Conquered peoples frequently adopt their conquerors’ language, customs, heroes and religions as their own. Indeed, they often reach the point of recoiling in horror at the mere mention of their earlier beliefs and past champions, or forgetting them entirely and denying that they even existed.

This can have certain positive effects when the victor is something or someone better than the vanquished. We are rightly edified, as was St. Ambrose, at the contemplation of ancient Rome, humble enough to surrender her gods and a number of her traditional customs, once conquered by the superior truth of Christ. We can rejoice at the thought of a powerful tribe like that of the Franks under Clovis, Pippin and Charlemagne, abandoning itself to its Roman and Catholic cultural conquerors and forsaking its pagan barbarism in consequence. But we should be saddened whenever we encounter a high civilization, heir to the most profound truths and cultural achievements, which so learns to adore a debased conqueror that it voluntarily silences the songs of the glories of its own princes, warriors and thinkers, no longer recognizes its former accomplishments or beliefs when confronted with them and even uses the arguments of its masters to eclipse them still further.

Catholic civilization throughout the western world, and the Catholic peoples who benefited from it, fit into the second, truly pathetic category of the conquered. In our day, the majority of western Catholics, cleric and lay alike, consciously or unconsciously fall on their knees daily only to commit religious and cultural suicide. They recite the tawdry slogans of their conquerors, beg instruction in their masters' religion and customs and burn incense before a host of "heroes" who are non-Catholic at best or vehement enemies of the Christian God and man at worst. Although the demoralization leading to this dreadful reality has been very long in preparation, it has only been the last three to four decades that has seen such mass hara–kiri actually performed in public.

We have four basic questions to answer with respect to this macabre development.

Who is the Conqueror that has been capable of bringing about such an ignoble defeat, and, as T.S. Eliot lamented of the destruction of modern man as a whole, "not with a bang, but a whimper"? How has the passion for self-destruction on the part of the conquered Catholic world taken root? Why is the resistance to religious and cultural suicide among Catholics so weak? And, finally, what can be done, now, amidst the carnage of this suicidal bacchanal, to bring Catholics back to their senses and back to their feet?

The Conqueror, I would argue, is a subtle "what" rather than a specific "who". It is the concept of Pluralism. Pluralism argues that it is really nothing other than a practical, pragmatic "method" for dealing with the diversity and divisions of modern life; a method founded upon the need to be open to freedom for all faiths and cultures to co-exist peacefully, subject to the dictates of a "basic common sense". What could be a more obvious blessing in a world tired of confusion, hatred and endless ideological conflict producing an enormous amount of human suffering? What could be more suitable than just such a peaceful, "free marketplace of ideas and life styles", even from a Christian standpoint, given the opportunity it would assure to propagate the Catholic message? Surely, the Catholic would not want still more warfare spreading still more hatred among men? What kind of pyrrhic victory would follow from a forced march to Catholic Truth? And was it not the case that America, where Pluralism first blossomed, offered a splendid example of just how much the Catholic Church could thrive in the free and open society guaranteed by the Pluralist "method"?

My contention is that this seemingly benign, open, peace-and-freedom-loving, pragmatic Pluralism, this mere common-sensical "methodology", is, of necessity, a subtly monstrous lie that destroys everything that it touches. Rather than being a practical tool, it is a dogma: in fact, the one and only dogma, and an heretical dogma in the bargain. This super-dogma does not teach a faith-seeking-understanding like Catholicism, respectful as the Catholic faith is of both theology and philosophy, of revelation and reason. Instead it teaches a Fideism, like Islam, which prohibits all investigation of its central tenets and their difficulties. Like all Fideism, Pluralism hides the reality that it produces underneath the optimistic slogans that it drills into its disciples in place of thought. And while Pluralism recites its slogans of pragmatism, common sense, openness, freedom, diversity, tolerance and peace, the reality that it ensures is the victory of force and the triumph of the will.

