Robert Bakiewicz spoke at a protest to mark the Warsaw Uprising (Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The men are assembled along the left, the women line up along the right, and the very young children follow the proceedings from an anteroom, soundproofed behind a glass screen. The dress code is sombre — mostly black, occasionally grey. The women are obliged to cover their hair, though, judging by the sprinkling of Louis Vuitton and Hermes headscarves, there is no injunction against luxury. Silent and perfectly still, the congregation surrenders to the language of the ancient church: “Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto”.
For the sermon, the priest switches from ecclesiastical Latin to everyday Polish. “You used to be so passionate about your faith and your national identity,” he says. “Now all that is gone. Why?” The reproach seems to be directed exclusively at the male members of the congregation. They lower their heads penitently.
The mass was held at a small chapel belonging to the Society of Saint Pius X, an organisation of Catholic priests established by Marcel Lefebvre, a controversial French archbishop who was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II, patron saint and supreme icon of modern Polish Catholicism. Performed in traditional Latin rather than Polish, the ceremony at Wawer contained deeply traditional elements that even the most conservative of Poland’s churchgoers might have found archaic. It was arranged at the behest of the Independence March Association, a Polish far-Right organisation that convenes an annual march on Independence Day, rallying tens of thousands of ultra-nationalists to declare their hostility to “cultural Marxism” while affirming their “patriotism” and “traditional” Polish values.
The head of the Independence March Association, Robert Bakiewicz, is the closest thing to a leader for Poland’s extra-parliamentary far-Right. At the mass in Wawer, he could pass for the doorman of an upmarket nightclub — burly physique, smart grey overcoat, military-grade haircut. Contemplating the altar, he is periodically interrupted by uniformed lieutenants equipped with wireless earpieces and armbands.
Bakiewicz is among the minority of Catholic traditionalists worldwide who prefer to attend mass in the original Latin rather than in their native languages. The traditionalists believe the mainstream Catholic way of worship has strayed from dogma and become too liberal. As they see it, the Latin, or Tridentine, mass still preserves the splendour and sanctity of the pre-modern Church.
On social media, the Latin mass is associated with the “trad Caths” — Anglophone internet-speak for an increasingly visible new generation of online Catholics. The trad Caths of Instagram and TikTok share content celebrating the values and aesthetics of traditional Catholicism, in tones that veer between the playful and the unabashedly sincere. Bakiewicz has joined in the fun, but his trad Cath identity is also a political statement. It signifies a rejection of the Polish clerical establishment and a recalibration of the far-Right’s relationship with Church and state. It also underlines his own credentials. To lead the far-Right, you must be more nationalist than the nationalists, and more Catholic than the Catholics. And there is no better way of demonstrating that in today’s Poland than by being seen at Latin mass.
Poland’s nationalists have traditionally been close allies of its Church leaders. Through Nazi occupation and Soviet dominance, they served as joint custodians of national identity, active in the resistance and in the preservation of Polish culture. Over the last decade however, the clergy has been hit by a series of scandals that have weakened its standing, leaving it looking like the junior partner in its alliance with the Right-wing government. Media reports have exposed the profligacy of Polish bishops, who spent donations to the Church on expensive cars, real estate and lavish renovation schemes. More damagingly, senior clergy in Poland have been implicated in committing and covering up child abuse.
The scandals have prompted accusations that the clerical establishment has been behaving like an unaccountable elite, corrupted by power and privilege. Indeed, the far-Right’s criticism of Church leaders has a distinctly populist tone. “I will send my men to protect churches,” Bakiewicz told me in October 2020, as an effective ban on abortions ignited anti-clerical protests across Poland. “But I will never send them to protect the palaces of bishops.”
Matters have not been helped by the current Pope. Hailed as a reformist by liberals, Pope Francis has irked conservatives in Poland and beyond, prompting many to question his judgement. Traditionalists have been particularly troubled by the Pope’s decision to restrict access to the Latin mass, reversing efforts by his predecessor, Pope Benedict, to restore some legitimacy to the ancient rite. Where the era of Pope John Paul II marked the consolidation of the relationship between Poland’s nationalists and clergy, the era of Pope Francis coincides with its weakening. “It’s not like we disobey the Pope, the hierarchs,” Bakiewicz said. “But one cannot ever accept others preaching a false gospel, even if it is — to quote Saint Paul — an angel descended from heaven.”
In the battle with liberal values, the far-Right in Poland is broadly aligned with the government. Led by the national-conservative Law and Justice party, the government picks fights with Brussels, intimidates independent judges and journalists, demonises the campaign for LGBT rights, more or less prohibits abortions, and persecutes refugees and migrants unless they happen to be Ukrainian. Poland’s far-Right movement supports these policies on the streets, and some of its biggest players, such as Bakiewicz, are in turn supported financially by the government. Investigative journalists in Poland have revealed that the government has paid more than €1 million in public subsidies to organisations linked to Bakiewicz.
