modern world

Ibsen’s Rosmersholm

Ibsen’s <i>Rosmersholm</i> on September 28, 2019

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) was a famous Norwegian playwright, often credited with being the worldwide father of modern drama. He was not Catholic, but he told a great truth, and St Augustine once said that all truth belongs to Catholics (because their God is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”). For this reason Catholics can even sometimes appreciate better than non-Catholics the truths that the non-Catholics are telling. The great truth of Ibsen is that even in strait-laced hypocritical Norway of the late 19th century, where life and joy are stifled beneath a weight of dying traditions, still the human spirit rises up in protest, and it prefers even death to an existence entrapped with no apparent freedom or meaning.

Let us illustrate this protest with a group of three later plays of Ibsen in which he has turned rather from the drama of modern society to that of individual persons. Rosmersholm (1886) ends with the hero and his beloved committing joint suicide. The Master Builder (1892) ends with the hero falling to his death from a high tower which it was suicidal for him to have attempted to climb in the first place. John Gabriel Borkman (1896) ends with the hero dying from the cold of a virtually suicidal climb up a freezing mountain slope. But in each case the hero was striving for the freedom of the human spirit against a world stifling that spirit. Let us have a look at Rosmersholm in particular, an adaptation of which was staged in London recently with great success. Ibsen lives!

Every drama needs a dramatic clash, and the clash in Rosmersholm is between the old world of the Rosmer family and home on the one side, distinguished for the last 200 years by its soldiers and parsons who have set an example and given a lead to the whole region, and on the other side the rising new world of emancipation and freedom from all those old values. The central figure in the play is the last scion of the noble family, John Rosmer, formerly a parson but who has lost his Christian faith and is now torn between the two worlds. On the one side is Dr Kroll, a cold-hearted conservative attempting to save Norway from the all-invading liberalism, but whose own wife and children are going liberal. On the other side is the editor of the local radical paper, Mortensgaard, who is at least as disreputable as Kroll in his attempts to pull Rosmer to his side. Rosmer himself has in theory been won over to the new world of joy and freedom by the charming young woman, Rebekka West, his platonic companion for several years.

The drama comes to a head when Rosmer tells Kroll of his loss of faith and his intention to fight in public for the liberals. Kroll moves into action, by fair means or foul, to stop Rosmer from lending his person and prestige to the rot. Under pressure from Kroll, Rebekka realises that in her struggle to liberate Rosmer from his noble but stifling background, it is in fact that background, Rosmersholm, which has overcome herself. In the end, the only way that John and Rebekka can achieve both the new freedom and the old nobility is to throw themselves together into the water-mill of Rosmersholm. In other words, says Ibsen, the old nobility is joyless, the new conservatism is heartless and the new emancipation is no better. There remains only death as a way out, seemingly the only possible affirmation for the trapped couple.

Is that all dark nonsense, unfit for today’s Catholics? No, it is a realistic portrait of our world. When faith goes dead, as with Rosmer and with billions of souls today, then conservatism (Kroll) ultimately conserves nothing, left-wingery (Mortensgaard) is as good as throwing godless gasoline on a godless fire, emancipation (Rebekka) lacks stamina, and the liberal death-wish takes over. If one wishes to have life, and to have it more abundantly (Jn. X, 10), then Rosmer must revive in himself the faith of his truly noble ancestors, which means he must go back beyond even the best of his Protestant ancestors to the Catholics who made Christian Norway. Let Rosmer become truly Catholic, and then Kroll, Mordensgaard and Rebekka will all be able to see the true solution, and the whole region can light up again with the light of Christ.

Kyrie eleison.

“Post-Modernity” – II

“Post-Modernity” – II on August 31, 2019

At the risk of wearying readers with variations on the theme of Truth, these “Comments” will make further comment on the summary of Wojcieck Niemczewski’s Culture as religion; the post-modern interpretation of the relationship between culture and religion, quoted here last week. For indeed we must save our souls, and one deep danger in the way of saving our souls is the blinding of our highest faculty, which is our minds, upon which follows immediately the corruption of our hearts. And the deepest danger for our minds today is the universal assumption that ideas do not matter, that truth is not important. See how Vatican II preferred modernity to faithful Catholicism, notably in the Conciliar document of Gaudium et Spes, and then how the Society of St Pius X preferred the Conciliar Romans to their faithful Founder, and in each case, how the large majority of priests and lay-folk followed along.

