The Catholic Populist

Otto von Bismarck of Prussia invented the KulturKamp (Culture War) that the Left has used against the Church

The Crown of France clearly did not realize that, in its successful push for the suppression of the Jesuit order, it had signed its own death warrant.  Needless to say that the Jesuits would have been invaluable in engaging with the two forms of modernity that emerged during their suppression (which lasted between 1767 and 1814) — Populism and the Left.

France was an ideological cauldron.  Henry IV after his “conversion” to Catholicism, had — like many monarchs — begun to wield a great deal of influence over the consecration of the Bishops in France.  In 1604, Henry nominated Armand Jean du Plessis to become Bishop of Lucon.  The Bishop soon became Cardinal Richelieu — controlling the apparatus of the French state and recalibrating French policy as Nationalist — and forging a historically unprecedented alliance with the Protestants and Turks (both historical enemies of France) against the Catholics in the 30 Years War.  Without the support of France, the Reformation in Europe might be as archaic a memory as that of the Cathars of Southern France.

Additionally, under the influence of Henry, Calvinist influence began to swiftly permeate the upper levels of the Church in France.  The Jansenist heresy was born — a sort of unforgiving Catholic-Calvinist hybrid portrayed by the character Javert in Les Miserables.

As France became more nationalist, the Church in France developed Gallicanism — the idea that the Church in France had special allegiance to the State to the detriment of its loyalty to the Pope.  Jansenism and Gallicanism formed a putrid Church-state alliance that created resentment in some of the underclass Third Estate of France.  Jesuit suppression decreased authentic Catholicism in France.  In 1787, the Left took advantage — declaring religion was sectarian, dangerous, and in need of secular state management.  In the French Revolution, Catholicism was banned by Robespierre and replaced by the atheistic Cult of Reason.  A statue of the goddess Reason was built with a guillotine at her feet.  Many heads were lost to her.  When Robespierre realized his terrible mistake, he announced the state would have a Cult of the Supreme Being instead.  But Robespierre had called forth a demon too hard to control and his own head was lost to the bloodthirsty Goddess of Reason.

Napoleon — after spreading a somewhat toned down version of the Left across Europe — got Pope Pius VII to sign the Concordat of 1801, which gave the State control of the Church in Europe and put priests on government payroll.  This disastrous arrangement — whereby private citizens are coercively taxed to support the Church, which has an economically subservient arrangement with the State — is still ongoing in most of the countries that were once under the thumb of the short Corsican.  Historically, State control of the Church weakens and erodes the faith of the laity — as evident in Europe.

The Left gained increasing power in Europe.  With the Church in Catholic Europe made more impotent by its reliance on the state, Otto von Bismarck of majority-Protestant Prussia declared a Kulturkampf  (Culture War) against the Catholic Church through a secularist State war on the Church.  By World War II, France — influenced by its Leftist roots — and Marxist Socialists in Russia were waging a war against Nazi Socialists in Germany and Fascist Socialists in Italy.  The Left’s ascent in Europe was so thorough that France was one of the least Leftist states on the Continent (not saying much).

After the Jesuit suppression, the Church relied primarily on the Parish Priest as its primary means of operation.  The Church was understandably fiercely opposed to the anti-Catholic modernity represented by the Left.  The Left launched an attempt to influence the Church that it needed to “modernize” its moral doctrines.  In 1888, Leo XIII condemned the Left’s conflation of license and liberty in the Encyclical Libertas.  Leo XIII condemned Americanism in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae in 1910.  In 1910, Pope Pius X instituted an Oath Against Modernism.  All three documents condemned any attempt to institute progressive doctrine repudiation and modern doctrinal updates within the Church.  The Parish provided a fortress that allowed the Church to flee Leftist persecution in Europe and (a far milder) anti-Catholic Protestant persecution in the United States.  The Parish priest celebrated the Latin Mass and built Catholic schools and Catholic communities that served as a harbor to a Church rocked by the Leftist ascendancy in the governments of Europe.

An estimated two-thirds of all Catholic martyrs in history died in the 20th century — mostly at the bloody hands of Leftists.  The most ruthless periods of Catholic persecution occurred in the Parochial era — from the French Revolution to Nazism to Communism.

Until the Church formed a Catholic-Populist alliance in 1965 that shook the Left to its core.

The 30 Years War saw an alliance of French Nationalists, Turkish Islamists, and Protestants vs. Catholics

The kindling wood of the Protestant Reformations (yes, there were two Reformations) were the actions of Catholic elitism in Southern France and Prussia.

