The Catholicist Nation Identified

Citations

catholicism, n. = catholicity.  catholicity, n. 1 universality; wide prevalence: the catholicity of an idea. 2 broad-mindedness; liberalness: a catholicity of taste in art.  catholicize, v.t., v.i., to make or become catholic or universal. (from Thorndike-Barnhart Dictionary, 1989)

 "As Catholics, we are all also Romans." (Pope Benedict XVI, May 7, 2005)

One devoted to the Catholicist Nation is committed to serving the World System in some measurable way, coupled with a corresponding denial of God. To the extent that an individual is trusting in a man, the institution, or himself when that trust should be in God, he is Catholicist. 

 The Catholicist does not have to be a Catholic “proper,” necessarily, but the Roman Catholic Church is indeed the religious driving force of the World System. To the extent that one considers the Catholic Church the mother church, an ally, or even an impotent religious entity, he is a dues-paying member of Catholicist Nation. It is not as if he must volitionally decide to belong; as much as he is not clothed with the righteousness of Christ, he already is commended as such. Most Roman Catholics are indeed also Catholicists, but some aren't. Many non-Catholics are, including both rabid atheists and derisive Protestants.

 The Catholicist Nation is made up of all the people living in and around the World System the World institutionalized, woven in the fabric of those working out “goodness” through their own efforts. It is people engaged in the myriad industries and diversions that look so good, designed to fix things outside of the work and blessing of God. In its highest sense this engagement is tikkun olam, the mystical humanist concept of repairing the world. It also comprises all the forms of absolution required for the colossal administration of its people to manage their sin and assuage their guilt.

 This society is without Christ — the Catholicist thinks of Him as some heroically sublime mythical character having no relevant impact on “reality.” At its core the Catholicist Nation is idolatrous, and abjectly evil. It seeks the glory of man in government, school, work, even church — all the while saying pithy things like “To God be the glory.” The Catholicist may not acknowledge his denial of God, even piously rail against it, but his god is a straw-god. This is indeed the most insidious evil about it: People wholly reveling in the thing Not-God as if it were God, to their eternal destruction.

 

This nation is a nation not in the modern sense of being bound by borders, although the United States is the legacy of Cain from Babylon, through Persia, Greece, Rome, and Britain. It is a nation in the traditional sense, in this case populated by people beholden to the sovereign of Rome, a credentialed shepherd who leads people through deft exploitation of the desires of the flesh, proximity to the world, and ingratiation with the prince of the age.

The chief principality of the Catholicist Nation has not been first revealed here, by any means. It has identified itself through dozens of authoritative iconographic signatures through history — God has mandated that it must do that so those whose eyes are opened by Christ may leave it to its duties, and that they themselves may enter into and dwell in His Kingdom. Since Cain's first Mark, every agency in the Nation, from Sumer to America, has been required to declare their status and purpose; they may have no temporal power if they don't. One of the more pronounced of these heralds is the crucifix — a dead impotent king hanging on the emblem of Roman capital justice. With this iconographic depiction of an usurping monarch deposed, Caesar proclaims himself ruler of the Catholicist Nation and rightful sovereign of the Catholicist population.

The leaders in this society are powerful people who are spiritually connected, the powers and principalities that war against the soul. They are oath-bound individuals dutifully following their highly intentioned duties, which includes using all the weapons of deception to draw people away from Christ and into greater allegiance with the World’s principalities. Those operatives also know that the Catholicist is already in their camp; a sinner is already condemned. They desire more committed loyalty to make it less likely the Catholicist will have the one thing that frees him from their clutches: a genuine abiding faith in Christ.

 The Catholicist conception of Christ can have any of a number of forms. All are focused on condemnation and living by the letter of the law — there are thousands of them, and all are false Christs. The One true Christ is about reconciliation and living by truth and grace. This is the Savior who assures us that if we believe on Him, He will cleanse us of our sin, heal our wounds, and put real peace and overwhelming joy in our hearts.

 

From careful, Scriptural assessment of this will come the one distinction between the Catholicist and the genuine follower of Christ: the love he has for another. The Catholicist can never really, fully love because he doesn’t really, fully understand what the Savior has done for him. His bitter attempts at love, demonstrated in whatever way, amount to a futile proving ground of some elusive goodness. The follower of Christ loves another charitably, sacrificially, cheerfully, compassionately only because he knows that he is loved that way. It is actually elementary: Jesus is love — and those who follow Him will love. Another Jesus is fear — and those who follow him will fear.

Please note that I don't think for a second that even the most devout Catholicists have not experienced love — true, enrapturing, genuine agape love. But that's just it, isn't it? They have some conception of what it is deep inside, but in expression it is a fractured, hollow, illusory love, sabotaged by their own anxiety-fed obsessions. Just like their Jesus, their love is a brilliant counterfeit. They could have Him and all that He authentically and joyfully shares with His own; they'd rather have the World.

 

For a time the Catholicist Nation institution will serve its purpose in the ministry of condemnation. God permits it only because its members will not come out and seek their salvation and righteousness in Him and Him alone. For the committed Catholicist, the institution is beneficial for the regulation of his sin. For him it means a small measure of brief comfort from the harrowing, ravaging nature of that sin.

Ironically, for the follower of Christ it means a degree of protection against the effects of the Catholicist’s sin so he may sow for the Kingdom. God uses institutions of evil as footstools, turning their designs against themselves for the benefit of His own. He'd rather it not be that way — He'd rather that one so damaged by his sin, shredded by his woundedness, and exhausted by the severe weight of condemnation seek freedom and wholeness from Him. One who wants out of the Catholicist Nation will come to Christ in humility and brokenness, but one who stays will proudly maintain his Catholicist righteousness and trust another Jesus. For him there is the Catholicist Nation, and wide is the road that winds through it.

But there is another road, although a bit narrower. God keeps and tends this road, and on it He still sends out his representatives, ambassadors who love with His love — yes, there are a few. The Catholicist may still get on it, come out of the Nation, and find reconciliation with the One who loves with a love that he's never known.

First and Second Corinthians

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Cain

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This page was originally posted by David Beck at yourownjesus.net on October 21, 2004