Orthodoxics: The Practice and Principles of Religious Orthodoxy
By Joseph Andrew Settanni
Modern civilization so-called is at its devilish best as it aggressively tries, through various means and ways, to blank out the fact of death from human consciousness. But, metaphysics, when thoughtful people pursue answers, still seeks to deal with this profound centrality of human mortality; answers get provided through the questions answered by religions since science has not yet actually negated death.
Among other considerations that may be dealt with, belief and practice may not always be necessarily synonymous for all those who claim to believe. Any thoughts of mortality often get related to one’s metaphysics, which can be called religion, though often related qualifications may be needed.
Believing and practicing may or may not be the same thing, especially when pertaining to Christianity, which in and of itself is not a religion, contrary to an often popular misunderstanding. The ignorant expression often has it, e. g., that there are said to be three great monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, though the purported god of Mohammadanism is, it needs to be well remembered, neither related to the Christian nor the Jewish God.
While the latter two could be classified as religions, however, the first named, Christianity, concerns only what is said to be believed as to those who, more or less, affirm a belief in Jesus Christ; it is not, in fact, the designation of an or any actual religion nor of, for that matter, any orthodox and foundational faith of any kind. Ignorant, meaning uninformed, people absurdly refer to the often assumed religion of Christianity.
Christianity v. Catholicism
Within the monotheistic realm of Christianity, there are three main theological divisions: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism; another group would, of course, be the Greek/Russian Orthodox believers. But, logically or formally speaking, there is no religion per se, in specified reiteration, called “Christianity” in actual existence; and, there is no, by definition, orthodoxy attached to it, meaning its affirmation as such; truly significant and indicative metaphysical distinctions, thus, do rightly exist.
This is not, nonetheless, just a mere or dismissible semantic point, inconsequential quibble, having no real-world implications and related ramifications; ideas have consequences, while the here attempted theorization, as to the proper formulation of religious orthodoxy, will seek to consider the doctrinal requirements of appropriate certitude for the formal sake of explicit theology.
For good reason, there are also no “Christianists” who are believers in any “Christianism” as to a supposed belief. There are those who call themselves Christians who, however, deny any miracles done by Christ, including His own Resurrection. In their minds, a total desacralization has occurred that, to logical cognizance, wipes out all metaphysical value to having a so-called Christian belief.
There are, for instance, people who do think that they are legitimately and, thus, to all intents and purposes actually Christians who have never been baptized. And, moreover, this odd attitude is so completely consistent with thinking and saying that Christianity is a religion. Baptism, which is a Christian sacrament, is absolutely essential for entrance to the Communion of Saints, except for those who possessed the baptism of desire as with, e. g., martyrs. Many folks, e. g., simply presume that they are Christians, so they, by extension, then blandly do assume that they then fulfill at least the minimum requirements of Christianity, of such general belief, which is not even a theoretical religion.
How so? Because many people feel that no dogmas, doctrines, or even definitions are needed, just (pure) belief; and, that seems to satisfy the beliefs or consciences of growing numbers who are content to call themselves Christians, which is parallel, in many ways, to the many who do explicitly say that they are highly spiritual but really not (particularly) religious.
The innumerable inherent contradictions involved do not, moreover, seem to upset the minds of many people. Subjectivity and relativism, sanctioned by philosophical nominalism, supposedly “blesses” all such divergent nonsense and covers, conveniently, a wide multiplicity of sins in the process. All of the foregoing more than hints at why Catholicism, not Christianity as such, provides answers to questions that range from the prosaic to the definitely eschatological, which covers death itself.
And, as a matter of fact, the four last greatly important things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Not surprisingly, the Roman Catholic Church claims to boldly profess and hold to the only true Faith, in this entire world of many tens of thousands upon thousands of beliefs. The one and only genuine choice is Catholicism versus all the rest of whatever denomination, cult, sect, faith, etc.
Furthermore, the Catholic Faith was, is, and will be the Truth, regardless of opposing views to the contrary, because, by all the logic of this world, it ought never to have existed, thrived, or much less expanded against all odds, athwart all mere human reason. The Cross, as Malcolm Muggeridge had sagaciously realized, was the absolutely worst kind of marketing tool any organization could possibly come up with in all of human history.