The French Crown (not the Church) burned many Cathars at the stake for heresy.  There is no question that committed Cathars were bent on waging war on the state.  Therefore, the same men could have been executed for insurrection.  However, the Dominican-led Inquisition allowed the Catholic monarch to execute citizens for the sake of peace wrapped in the language of correcting heresy.  This effectively allowed the state to use the Church for public relations purposes — an inappropriate Church subservience to the state.  It did not help when the French Crown managed to keep the Popes in Avignon for 67 years.

The Teutonic Knights had the opposite problem.  They had established what they called a monastic state in Prussia.  Which meant that the Knights ruled the affairs of the pagan clan chiefs for their own good.  The conversions to Catholicism were bitter and resentful.

In 1517, Martin Luther wrote the 95 theses and began to develop his own doctrines.  He believed that faith and reason are inherently in conflict.  The predestined saved should “sin boldly” to internalize how much they needed Jesus.  He believed that the Church should be controlled by the state.  State control of the Church was appealing to the Prussian nobles that had long operated under Church control of the state.  In 1525, the Grand Master of the Knights converted the state to Lutheranism and became Duke Albert of Prussia.  The nobles seized the wealth of the Church and ceased paying the tithe or funding charity.  A peasant rebellion arose but Albert executed their leaders in an alleged peace negotiation.

John Calvin envisioned a very different Reformation.  He believed the Church should control the state.  He believed in a state where essentially all immoral actions were illegal.  Some historians have described Puritans as the inventors of the police state.  John Calvin also believed in double predestination — that God creates some people for the purpose of sending them to Heaven and others for the purpose of damning them to Hell.  He believed that God showers worldly blessings (like wealth) on the predestined.  His particular vision of Christianity was — needless to say — more popular with nobles and merchants than common people.  His faith took hold in Southern France where memories of the Inquisition still rankled.  From 1562 – 1598, Calvinist Hugenots (mostly nobles from the south) fought the Catholic League (mostly commoners from Paris).  In 1598, Henry IV (a Huguenot who had “converted” to Catholicism to inheret the throne) issued the Edict of Nantes, which declared religious liberty and recalibrated French policy as Nationalist rather than Catholic.

England converted to Anglicanism due to Henry VIII’s desire to marry Anne Boelyn.  In 1536, Henry proclaimed the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  The outraged populace rose up under the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ and demanded Henry VIII restore the Catholic faith in England.  Henry VIII promised to do so.  When the peasant army disbanded, Henry VIII assassinated their leaders.  England has been Anglican ever since.

Protestantism had immense appeal to nobles, merchants, and kings.  It tended to empower the elites at the immediate expense of the Church and the commoners as well as the long-term expense (although this was not immediately evident) of the king.  It was not popular with the populace of Europe.  The phrase “Sola Scriptura” sounded elitist to the mostly illiterate masses who could effectively identify with the Catholic sacraments.  As it spread across Europe, one thing stopped Protestantism in its tracks: the Society of Jesus.  Saint Ignatius’ Jesuits had been recognized as a priesthood directly loyal to the Pope in 1540.

The Jesuits were everywhere.  They revitalized science and art in the Catholic states untouched by the Reformation — Italy, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire (Austria).  They built Universities, Hospitals, and Charities.  They plunged undercover in Protestant strongholds like England and Prussia to illegally provide the Sacraments to the Catholic populace.  They led a spiritual renewal.  They were martyred in immense numbers.  They were educated.  They debated.  They were utterly unrelenting in their advocacy for the Faith.  They provided counsel and spiritual direction to Catholic Kings and Bishops.  They strategically attempted to outmaneuver allied Protestant, Islamist, and Nationalist powers from conquering  Rome.  They were unwaveringly loyal to the Pope in an age when many were deserting him.  They halted the spread of Protestantism in Europe.  And once the Age of Exploration began, they spread Catholicism to Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.

Initially, Protestants believed that a noble-centric conversion could sweep across Europe.  When that failed due to the Jesuits, they decided to attempt a trial of arms.

A Lutheran alliance of Prussia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden joined with Anglican England, Nationalist France, the Reformed Netherlands, and the Islamist Turkish Empire — which had conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul — to fight the Catholics.  The alliance was geared towards defeating the Catholic Holy Roman Empire, Catholic Spain, and the Catholic city-states of Italy, and ultimately capturing Rome.

The 30-years war was one of the largest and bloodiest wars ever fought.  A stalemate ultimately ended in the Peace of Westphalia — a peace that was in some ways even worse than war.  Westphalia abolished religious liberty in both the Catholic and Protestant states (except France) and declared that citizens had to share the religion of the Monarch.  The disregarded Jesuits believed that such a peace was even worse than continuing war.

The Protestants and Catholics both erected brutal Inquisitions to enforce this provision.  This created a Church-state alliance bitterly resented by the populace and opened the doorway for the rise of the Left.  The rise of the Left was radically hastened by the papal suppression of the Jesuit order (under political pressure from France) in 1767.

