I smell desperation in the world of R&R Catholicism, which is really a false flag operation conducted by Freemasons.
I wanted to know what OnePeterFive was up to these days, and take a respite from writing articles strictly covering controversies with Sedevacantists and Home-Aloners. I clicked on the article, “A Psychological Approach to Understanding Sedevacantism”, and was pleasantly amused at the attempt of the author to be a sophisticate and erudite essayist, able to take on, not directly (who does that anymore?) but indirectly the movement of the sinister sedevacantism.
The author, Robert V. Newman, tells us that he is a professional writer, who has studied science, history, and Spanish as an undergraduate, earned a Masters of Arts in literature and linguistics, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in English and literary theory. And all that comes through in his article.
Newman begins by setting the tone for the entire piece, which is one clad in esoteric psychological terminology with the veneer of understanding and knowledge, but which is little more than the child’s game of imagination. We are told that, in the “First Vertex: Transference,” we, being meek and unhealthy mice of the earth, look upon the pope as our savior, refuge, and sure guide in this tempest-in-a-teapot existence without whom and through which we blunder so blindly. Newman writes:
“Our vulnerability and perceived impuissance dissolve in the aura of this “godlike man,” to whom we transfer our fears and doubts, subconsciously hoping to thereby understand, escape, or control them and the cosmic forces that seem to impose them so ruthlessly upon us.”
All of us, from the little old lady drinking her tea and watching Jeopardy, to the young buck strutting through the university laden with postgraduate books on the medieval metaphysical poets, are in the throes of an existential crisis, if we recognize that the See of Peter is vacant on account that the man who claims to be the pope is a heretic. Well, actually, Newman doesn’t quite say it so succinctly. He says this:
“Is not the pope’s exalted centrality the very principle of his Luciferian fall from glory and supremacy to ignominy and illegitimacy? Despite the apparent paradox, ultramontane Catholicism is a singularly conducive environment for the growth of Sedevacantism, and this environment is vitalized by psychological transference.”
Hence, given the existential crisis we made for ourselves believing that the pope was some lionized figure upon whom we should put all our earthly cares and woes, we naturally desired to make him infallible, inerrant, and incapable of letting us down, or, to coin a phrase, to make him the Rock upon which we would build our faith. How psychotic of us.
Next, Newman turns to the the “Second Vertex: The Mana Personality,” whereby we are to understand that the man with the mana is looked upon as a heroic figure with gifts of healing, saving, and royal leadership. This next stage in most simple terms is where a Catholic who recognizes that the Chair is Vacant (because he is delusional, if you recall), looks to another for the assurances his quivering mind needs to get on with existence. He turns to the Sedevacantist priest or charismatic layman who proposes the idea that Sede vacante is a fact, to find a safe harbor for his dilapidated mind, collapsed by the “khaos” of meaning all around him–yes, Newman used the Anglicized Greek form of “chaos,” just to show that he knows how to read a dictionary’s etymological entry. It is on account of this second stage that the Sedevacantist turns to and relies upon the Mana-Man. One of Newman’s associates who themselves has personal associations with Sedevacantists has this to say about the Mana-Man:
“It’s important to note that even if the sedevacantist denies it, the theory of sedevacantism … would not in itself be all that convincing if it weren’t backed and personified by a charismatic sedevacantist clergyman or layman confidently putting it forward.”
I suppose that the Mana-Men who are commanding so much charism as to convince whole swaths of Novus Ordo Catholics to abandon ship and seek safe harbor somewhere else from the existential meltdown of the Second Vatican Council sect are to blame. Mario Derksen of NovusOrdoWatch, the late Anthony Cekada, and Donald Sanborn come to mind. The irony perhaps of this assertion is that, apart from Cekada, who is dead but who did command some considerable charisma while alive, neither Derksen nor Sanborn (in my humble opinion) are at all charismatic or fit to be described as an “old wise man…a protean figure, assuming such roles as king, hero, healer, and savior.” One is liable to fall asleep listening to Sanborn talk, and Derksen goes out of his way–far way out of his way–to suppress any personality of his at all, only recently having shown his rounded, boyish face in front of his mesmerized fans on CatholicFamilyPodcast.
All that is to say is that, in this second stage of the Sedevacantist delusion, it is practically untenable to say that anyone looks upon anyone in the movement as a sage. The individuals involved who would even make good candidates for the mana-man role are quite boring, humdrum characters, without charm, personality, or sophistication. It is rather what these men say that influences minds to give their assent, but that is a topic too near the truth that it is best we move on to the third and final stage in this psychological approach to understanding Sedevacantism.