According to Mikolaj Czesnik, a political scientist and professor at Warsaw’s SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, the government uses far-Right figures such as Bakiewicz to fly a kite for its most hardline policies. “You do not need an army to do that — a few people on the streets of Warsaw is enough,” he said. “The nationalists openly hate Brussels, the people hear that, and this allows the PM to come out and say that he is taking a tough stance against the European Commission because he values the Polish people over some foreign, cosmopolitan greater good.”
Bakiewicz began his political career as a foot soldier in the ONR, the largest and oldest formation within Poland’s far-Right eco-system. The ONR — its initials stand for National Radical Camp — claims to be the ideological heir to an organisation of the same name whose cadres hounded Poland’s Jews and leftists in the run-up to World War Two. Its present-day membership is known for its Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and hostility to LGBT rights, as well as its belief in an ethnically pure Poland. A recent ruling by Poland’s supreme court decreed that the ONR could reasonably be described as “fascist”, although the court stopped short of endorsing that description. The movement rejects the label — fascism is technically outlawed in Poland — even if some of its members have been pictured marching in brown shirts and performing Roman salutes.
Bakiewicz became known at the ONR for his rousing speeches and all-round tough guy image — qualities that, according to his supporters, have helped shake the far-Right out of its anomie and restore its sense of purpose. He was born in 1976 in Pruszkow, a satellite town of Warsaw that acquired a reputation for gangland violence in the post-communist transition. As a young man, he ran a small construction company, filing for bankruptcy in 2011, around the same time as he became active in the ONR. Media outlets also reported that he had been granted a divorce at around this time, with his financial problems cited as a contributory factor. Bakiewicz has refused to speak to the press about this period in his life.
He agreed to our interview on condition that we would only discuss matters of faith. Questions about his financial history were strictly off-limits, and nor was I able to ask him about a 2017 interview in which he used a slur for gay people and referred to homosexuality as an illness threatening the traditional family.
Our meeting took place in Bakiewicz’s office, in a tower block in Warsaw’s genteel Zoliborz district. I waited in a hallway where religious icons hung on the wall. A stack of newspapers beside the chair contained a range of Left and Right-wing publications, many with handwritten comments scribbled on the front-page stories. Bakiewicz tends to avoid speaking to established media outlets, opting to get his message across via his YouTube channel. I began the interview by asking about his enthusiasm for the Latin mass. He responded that the modern mass, replacing the Latin version, undermined the Church’s claim to universality — the claim, in other words, that its teachings applied equally to everyone. “The Church cannot suddenly start changing what it used to preach,” he said, because universality also meant that the institution “needs to be understood in the same way”.
Almost all churches in Poland conduct the mass in the Polish language, a legacy of the Second Vatican Council (1962-5), which resulted in sweeping liberalising reforms. Importantly, priests were permitted to celebrate mass in the native language of the congregation rather than Latin. Deeply conservative factions within the Church, however, rejected the changes. Some of these factions, including Lefebvre’s Society of Saint Pius X, were eventually cast out by the Vatican. Bakiewicz embraced the Lefebvre movement three years ago, after a public spat with Church leaders in Warsaw who had refused to host a Latin mass for his followers.
In the interview at his office, Bakiewicz heaped scorn on the clerical establishment. He accused it of taking a passive stance during the protests against the abortion law in 2020, thereby neglecting a fundamental duty to stand up for the faith. He also criticised the clergy over its response to the arrival in Poland of more than three million Ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict with Russia. Ukrainians now account for nearly 8% of Poland’s population, marking a dramatic shift for a country characterised since World War Two by the absence of any sizeable minorities.
The homogeneity of contemporary Polish identity is typically upheld by the far-Right as a virtue. Toward the Ukrainians however, allies in the confrontation with the historic Russian enemy, there is no overt hostility. “These people came to us from a war-torn country,” Bakiewicz said, striking a paternalistic note. “It’s not the time to think about trivial, materialistic things.” But the Polish clergy, in his view, was once again at fault — it had missed an opportunity to bring the Ukrainians, most of whom follow a branch of the Eastern Orthodox church, within the fold. “I am disappointed that the Polish Church is not fighting for these souls,” Bakiewicz said.
The proposed mass conversion of a displaced people may sound like anachronistic fantasy, but it encapsulates a particular view of faith and nation on the far-Right. Some refugees are welcome, in this view, if they can be assimilated into the faith, reinforcing rather than altering it. According to the traditionalists, it is the willingness of the Church to be altered, to change with the times, that lies at the heart of its current malaise. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has softened its rhetoric towards LGBT minorities, condemned Europe’s policy towards migrants, and sought to find common ground with the leaders of other faiths. “If the Pope suggests that all religions are equal,” Bakiewicz said, “it means that the Catholic martyrs, those who were put to death because they refused to convert, would have died in vain.”
Despite their vocal objections to the current Pope, the traditionalists maintain that they have not crossed the line into outright defiance of papal authority – a move that might call their identity as Catholics into question. One of Bakiewicz’s ideological soulmates in Polish politics, Robert Winnicki, threads the needle between criticism and defiance of the Pope by painting a bleak picture of the Church in peril. “The ship is sinking and the lifeboats are being lowered,” he said. “The Latin mass movement is one of those lifeboats. It will not operate against the Vatican, but in spite of it.”