Through the many ages of history, the aggressive Judaic hierarchy, prideful Arians, militant Moslems, as well as Albigensians, Protestants, French Revolutionaries, and Communist Revolutionaries, filled with demonic confidence, all had assumed that they would finally and inevitably destroy the Church; they all lost. But, none of them ever took the hint.
However, in fairness, it must be said that so much in history looks inevitable, though only in hindsight, which appears to be proverbial 20/20 vision. Perceived in purely materialistic or secularist terms of reference, the religion of Catholicism, as Chesterton would have paradoxically put it, is impossible. If anything is to survive, therefore, it is actually due to the will of God, not because of the assumed virtue of the believers.
The world wants to forever forget that all of ontological reality is, thus, totally contingent. On at least a dozen occasions, according to just what ought to have been the secular, historical-naturalistic reality involved, Catholicism ought to have been wiped off the face of the earth, including the supporting institutional structure itself, of course.
None of this is surprising in that most of what gets called contemporary Christianity, as to recent history, supports the modernist and partly postmodernist sociocultural order that does not merely tolerate or agreeably condone mortal sins, as with the deliberately nihilistic ideology of libertarianism; rather, mortal sins are openly celebrated and have been, long ago, equally elevated to the level of (supposed) human rights that, moreover, ought to be strongly respected and unquestionably upheld by democratic governments. This is fully ideologically consistent, furthermore, with the widely liberal or modern understanding of natural law/natural rights teachings that are evolutionary in their very nature, which are, however, directly contrary to all classical Natural Law and Natural Rights expostulations.
These are, as could be guessed, properly defended by the Roman Catholic Church, for truth does not contradict truth, as is true for all of theological orthodoxy; and, history has definite consequences regarding ecclesiastical and dogmatic authority.
Importance of Orthodoxy
In terms of St. Peter, being the head of the Apostles and the first bishop of Rome, the Apostolic primacy resides always with the Petrine dogma that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, Supreme Pontiff, on earth, which then makes the Greek/Russian Orthodox believers historically the first “protestants” in their deliberate 11th century schism against Holy Mother Church; the later, formal Protestants of the 16th and 17th centuries and after, thus, exhibited their own form of rebellion or revolt. Furthermore, the noted lack of always properly acknowledging the marked centrality of papist belief concerning religious truth is, by definition, heretical.
As a logical theological consequence, there is, therefore, no genuine orthodoxy outside of or against the Roman Catholic Church. Theodore Maynard, in his Orestes Brownson, covering the fascinating life of that famous 19th century American convert, had stated it plainly that “There is, properly speaking, no liberalism in Catholic theology. … To be a Catholic at all a man must be orthodox.” And, to that point, no truer words were ever written; there should be no rational question of such manifest truth.
This central fact has been rediscovered, from time to time, as people have thoughtfully sought to pursue proper knowledge and substantial meaning, as to just what such a term should accurately mean. Any real deviation from any Catholic truth is, by definition, heretical and logically tends toward sin and can, moreover, actually result in damnation.
G. K. Chesterton wrote his Orthodoxy, in 1908, years prior to his conversion to Roman Catholicism, though it is a volume highly consistent with the basic stresses of Catholicism, in terms of the logical exposition and extrapolation of the required demands of a religiously orthodox orientation in thought. He came, with further continued reflection over time, to better realize the actual implications and ramifications, the real consequences, of the seeking out of religious orthodoxy. Why is this said?
In truth, to be truly theologically orthodox, one must be a Catholic, meaning to uphold the universally true or catholic (which with a small “c” means universal) truths of all such fundamental and, thus, forever absolutely requisite Christian belief qua Roman Catholicism or, more simply put, the Faith. Or, as William F. Buckley, Jr. was so suggestively fond of quoting Trotsky, who says A must say B.
But, mere belief is not enough, as can be both empirically and historically perceived. Christ’s Apostles, for instance, had expected martyrdom; faith and deeds, fide and praxis, had to be both part of leading a theologically-religiously valid Christian life, as they are quite reciprocal principles, ever rightly integral to someone who professes belief in Christ the Lord. A Christian life, occupied with humility and sincere repentance for sin, is necessarily filled with moral demands and those inherent consequences integrally attached, in fact, to what God commands, not as sinners may will.