Let us begin by laying out Niemczewski’s thoughts in order, so as to see where he is coming from and where he is going to: 1 There is no objective God because “God” is the subjective fabrication inside each one of us. 2 Therefore the old “truths” of yesterday’s religion and philosophy no longer have any foundation. 3 Moreover they no longer fit today’s real world, which is changing in all domains and faster than ever. 4 Worse, they are actually blocking modern progress, or the “culture of choice” which enables us to adapt to change, and which guarantees the freedom of each of us to put together his own way of life. 5 So to remain adaptable to modernity, post-modern man must accept this non-universal and non-obligatory “culture of choice” which imposes on man neither norms nor any being superior to him. 6 In conclusion, truth must give way to liberty, religion to culture, and direction to drift. 7 Therefore down with Truth, up with the “culture of choice”!

Alas for post-modern man, there is a reality outside his mind, as close to him as his own arms and legs, and this extra-mental reality has laws of its own, in no way dependent on his mind. For instance if he has tooth-ache, he will have to go to the dentist and not to the fishmonger. And these laws are not only physical but also moral. For instance if a poor girl has an abortion, she is not going to be able to wish away her pangs of conscience, however much she would like to. The free-will of each of us human beings is unquestionably free – hence the possibility of Niemczewski’s “culture of choice” – but that culture of choice can only function inside and not outside of the structured framework of the laws of extra-mental reality, physical and moral. Thus for my eternity I am free to choose Heaven or Hell, but I am not free to choose to break seriously the moral law and still go to Heaven.

The ancient Greeks in their prime pre-dated Our Lord’s Incarnation by hundreds of years, so that they had no benefit of supernatural grace or illumination. But just naturally they observed – they did not invent – the grave and unavoidable consequences of human beings rearing up against the moral structure of human life, and they gave that rearing up a name – “hubris,” today we would call it “pride.” Thus Niemczewski’s presentation of the “culture of choice” begins by denying God and ends by defying Him, but while he may bend men’s minds in favour of his “culture,” he is powerless to bend the eternal and ineffable Existence of God, or the eternal and absolute necessity of Truth. For instance, if there is no such thing as truth, then that at least is a truth. Hence in denying all or any dogma, nobody is so dogmatic as the Freemasons, and in their subjective undermining of all doctrine, nobody is so doctrinal as the Modernists and Neo-modernists.

In brief, a man like Niemczewski is refusing to recognise that around mankind’s arena of choice is a ring of reality which is not of man’s choice. The churchmen of Vatican II are refusing to recognise that the Deposit of Faith cannot be modernised. And the leaders of the Newsociety of St Pius X are refusing to recognise that the Conciliar Romans are fantasy merchants. The “culture of choice” will finish by costing all of them dearly. It may cost them their eternity if they cannot come to their Catholic senses.

Kyrie eleison.

“Post-Modernity” ? – I

“Post-Modernity” ? – I on August 24, 2019

One comes across the words “post-modern,” “post-modernity,” and one wonders what they mean, or what they are referring to. A reasonable guess is that “modernity” is taken to refer to the period in world history which began with the end of the Second World War in 1945, when civilisation had to climb out of the ruins and set out on a new course. But 1945 is now nearly three quarters of a century ago, and 74 years is too long a time for the world to have been moving on without evolving into something different – at all times the world is spinning around, “Volvitur orbis,” but never has the world seemed to be spinning faster than in our own 21st century. Therefore whatever it has moved into, that is “post-modern.”

