalist repudiation of the Vatican II religion!
This claim is ably dismantled in the podcast, and we’d encourage readers to go and listen.
NOW rightly points out that traditionalists (both sedevacantists, and those sedeplenists who firmly reject the Vatican II revolution - see here for more on that) are a tiny minority in comparison to the great masse of those who have accepted the Novus Ordo system and the Conciliar-Synodal Church.
But in addition, we could point out a third, gigantic group in this equation: those who actually left the Church following Vatican II. Our friend John Lane pointed out several years ago that the Conciliar Church is huge because the Catholic Church was even more huge before the Council.
Amidst this group, we could call to mind all the priests, religious and seminarians who abandoned their vocations and faith immediately following the Council – as well as the horrible attrition ever since.
We could also call to mind all those good Catholics who, like their fictional representative Edmund Rougham in Judith’s Marriage, were scandalised by the radical changes to their previously unchangeable religion, concluded that none of it really mattered, and lost the faith. (NB: commissions earned on this link.)
Rougham was given the grace to come back. Most did not.
(We could also call to mind all those who would have been swept along into the Church with the general wave of converts – if the revolution were not to have happened).
However, let’s now consider another approach to claims like the one under discussion.
Let’s consider the limitations of arguments and reason in the face of such absurdity – and the alternatives that lie before us.
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The limitations of arguments and reason
The idea that the traditionalist rejection of Vatican II is the Great Apostasy is absurd nonsense. Many similarly absurd ideas are espoused by the so-called “popesplainers” and “post-trads.”
In our day, even manifestly absurd claims can gain traction. In this situation, there are some who are genuinely perplexed and need to be given answers. We need to be able to provide them, and to “strengthen what remains.”
However, in many cases, the damage caused by such absurd claims is unlikely to be mitigated by arguments and reason.
Of those who are genuinely perplexed, many are ill-equipped for our current situation, and make decisions based on fear and scruples, and on what appears to be the safest course rather than on what is true. Such timid souls may be nearly impervious to reason.
Other victims of the “post-trad” ideas have already decided that they have had enough of the traditional practice of the Roman Catholic religion. Those who have so decided have basically already left the Church in their hearts. Arguments and reason are of little avail when someone has already set his mind to such a decision. (Although we should never discount the effects of grace.)
But how should we respond to those actually making such arguments?
Another approach
Let us repeat that the idea that the traditionalist resistance to Vatican II is the Great Apostasy is absurd nonsense – as is much of what the post-trad lobby produces.
Some ideas current online are so absurd that arguing against them is probably a waste of time. It may be better simply to laugh at those who are making such absurd claims, or to dismiss them as follows:
My good man, you are denying the known truth. Such arguments are perverse. You have gone very wrong, and you may end up with even worse absurdity if you do not turn around now.
If I asserted that the blue sky in front of your eyes was green, you might instinctively contradict me. But if I persevered in such assertions, you would shake the dust from your feet, and move on.
In the same way, I’m not going to argue with you in defence of the known truth. That would be beneath the dignity of a rational creature.
Begone.
Arguing with such men also threatens to take away time which would be better spent profitably, not least by helping those who are genuinely perplexed - or even by going outside ourselves and, as the young men say today, “touching grass.”
Blindness of mind as a sin and as a punishment
The denial of the known truth is a sin against the Holy Ghost, at least when it pertains to matters of faith. St Thomas Aquinas even treats the resistance to the known truth under the question of “Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.”
We must all be careful always to submit ourselves to the truth and to reality as it really is, rather than to what we want it to be, or think that it should be.
Those who reject the truth that is before them become blind.
Those who are resisting and denying the known truth are in great danger. A famous saying goes: “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
The continual rejection of the truth makes a man more and more absurd in his blindness. There are many such examples of this in history.
Spiritual and intellectual blindness is a punishment for sin, especially (so St Thomas and the saints say) for sins of intemperance.
There is an additional appropriateness in such blindness being a punishment for those who deny the known truth. St Thomas explains how this blindness of mind can manifest itself:
The light of natural reason “is prevented from exercising its proper act” through a defect in what is necessary for it (e.g., having an under-developed brain). This is not a sin.