By obvious and undeniable implication, sola Scriptura and sola fide are then inadequate (read: heretical) principles because they, one sees, necessarily forever do inherently lack a universal reciprocity as to a deficient theological exactitude, meaning directly as to their catholicity. All Protestant religions are, therefore, definitionally deficient, perpetually inadequate, in their orthodoxy; furthermore, the formal theoretics of orthodox religion qua faith need not be guessed at, as to the parameters involved; a ready paradigm exists as to any wanted catholicity of belief, any universality of the Christian spirit. But, what more may be known?
It is now that one can see the importance of being a both believing and practicing Roman Catholic, not just a general Christian of whatever sort, shape, size, or predilection, as the case may be these days. Here may be introduced the presented neologism of the definition of orthodoxics, meaning the practice and principles of religious orthodoxy. Interrogatives may help to express the matters more clearly that need to be brought forth for proper consideration, regarding needful practice and belief.
Would it be thought inconceivable to supposedly be a practicing Christian without being a necessarily believing Christian? Would practice minus belief have any real meaning? If going to church on a Sunday were merely a social convention or habit, need there be any belief attached to such a practice?
These should be rather shocking or, perhaps, probing questions, especially if there is to be the idea that humans are ever highly dependent upon the existence of God, since only the Supreme Being is not contingent; all mortal creatures are not totally autonomous entities or beings, though modernists and postmodernists may wish to suppose so.
Outward motions or activities done, thus, without truly possessing an inner faith lacks both veracity and conviction. It would, also, be an absurd waste of time and effort. The presumption, in logic, is that one would be, e. g., a believing Catholic if one sought to be always a truly practicing Catholic. A practicing-believing person is to then be among those properly denominated as the faithful, the believers.
Their religious lives are, therefore, dedicated theologically to orthodoxy as they seek to correctly fulfill the necessarily cognate demands of Catholic orthodoxics. For surely, as Msgr. Robert H. Benson, in The Sentimentalists, had keenly expressed the matter, “Catholicism is the sum of all religions and the queen of them.” Belief and practice are to be integrated properly into the life of the believer, not as an adjunct series of thoughts or affectations. How is this meant?
It is not, in context, so very incorrect to ever say that all else would be a solely general or, perhaps, generalizing Christianity not much better than an unbaptized person claiming to still be a Christian. But, certainly much more than that, Protestantism, with its ever inherently heretical principles and practices, is so manifestly seen to be not enough as to needed consequential belief, nor are any particular forms of it (Lutheranism, Methodism, Anglicanism, etc.) either.
Furthermore, an “orthodox Protestant” is then an oxymoron without question; this is because blatant heterodoxy is the very definition of Protestantism, of theological-religious rebellion against God, of Enlightenment individualism, for everyman can, eventually, become his own pope. Every “believer” would, in effect, become the creator of his very own orthodoxy with its necessary elements of integral reductionism and subjectivism.
The genuine foundation of religious belief needs to be, ought to be, solidly orthodox to then have a substantial and substantive theological meaning based upon a valid theology, not just any (discordant or questionable) belief system of some kind or other. Thus, dogmas, doctrines, and definitions are, as a consequence, to possess substantive meaning, to have intelligible veracity; they are not, in terms of an orthodox faith, to be thought of as merely superfluous appurtenances, as changeable as are fashions. In summation, what often pose as the beliefs of modernity are, by definition, both entirely incompatible with and antagonistic to any truly traditional theology having foundational ontological substance to it.
Only Catholicism, by definition, rigorously meets and passes, however, the theological and doxological test of valid orthodoxy. Moreover, converts such as Chesterton, Fr. Ronald Knox, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, and many others, over many centuries and in many lands, have and will reach the exactly same conclusion; they turned against the Protestant Rebellion; they had absolutely rejected Gnosticism, Pelagianism, and immanentism, along with many variations thereof.
After all, a logical mind would fairly come to the conclusion that all of Christian apologetics would be a vainglorious exercise, if there were no consequences to misplaced or erroneous beliefs that do hinder efforts toward the goal of salvation, the soteriological quest of Christianity.