Of course the question then becomes, what has it moved into? And here the very heart of “post-modernity” may happen to have been pinned down in a book entitled Culture as religion; the post-modern interpretation of the relationship between culture and religion, by Wojcieck Niemczewski. Here follows a two-paragraph summary of Niemczewski’s thesis:—

We are living in an age of changes of all kinds, but the old religious and philosophical principles put brakes on progress and no longer fit the reality around us, which is changing faster than ever. Henceforth we are experiencing the “culture of choice,” involving all those cultural elements that we can mix up to put together our own vision of the world. The possibility we have of choosing then becomes a sign of freedom at the price of the old element of truth, allowing us to remain adaptable to modern life.

As a result this post-modern culture imposes no norms, no obligations, no application to all of life. Nor does it transcend this life because God may exist, but only within ourselves, only inside us, in fact He depends on us! Post-modern man wants to be in tune with his time, in other words with movement and change. But never-ending movement and change towards what? He has no idea, because he has made himself unable to define where he is heading. Thus even if men hold to Tradition, it is liable to be absorbed within this new culture.

In the time of Noah – see Genesis, VI-IX, especially VI, 1–13 – mankind was so corrupt that to save still any significant number of souls, Almighty God had to inflict a worldwide punishment which would give to at least a minority of them motivation and time to make a good act of contrition. And given original sin, it is logical that only interventions of God could from then on slow down or reverse mankind’s inclination to fall. Of course the greatest of these interventions was God’s own Incarnation, but “the higher they are, the harder they fall,” and so after nigh on 2000 years it was foreseeable that the condition of mankind would be worse than ever, if God chose to allow that. Clearly (Lk XVIII, 8) He has chosen from eternity to allow the almost complete disappearance of His Son’s Church before world’s end. What form will this disappearance take? We see it today in Niemczewski’s description of the “new culture.”

His description invites us to distinguish between “modern” and “post-modern” as follows. “Modern” would be the all-embracing culture of nihilism, following especially on the Second World War – hearts and minds empty of all conviction, belief, hope or trust, but the hearts and minds have not yet themselves disintegrated, and there is still a painful sense of what has been lost. On the contrary “post-modern” would be the logical consequence of that pain, namely the self-destruction of the remains of heart and mind by the will so that the pain will no longer be felt. I deliberately renounce truth so that my mind floats in a lotus-land of lovely lies of which I make myself no longer conscious that they are lies, and my heart drifts in a dreamland of deluded desire where everything is soft and sweet and will always be so.

But “A fact is stronger than the Lord Mayor,” says the proverb. True, a mass of modern minds and hearts have cast off all moorings, and refuse all bearings, but wind and tide remain wind and tide, as at least the unchanging enemies of the unchanging God never forget. They want all real souls in the real Hell. If only God’s friends had as much sense of reality as they have!

Kyrie eleison.

Further Undermining

Further Undermining on July 13, 2019

These “Comments” have more than once recommended the Internet site of the American commentator on worldwide political and economic developments, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, because he may lack the fullness of perspective provided by the one true religion, but he sees a great deal of worldly truth, and he tells it on his site – paulcraigroberts.org – to the point that one asks oneself, when is he going to be assassinated? But murder is always messy, and the murder of a messenger always risks giving credit to his message. Be that as it may, Dr Roberts’ articles are widely read all over the world, and a recent article reinforces on a very practical level the starting of Fr Calderón’s dissection of the “new man” of Vatican II (see these “Comments” of June 22) by modern man’s being cut off from objective truth by subjectivism. Read Dr Roberts’ article, slightly resumed below, for a typical advance today of that cutting off—

Dr Roberts begins by quoting a truth-telling site, Zero Hedge, which reports that “the ability to falsify reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Thoughtless geeks have now developed technology that makes fake reality indistinguishable from real reality. “I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the U.S.A. House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything. The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, than things that are fake became our reality.

“We’re outgunned,” said a UC Berkeley digital-forensics expert, “The number of people now working on video-synthesis outnumber those working on detecting deepfakes by 100–1.” . . . . Already two-thirds of Americans say altered images and videos have become a major problem for understanding the basic facts of current events. Misinformation researchers warn of growing “reality apathy” whereby it takes so much effort to distinguish between what is real and what is fake that we simply give up and rely on our base instincts, tribal biases, impulses. Immersed in our leaders’ deceits, we come to believe in nothing.

