Monkey See, Monkey Do

"Theaters are the new church of the masses – where people sit huddled in the dark listening to people in the light tell them what it is to be human." —1930's theater critic

The recent desecration of St. Peter's Basilica has proven to be quite the conversation starter. His Traddiness and I discussed the violent reaction this would have induced in the Catholic Romans of olden times—a new pope would need to have been elected soon thereafter—and I heard a sermon on Gaudete Sunday where the priest took the opportunity to chastise the faithful for allowing such sacrilege to make them unjoyful. Meanwhile, Mark Shea and other lukewarm hissyfitters are scourging anyone who points out the obvious about their precious Padre Jorge.

It's a demoralizing situation. The liberal Catholics who operated quietly (but freely) under Wojtyła and more surreptitiously under Ratzinger are now parading openly through the streets, waving prismatic flags and wearing tee shirts with peace signs as they make war against God. The Holy Trinity laughs at the Gentiles as they rage, but in the mean time we suffer under the weight of the yoke of their iniquities.

The Year of Mercy has turned into an orgy of indulgence, pejoratively speaking. Annulments are to be handed out for everyone, homewreckers are encouraged to desecrate the Lord's Body, and soon outright perverts will march up demanding the right to desecration. The façade of St. Peter's has been transformed into a projection screen for an anti-human environmentalist show, so how long will it be until Papa Franky removes the statues of the apostles and replaces them with carvings of endangered beasts?

"A people that continually provoke me to anger: these shall be smoke in my anger, a fire burning all the day." (Isa. 65)

"Monkey see, monkey do," was the old adage used to insult passive yes-men who facilitated the worst ideas of their leaders, never thinking twice about the consequences nor worrying to compare them against the eternal Ideas. These Monkey Catholics were anti-modernists under Pius IX, liturgical inventors under Pius XII, natural family planners under Paul VI, hermeneutical continuitists under Benedict XVI, and climate change believers under Francis I. What will they be under John Paul III, Koran-kissers? The Devil is God's ape, and today's ultramontanists are aping being Catholic. One wonders if the post-modern obsession with "authenticity" is due to this generation's inability to be clearly one thing, whether it be good or evil.

"See no evil, hear no evil," is another relevant monkey-related adage. What could it possibly take to infuriate the ultramontanists into action? Allowing pagans to desecrate Catholic churches with their perfidious ceremonies didn't do it. Watching prelates receive blessings from heathen priestesses didn't, either. We shouldn't be surprised if atheists are soon invited to preach from our cathedral pulpits. After all, we need to learn how to listen better!

Fiat Lux, indeed—"Woe to you that put darkness for light, and light for darkness." Now there is no virtue but leniency, and no vice but criticizing the pope. God help us.

"It shall no more be inhabited for ever. But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there." (Isa. 13)