For orthodoxy, when rightly understood and comprehended, should be more than just a knowledge and acceptance of the authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine, or practice and the extra quality of conforming to such a theory, doctrine, or practice; its proscriptive and calculated theorization is beyond just an adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith, especially in religion, because tests of genuine orthodoxy go farther than just creeds and their subscription.
Many of the dedicated persecutors, e. g., of St. Athanasius the Great no doubt had thought of him as being a heretic; St. Thomas Aquinas’ detractors, among some of his contemporaries, had openly suspected and accused him of heresy, though he became known as the Angelic Doctor, the Common Doctor. St. Ignatius Loyola was twice, in their thoroughness, brought before the Spanish Inquisition; also, he was imprisoned. St. Theresa of Ávila was herself investigated for heresy by the inquisitors.
But, of course, none of them departed from an adherence to and support for orthodoxy in defense of the Church, for Catholic practice and belief were united as a whole for them; heretical thoughts, therefore, had no place among them whatsoever. For some centuries after his death, moreover, Athanasianism became a synonym for true Catholicism, which led to the eventual defeat of the heresy of Arianism that had, at one time, infected most the Church’s hierarchy.
Many of today’s dissident, radical, liberal, or leftist Catholics can, however, routinely recite either the Apostles’ Creed or Nicene Creed, though, in reality, being champions of heterodoxy. The meaning behind “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” is orthodox; nonetheless, its recitation, enthusiastic or otherwise, is no axiomatic guarantee that the assumed believer really and fully agrees with all of the implications and ramifications involved with such an overt asseveration of faith. How may religious truth, theological veracity, be better known?
The three defining pillars of the Catholic Faith, meaning Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, must be totally embraced as absolutely true and without defect. In addition, the Pope, the Holy Father, is to be always acknowledged as the Vicar of Christ, the true Sovereign Pontiff, on earth. Thus, for instance, no sedevacantist can ever be an orthodox Roman Catholic; all are, by definition, defiant heretics who preposterously assume that the Holy Ghost had deserted the Church after Pope Pius XII or, perhaps, with the pontificate of John XXIII. Such a belief goes directly against the overt logic of the Faith and its teachings.
While the heretical Second Vatican Council should be rightly condemned to infamy, however, in terms of Catholicism, it is forever theologically and doctrinally impossible for God to abandon the See of St. Peter, meaning, in effect, the entire Church, by the logical extension of such an assertion. Thus, sedevacantism is, quite obviously, a prima facie heresy that deserves neither respect nor support from any thinking and believing Catholic anywhere in this world. Yet, is there any real means of finding a (supposed) compromise position? Not in this world or the life of the world to come.
An “orthodox sedevacantist” is an oxymoron to an extreme degree; whether realized or not, such a notion is, moreover, a form of extreme enmity vehemently set against Holy Mother Church and a grave sin, a mortal offense, against God; all such extremist views are, thus, to be forever condemned without question or hesitation.
Catholic orthodoxics would, therefore, easily stipulate that the proposition of there being One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church necessarily, thus, encompassing acknowledgement of the Vicar of Christ, besides full adherence to Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium with none ever contradicting each other, for orthodoxy, for the Faith, is either of a unity, or else it is nothing. This would mean that it could not lay claim to the truth of what is asserted and defended as such.
And, furthermore, there is no purported via media (middle way) possible, contrary, e. g., to Anglicanism, which so often absurdly calls itself Anglo-Catholic in its assumed orientation. Cardinal Newman, among many others, had so completely rejected the supposed via media as to its ever having any validity whatsoever; they came to intelligently know and comprehend the always important truth behind the established doctrine: extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. And, that too is a valid test of support for requisite religious orthodoxy, besides, e. g., always firmly and unequivocally upholding supersessionism and its inherent rights.
Signs of Orthodoxy in Catholic Life
Leading a sacramental life, filled with sincere worship, devout prayer, and acts of mercy and charity, joyously dedicated toward the acquisition of holiness is a sure sign of trying to achieve a sense of actual orthodoxy. This then includes, of course, at least the minimums of Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation attendance at Mass, going to Confession more than just a few times per year, praying the rosary many times per year, doing novenas, and much else besides.