***
This story was produced as part of the Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, supported by the ERSTE Foundation, in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Editing by Neil Arun.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeOMG. Like. The Horror! It must be really serious, practically H-word, because the writer mentions “far-Right” fourteen times in the article, including the title.
Let me just counter with this. All humans are tribal. The tribe of the lower class is their ethnic identity. The tribe of the educated class is Humanity. The tribe of the middle class is the Nation.
I would say that at the present moment the most intensely tribal humans on the planet are educated gentry. You see, they really really care about Humanity.
I was kind of put off by the far right thing as well. What does it even mean?
”Tucker Carlson: Zelenskyy’s cabinet is devising ways to punish Christians”
There was a story on here yesterday on Ukraine and the Orthodox Church. The reporter I mentioned is a bit – well…You can read a lot of her on a Russian site, but I did not want to use that obviously, and it was biased – but here is Tucker on the same story – And I really recommend you watch it, bit shocking..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jNW8cVIVg
We live in a narcissistic hedonistic culture and one that actually believes “genders” are somehow real things which is frankly simply mad. We use bizarre gingerbread figures to rob children of their actual relationship with their own bodies using such tools; an early stage grooming preparation. That these are usages invented by de Beauvoir and her alienating Marxist goals and Dr John Money in the ’70’s who butchered and sexually abused children is unknown to most readers.
So anyone who knows that stopping the behavior that has killed over a million young men in the west , sodomy and who dares to stand up for the lives of human beings when they actually begin, tends to be labeled by anxious writers seeking a vehicle… “right wing”. Catholicism if of course about natural law and is the foundation of classic liberal views of every person’s sacred rights and responsibilities.
Almost everyone is simply terrified at the prospect of speaking the plain truth on these matters. Labels reflect this. But the old archbishp Lefevre grouping is pretty strange.
“Far-right” rarely means pro individual freedom, free markets and small government. Editors should change the phrase to ‘nationalist’ or ‘racist’
Trad caths are not racist. They are catholic – which means we are all created in the image of God
Trad caths are not racist. They are catholic – which means we are all created in the image of God
Any attempt by a culture aiming to preserve itself from liberal nihilism.
Me too. What is the definition of “far right,” aside from whatever is to the immediate right of liberal/leftist journalists?
”Tucker Carlson: Zelenskyy’s cabinet is devising ways to punish Christians”
There was a story on here yesterday on Ukraine and the Orthodox Church. The reporter I mentioned is a bit – well…You can read a lot of her on a Russian site, but I did not want to use that obviously, and it was biased – but here is Tucker on the same story – And I really recommend you watch it, bit shocking..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jNW8cVIVg
We live in a narcissistic hedonistic culture and one that actually believes “genders” are somehow real things which is frankly simply mad. We use bizarre gingerbread figures to rob children of their actual relationship with their own bodies using such tools; an early stage grooming preparation. That these are usages invented by de Beauvoir and her alienating Marxist goals and Dr John Money in the ’70’s who butchered and sexually abused children is unknown to most readers.
So anyone who knows that stopping the behavior that has killed over a million young men in the west , sodomy and who dares to stand up for the lives of human beings when they actually begin, tends to be labeled by anxious writers seeking a vehicle… “right wing”. Catholicism if of course about natural law and is the foundation of classic liberal views of every person’s sacred rights and responsibilities.
Almost everyone is simply terrified at the prospect of speaking the plain truth on these matters. Labels reflect this. But the old archbishp Lefevre grouping is pretty strange.
“Far-right” rarely means pro individual freedom, free markets and small government. Editors should change the phrase to ‘nationalist’ or ‘racist’
Any attempt by a culture aiming to preserve itself from liberal nihilism.
Me too. What is the definition of “far right,” aside from whatever is to the immediate right of liberal/leftist journalists?
The “far right” is the Bogeyman image in children’s fairy tales. Narcissistic hedonism just hates the Bogeyman.
I don’t even flinch at the far-right thing anymore. Time to just embrace it.
I reject the idea that the tribe of the educated is humanity. Don’t confuse the globalists with the educated. The tribe of the woke, secular, educated is humanity. The rest of educated people still identify with their country, their faith, and their culture.
I’m highly educated, but I feel no identification with truly non-Western cultures like Islamic fundamentalism, or Chinese Communism, or Putinist Great-Russianism. To the extent I feel identification with non-Western cultures it’s because they’ve adapted aspects of the West’s culture; Christianity, liberal-democracy, the market economy, etc.
As Aristotle said, a Friend to all is a friend to none.
In any case, even the woke elites don’t believe this. They’ll waste hundred of thousands of dollars on frivolous luxuries for themselves their kids and their cronies, while donating next to nothing to charity. They’re the most tribal people on earth.
The difference is their tribe is power; the power of the secular, woke, 0.1% of the world’s population, regardless of country of origin.
I was kind of put off by the far right thing as well. What does it even mean?
