Hilaire Belloc
In 1938, the great Hilaire Belloc declared “Either the Catholic Church (now rapidly becoming the only place wherein the traditions of civilization are understood and defended) will be reduced by her modern enemies to political impotence, to numerical insignificance, and, so far as public appreciation goes, to silence; or the Catholic Church will, in this case as throughout the past … recover and extend her authority, and will rise once more to the leadership of civilization which she made.”
In this recent video (below), I highlight these prophetic words from Belloc, the grimmer half of the Chesterbelloc, who was less sanguine than G. K. Chesterton – but arguably more prophetic. And I begin the process of paying the tribute to this visionary for the enormous debt I owe him. “Begin the process”, I say, for one video is hardly sufficient to the task! (And thus I continue in the following video here.)
For as I have indicated many times elsewhere at this site, Belloc’s inspiration has become one of the greatest of joys and inspirations I have found in my life.
Indeed, I sometimes quip that my best friends are “dead people”. And, along with Valentin Tomberg, Belloc is the prime example of what I mean here. For although he died before I was born, the man has become one of my most cherished companions and mentors.
All that said, this video is not simply about Belloc, but also concerns the present world, which this prophet SAW.
Thus, it addresses terrifying grip of an increasingly pathological Political Correctness and progressive ideology that progressively fosters genuine madness. Topics also featured include the slowly-dying Modernism of the so-called “Spirit of Vatican II” and the plight of innocent children trapped in a culture that has normalised transgenderism. And, of course, I also point to the only hope I have – and the only hope Belloc had – for addressing this modern pathology, that hope being the Catholic Mystery.
Now, as I suggest this video, this progressive pathology we witness today, was already evident to people like Belloc, people with eyes to see, back in 1938. All this I elaborate in the video below and I will not add more here, except to offer the remainder of Belloc’s words which I quote in the video:
The Faith is now in the presence not of a particular heresy as in the past—the Arian, the Manichaean, the Albigensian . . . nor is it in the presence of a sort of generalized heresy as it was when it had to meet the Protestant revolution from three to four hundred years ago. The enemy which the Faith now has to meet, and which may be called “The Modern Attack” is a wholesale assault upon the fundamentals of the Faith— upon the very existence of the Faith. And the enemy now advancing against us is increasingly conscious of the fact that there can be no question of neutrality. The forces now opposed to the Faith design to destroy. The battle is hencefor- ward engaged upon a definite line of cleavage, involving the survival or destruction of the Catholic Church. And all—not a portion—of its philosophy.
We know, of course, that the Catholic Church cannot be destroyed. But what we do not know is the extent of the area over which it will survive; its power of revival or the power of the enemy to push it further and further back on to its last defenses until it may seem as though the Anti-Christ had come and the final issue was about to be decided. Of such moment is the struggle immediately before the world …
The truth is becoming every day so much more obvious that within a few years it will be universally admitted. I do not entitle the modern attack “anti-Christ”—though in my heart I believe that to be the true term for it: No, I do not give it that name because it would seem for the moment exaggerated. But the name doesn’t matter. Whether we call it “The Modern Attack” or “anti-Christ” it is all one; there is a clear issue now joined between the retention of Catholic morals, tradition, and authority on the one side, and the active effort to destroy them on the other. The modern attack will not tolerate us. It will attempt to destroy us. Nor can we tolerate it.