Why? Because the "freedom" that Pluralism encourages has given to groups and individuals prepared to do anything to satisfy the strangest ideas and the most base instincts the chance to expand the borders of what "common sense" is said to mean and to permit. Because insistence upon "openness" has rendered it progressively more impossible to "close" the concepts of "common sense" and "freedom" within any substantive definition that might provide real standards of rational and irrational, right and wrong, justice and injustice, by which to judge the validity of any specific individual or group "life style". Because no one regularly using the Pluralist methodology eventually even remembers why logical argument or objective truth was ever thought to be important to begin with at all (as one can see from talking to the average American college student). And because all Catholic--and, for that matter, all rational -- opposition to the victory of the strongest desires and wills is paralyzed by recitation of those substanceless slogans insisting that Pluralism, by definition, has made everyone more free and more fortunate than ever before in history. Pluralism claims to state no positive teaching of its own. Nevertheless, it sows the wind with its dogma of pragmatic openness to freedom and diversity, and it reaps the whirlwind of impassioned, irrational, willful dominance over the truly serious man in consequence.

How have Catholics come to cooperate with such a destructive force?

Although the Pluralist conquest of Catholicism was not the work of one day or of one event alone, it seems clear to me that among its proximate causes is the "methodology" adopted by the Second Vatican Council and the appeal made to that Council’s "spirit" in the years since its close. Why? Because in the name of a practical, pastoral openness to the diverse needs of modern man, the Council consciously or unconsciously proceeded to deal with a host of problems on the basis of a Pluralist definition of what the word "pragmatic" means, and this definition works in union with an understanding of the meaning of freedom which is different from a traditionally Catholic one. The Council could not and did not claim to act infallibly when it appealed to this Pluralist definition of pragmatism-cum-freedom. It specifically indicated that it wished to work within the context of the practical as opposed to that of doctrinal formulation. Unfortunately, however, the Pluralist approach to the practical that was adopted also required rejection–as divisive and counterproductive -- of that entire corpus of nineteenth and twentieth-century theological, philosophical, political, historical, psychological, and sociological wisdom which had painstakingly demonstrated why such "methodology" could only end in a willful assault upon Catholic freedom and Catholic civilization.

This corpus of truly innovative thinking, which was deeply concerned for defining the "practical" and "freedom" within the framework of the broader search for definitive Truth, was nurtured by the clerical editors of La Civiltà Cattolica in Rome and Der Katholik in Mainz; by laymen like Louis Veuillot of the Parisian daily, l’Univers; in the encyclicals and Syllabus of Errors of the Venerable Pius IX, as well as in the further development of Catholic social doctrine down through the middle of the twentieth century. It argued that the emphasis which the western tradition placed upon the individual and individual freedom could not be separated from the influence of the Catholic Faith and the importance that that Faith invested in a personal God who wanted the personal salvation of all His children. Neither could it be separated from the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, which reaffirmed the significance and value of both the individual and all his legitimate activities and characteristics in the eyes of the Creator.

But the modern revolutionary world tried to live off of the fruits of Catholic labors while at the same time refusing to admit the debt that lovers of liberty owed to the Church. It concocted a definition of freedom that had nothing to do with the practical problems of truly liberating living, breathing, human persons. Its distorted definition of freedom invariably treated weak and powerful individuals and institutions as though they were disembodied spirits, all exactly the same in strength. Since they are not all the same in the practical world of flesh and blood, the consequence was that the weaker were placed in a situation where they were "freely" devoured by the stronger and the more unscrupulous. Modern proponents of "freedom" insisted, against all evidence to the contrary, that a new age of reason and liberty had dawned for mankind. Anyone who questioned this glorious victory was answered not by rational argument, but with imprecations, and condemned as a reactionary who lacked that faith in Progress which was needed to assure the full development of the new order of the ages.

Nineteenth and early twentieth-century Catholic thinkers warned that anyone who did not appreciate the errors of the modern definition of freedom and tried to act "pragmatically" on its basis would drag what was, in historical fact, a weak Church into a "free" and "open" co-existence and competition with immensely willful and strong enemies under conditions in which she was, humanly speaking, bound to lose. Such pragmatism would really be a tempting of Providence. The omnipotent God could indeed protect the Church within the free market place of ideas and life styles where truth is accorded no privileged place among the chaos of ideological commodities. But He would do so through the heroic sufferings of His faithful and not thanks to the merits of the Pluralist "method" itself. A true Catholic pragmatism could not legitimately force believers into the spiritual equivalent of a game of poker with a team of card sharks, and then blithely demand supernatural intervention from God to protect them.