The “far right” is the Bogeyman image in children’s fairy tales. Narcissistic hedonism just hates the Bogeyman.
I don’t even flinch at the far-right thing anymore. Time to just embrace it.
I reject the idea that the tribe of the educated is humanity. Don’t confuse the globalists with the educated. The tribe of the woke, secular, educated is humanity. The rest of educated people still identify with their country, their faith, and their culture.
I’m highly educated, but I feel no identification with truly non-Western cultures like Islamic fundamentalism, or Chinese Communism, or Putinist Great-Russianism. To the extent I feel identification with non-Western cultures it’s because they’ve adapted aspects of the West’s culture; Christianity, liberal-democracy, the market economy, etc.
As Aristotle said, a Friend to all is a friend to none.
In any case, even the woke elites don’t believe this. They’ll waste hundred of thousands of dollars on frivolous luxuries for themselves their kids and their cronies, while donating next to nothing to charity. They’re the most tribal people on earth.
The difference is their tribe is power; the power of the secular, woke, 0.1% of the world’s population, regardless of country of origin.
OMG. Like. The Horror! It must be really serious, practically H-word, because the writer mentions “far-Right” fourteen times in the article, including the title.
Let me just counter with this. All humans are tribal. The tribe of the lower class is their ethnic identity. The tribe of the educated class is Humanity. The tribe of the middle class is the Nation.
I would say that at the present moment the most intensely tribal humans on the planet are educated gentry. You see, they really really care about Humanity.
In the linked article (in Polish) about government subsidies for groups linked to Bakiewicz–which is presumably what the author of this piece means by saying “the government supports its (whose? This elision seems like a deliberate attempt to join the government and the “far-right Catholic revival”) nationalist foot soldiers”–Bakiewicz claims that “far-left circles” are vastly better funded, not only by Polish municipal governments but by foreign cash.
According to the same linked article more than half of the funds appear to have been used for defending churches against protestors angry with Polish restrictions on abortion.
Other uses according to Bakiewicz include to acquire a mobile stage and other equipment for holding pubic rallies as well as “picnics”; purchase real estate; and more fundraising.
Even the very biased BIRN (which had a hand in producing this piece) has to admit in a different article on Poland that what this piece terms the “most hardline policies” are actually quite popular with Poles.
I’m no expert on the Polish scene but it hardly seems notable that a handful of nationalist activists go to Latin Mass.
More important is that reasonable Catholic positions opposing abortion, “LGBT”etc rights (whatever they are supposed to be), this or that EU policy and taking on Muslim refugees continue to be re-cast as “far-right,” which of course means a host of other smears as well.
I agree. Some will perhaps chuckle or laugh outright when I state that I have found Roman Catholicism to be the only fully radically coherent , consistent philosophical, psychological , religious and theological entity on the planet. Especially as rooted in the deep sanity of Aquinas’ “baptism” of Aristotle’s realism, the father of western science.
And as part of that sanity? what is a “gay” person ,or a “homosexual”, that term concocted by a 19th century writer. We are talking sodomizing people here. No fake who claims concern or affection and sympathy for “gays” can continue to simply ignore the deaths of over a million young men from the practice of sodomy. And up to half of them according to studies in New York City at the peak of the AIDS crisis, reported their first sexual experience at the average age of eleven years old, a critical developmental period, at the hands of an older male. “Pride” parades are very much bizarre victim exhibitions of early childhood sexual assault and perversion. Yes. Perversion.
This article kept just tapping the drum of “right wing”…I am a classic liberal incidentally which the left no longer is.. , LGBQ sacred intonations.. and of course . the killing, dare I say murder of children.
Pope Francis is not as bad as the right portrays him to be and too often judges his actions simplistically , a common human failing. And the Latin Rite sacrament of the mass is beautiful and especially for introverts, but Latin has had its day as the uniting core in a Western religion.
Vatican II is a work of the Holy Spirit notwithstanding our many headed enthusiasms.
The Catholic spirit is at its core the spirit of Christ who is present in the sacraments He instituted within his apostolic church and it is a spirit of loving development of persons, communities and worlds while literally fed by the Spirit who is God. Far right ideologies are not reflections of the social doctrines of the church and respect for human life itself from its beginning along with the encouragement of loving , stable human relationships is anything but “right wing”. It is responding to life with love.
The Catholic church literally IS sanity. She, like our cosmos is grounded in BEING. Love. Why we are moved by the so called transcendentals of truth, beauty and goodness. Has anyone come even remotely close to embracing the plight of desperate Ukrainians more fully than the Polish people. They are leading the world in charity. Much to admire and emulate there.
The Catholic Church is one of the most evil entities on the planet.
Coherent? Only to those who can’t see beyond the end of their noses.
Downticks anticipated, no problem.
Thanks Steve, but I can only suggest you watch a most entertaining BBC (of all people!) documentary entitled “The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition” which recounts the actual facts and not the hysterical propaganda of the English during their war with Spain. And read just a little on the Crusades which are probably a fundamental reason why you and I exist today incidentally. You seem to have swallowed the Hollywood version.