One can see that belief and practice are, thus, to symbiotically achieve a deliberate unity of dedicated purpose and actual expression; thus, Christian lives are to incorporate not only the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude) but, of course, the three Christian virtues (faith, hope, and charity), besides minor virtues such as gratitude to God.
There is, surely, to be no definitively modernist compartmentalization of one’s life in terms of hiding religion from the proverbial public square and consciously limiting it to only purely private expressions of faith, so as not to supposedly offend an aggressively secularist society and culture, as exists today. Thus, orthodoxics can best be understood as the needed principle of stressing the sublime pursuit of the will of God, through striving for holiness, in one’s station in life and seeking nothing contrary to holiness in one’s life.
The mere avoidance, e. g., of heresy, however, is not enough in that the Christian virtue of suffering is to be attained and done for the greater glory of God, for only the violent can storm the heights of Heaven, though most, fallaciously, just assume that they are going to get there. Many are called, as it should be remembered, but few are chosen; and, that latter point ought to make people pay strong attention to the condition of their souls.
No tepid or lukewarm aspirations toward faith are, therefore, actually acceptable by God regarding the important demands of a Christian life, as is comprehended properly, e. g., by the appropriate doings of the saints and martyrs. One way, furthermore, of aiming toward a truly orthodox approach favoring Catholicism is to avoid deviating either to evil extremes of the supposed right, as with the heresy of sedevacantism, or assumed left, as with the or, rather, its convenient parallel heresy of neo-Catholicism.
The sedevacantists are heretics, of course, because they deny that there is any valid Pope; this is while the other group of heretical extremists, in a parallel fashion, do ever seem to demand that the true test of the new orthodoxy begins/ends with needed absolute support for Vatican II, meaning as if it were unquestionably a dogmatic council. This aberrant ideology of neo-Catholicism sets up, in effect, the heresy of teaching that there was, in fact, a preconciliar Church now different from the better/reformed postconciliar Church, which has instigated the novus orthodoxus (new orthodoxy).
Inordinate or excessive theological emphasis on Vatican II (VCII) creates the reification of Magisterium resulting in the ever wrongful doctrinal minimization of the other two equally important and vital pillars of the Faith, meaning Scripture and Tradition. Catholicism, when rightly comprehended, is not meant to be divided against itself, as with, e. g., the heresy of Jansenism and its form of rebellion.
There should be no talk, furthermore, about the supposed Spirit of VCII versus the Letter of VCII, as if part of a needed Hegelian dialectic, logically (and absurdly) favoring the novus orthodoxus. It is not equivalent, in case the question should arise, to any type of revised or revived ultramontanism.
There is, in short, to be no assumed hyper-Magisterium, as a strange kind of supra-orthodoxy, that upholds VCII because, e. g., there have in fact been historical Church councils that were later theologically delegitimized, in fact, by correct ecclesial authority. For instance, the 18th century Jansenist-influenced Synod of Pistoia (1786) was, properly and officially, condemned by Pope Pius VI in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei.
As ought to be just so logically known, no Church gathering is in and of itself sacrosanct simply because ecclesiastical personages had composed it; actual legitimacy and validity must meet and pass the tests of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium; and, not just any two out of three; all must be passed because the Truth is always of a unity, not an amorphous diversity of multiplicitous opinions, which is overtly observed by the often cited Spirit of VCII versus the Letter of VCII. In addition, papal sponsorship or at least such sanctioned approval must be given to any genuine council; all together these tests combine to correctly validate religious orthodoxy, and not otherwise.
It can be also rightly understood, within the context of this article, that the Latin Mass Community, as is exemplified, e. g., by the Order of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, fulfills best the usefully needed requirements for seeking to avoid the always unwanted and improper extremes. Thus, there is to be, in terms of traditionalist, orthodox Roman Catholicism, no whoring after righteousness: There is, in fact, no preconciliar versus postconciliar Church, for it is always One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; and, to be a sedevacantist means believing that Jesus Christ Himself had atrociously and deliberately lied to St. Peter about the fact that God would never abandon His Church.