True Catholic pragmatism recognized the central importance of authoritative doctrinal clarity in defending the only truth that could honestly set men free. It understood just how much weak, struggling, sinful human beings needed all the concrete assistance they could get to grasp the truth and to do what was right and necessary for both their earthly happiness and their eternal salvation. It accordingly preached the obligation to transform human societies and human institutions in such a way as to make these embody and themselves teach natural and supernatural truths.

Once the counsels of Catholic pragmatism were ignored, events unfolded predictably. The decrees of the "pastoral" Council and its so-called "spirit", left to flounder in the "open" society of modern "freedom", became whatever the strongest, the most conniving and the most unscrupulous wanted them to be. Once again, this triumph of the will took place while proclaiming the arrival of a new dawn of reason and liberty for all within the Church. And just as one might have supposed, "pastoral" measures were declared to be iron-clad dogmas by their willful manipulators. This victory of irrational, powerful factions and the accompanying pastoral disaster were said to be supported by the authority of the Holy Spirit; that same Holy Spirit whose infallible doctrinal guidance was at first put aside lest it manifest the intolerant, closed, divisive behavior that authoritative direction was chastised for displaying in the past.

Investigation of this mysterious return of the Holy Spirit from exile, and examination of anything else at the Council as well, were themselves condemned as everything from disloyal to insane. The Fideism of the Pluralist mentality choked a true Catholic inquiry into what, exactly, had happened. Its devotees demanded Catholic recitation of the usual slogans of the need for pragmatism, openness, freedom and peace as an alternative to serious thought. Church Fathers, previous ecumenical gatherings, decisions of nearly two millennia of Popes, canonical rules: nothing could be cited to understand the extent of the Council’s authority or put it into historical perspective. Religious and cultural suicide proceeded apace.

Let us examine the results in greater detail with reference to the United States, where Pluralism has long been the civil religion, protected by a host of powerful inquisitors in the courts, the press, and the educational system. A study of America is especially important given that the model of the United States was supposed to dispel all doubts about the merits of the Pluralist "methodology."

The Catholic Church, in deciding to act "pragmatically" in an open society actually dominated by a powerful competing religion, swiftly became the Catholic branch of the American Pluralist Church. She shows her commitment to the destruction of her old self and her adoption of the one permissible doctrine – that of openness to freedom and diversity – by her feverish insistence upon being "inclusive"; i.e., by vigorously favoring whatever was not approved of or encouraged by Catholic tradition. We can all think of a thousand examples of what I mean in this regard. For the Catholic branch of the American Pluralist Church, anything seems preferable to Catholicism itself. Each "open", "inclusive" advance requires a new program, a different kind of education, a fresh alteration of the physical structure of a parish church (for which there is somehow always money available). These changes always replace something distinctly Catholic (like a crucifix) with ideas and symbols which are distinctly not Catholic. Such alterations are built into the method of Pluralism, which finds the borders of what must "common sensically" be accepted for the sake of peace and consensus constantly expanded under the pressure of the willful. They will continue so long as there is something new to "include"; until, as Jules Meinvielle said, even the Antichrist himselfwill be included as well.

Since the Pluralist Church in the United States has grown organically out of the American past, its dogma is wrapped in a clearly patriotic cloak: with invocations to the Goddess-Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor; with eternal flames before the Temples of Founders and Heroes in Washington; with kowtows in front of the sacred documents of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution; with books of spiritual devotions filled with the writings of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

American Catholics were raised on the same national heroes, myths, symbols, rituals and sacred texts. Patriotism seemed to demand that they jell the religion of their homeland together with the religion of their baptism. This appeared to be all the more urgent when they were told that the only alternative to the American way was godless Communism. Exposure to the free marketplace of ideas in the United States had thus ended in their acceptance of the dicta of the great men of America as being Catholic in spirit, if not, indeed, integral to the Deposit of Faith itself. Needless to say, a serious Catholic inquiry into the validity of this idolatry has been dismissed as unpatriotic, irrational and even anti-Christian. For woe to the Catholic Church if the National Religion is not upheld by her! When it is not sufficiently enthusiastically proclaimed – as it is not (yet) in the case of abortion, or with regard to the principle of preventive warfare- then she is subject to anti-Catholic measures and vile propaganda which are likely to become ever more pronounced in their fury.

