under the patronage of St Joseph and St Dominic

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. . . Ps 136

THE DRUG OF UNBELIEF

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   In a recent article on the First Things website[1] writer Kurt Hofer refers to a distinction Blaise Pascal made in the 17^th century among those who do not believe in God:

“I make a sharp distinction between the ones who labour with all their power to inform themselves, and the ones who live without being troubled or thinking about it…”

It is the unbelief of the latter category that afflicts the modern world Hofer argues and, in contradiction of the Marx’s claim, it this unbelief that is the true opiate of the masses.

In the view of this commentator, it is this drug of unbelief, scilicet atheism, which renders the majority of people blind to the evils of injustice that flourish in their midst.  It explains their submission to the oppression - not to say tyranny – in the manner that politicians and compliant bureaucrats have sought to address the limited evils of the SARS-Cov-2 virus.  It leads them to deny objective reality in favour of the legend, or promoted narrative, that a virus which hardly deserves to be classified as an epidemic must be addressed with drugs tainted with moral obloquy and bereft of adequate testing they are pleased to cooperate in labelling ‘vaccines’.  It is the reason they impose such erroneous views on those they govern with legal compulsion.  Regrettably, it is also the reason why those they govern have submitted so meekly to the regime.  Where there is no vision the people perish.[2]

In Australia cooperation with this syndrome reminds one of nothing so much as the behaviour of a flock of sheep: one member begins to run and the rest chase after it!  We seem to have forgotten that we are possessed of a faculty superior to instinct; that human society is not to be reduced to behaviour that reflects that of the brutes. 

The disease has infected even religious leaders.  After noting the loss of freedoms in the ‘Land of the free’, and the cooperation in the process of at least 50% of the American populace, commentator Dennis Prager remarks:

“Even more concerning has been the reactions of America's great religions – specifically, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons (Latter-day Saints) and Jews.  The government issued irrational (as well as anti-religious and unethical) edicts, and nearly every church and synagogue obeyed…”[3]

The principals of Australia’s religions are no better.  Our Catholic bishops in particular have shown not one ounce of leadership.  They have bowed as one to the secular dictat.  So much so that when more than seventy of their priests decided to demonstrate leadership, the bishops stopped them.[4]

Let us put this in perspective: it means that notwithstanding their claims to be members of the Church founded by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our bishops are de facto atheists.  Anyone who thinks this verdict extreme should study the report of the behaviour of Timothy Costelloe, Archbishop of Perth, Western Australia by Kathy Clubb cited below.[5]

The atheistic syndrome blinds the populace on any number of issues.  While accepting nature’s material reality – (they could hardly do otherwise) - they deny her formal constitutive; inevitable if they effectively deny the existence of nature’s Author.  The syndrome removes, likewise, any deference to moral principle, for this, too, comes back to that part of the order found in nature that respects its human element - and order is the foundation of what is formal in a thing.  This may be seen in the claim that one can dictate to nature on such elemental issues as one’s sex.

If there is no lawgiver there is no moral law and the edicts in the Ten Commandments can safely be ignored.  ‘Law’ is no more than that which has been passed by some legislative assembly; that is, ‘law’ is simply a human convention.  Hence, the flourishing of contraception, of abortion, of the acceptance of perverted sexuality and the celebration of ‘laws’ that justify these aberrations.  Hence, also, the public insouciance over the use of cells stolen from aborted infants in medications such as the experimental treatments ‘vaccines’ referred to above.

The syndrome inclines the populace to hatred rather than to love; to look for what divides us rather than to what unites; to close their eyes to injustice in favour of adherence to an idea; to ignore injustices done to the weak and the innocent.  It is working to destroy the very basis of sound economic life in society.  This is the effect of the denial of the use of fossil fuels - which Australia has in abundance – out of deference to the atheistic-inspired embrace of ‘green’ technology.

With our indulgence in unbelief we have sown the wind: we will reap the whirlwind!

Michael Baker

February 27^th, 2022—Quinquagesima