Is your anger piqued by the church developing our first universities including Oxford, Paris and about fifty others? Introducing the genius of Socrates, Aristotle and the Greek philosophical realism that caused the west to soar. Was it the church’s seminal genius in the natural sciences right up to the Big Bang theory of Father Georges Lemaitre , or the seminal (forgive the pun) work of Fr Gregor Mendel in modern genetics? Is this what makes us two billion or so so evil?
It is usually the universal moral law which is actually nearly perfectly articulated in the preamble to the US constitution incidentally, that the church proclaims and which human reason can arrive at independently of religion or revelation. She literally IS sanity on these truly essential (Aristotelian pun here) matters.
The scandal of homosexual abuse…not “pedophilia” as the secular media types colored it was indeed a terrible scandal. But what of the 96% of priests who had nothing to do with this homosexual disaster that largely afflicted the church during the “sexual revolution” as the neomarxist Marcuse baptized it, from the mid sixties to the mid eighties.
Did you know that in the US , independent audits show fewer than 10 credible claims of abuse in the population of 63 million? No place on earth is safer for children. And do you imagine that we two billion or so are not deeply incensed and profoundly disturbed by this terrible blight which caught us all by surprise?
And do you detest the Boy Scouts of America who literally have 10 times the number of homosexual abuse cases against them. Do our brave media even mention what the John Jay College of Criminal Justice clearly found.. sexual interference with post pubescent boys…. homosexuality.
But in any case we share your horror but really wish that there was equal concern for the public school abuse which the presidential commission head on abuse, Charal Shakeshaft said was ” a hundred times worse than the priests”. No doubt you never even read or heard about that report. The secular media you read never even reported it.
Neither during the “revolution” was there any protesting that the MBLA .. Man Boy Love Association… was advertising openly in the homosexual media.
It is more likely in this age of narcissistic hedonism, the new “liberalism” that is anything but liberal, that you really resent the universal moral law. Especially, ironically, if orgasms are involved for nowadays we actually define human beings laughably, by their orgasm inducing preferences….’so called “gender” theory. And Queer theory of course.
Catholics continue to affirm our free willed rational natures and its clear implications of the eternal nature of human beings. We do non material things like math and propositions. What color is the number three? How much does it weigh and how many fit in a typical shopping bag? We have a rational spiritual nature that apprehends not just individual sensed triangles, but triangularity itself which transcends the sensory.
Lastly and with a touch of irony I reference Harvard’s Joseph Hendreich who pointe out how different westerners have been in the west , whether its fighting slavery or having left tribalism behind and inventing the idea of the person. He attributes it to your ancestors.. the Catholic church.. and its resistance to cousin marriage and incest. He says it made the western world weird. W.E.I.R.D. Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic. WEIRD.
Blame it on the church.
On the topic of the Inquisition, Wikipedia — by no means a ‘far-right’ site — states that an estimated 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offenses during the three-century life of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, which amounted to about 2.7%. While those executions were a blot on religion, and certainly on Catholicism, that number of victims is puny compared to what regimes inspired by secular belief systems have achieved, after the Inquisitors closed up shop. Let’s see, French revolutionists killed several times the Inquisition’s numbers, and not in 3 centuries but a year or two, the Nazis killed 5 or 6 million Jews, not to mention other disfavored groups, along with tens of millions of war dead, both foreign and domestic, the Chinese Communists killed some 20 million, the Russian Communists 15 or 20 million by starvation, executions and gulags; but relative to their population, the Marxist Khmer Rouge were the champion genocidal activists, by killing one quarter of Cambodia’s population. I should add that the Russian and Chinese numbers are highly disputed, and really no more than estimates; but that in itself testifies to the lethal nature of leftist regimes.
On the topic of the Inquisition, Wikipedia — by no means a ‘far-right’ site — states that an estimated 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offenses during the three-century life of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, which amounted to about 2.7%. While those executions were a blot on religion, and certainly on Catholicism, that number of victims is puny compared to what regimes inspired by secular belief systems have achieved, after the Inquisitors closed up shop. Let’s see, French revolutionists killed several times the Inquisition’s numbers, and not in 3 centuries but a year or two, the Nazis killed 5 or 6 million Jews, not to mention other disfavored groups, along with tens of millions of war dead, both foreign and domestic, the Chinese Communists killed some 20 million, the Russian Communists 15 or 20 million by starvation, executions and gulags; but relative to their population, the Marxist Khmer Rouge were the champion genocidal activists, by killing one quarter of Cambodia’s population. I should add that the Russian and Chinese numbers are highly disputed, and really no more than estimates; but that in itself testifies to the lethal nature of leftist regimes.
Thanks Steve, but I can only suggest you watch a most entertaining BBC (of all people!) documentary entitled “The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition” which recounts the actual facts and not the hysterical propaganda of the English during their war with Spain. And read just a little on the Crusades which are probably a fundamental reason why you and I exist today incidentally. You seem to have swallowed the Hollywood version.