Insistence upon "openness" in the United States has also, predictably, led to the domination of the Catholic branch of the American Pluralist Church by precisely those sort of strong, clever unscrupulous individuals and groups to which the American scene has historically been inclined to give birth. There is no time here to explain why and how development of the puritanical and Anglo-Saxon elements in America's past has resulted in the overwhelming influence of sexual, commercial, democratic and charismatic obsessions in our society, as well as the bureaucratic organizations which promote and sustain them. Suffice it to say that openness, freedom, inclusivity and fear of intolerant divisiveness disturbing the peace have led to the "deconstruction" of even the most sublime Catholic themes on purely sexual grounds; to a concern for justifying everything religious on the basis of its market appeal or adherence to "professional business standards"; to democratic votes determining which doctrines are acceptable to which parishes; to the tyranny of charismatic prelates, pastors, religious, theologians, journalists and literal madmen; to the churning of all Catholic life through endless committees, councils, and chanceries, making approach to what were supposed to be compassionate post-conciliar bishops something akin to seeking audience with semi-divine oriental potentates; to the subordination of a true Catholic internationalism and concern for peace to the demands of a global American imperialism. The Catholic branch of the American Pluralist Church has come to mirror the war of all against all found everywhere in the atomistic society that it adulates. It has broken up into that multiplicity of factions, constantly battling one another, that James Madison praised in the Federalist as the guarantor of American "peace" and "freedom." It has little to do with the "peace that passeth all understanding" and the freedom founded upon truth, so dear to its former self.

But let us not forget, at this point, a fact of life that is central to my argument explaining the reason for the collapse of the Catholic Church in the United States:the influence of American Pluralism over contemporary European culture. The United States won the Second World War. It worked mightily to reshape the economic and social system of western Europe in order to mesh it together with its own. This activity took place on a continent which felt especially chastened for having taken ideas and the search to live up to them seriously, with seemingly dire consequences. It unfolded under conditions in which even once homogeneous nations began to experience (and to feel obliged to experience) precisely the kind of "multi-cultural" life which gives Pluralism its justification for existence. This activity was undertaken in a Europe whence some of the original seeds of Pluralist Fideism had first come, and which could, given the right opportunity, accommodate itself to their full-grown American fruit nicely.

Whatever the explanation for its success, American Pluralist influence over every aspect of life, over every judgment regarding what one should think and how one should behave has been incalculable. It is reinforced in image and in sound every day, from morning until night, from infancy until old age. So pervasive is this influence that the average youth in European countries understands his counterpart in America even without a common spoken language, while his own tradition has become incomprehensible to him. Is it, therefore–and this is the key point--any surprise that the kinds of questions which were considered to be important at Vatican Council, and the type of methodology which was adopted by it to deal with the Church’s "pastoral" problems, were, to a large degree moulded by the presuppositions of this same post-war European world, already Americanized by the 1960s?

Everyone admits the importance of such events as the victory of the United States in the Second World War, the demoralization of masses of people who had committed themselves to defeated totalitarian ideologies and the growth of and pressure to permit mass immigration. But their importance is really only admitted in theory. Almost everyone seems to forget their crucial role when it comes to "serious" analysis of the problems before us. I am not arguing here that other factors, including theological concerns unconnected with Pluralism, played no part in shaping the Second Vatican Council. But I am arguing that the most obvious factor--the reality of the pressure exerted upon individuals and institutions by the subtle and overt presuppositions and demands of their daily environment--is, in practice, regularly forgotten. And yet it is just such a power which must never be forgotten, especially when trying to make a judgment concerning pastoral decisions which may well have been bad pastoral decisions. Forgetfulness in this matter had led the Universal Church herself (in her fallible, pastoral capacity) to reinterpret her role along lines which are pleasing to American Pluralism, while denying that she is doing any such thing at all. We have seen that Pluralism works in precisely this fashion and with very great success.