The privation of “a certain habitual light superadded to the natural light of reason,” which is a punishment for sin “in so far as the privation of the light of grace is a punishment.” In other words, this is the consequence of a sin.
Neglect of the principle through which we understand other things – either due to our will turning away from the consideration of this principle, or through being culpably distracted by what one loves more than attending to this principle. Either of these are actual sins.
Those who deny the known truth are either turning away from the principle in the third point above (whether through an aversion to reality itself, or by an immoderate commitment to the preconceived ideas through which they wrongly choose to perceive reality) – or they are being punished for sin.
Or they are impaired, as the first point suggests.
“Popesplainers” are a prime example of those with immoderate commitments to a priori ideas, in the light of which everything else must be received.
These cherished a priori ideas are often related to matters of faith, but are wrongly understood.
As a result of this, that which is more certain (e.g., what the Church traditionally teaches about religious liberty, that this teaching is true, and that it is contradicted by Vatican II) is sacrificed on the altar of what is less certain, but more cherished (e.g., the private opinion that it is not possible for the Vatican II revolution to have entailed a contradiction, or that it is not possible for there to have been a vacancy of the Holy See since that time).
There is an endemic failure in our circles to distinguish between a priori ideas which are true and legitimate, and those which are the private judgments, opinions and interpretations of those holding them.
We must say it very clearly: it is very certain what the religion of our grandparents was (i.e. what they believed and practised), and that this religion was (and is) true. This is more certain, I say, than the claim that the result of the Vatican II revolution is the same religion as that which they practicsed, or that the men responsible for this revolution were legitimate popes.
Anyone who disputes this claim is wasting our time and not grasping an obvious hierarchy of certainties. This is so, even if (although impossible) the Vatican II revolution were in fact to be the same religion practised by our grandparents, and the men responsible for the revolution were indeed to have been legitimate popes.
The consequences of this blindness
St Paul talks of all this in his Epistle to the Romans, particularly of those who deny the existence and attributes of God and thus are driven into idolatry and other forms of blindness. However, the lessons and applicability are clear:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: because that which is known of God is manifest in them.
For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. His eternal power also and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.
Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God or given thanks: but became vain in their thoughts. And their foolish heart was darkened. For, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts and of creeping things.
Wherefore, God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness: to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
The further punishment for this resistance to the truth, perseverance in blindness and consequent idolatry is quite horrible.
For this cause, God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts, one towards another: men with men, working that which is filthy and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness: full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity: whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute: without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.
The warnings of this passage are surely not limited to those who deny God’s existence. It should stand as a warning for all those who resist the known truth, even if they think they are doing so for reasons of prudence, political expediency, or of “covering their fathers nakedness.”
So, to those who…
Ignore the reality of what Francis has been doing since 2013 (along with his other recent predecessors)
Assert that Francis is “based,” based on some things amidst a mass of “cringe”
Assert, most risibly, that the Conciliar-Synodal Church is visibly united in faith and possesses the four marks of the Creed
Assert that the traditionalists are the purveyors of the Great Apostasy
… the words of Jeremias seem particularly apropos:
Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits. (Jer. 5.20-1.)
While there is life, there is hope. Turn back to reality, the mediator of God’s will for us in every moment of time, and submit to it.
But only the individual can do this – we can’t make it happen. When actually confronted with such blindness, there is little that we can do beyond:
Mitigating the damage done to others, where we can
Praying that the blindness is only temporary and is speedily lifted.
May the good God do so, and may we be preserved from such a terrible fate ourselves.
Such preservation is by no means guaranteed. The only safe path - beyond, of course, devotion to God and the avoidance of sin – is one of a ruthless commitment to the truth, and to a clear vision of reality, whatever the consequences may be.
PS: Thank you to all our subscribers for making it possible to carry out original research and translation. Please do recommend The WM Review to your family and friends – or even consider buying them a gift subscription:
PPS: We have spoken many times here about the need to have the correct a priori ideas, and to have a proper view on the nature of divine faith.
Please do have a read of the below, which deal with these points – and share them with friends, family or social media if you think that they would be helpful.