Is your anger piqued by the church developing our first universities including Oxford, Paris and about fifty others? Introducing the genius of Socrates, Aristotle and the Greek philosophical realism that caused the west to soar. Was it the church’s seminal genius in the natural sciences right up to the Big Bang theory of Father Georges Lemaitre , or the seminal (forgive the pun) work of Fr Gregor Mendel in modern genetics? Is this what makes us two billion or so so evil?
It is usually the universal moral law which is actually nearly perfectly articulated in the preamble to the US constitution incidentally, that the church proclaims and which human reason can arrive at independently of religion or revelation. She literally IS sanity on these truly essential (Aristotelian pun here) matters.
The scandal of homosexual abuse…not “pedophilia” as the secular media types colored it was indeed a terrible scandal. But what of the 96% of priests who had nothing to do with this homosexual disaster that largely afflicted the church during the “sexual revolution” as the neomarxist Marcuse baptized it, from the mid sixties to the mid eighties.
Did you know that in the US , independent audits show fewer than 10 credible claims of abuse in the population of 63 million? No place on earth is safer for children. And do you imagine that we two billion or so are not deeply incensed and profoundly disturbed by this terrible blight which caught us all by surprise?
And do you detest the Boy Scouts of America who literally have 10 times the number of homosexual abuse cases against them. Do our brave media even mention what the John Jay College of Criminal Justice clearly found.. sexual interference with post pubescent boys…. homosexuality.
But in any case we share your horror but really wish that there was equal concern for the public school abuse which the presidential commission head on abuse, Charal Shakeshaft said was ” a hundred times worse than the priests”. No doubt you never even read or heard about that report. The secular media you read never even reported it.
Neither during the “revolution” was there any protesting that the MBLA .. Man Boy Love Association… was advertising openly in the homosexual media.
It is more likely in this age of narcissistic hedonism, the new “liberalism” that is anything but liberal, that you really resent the universal moral law. Especially, ironically, if orgasms are involved for nowadays we actually define human beings laughably, by their orgasm inducing preferences….’so called “gender” theory. And Queer theory of course.
Catholics continue to affirm our free willed rational natures and its clear implications of the eternal nature of human beings. We do non material things like math and propositions. What color is the number three? How much does it weigh and how many fit in a typical shopping bag? We have a rational spiritual nature that apprehends not just individual sensed triangles, but triangularity itself which transcends the sensory.
Lastly and with a touch of irony I reference Harvard’s Joseph Hendreich who pointe out how different westerners have been in the west , whether its fighting slavery or having left tribalism behind and inventing the idea of the person. He attributes it to your ancestors.. the Catholic church.. and its resistance to cousin marriage and incest. He says it made the western world weird. W.E.I.R.D. Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic. WEIRD.
Blame it on the church.
To this we could add the latest homosexual affliction, Monkey Pox, which has been described as yet another disease of the unvaginated.
The Catholic Church is one of the most evil entities on the planet.
Coherent? Only to those who can’t see beyond the end of their noses.
Downticks anticipated, no problem.
To this we could add the latest homosexual affliction, Monkey Pox, which has been described as yet another disease of the unvaginated.
I agree. Some will perhaps chuckle or laugh outright when I state that I have found Roman Catholicism to be the only fully radically coherent , consistent philosophical, psychological , religious and theological entity on the planet. Especially as rooted in the deep sanity of Aquinas’ “baptism” of Aristotle’s realism, the father of western science.
And as part of that sanity? what is a “gay” person ,or a “homosexual”, that term concocted by a 19th century writer. We are talking sodomizing people here. No fake who claims concern or affection and sympathy for “gays” can continue to simply ignore the deaths of over a million young men from the practice of sodomy. And up to half of them according to studies in New York City at the peak of the AIDS crisis, reported their first sexual experience at the average age of eleven years old, a critical developmental period, at the hands of an older male. “Pride” parades are very much bizarre victim exhibitions of early childhood sexual assault and perversion. Yes. Perversion.
This article kept just tapping the drum of “right wing”…I am a classic liberal incidentally which the left no longer is.. , LGBQ sacred intonations.. and of course . the killing, dare I say murder of children.
Pope Francis is not as bad as the right portrays him to be and too often judges his actions simplistically , a common human failing. And the Latin Rite sacrament of the mass is beautiful and especially for introverts, but Latin has had its day as the uniting core in a Western religion.
Vatican II is a work of the Holy Spirit notwithstanding our many headed enthusiasms.
The Catholic spirit is at its core the spirit of Christ who is present in the sacraments He instituted within his apostolic church and it is a spirit of loving development of persons, communities and worlds while literally fed by the Spirit who is God. Far right ideologies are not reflections of the social doctrines of the church and respect for human life itself from its beginning along with the encouragement of loving , stable human relationships is anything but “right wing”. It is responding to life with love.
The Catholic church literally IS sanity. She, like our cosmos is grounded in BEING. Love. Why we are moved by the so called transcendentals of truth, beauty and goodness. Has anyone come even remotely close to embracing the plight of desperate Ukrainians more fully than the Polish people. They are leading the world in charity. Much to admire and emulate there.