Hence, a Dogma that blossomed in America was sent back to the United States with the blessing of a Roman world whose post-war environment helped to make it accept Pluralism as a given. The disastrous results of this supposed "gift of the Holy Spirit" have been outlined above, at least as far as our own country is concerned. But let it be remembered that the Pluralist methodology was also applied to an Americanized Europe. The strong, clever, unscrupulous individuals and groups that took advantage of it to ravage the Church in Europe might be different, due to the varied circumstances of particular European nations. Still, the overall effect has been the same: the triumph of the will in the name of a flawed concept of freedom, adopted as a pastoral tool, but then mysteriously (but predictably) proclaimed as a gift of God.

That brings us to the third and most distressing of the questions posed at the beginning of this article: why has the resistance of Catholics to the Pluralist conquest and to religious-cultural suicide been so weak?

One reason is clear. Some Catholics do not resist because they are already wedded to unacceptable goals and desires. They consciously want the freedom for willfulness that Pluralism protects, so that it can be used to gain them what they should not have. They may cynically appreciate the opportunity Pluralism gives them to remain within the Church Inclusive, even in positions of authority, while stripping her of all substantive Catholic doctrine and influence. It does not bother them to see Catholicism the victim of assault; in fact, they may see such assault as necessary to a healthy "consciousness-raising" among obscurantist believers. So obvious is their influence that we need not dwell upon it here.

Of much deeper concern is an explanation of the reason why well-intentioned Catholics who love the Church’s teachings do little or nothing to criticize, check and ultimately abandon the Pluralist Dogma once the overwhelming evidence of its destructiveness lies before them. This explanation, which requires more detailed study, touches directly upon the problem of those Catholics who call themselves conservatives, and who find it almost impossible to separate the cause of the Church from that of the government of the United States and the American way of life.

Certain situations are like mazes, very difficult to escape from despite the ease with which they are entered. Such is the case with Pluralism. A Pluralist mentality had already penetrated the Catholic environment before the Council. Indeed, nineteenth-century thinkers carefully detailed the existence of an outlook on life among a number of Catholics which would welcome and work together happily with the fully-developed American Pluralist vision. Once appearing on the scene, once shaping the daily activities and thought-processes of the Catholic, the Pluralist mentality turns him topsy-turvy, making of his life a kind of danse macabre.

It does so because the Pluralist way of life emasculates the Catholic, rendering him impotent. It tells him that he can think but not act, since acting in line with one’s thought could be divisive in our world of inevitable and growing diversity. Pluralism, at least in theory, can permit that Christ be King over an individual but never over the world in which the heart, mind and will of an individual are truly formed. Whether a person sees the contradictory situation this prohibition leaves him in or not, it marks him in a way that deforms his personality. It obliges him to turn in upon himself, to deny the crucial importance of his social environment in shaping his destiny, to construct a dike against all energetic action founded upon reason and faith and to declare an introspective sterility to be the normal condition of life. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that Pluralism literally creates psychological disorders and that it drives individuals and societies under its influence insane. It is not surprising that it produces an obsession with contraception, this being an obvious example of a sterile turning-in upon oneself. It is also not surprising that it produces so many willful people, since anyone who wants to act under its guidance is told that action in line with thought is illegitimate and must conclude that irrational action is the only action possible.

Pluralism is especially productive of masculine psychological disorder. Men are made to command; to guide thought into action. Nevertheless, fallen men seem to suffer in a particularly severe way from the temptation to separate purpose and action, and then to go along their merry way as though such clinical separation were not destructive. The results are painfully apparent in the sexual sphere. Pluralism constructs its whole methodology upon encouragement of this temptation, with major consequences in the realm of masculine leadership. It praises the man who thinks one thing about his purpose in life and behaves as though his actions in the society around him need not be coordinated with that goal. Hence, it permits him to believe that he has done his duty to the truth and to his conscience if he asserts his convictions about the meaning of things, but avoids the divisive actions in daily life which would give them concrete significance. Most men would like to be courageous, but would also appreciate calm and lack of friction with their neighbors. Pluralism provides them a way to have both. It makes courage easy for them, defining it in a manner that disturbs nothing and no one, least of all them and their ordinary routine.

