The Dark Side of Political Philosophy, and How it Led to the Growth and Development of Today’s “Political Left” Movement

(Updated August 30, 2020): On the topic of why I think that the Roman Catholic Church is a problem with respect to the “wokism” situation we see today, it is not simply that I think things like “the Mass”, the priesthood, the saints, had anything (or much) to do with it. Roman Catholicism is NOT just its religious trappings. It is not just its history. It is not just “the evils that it has done in history”. It is also a thought system of its own. It has adopted “philosophies” over time. It is in fact a collection of these things. More, as well, it was a “cause” against certain “effects” reacted. Today we see some “effects” in the form of the so-called “academic subject” called “intersectionalism” that reacts against “White European Males”. There is so much more.

In this article, originally dated February 2019, I began to make the philosophical connection.

I’ve been asked many times, “why do you think it’s the intellectuals who convert to Roman Catholicism, while many of those who don’t approach the topic from a so-called intellectual viewpoint tend in large measure to convert the other way, from Roman Catholicism to evangelicalism?”

It seems to me that the “intellectuals” (or those who would think of themselves in that way) are more philosophically savvy, and they tend toward logical and ordered systems such as Aristotelianism (and derivatively, Thomism). That is a definite draw.

However, I think that is wrong-headed in several important ways. To take just one example, in his “Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction”, Edward Feser outlines Kant’s “naturalist” assumptions and decides simply to ignore all of Kant (and what followed). He says (and I’ve added paragraph breaks to enhance readability):

The bottom of the slippery slope

From the 24 min mark to the 38 min mark, it's striking to see Buckley express the same concerns about the state of the Catholic church almost 50 years ago that are raised today by conservative Catholic laymen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZwcU4EfJYM

This was on the heels of Vatican II and the pontificate of Paul VI. Sheen's answers are clever and cagey. He's a team-player. The loyal spokesman for official policy. 

The main difference between now and then is that Catholicism was higher up the slippery slope at the time of the interview while it's nearing the bottom of the slope today. 

In addition, due to the enveloping clerical abuse scandal, there's been a total collapse in the moral authority of the Catholic church in public perception, even among many Catholics. 

Playing church

Now, of the anti-Catholic Protestants blogs out there, they all seem to attack the Church from different angles.  Steve seems to like to constantly beat the drum of modernism in the church.  With Taylor Marshall’s book out(which I reviewed on my last post), he naturally used this as an opportunity to bring up the liberal and sodomite control of large portions of the Church.

But why do I stay when my church is full of liberal and sodomite clergy?  Let me use a Biblical analogy since you’re a believer in Sola Scriptura.  In the Old Testament, we read about the Kingdom of Israel in the time of Elijah.  We know that at one point there were only 7,000 of the Israelites who kept the faith.  

Can you imagine an Egyptian passing through the land and talking to one of these 7,000?  He would probably ask the Israelite why he continues to follow the religion of Moses since 99.9% of the nation didn’t believe in it anymore.  Well Steve, I should point out that the Israelite and I would have the same answer for why we stay in our respective faiths.  I’m sure that Israelite didn’t like the corruption and false teachings floating around his faith anymore than I do.  I think you’ve figured out the reason by now.

http://allanruhl.com/an-open-letter-to-steve-of-triablogue-why-i-stay-catholic/

Several issues:

i) Catholicism is a target-rich environment. There are so many defeaters for Catholicism. I myself critique the Catholic church from multiple angles. 

ii) To judge by his recommending reading list, as well as his glowing review of Taylor Marshall's Infiltrated, Ruhl is a RadTrad or sedevacantist:

http://allanruhl.com/recommended-reading/

Look at how retrograde his recommended books are. Nothing by modern popes, modern Catholic theologians or mainstream Catholic Bible scholars. One recent book by Pitre, which relies heavily on Protestant schlarship.  He's out of step with where his denomination is. He's clinging to a defunct version of Catholicism. 

iii) Before we get to his analogy, there are principles that are much more directly germane to evaluating his denomination than OT analogies. For instance, consider what the Pastoral Epistles have to say about the moral and theological qualifications for church office. By that standard, priests and prelates who fail to meet the moral and theological qualifications for church office are thereby disqualified. If so, where does that leave most of the contemporary priesthood and hierarchy?

iv) In Rev 2-4, Jesus threatens the remove the light, the Menorah, from churches that stray too far. If you study the descriptions of the threatened churches, they are certainly no worse that the contemporary Catholic church.

v) What about his OT analogy? If, on the one hand you have a denomination dominated by liberals and sodomites while, on the other hand, you have one or more denominations that don't suffer from that pernicious dominance, you'd naturally regard the 7,000 faithful as members of the denominations that don't suffer from that pernicious dominance rather than the denomination which does. So his comparison backfires. 

vi) In OT times, the Mosaic Covenant was the touchstone. And the Mosaic Covenant was unalterable. By contrast, Catholic dogma/doctrine and ethics don't exist in airtight containers hermeneutically sealed off from the theology and lifestyle of the hierarchy. To the contrary, the members of the magisterium are moral and doctrinal policymakers. If you have a denomination that's increasingly controlled by liberals and sodomites in key leadership positions, they will change church teaching to realign it with their theology and lifestyle. And that process has been going on for about 80 years in the Catholic church, beginning with the pontificate of Pius XII. 

What are the faithful supposed to be faithful to? In Catholicism, the magisterium is the final arbiter of moral and doctrinal fidelity. The laity can't routinely act in defiance of the pope and episcopate.  In Catholicism, the laity aren't supposed to be autonomous. The hierarchy occupies the driver's seat while the laity occupy the back seat. They go whoever they are driven. If they open the door and jump out because they disapprove of the direction the hierarchy is taking the church in, they've abandoned the institutional church. In Catholicism, you can't be independent of the institutional church and still be a good Catholic. The hierarchy is the ultimate interpreter of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. 

vii) Like many RadTrad or sedevacantists, he's smitten by the mystique of Catholicism rather than the reality–like neo-Confederates who pine for the Antebellum South. The cult of the "noble lost cause". The cult of Robert E. Lee. RadTrads are playacting in a period piece, like dressing up in Confederate uniforms and reciting hortations by Jefferson Davis.