The “Third Vertex: The Allure of Gnosis,” is the secret knowledge of the Mana-Man, the crystal-ball-like knowledge only he posses, which drives the unwitting (and delusional, don’t forget that) Novus Ordo Catholic turned Sedevacantist into a follower of the gnostic guru. As Newman explains, Sedevacantism is Gnostic as such:
“At this point I must be forthright and suggest that Sedevacantism is an intensely gnostic movement, insofar as its doctrine and praxis reflect a colossal ecclesial meltdown that is largely unknown and, in the final analysis, unknowable. Gnosis, of the Sedevacantist variety or any other, is a wily enemy whose psychological effects may become cumulative or cyclical. For Catholics engaged in the spiritual life, the consequences could be grave indeed.”
Yes, the “colossal ecclesial meltdown” is “unknown” and actually “unknowable,” because, don’t you know, no one has a subscription to OnePeterFive in which the colossal ecclesial meltdown is chronicled on a daily basis. This is a classical example of how a man may have a hundred thousand words in his head and yet not a single thought. Such is the product of University English programs. Anyway, it is simply bizarre to say that the crisis in the Church, or the knowledge requisite to begin to understand it and combat it, is gnostic, in the sense that only a few have access to it. Anyone who is willing to crack open a book–perhaps this book–will begin to see and conclude that what the Second Vatican Council taught, what the post-conciliar popes taught, what Francis did last week, is not Catholic.
We arrive at the near end of the article, and Newman is feeling pretty good about himself, such that he is willing to make an argument now, at least he thinks he is making an argument:
“I will now offer my only direct argument against Sedevacantism. I make no attempt to augment the voluminous collection of theological, philosophical, historical, and juridical discourse on this topic. I will simply propose that ecclesiastical defects of such apocalyptic magnitude—decades without a pope, an entire hierarchy in via exstinctionis, countless laymen who think they’re priests, a world full of invalid sacraments—cannot be established through intricate, indeterminate arguments based on theology, philosophy, history, or canon law. Such knowledge must be widely disseminated, manifestly imbued with divine authority, and so compelling as to convince any Catholic who is sincerely awake to the life of the Church. Otherwise, it’s gnosis, and there is no place for gnosis in the mystical body of Him who said, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.”
Just a second ago, Newman said that the crisis and its anatomy was “unknown and unknowable,” but now we learn that there is a “voluminous collection of theological, philosophical, historical, and juridical discourse on this topic.” That is a very curious admission, Newman, don’t you think? But for all that, I actually think Newman says something true, when he says, “ecclesiastical defects of such apocalyptic magnitude…cannot be established through intricate, indeterminate arguments based on theology, philosophy, history, or canon law.” No, Newman, the Great Apostasy can be elucidated by knowing one’s catechism. When Newman says that “such knowledge must be widely disseminated, manifestly imbued with divine authority, and so compelling as to convince any Catholic who is sincerely awake to the life of the Church,” he is beautifully and wonderfully taking the words out of my mouth. But Newman, being an erudite sophisticate naturally has no pretensions to having been properly catechized, so the idea that the catechism would satisfy the requirements he puts forth simply doesn’t occur to him. The catechism is, 1. widely disseminated, as like no other document, 2. manifestly imbued with divine authority, being a magisterial text, 3. compelling for any Catholic who has faith, because it was designed to form the faith of any Catholic, sophisticated or simple. The catechism is whatever the reverse of gnosis is, I guess Divine Mysteries for Dummies.
With the triangularity of delusion complete, the three vertices of psychosis Newman the English-Lit PhD student has just propounded–without any credentials in psychology, or psychoanalysis, or any social science to speak of–we are left with this gem of thoughtlessness:
Nevertheless, the durability of Sedevacantism, both as a movement and as a personal belief system, surprises me, because it so viscerally and traumatically expresses what psychology and medicine call thanatos, the death drive. Adherents of Sedevacantism are professing and pronouncing the progressive organ failure of their own Church; theirs is a vision of senescence and demise, of cellular dissolution—a dismal prognosis for the mystical body of which they themselves are members. The Church is suffering grievously, besieged and abused and poisoned by enemies within and without, and yet she is gloriously and passionately alive. In her surfeit of sorrow she is beautiful, and I love her.
Not only are Sedevacantists–simply those who believe that the Chair of Peter is vacant–delusional as to the the actual importance of the Chair of Peter (transference), the reliance upon an authority figure or sage (Mana Personality), and the secret knowledge that personality possesses (Allure of Gnosis), but they also have some kind of death wish called (again with the Greek!) a “thanatos.” So, not only are Sedevacantists nuts, they’re also spiritually suicidal.
The Sedevacantist sees that the Church is without her visible head on earth, the pope, without whom she cannot have the three attributes ascribed to that See the pope occupies, namely, authority, indefectibility, and infallibility, without which the four marks of one, holy, catholic, and apostolic could not exist, by which the Catholic Church is identified and known, all because the thing calling itself the Catholic Church, the church Newman says is beautiful and which he loves, is actually and quite literally the spiritual whore of Babylon with whom all the kings of the earth have fornicated. But I am not surprised that Newman does not see her for what she really is, since he is more interested in seeing the world through the blind eyes of the intellectual mice among men, Freud, the atheist and Jung, the pantheist.