In the linked article (in Polish) about government subsidies for groups linked to Bakiewicz–which is presumably what the author of this piece means by saying “the government supports its (whose? This elision seems like a deliberate attempt to join the government and the “far-right Catholic revival”) nationalist foot soldiers”–Bakiewicz claims that “far-left circles” are vastly better funded, not only by Polish municipal governments but by foreign cash.
According to the same linked article more than half of the funds appear to have been used for defending churches against protestors angry with Polish restrictions on abortion.
Other uses according to Bakiewicz include to acquire a mobile stage and other equipment for holding pubic rallies as well as “picnics”; purchase real estate; and more fundraising.
Even the very biased BIRN (which had a hand in producing this piece) has to admit in a different article on Poland that what this piece terms the “most hardline policies” are actually quite popular with Poles.
I’m no expert on the Polish scene but it hardly seems notable that a handful of nationalist activists go to Latin Mass.
More important is that reasonable Catholic positions opposing abortion, “LGBT”etc rights (whatever they are supposed to be), this or that EU policy and taking on Muslim refugees continue to be re-cast as “far-right,” which of course means a host of other smears as well.
I’ll just sort the scare-quotes out for you:
There, fixed it.
Thank you. The use of scare quotes has become ubiquitous.
Thank you. The use of scare quotes has become ubiquitous.
I’ll just sort the scare-quotes out for you:
There, fixed it.
‘demonizes the LGBTQ’ – I’m fairly liberal, but watching what is going on in schools, there are a large number of demons out there. If you’d apply the same kind derogatory exclusion slur to groomers in the trans cult, or the Globalist Covid Cabal, I might be more impressed
‘demonizes the LGBTQ’ – I’m fairly liberal, but watching what is going on in schools, there are a large number of demons out there. If you’d apply the same kind derogatory exclusion slur to groomers in the trans cult, or the Globalist Covid Cabal, I might be more impressed
He means a bunch of people that the Guardian and the European Commission and Pink News think are a rum bunch.
He means a bunch of people that the Guardian and the European Commission and Pink News think are a rum bunch.
I have invented a game called “Far-right bingo.”
The rules are simple… take the name of anyone accused by MSM with being ‘far-right’… search their name on Wikipedia. Find the bit that says they’re ‘far right,’ then check the source.
If the source is simply another journalist in a newspaper accusing them of being ‘far-right’ you get 10 points. If there is actual evidence of far-right behaviour, you lose 10 points.
You’ll be amazed at how much fun this can be… and how difficult it is to actually lose points.
I have invented a game called “Far-right bingo.”
The rules are simple… take the name of anyone accused by MSM with being ‘far-right’… search their name on Wikipedia. Find the bit that says they’re ‘far right,’ then check the source.
If the source is simply another journalist in a newspaper accusing them of being ‘far-right’ you get 10 points. If there is actual evidence of far-right behaviour, you lose 10 points.
You’ll be amazed at how much fun this can be… and how difficult it is to actually lose points.
It is certainly a privilege for me to be a member of the SSPX here in the UK and to be able to defend traditional Catholic values.
A crucial point that is often omitted in editorials of this nature is that the Tridentine rite is experiencing a tenfold increase in congregation numbers.
This has led to the SSPX building a new church within the UK in order to serve these growing numbers. Interestingly, this contradicts Giles Fraser’s obituary for the CoE. Often, he discusses the shrinking of church attendance, parish closures, etc., Unlike the CoE, the SSPX has remained true to its principles since Vatican II. It has never compromised its values in the pursuit of popularity or alignment with Rome. Membership numbers are growing (unlike the decline in the Novus Ordo Masses) because there is a desire among some members of society to escape to a place of sanity that can provide them with the values of humanity.
These are such simple values that have been lost by many in today’s disorientated world.
If that makes me (according to this author) right wing, then I’d take that label any day of the week, because sitting on the sidelines and watching the world smother itself in its narcissistic pleasures, has me concerned for future generations. Because the question should be, unlike the Tridentine rite that is around 1500 years old, will the values of today’s society morph into protecting, nourishing and educating the values of family or will it be a free for all, do as you please, as long as it makes you happy? Just don’t offend anyone on the way?
What are the alternatives? I am always happy to hear them and for the atheists, the question remains, If God did exist, would you still not believe in him?
One of the key objections to some who reject the second Vatican council and the novus ordo mass is that they use terms like “better” in describing the beautiful Latin Rite. We Catholics exist to love and serve mankind and we are fed by Christ present among us riffraff in our imperfect celebrations of the mass. I agree with the actions of Pope Francis and hope the Latin Rite can be enjoyed and appreciated in the future without the schismatic elements that currently afflict its celebrations. The world is not going back to Latin useful as it was in western history and at the core of so many of our languages.