Life in a Pluralist world has the same disordering effects on well-intentioned Catholic leaders, so much so that they unconsciously even prevent Christ from being King over themselves as individuals. Orthodox bishops, priests, religious and lay leaders do, indeed, look for guidance to the Catholic Magisterium. Still, because they have been formed within a Pluralist environment, they are subject to what St. Cyril of Alexandria called dypsychia. They have two guiding spirits; two guiding lights. Their Catholic Magisterium is combined with, and ultimately subordinated to, a second, Pluralist Magisterium. It is this Pluralist Magisterium that shapes their concrete daily actions, their whole way of life, their "second nature." This second Magisterium permits the first to survive, but only in the fashion indicated above: in the private sphere. Thus, as we have seen, it tells them that they have done all that they can legitimately do for their beliefs if they merely talk.

Talk is good but it is not enough to assure Christ’s reign. Popes, prelates, priests, and every living Catholic man, woman, and child could reaffirm and recite every word of every fine encyclical, catechism, pastoral decree, infallible conciliar and papal pronouncement and canonical judgment from the time of the Apostles down to the present, from dawn until dusk, without it necessarily making a true difference in their lives. A simultaneous commitment to the concrete Pluralist Magisterium can show the world that all such talk is simply impotent chatter. If someone lives under the influence of this second Magisterium, he will act with reference to things that it considers to be important, undercutting the value of what he says. A well-intentioned, orthodox Catholic who has digested the messages of Pluralist culture which bombard him day in and day out will conclude that he cannot put true Catholic models into practice. He will presume that he must act in a way that Pluralism considers to be practical and pragmatic. Pluralism reminds him that theology, philosophy, history and everything else that can really help him to understand the full implications of his Faith for his personal life are not "useful" in our sexualized, commercialized, democratic, American imperialist age. This concrete Pluralist Magisterium drives home the argument that all of his fine Catholic words must remain just words lest they become dangerous and divisive in the New World Order. It assures him, once again, that Catholicism cannot help but prosper in a Pluralist society. Hence, it teaches him that the best way to gain benefits for the Faith is to distort Christianity along Pluralist lines in daily life. In other words, his second Magisterium gives him a dagger to commit religious and cultural suicide. He uses it without ever realizing what he is doing since he is, after all, still saying the correct orthodox words (which he believes) as he dies!

Allow me to offer but one example. I know of one good bishop who delivers excellent public talks on Catholic catechesis. The Catholic Magisterium is honored in every one of his words. Still, he prides himself on being a practical, pastoral, post-conciliar leader. Therefore, his diocese is filled with practical programs of the kind suggested by the Pluralist Magisterium. These programs are administered by exactly the same type of irrational enthusiasts and willful bureaucrats who dominate unorthodox dioceses. Both programs and administrators are focused upon the latest sexual obsessions, the most up-to-date commercial gimmicks or the best in anti-authoritarian democratic changes. The bishop does not think of stopping their antics, since he too has been shaped by Pluralism. He fears that actions against them would render him naïve, impractical, undemocratic and divisive. To prove that he has no sympathy for such evil tendencies, he goes out of his way to encourage their projects. The faithful learn from such programs and such stewards exactly what it is that the bishop’s orthodox statements really mean in daily life: absolutely nothing. If the faithful try to build their Catholicism upon the innumerable recommendations of diocesan bureaus and spokesmen, they will never have time to investigate Catholic Tradition as a whole, to see whether or not these "practical" projects are good. If the dilemma is pointed out to the bishop, he often reacts vigorously, but in a way that aids the Pluralist cause and hurts Catholic Tradition still further. He calls attention to his personal orthodoxy, which no one doubts, but which is simply not sufficient to deal with the problems of the diocese. He acts as though his charism as bishop guarantees the legitimacy of pastoral methods which cannot claim infallibility. If one insists upon this distinction of doctrine and prudential action and continues the critique, making reference to a variety of arguments from Catholic theology, philosophy, history, psychology and sociology to demonstrate what is happening around him, a Pluralist, fideist bell goes off in his head. He dismisses his critics on Pluralist grounds, for closed-minded, divisive attitudes; for lack of "faith" in the methods dictated by the Council and its "spirit." He points to the Pope, who points to the Council. Their statements reiterating Catholic doctrine are called forth to assure the critics to have no fear. One might then try to indicate, yet again, that it is not the words of the Council, the Pope, and the bishop himself which are under question, when these merely repeat orthodox teaching, but the practical, contradictory methodology accompanying them.