Unsurprisingly, the growth of the Latin Mass Community is, therefore, one of the validly major signs of orthodoxy present in Catholic life these days. One is almost waiting for some great lion of the Church qua the Faith to vigorously rise up and proclaim Catholicism adamantly against the fashions and forces, fads and furies, of this decadent era with its triumphant secularism, humanism, pragmatism, positivism, hedonism, materialism, and, finally, nihilism.
And, meanwhile, the absurdity of the postmodernist New Atheism is supposed to be taken seriously and listened to so respectfully, as if something new has been added to the ardently vicious vacuousness of vainglorious verbal villainy. It, thus, proves the crude emptiness of a cloying solipsistic intellectualism passionately in love with itself and its coldly anthropocentric-materialistic worldview. Old hubris now goes forth paraded as a newly formed assertion of intellectual sophistication and superiority absurdly founded upon its ever tautologous illogic, the insane worship of the whore-god of Reason, based upon the secularist ideology of Enlightenment Rationalism, which holds humility in contempt.
This is why, in religion, as Chesterton easily knew, the orthodox point of view is the only right way to perceive things, the solely real way to sanely live out one’s beliefs, even contrary to a contemptuous world. For if a religious man is not at odds with an aggressively secularist society and culture, he might as well be dead, not just to, instead, be, perhaps, a holder of unorthodox notions or a plain heretic. Heterodoxy in religion, as could be guessed, represents an evil to be ever studiously condemned; it is a sure sign, at a minimum, of rebellion against the Lord.
Resistance in this life is the path, regarding the seeking after things of the spirit, toward orthodoxy; it is the way toward finding the Everlasting Man. Consequently, a sane person is orthodox; and, to be orthodox is to be filled with sanity, which ought to be simply obvious; it is not by any means a secret. Heresies have and will help send tens of millions of souls to Hell; this then, certainly, suggests the rather urgent importance of affirming orthodox religious views, contrary to modernism/liberalism in religion.
But, what is being here seriously talked about is more than just adherence to and knowledge of right belief; it is the often arduous, usually severe, practice of orthodoxy that is to be appropriately observed in the committed lives of the believers. Although a true Christian life may be filled with much joy and happiness in knowing that God’s will is being fulfilled on earth, however, mature or adult followers of Christ ought to know that much sorrow and suffering, in this world, is to truly be the norm and not ever the exception, meaning if a life well dedicated to holiness is to be properly pursued toward the goal of salvation. Moreover, it has been well said: Many are called but few are chosen.
The words of St. Thomas More, in his Confutation of Tindale, do seem to be ever contemporaneous, as when he had thoughtfully written that “Men’s chief study nowadays, seems to be how they may best do without good works. They will go hanging and idling about God’s vineyard, rather than come up, and be hired into it.”
This is through the needed love of the Lord in carrying out His precepts, not the contrary will of human beings often set in deliberate rebellion. Practice, favoring orthodox thought and living, gives concrete meaning to belief, though knowing that there is no perfection on earth; however, the true pursuit of orthodoxy is much more than just the avoidance of heresy, though careful reading of the writings of the Doctors of the Church can, of course, be highly useful toward an understanding and comprehension of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, which ought never to be confused with the rather narrow novus orthodoxus of neo-Catholicism. Orthodoxy, furthermore, neither begins nor ends with allegiance to Vatican II.
The more recent and popular heresy of universal salvation, created largely by the theological wreckage resulting from VCII, is tremendously illustrative of what can be “creatively” accomplished when all traditional doxology gets thrown out the window and is mainly replaced by feelings (aka emotionalism); it can be related easily to neo-Pelagianism as to its earliest intellectual origins, meaning to the basic historicogenesis of ideas surrounding the weird notion of universal salvation (by whatever euphemism).
There is wildly posited an all-merciful, all-loving, all-forgiving, Almighty “Sugar Daddy in the Sky” who is, also, conveniently blind in being unable to see any unrepented human evil whatsoever, lest this detract from the absolutely all-merciful aspect of the ever oh-so-nice, lovely, and highly ethereal Sugar Daddy. Consequently, Heaven appears open to (nearly?) everybody who simply believes that he should go there; this is because a supposedly mean-spirited Deity is incompatible with the optimistic logic that Jesus came only for the sake of deliverance, liberation, not to condemn everyone concerning cosmic hopelessness and despair toward eternity.
