Ramblings of Defense
A Note by The ChesterBelloc Mandate
Today, importance is nearly not as important as we think it is. Everyone searches in vain to be innovative yet no one ever thinks innovation might come not from uncovering some "secret epistle" or refashioning dogma, but from the truth.
The truth is a funny thing. Everyone says they have it, they search for it, few truly want it. What they prefer is innuendo, shock, and injury. Injury to others that is. They expose their fellow neighbour without evidence but with the mere delight of smear, dismissing the answers they receive because it doesn't fit the labels tailor fitted. "The suit has been made" they say, "and the bill must be paid" even if one never ordered the suit.
Fashions were popular during Chesterton's time and do not seem to peak in ours. There is little doubt Chesterton would laugh with his particular, contagious, style if anyone were to inform him in our age identities are stolen. Stolen Identities are not only the cause célèbre of thieves but of contemporary journalists who replace reality with self-importance. No one watches the watchers and the watchers watch everyone but themselves.
One must wonder who these watchers are, where they work, who they associate with and even if they are faithful to the Church. We are assured they are, after all, only seeking to protect us. Of course, who will protect us from them? Criticism is a noble thing, scandal based on allegations is quite another.
Catholics often hear the charge we worship Mary. From the coast of the Bible Belt to a Jack Chick tract, readers are to hold on tight to the expose. However, Catholics know the leap from reverence to worship is as grand as jumping across the Grand Canyon. And so it is, in modern society, some point the finger at those who have misunderstood relationships and infer the spectacular. Soon the prison chaplain will be indicted for associating with the wicked, the patron for having dinner at the restaurant owned by the adulterer. One must never associate or have dinner with the sinner. St. Paul must have turned in the wrong draft.
There is something the Catholic has chosen to disregard in his investigation of the truth and that is, the investigation. Like our faith in God we make accusations and ask those around us to have faith without evidence. We choose to do everything and anything except to ask the horse's mouth. Perhaps the accusers live too far away from the stables.
Watchers today wish to destroy reputations by claiming to be the gauge of Catholicism without taking their own temperature. These accusers fail to provide evidence of their victim's charges yet tie their own noose by bearing false witness and creating scandal. Scandal which could be resolved with a telephone call, an email or perhaps the method relished by kings and the modern commoner: the letter. Mistakes flounder and fiction sells.
It is quite a phenomenon to see modern man, theist or non, argue based on merit. No, it would be better to say it is a major phenomenon to do such a thing. If one prefers not to tackle an argument they attack the one giving it. If one man is alleged to hold unsavory opinions we choose not to debate those opinions but to attack the alleged man. "Better to label a man as a warning to others lest we be forced to argue," they say.
Those people tell us not to read this or that book because it holds borderline tenets and/or schismatic beliefs with one hand, whilst the other praises the end of the index of forbidden reading. We must never attend a Tridentine Mass in case it causes us to leave Mother Church, but please feel free to roll to the ground at Mass as if performing a fire drill. In today's world, the devil has convinced Catholics to place Catholicism on the very same index.
We at The ChesterBelloc Mandate would like to ask our readers to pray for John F. Sharpe and his family during this difficult time in their lives.