Still, once this point has been reached, further discussion is hopeless. Nothing is permitted to bring into question the degree to which such methodology is de fide and valid. No rational evidence of what has transpired, in practice, by following it, is allowed in court. The bishop insists upon defending the truth and simultaneously encouraging its enemies to subvert it. The new age of freedom and reason within the Church requires Catholics to abandon the free use of their faith and their reason to complain of the destruction of the diocese. At best, the bishop laments the manner in which some people reject "true" Pluralism and deny the Catholic Church’s right to have her full message heard, but when he does so it is he who is deceived. Many of the very servants he defends are active in smothering that full message and working, consciously or unconsciously, to make sure that Catholics do the only thing that "true" Pluralism really permits them to do: emasculate and destroy themselves.

Let us now step back for a moment to review the point that I have made in the course of this article so far. Catholicism in the West has been conquered by Pluralism. Pluralism is shaped by a fideistic Dogma which does not permit any discussion of its central principle. It prohibits all theological, philosophical, historical, sociological and psychological treatment of its errors, stigmatizing such treatment as useless or divisive and dangerous. The Pluralist Dogma creates a way of life that forces people to exhaust themselves in being open to all the most distorted, ridiculous, perverse and contradictory ideas and actions imaginable. It crushes the very principle of contradiction in and of itself, this being too theoretical and non-inclusive for a practical, progressive, diverse world. The Pluralist way of life destroys a man’s capacity to react against madness as a man should, with all of his reason and active energy in both the private and the public realm. It suggests to those who are sufficiently brave to want to resist, means of defending themselves which keep them endlessly busy with modern sexual, commercial and democratic gimmickry, and which render them impotent, incoherent, bewildered cheerleaders for what destroys them.

Conquering Pluralism lowers an impenetrable blindfold over the eyes of Catholics. This blindfold causes them to turn away from the sources of Catholic Truth and the answers to what ails them. It makes them interpret the Catholic Magisterium according to the Pluralist Dogma of the "practical" world around them. It tosses them into a danse macabre which debilitates them and cannot end, since their practical Pluralist lives will always be at war with their theoretical Catholic ones. The tighter the blindfold is fastened, the more difficult it becomes for even the most well-intentioned Catholic to recognize and take seriously their own original beliefs and heroes. This is why many Catholics today consider "tolerance" to be the essence of Christianity and true Catholic rigor on faith and morals to be strange and sick. This is why they persist in looking at men like Jefferson, Franklin and Lincoln as almost Doctors of the Church, even though a minimum of historical reading and sense should make them see that they are clearly among the producers of the blind fold. That very blindfold makes discovery of the deception unimaginable. For what could possibly go wrong, its wearer asks, in the Pluralist system, the best system, the only just system, the Most Christian System? What could possibly go wrong when the Church has finally adopted the sole method for assuring peace and freedom among sophisticated modern peoples, America’s method? Why even bother to ask whether one might find criticisms and warnings against Pluralism in past Christian teaching when one knows, by definition, that nothing it does is wrong?

Salvian (400-470), in his main work De Gubernatione Dei, criticized a Gallo-Roman world which was apparently unconscious of its own cultural decay, injustice and smugness. Like St. Augustine half a century earlier, he marveled at the hunt for pleasure-as-usual amidst barbarian threats menacing the foundations of Christian, Mediterranean civilization. "It dies," he exclaimed, dumbfounded by the almost supernatural blindness of his fellow citizens; "it dies, and nonetheless, it laughs." "It is already dead," one would be tempted to say looking at modern western Catholicism as it tightens its Pluralist blindfold and exhausts itself in yet another round of its impotent danse macabre welcoming yet more diverse ideas and lifestyles destructive to everything it stands for; "it is already dead, and yet it laughs as though it were in the midst of an indescribably successful renewal." And it will continue to laugh until well-intentioned conservative Catholics join together with outright enemies of the Faith to blindfold the last remnants of those still divisive enough to wish to protest being forced to commit religious, intellectual and cultural suicide.

It is essential for all of us to work to remove the blindfold that conquering, fideistic Pluralism has fixed tightly over the eyes of Catholics; the blindfold that prevents them from learning what the Catholic alternative to Pluralism really is, who the true Catholic heroes actually are and what Catholics themselves can effectively do to defend their heritage; the blindfold that makes them standard bearers for their conquerors; the blindfold guaranteeing religious and cultural suicide with a smile.