For instance, two oil tankers burst into flames, billowing smoke. On cue, a suspicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard boat appeared on grainy video. Viral images flooded earth’s nine billion screens. Each side told a different story. No one quite knew who to trust. Conspiracy theories filled the void, as we each clung to what we most want to believe. https://​www.​zerohedge.​com/​news/​2019-06-16/​hedge-fund-cio-i-dont-think-public-aware-whats-coming Dr Roberts goes on, Why is it that tech geeks take pride in developing technology that makes truth even harder to find? What is wrong with their character as humans that they create methods of destroying the ability to know truth? How is this different from releasing an undetectable substance into the air that wipes out life? The only use of this technology is to allow the police state complete control. It is now possible to put words and deeds into the mouths and actions of anyone, and to use the faked evidence to convict them of the simulated crime. Without truth, there is no liberty, no freedom, no independent thought, and no awareness. There is only The Matrix. How has America so lost its way that corporations, investors, and scientists are motivated to develop truth-destroying technology? Aren’t these mindless idiots our real enemies? The most difficult thing in the world today is to ascertain the truth. And Dr Roberts’ article ends with a plea for support, which he surely deserves.

Readers, hold on to truth for dear life, because it is being undermined fast, as the world is putting liberty in front of truth, and fantasy in front of reality. The consequences will be humanly disastrous for us all.

Kyrie eleison.

Convert Today – III

Convert Today – III on March 16, 2019

Dear young friend,

Two weeks ago these “Comments” related your own story of your conversion from the wasteland of a modern university to the truth of the Catholic Faith. It ended with your request for advice because you yourself realised that God had given you the Truth, but you needed to get your bearings in a very confused situation of Church and world. It took last week’s issue of the “Comments” to give you the basic advice that is valid for a Catholic convert in general, i.e. in all times and places. It will take this issue to offer you the particular advice recommended for you to see where you are in today’s chaos of the Church, unprecedented in all 20 centuries of Church history.

The crisis is unprecedented because the world will have only one ending, and we are approaching it. See Our Lord’s own description of the last times (Mt. XXIV, Lk. XXI), and see St Paul’s warning, dating from around 67AD, for these times (II Tim. III, 1–9), especially verses 5 and 8: men will be “corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith,” “having the appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid.” Excellent advice for 2019AD, because it is important to realise that today men in general and Catholics in particular are as a whole not “normal,” but men at the wrong end of a long process of degeneration. The purpose of such a realisation is neither to scorn them, nor to despair, but to take the right measure of what it means to live as a Catholic in a post- and anti-Christian world. In God it can be done – “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me ” (Phil. IV, 13).

The chaos in the Church is special today because never before Vatican II in the 1960’s had the official Church in Rome departed officially from the Catholic Faith. Now Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority were designed by Our Lord to go hand in hand – when Peter is to be confirmed in the Faith (Catholic Truth), then he is to confirm the other Apostles (Catholic Authority – Lk. XXII, 32). Thus Truth is the very purpose of Authority, but it needs Authority to protect it. Each needs the other, but at Vatican II they were split apart, because the Popes and Cardinals and Bishops (Authority), magnetised by the modern world, gave up the old religion (Truth). From now on all Catholics had to be schizophrenic – either they clung to Truth and let go of the false authority, or they clung to Authority and let go of the Truth, or they found their way somewhere in between. From now on every Catholic sheep had to find its own way through the thorn-hedge set up by the bad shepherds of Vatican II.

