The playbook of the French Revolution has come to New York City. Once again, we are seeing the attempted destruction of an existing class system, and with it the Catholic Church.
Those who recall Kathy Griffin’s photo of a decapitated Donald Trump will recognize the parallels to the beheading of Louis XVI of as the symbolic and real beheading of the French aristocracy.
For the revolutionists of New York City, the person they see as the king of capitalism must die, and along with him the moral foundations of the rule of law as formerly known and undergirded by the Christian church. The old capitalist aristocracy will be beheaded, first by the confiscation of its wealth and properties, as Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron (who resembles an aged Maximilien Robespierre) have decreed.
The lawfare of the Left will enable the destruction and eventual reconstruction of major societal institutions, including the Catholic Church.
Trump has seen the desire of the Left to tear down Christianity’s foundations, protesting their desire to remove the symbol of the cross. Doubtless, he and others opposed to the Left’s most current outrages have observed the recent attack by trans activists on the Catholic cathedral of St. Patrick’s in New York City.
There, a celebratory ritual invented by leaders of New York’s trans cult defiled the liturgy of the Catholic mass. The revolutionaries’ ceremony celebrated the tenets of the transgender faith, the occasion essentially being turned into a beatification ceremony for Cecilia Gentili, a trans activist.
As the Los Angeles Times noted:
“Videos of Gentili’s funeral show an estimated audience of more than 1,000 celebrants, including transgender people and other friends and supporters, chanting her name, applauding, singing and offering praise of her stature as a leading light of the city’s LGBTQ community…During one eulogy that was widely circulated on social media, Gentili was celebrated as ‘St. Cecilia, the mother of all whores.’”
As the trans cult was celebrated in St. Parick’s cathedral, similarly, the new faith represented by the goddess of Liberty and Reason was celebrated in the cathedral of Notre Dame, the objective being to humiliate and degrade the Christian faith and mores.
The alternative to the Christian faith was proposed by leading luminaries who planned a secular ceremony devoted to the goddess of Reason and Liberty Similarly, the new trans St. Cecilia was meant to replace the image of St. Mary, the mother of Christ.
Shortly after the revolution, as blogger Rodama1789 notes in her article “The Fête de la Raison at Notre-Dame,” Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire related the events of the new cult’s ceremony.
The abbé, who was an ardent supporter of the revolution but also a defender of the nationalized Catholic Church, included the speech of the procurer of the Commune, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, who led in worship of “the divinity of the French, Liberty.”
Chaumette, a fanatical believer in dechristianization, praised the people of Paris who took possession of Notre Dame, encouraging the mob to regenerate the cathedral by the light of Liberty, whose new revelations would wither what he saw as ossified superstitions of the Catholic faith in favor of the secularist ideals of liberté, égalité and fraternité:
“The people have only one cry: no more priests; no more God than that of nature; we come to ask that you decree that the former church of Notre Dame be converted into a temple dedicated to Reason and Truth.”
Gregoire wrote Chaumette’s speech was met with thunderous applause:
“The goddess of Liberty took her place…half the convention left with this horde of atheist-fanatics to go and celebrate Reason in its new temple. Thus, the basilica which for centuries had resounded with the truths of the gospels, was delivered over to a crowd of prostitutes, hysterics and atrocious persecutors.”
The leaders of the trans cult that occupied St. Patrick’s should be regarded as attempting to establish a political religion, the ideological bases of which find their origins in the thinking of the Marquis de Sade. As the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddhin noted in Leftism Revisited, de Sade believed his politics of pornography would prevail over Christian mores. His philosophy encouraged the elevation of the perverted elements of society determined to destroy all the institutions of the ancien regime:
“Pedantic louts, hangmen, scribblers, legislator, pedantic scum, what are you going to do once we prevail? What will happen to your laws, your morality, your religion, your powers, your paradise, your gods, your hell…”
But a development, perhaps equally disturbing as the actual ceremony, was revealed by Catholic leaders who claimed the diocese was deceived. Enrique Salvo wrote St. Patrick’s “had no idea our welcome and prayer would be degraded in such a sacrilegious and deceptive way.”
But as The Guardian reported, some
“Catholic liberals praised the church for hosting the service for a transgender woman. Before the backlash took hold, the archdiocese spokesperson Joseph Zwilling told the Times that ‘a funeral is one of the corporal works of mercy.’”
It is highly doubtful the Catholic clergy of the diocese of New York City were completely ignorant of what was to happen. As Kuehnelt-Leddhin noted, many of the French nobility and clergy supported the ideas of the French Revolution. “The perversion of basic Christian sentiments comes easily to priests who have neglected their spiritual life and who, secularizing theology, become masters of the mob…”
In fact, the advocacy of queer theology is well established within the Catholic Church. The thinking of the leaders of the LGBTQ community has been rather openly promoted by many Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals. It also has been helped in significant ways by Pope Francis himself, who though he has tried to parse his wording since, gave approval to the blessing of same sex couples.
Among the proponents of queer theology was the late John J. McNeill, an openly gay Jesuit priest and a vocal advocate of queer theology. McNeill’s writings focused on creating a Catholic Church that is inclusive of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Christians. He is praised by LGBTQ Catholics organizations such as Outreach.
Priests such as Rev. James Martin, S.J., who also advocates for gays, and indeed Pope Francis himself, also find inspiration in the liberation theology of Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, O.P., whose tenets have been applied to queer theology now finding its most radical expression in the trans heresy.
But it appears that some of those who baptized and blessed the gay liberation movement find the ideological love child they helped nurse at the breast of the Church has plans for what is effectually the Church’s demise. Their belated reaction reminds one of the scene in Casablanca in which Claude Rains, playing the part of Captain Louis Renault, claims, “I'm shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.”
The Catholic Church, if it is to retain any authenticity, or even survive, must stop the pretense that though there is smoke, there is no hellfire. Those who ignore or even nurse the smoking coals of revolution within sacred spaces such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral should not be surprised when an uncontainable conflagration breaks out.
Above all, the trans coup within St. Patrick’s demonstrates the dire need of the Catholic Church to return to theology of the cross. As Abbe Gregoire might well observe about the sacrilegious ritual performed in St. Patrick’s, it is high time for the Gospel to be proclaimed within that sacred space as it was for centuries in Notre Dame and elsewhere.
Considering the foot-shuffling of some within the Catholic hierarchy, perhaps most needful is a demand from the laity for the Church to return during this Easter season to her most foundational commitment; namely, to its inheritance as the proclaimer of the Gospel as it has been known and witnessed to for two thousand years by her saints: Christ has died, Christ is risen; Christ will come again.
--Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared in many online publications, including American Thinker. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com
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