Newman concludes his “essay” by admitting the following:
“Proponents of Sedevacantism are not merely imagining things when they discern an abomination of desolation in the holy place. Their claims are not baseless but rather are built upon grave doubts about the state of the Church, and these doubts are not unreasonable.”
Here we witness the devolvement of an uneducated intellect attempting an essay in a discipline beyond his comprehension. We have been told throughout that the Sedevacantist is delusional in three different ways, which form a triangularity of despair and wish for spiritual death, but now, after all, don’t you know (our author forgot Sedevacantists are delusional), those who propose Sede vacante as a theory are not imagining things (not delusional) when they see that there is, in fact “an abomination of desolation in the holy place.” Further, we are assured, the claims made by Sedevacantists are not even “not baseless but rather are built upon grave doubts about the state of the Church,” and these doubts (Newman has lost his own marbles now) are “not unreasonable”! We have been led along this pseudo-psychoanalysis in believing that the Sedevancantists are nuts and have a death wish, but now, at the end, we are assured that their doubts are not unreasonable, their eyes are opened and they do in fact see that their Church is desolate. What boiled brains does it take to string along so many contradictory notions in a single, short “essay” is beyond my ability to fathom. But, it is just par for the course for the English Literature student trying his hand at thought. Moving on, Newman ends with this earth-shattering, mind-altering conclusion:
“Unfortunately, the psychological dynamics of the Sedevacantist experience do not favor constructive resolution of the ecclesiological doubts that all post-Conciliar Catholics must confront.”
So now the Sedevacantists’ doubts which arose, as you will recall, from thinking too highly of the man called the Vicar of Christ, and, once that bubble was popped by the Post-Conciliar popes, which made the said Sedevacantist seek out answers from the guru or yogi-type who had gnostic knowledge and charismatic charm, are considered as something normal which “all post-Conciliar Catholics must confront.” Wait, what? I thought that the “psychological dynamics of the Sedevacantist experience” were peculiar to, well, Sedevacantists, who themselves thought way too much of the Papacy? Now we are told that the Sedevacantist way of thinking (now we are not sure how that is any different from any other Catholic’s way of thinking), do not simply “favor constructive resolution” of said doubts–which are themselves normal and not in anyway delusional, and which we all must confront.
Having hit a wall with using his intellect, Newman now concludes his masterful demonstration of the inanity of R&R ideology by coming home to where he feels most at ease and comfortable, that is, in the imagination. Quoting the religious poetry of Dante, Newman writes:
“The predicament of Sedevacantists is comparable to that of Dante in Paradiso, canto VII:
But I now see your understanding tangled
by thought on thought into a knot, from which,
with much desire, your mind awaits release.
The poet reminds us, however, that doubt, though challenging, is not a purely negative phenomenon; quite the contrary:
Therefore, our doubting blossoms like a shoot
out from the root of truth; this natural
urge spurs us toward the peak, from height to height.
…Let us pray for clarity in these dark times, and I will rejoice if this essay helps even one person of Sedevacantist persuasion to say with Dante,
And though the doubt I felt there was as plain
as any colored surface cloaked by glass,
it could not wait to voice itself, but with
the thrust and weight of urgency it forced
“Can such things be?” out from my lips, at which
I saw lights flash—a vast festivity.”
Doubt, so far from being delusional, is rather positive and productive, apparently even capable of attaining to a mystical vision of Heaven, wherein we see lights flashing in the festal pageantry of the Celestial banquet hall. No, Newman, in your blindness you do not see Heaven but Hell on Earth, and the flickering light is but the unholy candles of the altar to the Abomination of Desolation–the Novus Ordo Missae–lit by the girl in shorts and flip-flops, awaiting the real Mana-Man who is all to ready to quote, not teachings of Jesus, but gnosticism of Ghandi from the pulpit.
But, since Newman is so found of quoting poetry to explain a spiritual crisis, let me end this article (I dare not call it an essay) by quoting a familiar poem perhaps he’s heard before:
Three blind mice.
Three blind mice.
See how they run.
See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?
The explanation of the enigmatic poem is about as apropos as a pot holder to a boiling pot:
Attempts to read historical significance into the words have led to the speculation that this musical round was written earlier and refers to Queen Mary I of England blinding and executing three Protestant bishops. However, the Oxford Martyrs, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, were burned at the stake, not blinded; although if the rhyme was made by crypto-Catholics, the mice’s “blindness” could refer to their Protestantism, (“Three Blind Mice,” Wikipedia).
Freud, the atheist, Jung, the pantheist, and Newman, the Post Conciliarist, did you ever see such a sight in your life as these three blind mice?