In contrast, repentance is an admission that, so to speak, admits de facto, if not formally de jure, that there is certainly a God who is (in actual existence) and that this Supreme Being requires it. It is known, moreover, that God’s mercy is truly forever completely synonymous with His justice. The Latin Mass Community, fortunately, stands forever athwart such blatant insanity that is represented by universal salvation and, as this brief article ought to imply, orthodoxics is, thus, urgently needed to help vigorously combat its necessarily unending absurdities.1
For societies, cultures, and entire civilizations plagued with horrendous evils, (as with, e. g., America and its so morally awful Obama regime), are being righteously chastised by God for forsaking traditional morality, best defined by orthodoxy; the Lord is punishing this nation by allowing for such evil practices as abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, sterilization, artificial contraception, in vitro fertilization, sodomy, lesbianism, pornography, promiscuity, divorce, bestiality, and much else.2
It is highly useful, for ethical, moral, and spiritual reasons, therefore, to make one’s approach toward religion, with its associated theology, by then seeking out the needed means and sources of orthodox religious thinking and practice needed for a sane life.
Othodoxics may then help to correct major and minor misunderstandings or misapprehensions as to the actual nature of what is or is not the correctly orthodox attitude in religion, as to such proper belief and practice, contrary to any generalizations pertaining about a supposed “religion” called Christianity. For as Chesterton said in his The Everlasting Man, “We are Christians and Catholics not because we worship a key, but because we have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living.”
Conclusion
It would be then suggested that proper orthodoxics, related to Roman Catholicism, could be studied and researched for appropriately developing, therefore, a new branch of theology dedicated to creating a kind of science of orthodoxy.
There is to be a both practical and theoretical commitment to the ethical, religious, and spiritual aspects of (profound) orthodox belief and practice, within the living of a Christian life, revolving around and dedicated explicitly to holiness; this is because a theocentric, meaning Christocentric, life is absolutely required in this world, as it also is, for all the truly faithful, in the next.3
As many books, e. g., have been written on the subject of ethics, so too could there be numerous volumes seeking to expostulate and extrapolate those teachings, principles, ideas, concepts, etc. that seek to adamantly defend the nature of and need for genuine religious orthodoxy.
Othodoxics, as a kind of social discipline or science, would help, therefore, to contribute substantially toward the proper intellectual and theological discernment of what constitutes religious faith, what defines orthodox religion, and what, at a minimum, directs proper thinking strongly away from heresy.
Athanasius contra mundum!
Notes
1. The Novus Ordo is fully compatible with the novus orthodoxus, but the real future is still with the Latin Mass Community with its Extraordinary Rite. Pope Benedict XVI, being an intelligent man, knows that demographics and money will decide the issue. Most of the Novus Ordo parishes, favoring theological liberalism, are dying out because, as is known, the majority of such adult parishioners are contracepting; most Extraordinary Rite Catholics, in sharp contrast, traditionally have large families and are usually generous toward their own parishes; many of their children become priests and nuns. Those orthodox priests will, in turn, fill up the future hierarchy; time is against the New Mass and its followers, inclusive of the novus orthodoxus.
2. The observable and documented rot and decay in American society and culture is rapidly speeding up and nothing seems to be stopping it. It is the Weimarization process by which modernity, in passionate love with moral insanity, can only tend toward the evil embrace of nihilism and death; the Culture of Death is, thus, predominant in America. How is this easily and empirically observed? In the absence of illegal immigration, the actual native-American, child-replacement ratio has been less than 2% for at least two decades now; there is, moreover, absolutely no sign that this will change. The United States has, therefore, turned into a fully sterile culture/society, as is Japan and Western Europe. There is a definite birth dearth, a demographic winter, regarding this native-born extinction as the then only truly realistic venue concerning the American population as a whole. This nation is spiraling down, faster and faster, into the cesspool of history.
3. It may need to be added that this matter is unrelated to the fundamental degeneracy and decay, degradation and decline, of American society and culture, its basic civilization, in that even if, e. g., Mitt Romney gets elected in 2012, this massive sociocultural and intensively moral destruction is irreversible.
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