Friendly contemporaries, Francis & Dominic Founded the Mendicant Orders

The First Crusade served a noble role in Catholic history fighting to establish the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller were absolutely critical in maintaining and defending this important land.  The Second and Third Crusades were well-intentioned but ineffective.  However, Islamism was thrown into such turmoil that it was centuries before the Turks could establish dominance of the Islamist world and set their sights once again on Constantinople.  The Knights of Calatrava, the Knights of Santiago, and the Knights Templar were also critical to the Reconquista in Spain.  Both the Spanish and Jerusalem Crusades were Just Wars that saved Christendom from the Islamist scimitar.

The same cannot be said of many other Catholics-in-arms movements.

There is a reason that the Military era of Catholic history was much shorter than the Monastic or Episcopal eras.  The movement quickly became a liability to the Church.

The Fourth Crusade and the establishment of the Latin Kingdom threw the Byzantine Empire into confusion as a virtual 60 year war opened up between Catholics and Orthodox for control of Constantinople.  This prevented the Byzantines from capitalizing on the turmoil of the Islamists in order to permanently liberate the Orthodox Christians under Islamist rule with a sustainable offensive by the Byzantine Empire.

The Teutonic Knights launched a “Prussian Campaign” that subjected pagans living in Prussia to a monastic kingdom — rule by monks.  They put down numerous rebellions.  This method of conversion was alarmingly reminiscent of Islamism and sparked populist cultural resentment that Martin Luther was able to tap into centuries after the fact.

Once the sword was unsheathed, an Islamist approach to conversion became tempting.

Fortunately, the idea of re-sheathing the sword gained perhaps its strongest champion when Saint Francis of Assisi in 1209 was touched by a priest reading a quote from Jesus in the Gospel: “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts — no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.”

Saint Francis gave all his goods to the poor, founded the Fransiscans, and opposed violence.  The Fransiscans were a Mendicant Order committed to the charism of providing the 7 corporal works of mercy — feeding the hungry, quenching the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, visiting the sick, and burying the dead.

Saint Dominic founded the Dominicans, a Mendicant Order committed to the charism of providing the 7 spiritual works of mercy — instructing the uninformed, counseling the doubtful, admonishing sinners, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving offenses willingly, comforting the afflicted, and praying for the sick, the living, and the dead.

The Mendicant orders were constructed to be spiritual and corporeal powerhouses.  They each had First Orders — friars committed primarily to ministry, Second Orders — cloistered nuns committed to praying for the success of the ministry, and Third Orders — lay members that would provide a network of physical and spiritual support and encouragement.  These orders were fairly democratic — much like monasteries.  Like the early monks, very few Mendicants were ordained priests (but each community had some).

One of the problems in the Church at that time was that the monasteries had become — in the absence of invasions and elitist heresies to fight — rather established, wealthy, important, and complacent.  The Abbots were now extremely important people.  They did not connect with the people as they had used to in the youth of their existence.

Filling the void of a lack of zealous populist ministry, a heresy called Catharism had sprung up in southern France which viewed the body as evil.  Infanticide, suicide, slow starvation,  violent hostility to the state, and zeal marked this heresy.  The Dominicans focused their efforts on a conversion of the Cathars.  The Cathars were violent in many instances.  The Dominicans commissioned a separate Third Order branch equipped to bear arms.  However, the Dominicans always focused on conversion by rational argumentation.

The Dominicans engaged Cathars in public debate.  There were few people in sworn commitment to the Cathar creed but they had many sympathizers — noble and common alike.  The French Crown was especially hostile to the Cathars as they preached opposition to the state.  The French Crown — supported by the Pope — waged a war against militant Cathars.  The Dominicans at this time set up the Inquisition.  The Inquisition was at this early stage primarily a formal attempt to convert the Cathars by persuasion.  The defendents were permitted to mount a defense.  Many Cathars converted.  Most of those found sympathetic to Catharism were given minor penalties.  1% of the die-hard Cathars committed to violent opposition to the state were put to death by the French Crown.

The Fransiscans were on the other hand not allowed to bear arms.  They ministered ceaselessly to the poor and built immensely strong faith in the poor throughout Europe.

In an age when established Bishops and Abbots were becoming worldly, the Mendicant Orders championed poverty and humility.  As the militant orders attempted to win converts from paganism and Orthodoxy by the sword, the Mendicants preached peace and reason.  When the French Crown sought to come down like a ton of bricks on the rebellious Cathars, the Mendicants sought to create a genuine dialogue through the early Inquisition.

The Mendicant Orders brought healing through their practice of the Works of Mercy.

Which happened to be just what the Church needed.