How can we hope to remove this blindfold? Certainly not by extensive direct argument against the Pluralist lie. Anyone who has fastened the blindfold over his eyes will automatically reject the slightest criticism of Pluralism as the work of the devil. His Fideism will tell him that he must stop up his ears. The idea that there could be a problem with Pluralism is the one unthinkable thought. "Mature," "rational," "practical" modern man must irrationally refuse to entertain any practical or rational argument questioning this idol, which has declared all of its dicta to be reasonable by definition.

Rather, that blindfold can only be removed by efforts to bring Catholics face to face with the full historical reality of Catholic civilization. We need to make Catholics see the Catholic alternative, by investigating the development and expression of Christian doctrine, culture and heroic action; by observing a living, growing organism. We need to hold up the life of the Mystical Body which St. Augustine called the "Whole Christ," so that the radiance of its supernatural splendor will melt away the blindfold by its own innate strength. In doing so, it can then penetrate the darkness and reveal the Pluralist caricature of peace and freedom for the lie that it really is: an insult to the human mind and heart, in their desire to learn to do only what is true, good and beautiful, and to understand the full difficulty of being just in their daily lives.

Such a task requires a systematic, disciplined, patient labor. It demands a study of the pre-Christian world and the "seeds of the Logos," the Fathers, Late Antiquity, the Middles Ages, the Renaissance, the Revolutionary Era: in short, the whole of the Tradition; not just the arguments of the last thirty or forty years, which point to one another for support, but not back the history of the Church for a full, honest assessment of their value. It requires an examination of the practical mistakes that have been made, as well as Christian successes. Such an examination will show us that we indeed do not have to fear for the future even if we have to admit that the pastoral decisions of our own time have been a disaster. It involves what Plato called the "great Detour" away from what many sincere activists might think to be immediately necessary to defeat the enemy. For how can we defeat the enemy if we do not first know whether we have been seduced, by ignorance or habit, into fighting for him?

Pluralism, with its anti-Catholic definition of the practical, condemns the Great Detour as a waste of time. It is no wonder that it does so. The Great Detour is effective in learning how to destroy Pluralist control over Catholic life. Following its path guides people away from obsessive nostalgic visions of a return to the redemptive wisdom of Founders and Constitutions; visions which enable us to know a great deal about the breaking down of Catholic civilization by Protestant and Deist concepts of politics and society but nothing about the substance of our own Tradition. The Great Detour saves Catholic activities from exclusive concern with narrow, time-bound issues and tactics, important as these are in their own realm, and gives them a chance to learn whether their activist ideas and measures are really Catholic to begin with at all. It identifies the true source of supernatural guidance (the Church) and the true means of determining how to deal with Catholic problems (by studying, in the spirit of Cardinal Newman, the example of Catholic heroes putting doctrine into practice in the framework of the history of the Church). Learning about the "Whole Christ" directly, by listening to the words of all the Councils, all the Fathers, all the Popes, and the actions of all kinds of heroic activists throughout two millennia allows the Saviour, in a sense, to "speak for Himself." When this happens, immediate concerns and contemporary battles over tactics fall into their proper place within the broad scheme of things. They serve the Church rather than commanding her. The danse macabre of Pluralism cannot survive as a model for Catholic life against the clarity of the model that issues from the sight of the "Whole Christ" in action. It can only survive if we refuse to look at the complete message of Christ and his Church, if we neglect examining all the evidence that a variety of disciplines give us the means to investigate and nourish ourselves solely on the mess of pottage offered by our conquerors.

Much of what I have said here may sound terribly "pessimistic." As a result, it may also be dismissed by the Pluralist Fideist as being unworthy of discussion. His slogan-doctrines demand an "optimistic," blind, irrational faith in the fruits of Pluralism, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

But "pessimism" and "optimism" are not Christian categories. Christianity is centered around "hope" and the driving away of "despair." The precondition of Christian hope is an accurate appreciation of the reality of the situation in which one finds himself. Christianity can tolerate no blindfolds in its encouragement of hope, even if this forces it to speak of things which seem pessimistic to the world at large. My sincere wish is that any pessimism in this article may lead my audience to remove that Pluralist blindfold which is an obstacle to Christian hope and Christian victory.