Judging by the fruits (Mt. VII, 15–20), Archbishop Lefebvre’s way, of resisting the false shepherds while still recognising their authority, has proved to be one of the most fruitful ways of dealing with the confusion let loose by the Council, but his successors at the head of his Society have not proved faithful to his balance between Truth and Authority. Even now many are crawling back to false Rome, when it is falser than ever! Let this be a warning to you of the danger of thinking today that the appearance of Catholicism is the same thing as its substance. Then how do you know where the substance is to be found? The best answer is Our Lord’s, just mentioned – judge by the fruits. By what fruits? By supernatural faith, as God has just given you to understand it, and by genuine supernatural charity.

Then mix for a while with all kinds of Catholics, but listen more than you talk. Be in no hurry to pursue a vocation because God is never in a hurry (Gal. I, 18; II, 1). Have a boundless trust in His Wisdom and Providence, and be careful of clinging to any human leader or leaders, until God puts His Church back on its feet (as He certainly will do). Always honour your father and mother, however wrong they may seem to be (God has not given them the grace He has given to you). Have a boundless compassion on the mass of confused souls around you, but never confuse subjective sincerity with objective truth. Love the Mother of God, and pray every day for as long as you can all 15 Mysteries of Her Holy Rosary. And God be with you.

Kyrie eleison.

Convert Today – II

Convert Today – II on March 9, 2019

Dear young friend,

Congratulations on having received from God important graces of conversion which give you a fighting chance of saving your soul for eternity! For you may fall by the wayside like any of the rest of us (I Cor. X, 12) on the narrow path leading to Heaven (Mt. VII, 14), but if you want to get to Heaven, then with the grace of God you will do so, despite anything that the world, the flesh and the Devil can throw at you. For make no mistake, you and I are alive and Catholics in order to save our souls by loving God and by loving our neighbour as ourselves. On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets, yesterday, today and tomorrow, down to world’s end. Not even the modern world changes such basics.

Therefore today’s situation of Church and world may appear more frightening than ever, but you need not let yourself be frightened. “For I am sure,” cries out St Paul “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord.” (Rom. VIII, conclusion). However, there is one thing that can separate us from God, and which fills Hell with the damned souls of the majority of human beings that ever lived or will live (Mt. VII, 13), and that is – sin. Therefore whatever else you do, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. II, 12), because the prospect of eternal damnation is too horrible to think of, and keep constantly in front of your mind the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. And stay close, wherever reasonably possible, to the Sacraments, especially Confession and Mass, so as to be living regularly in the state of grace.

In this connection, to save our souls Our Lady knows that modern times do make Catholic life difficult, so she has given us a special remedy – the Five First Saturdays. Find out all about them, in all their detail, especially by means of this flyer, and then do them as soon and as faithfully as possible, because any Catholic who knows about them and does not pick up on Our Lady’s offer of this easiest possible means of salvation, needs to have his head examined. Her offer is too generous to be true? No, She knows exactly what you yourself have learned the hard way, namely that today’s atheistic materialism, lies and corruption, excessive comfort and freedom, do all act as obstacles between her human children and her divine Son, so here is Her answer. By doing exactly what She asks, you will also be doing the most you can to obtain for the Pope the grace to consecrate Russia to Her Heart, which is the God-given key to unlocking today’s universal troubles.

Meantime on the supernatural level, use the time presently available to you to pray and study. Pray as many as you can each day of the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary, the next greatest prayer to Mass, and study everything that you can lay your hands on said and written by Archbishop Lefebvre, God’s own guide through this unprecedented Church crisis. Read also any other Catholic books (from before the 1960’s) which catch your interest. Dutiful but uninteresting books will not give you as much. Likewise exploit, but beware of, the Internet, where treasures are surrounded by traps. By all means meet a variety of Catholic priests and learn from each of them, but not to the point where you would get confused. Visit communities, and stay as long as you are welcome in any surroundings where you find God.

And lastly, on the natural level, by all means look for honest work if you find that as a man you are getting out of balance without it, but avoid committing yourself long-term until you are sure that you have found God’s will for you. By the same token, treat the girls chivalrously and avoid choosing a wife until you have found your life’s work. A wise girl hangs back from a man who has not yet found his work.

And may God bless you, and His Mother protect you. Vaya con Dios!

Kyrie eleison.