Saturday, August 19, 2017

Matrimony in the Post-Collapse

The news that Cdl. Burke and his now-two compatriots are slowly moving forward with the process of the dubia has us traddies in a tizzy about how slow the whole thing is, as if the Vatican has ever moved in a good direction at anything higher than a glacial pace. I do not know if the cardinals will get this declaration of orthodoxy signed or clearly rejected before the Fatimaversary is through, but doing so would help calm a lot of people down.

Meanwhile, my own experience with the married seems to be ever-increasing in variety and alarm. I know those once-divorced, once-separated, and constantly online-dating; those hastily wed after a pregnancy; those in active concubinage; those with children and an annulled marriage; and those young, in love, and getting engaged against the judgment of their parents (God bless them). Marriage is an increasingly messy proposition, but it is still the natural end of healthy adulthood. One not vowed to celibacy nor afflicted with some serious disability finds his proper and natural end in marriage and child-making, and woe to those who put stumbling blocks along the way of those who seek it.

That goes double for vocation-obsessed busybodies who demand years of prayer and preparation for the common state of life in which God created our race. "It is not good for man to be alone" is not a complex maxim, and derailing a young man or woman seeking marriage with vocational retreats and the accompanying scrupulosity is to create an occasion of sin.

It is also true for those who spread cynicism about marriage as such, frightening young men with horror stories of ex-wives taking everything in the divorce and encouraging a culture of mistrust. Serial fornicators are made of such stuff as this.

And I think it is true also of the matrimonial spiritualists, those who elevate marriage to a state of life equal to the religious and contemplative. There is a theology of matrimony, it is true, but mostly marriage is practical, down to earth, and humble. Catholic apologists do not need to spice it up with charismatic pretensions. Even the old manualist definition of the home as the "Domestic Church" veers off the rails when it recommends a pseudo-monasticism instead of the perpetuation of folk traditions.

But from the beginning it was not so.

We live in an unthinkable age when people suffer simply for marriage. Chinese wives have their bodies invaded to slaughter the children within. Wedding planners and chefs are financially ruined for not supporting perversion. Governments encourage a great burden of collegiate debt on young people who simply wish to work and support a family. Subhuman fools deride mothers of more than 2.5 children publicly in the supermarket.

"Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God?"

Now, blind clerics lead blind adulterers to the cliff. Would that Henry VIII had lived in our times, he would still be a proud papist! When Elias returns in the final days, do we think he will be condemning the Antichrist for his Satanic pacts, or will he perhaps rather be condemning him for his three divorces? Like the Forerunner who came in his spirit, Elias might very well be martyred for defending the primordial state of marriage.

"It is not good for man to be alone.... It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." Those are two hills worth dying on.
 

13 comments:

  1. Care to give a summary of what the video is about?

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    1. Heard it with the missus yesterday. I hadn't really thought about how the sexes have forgotten how to relate with each other properly.

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  2. Excellent. I have grown tired of the all-too-common, but unspoken, sense that having a full-size van and homeschooling one's children marks one has having "arrived" at being "Trad". Large families become status symbols. If we spent a modicum of the energy to prop up the "familiatrous gospel" or be always "on" about the CrisisTM rather on restoring the right and due worship of the Holy Trinity no matter which state one has been called to or one remains in due to lack of or delayed vocation. A healthy church is neither weighted so heavily to all religious or glorification of marriage but to all states; a healthy parish is built on all demographics.

    Like all things American, we suffer from the Puritanical legacy of extremes. We see this in how alcohol is treated: teetotalism vs. binging. This country suffers from a harsh "No" to an equally reactionary harsh "rebellious yes" to all sorts of natural goods God has given us from marriage, to drink, to legitimate entertainments, etc.

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  3. Second to last paragraph is absolute gold. I've never thought about it in that way. Excellent parallel!

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  4. Do you think the "friendship of this world" relates to the occult common subconsciousness of dr.Jung?

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  5. It is also true for those who spread cynicism about marriage as such, frightening young men with horror stories of ex-wives taking everything in the divorce and encouraging a culture of mistrust. Serial fornicators are made of such stuff as this.

    This is a more than fair point. But it could also be said that in a society in which the aggregate divorce rate nearly pegs 50%, 70% of divorces are filed by women, and family law courts overwhelmingly favor wives in custody and support claims...it is arguably the case that a little more caution in assessing potential spouses is needed now than was the case for our grandfathers. The trad divorce rate is much lower than that 50%, but it is not zero, either; and I know more than one trad couple who married in haste and repented, in bitter legal woes, at leisure. The children (naturally) not least.

    But it is not (or should not be) a surprise that the general collapse in family formation and the virtues necessary for it have infected even the most devout corners of the Church in unwanted and unexpected ways.

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  7. How do we know the Antichrist will be divorced three times? This is news to me. I haven't found it in the Bible but maybe there is some prophecy or theological book. Which one?

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    1. It's a rhetorical question.

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    2. Ah. I thought it was a vision so maybe we can recognize him because I read he will be quite nice in the beginning and solve a lot of problems, make world peace, bring prosperity etc. He will be left-wing, progressive for sure so he can show he is tolerant and loving, even many religious people will give in to him for the material joys he will bring. Only after he wins the popular vote he will start showing his true face. He will also be quite young and attractive which luckily disqualifies many of the leaders in today's world. And the young ones are not divorced yet.. as far as we know or until today. Maybe it's a real vision why not? He will seem flawless for today's standard of a flawless man - highly intelligent, attractive, tolerant yet a strong leader, uplifting, humanist, ecologist.

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  9. But your're in favour of the alleged law of celibacy for the clergy, aren't you, despite the fact that it's impossible to legislate the possion of a charism (among other objections to it).

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