I used to think that the use of the latin language could be a stumbling block to wider access to the old mass, but if my seven year old daughter can engage with the mass – and she does – then there’s no real reason why anyone else can’t. The old mass deploys a range of gestures and signs that communicate universally beyond language; these have been expressly removed from the new rite. And it’s not just language, the text of the old mass, the ‘ordinary’, called Tridentine, but really stretching back in unbroken development since Gregory the Great, is radically different from the mass of Paul VI. It’s interesting to note that the comprehensibility of the new mass, simplified and pared back, has lead to a surveyed decline in the belief in the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. One further point – the author alleges that the reformed mass, when introduced, was opposed by ‘deeply conservative’ elements – cue scary chords from the organ – but it was in fact unloved by almost everyone, leading to an exodus of churchgoers in the West.
I used to think that the use of the latin language could be a stumbling block to wider access to the old mass, but if my seven year old daughter can engage with the mass – and she does – then there’s no real reason why anyone else can’t. The old mass deploys a range of gestures and signs that communicate universally beyond language; these have been expressly removed from the new rite. And it’s not just language, the text of the old mass, the ‘ordinary’, called Tridentine, but really stretching back in unbroken development since Gregory the Great, is radically different from the mass of Paul VI. It’s interesting to note that the comprehensibility of the new mass, simplified and pared back, has lead to a surveyed decline in the belief in the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. One further point – the author alleges that the reformed mass, when introduced, was opposed by ‘deeply conservative’ elements – cue scary chords from the organ – but it was in fact unloved by almost everyone, leading to an exodus of churchgoers in the West.
One of the key objections to some who reject the second Vatican council and the novus ordo mass is that they use terms like “better” in describing the beautiful Latin Rite. We Catholics exist to love and serve mankind and we are fed by Christ present among us riffraff in our imperfect celebrations of the mass. I agree with the actions of Pope Francis and hope the Latin Rite can be enjoyed and appreciated in the future without the schismatic elements that currently afflict its celebrations. The world is not going back to Latin useful as it was in western history and at the core of so many of our languages.
It is certainly a privilege for me to be a member of the SSPX here in the UK and to be able to defend traditional Catholic values.
A crucial point that is often omitted in editorials of this nature is that the Tridentine rite is experiencing a tenfold increase in congregation numbers.
This has led to the SSPX building a new church within the UK in order to serve these growing numbers. Interestingly, this contradicts Giles Fraser’s obituary for the CoE. Often, he discusses the shrinking of church attendance, parish closures, etc., Unlike the CoE, the SSPX has remained true to its principles since Vatican II. It has never compromised its values in the pursuit of popularity or alignment with Rome. Membership numbers are growing (unlike the decline in the Novus Ordo Masses) because there is a desire among some members of society to escape to a place of sanity that can provide them with the values of humanity.
These are such simple values that have been lost by many in today’s disorientated world.
If that makes me (according to this author) right wing, then I’d take that label any day of the week, because sitting on the sidelines and watching the world smother itself in its narcissistic pleasures, has me concerned for future generations. Because the question should be, unlike the Tridentine rite that is around 1500 years old, will the values of today’s society morph into protecting, nourishing and educating the values of family or will it be a free for all, do as you please, as long as it makes you happy? Just don’t offend anyone on the way?
What are the alternatives? I am always happy to hear them and for the atheists, the question remains, If God did exist, would you still not believe in him?
The SSPX, whom the author discusses here, are not Romans Catholic. They are as Catholic as Anglican Anglo-Catholics are Catholic – they see themselves as Catholic, but we in the church do not for the simple reason they are not in communion with Rome.
As someone who understands the allure of the Tridentine rite Latin mass, it also needs to be mentioned that there is another and likely larger community of Catholics who attend masses in this rite who are not in schism. While often still composed of reactionaries, it is also made up of all kinds of people who find in it something they have struggled to find elsewhere, including many young people disillusioned by the secular world and it’s vapid noise. However, both tout similarly over simplistic solutions to the problems the church faces today, and sadly the disputes over this distract from the clear imperatives of living and bearing witness to the Gospel.
Quite agree James. The problem the church faces , along with its continuing scar caused by the largely homosexual scandal with young men, 81% according to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice study, is narcissistic hedonism which frankly underlies some themes of this article.
With the sexual “Revolution” of the ’60’s neoMarxist Herbert Marcuse named it..and that same neoMarxist spirit of child sex abuser Simone de Beauvoir whose “Ms.” sought to present men and women as if men and women were somehow intelligible outside of their mutual and obvious interconnectedness in the service of joy and life. The PILL as the great Dr. Jordan Peterson observed, has had a greater effect upon men and women and subsequently human life, than the Hydrogen bomb.
Everyone in the west is still terrified to point out the most obvious and blatant facts about human sexuality or ever mention the truly naturally disgusting acts that have killed so many and are currently Monkeypoxing so many at sodomy orgies around the world.
Catholicism literally IS the answer to all of the above and there is a huge amount to admire in the culture and profound generosity of the people of Poland and their leadership whatever its flaws.
For Roman Catholics to declare that other Catholics are not Catholic is about as reasonable as (say) the EU declaring that Norway or Switzerland are not European because those countries are not in the EU.
Or an English person declaring that Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders (and so on) do not speak English ‘because only the English speak English’.
I’m not a Catholic, but your comparison is nonsensical. “Roman” Catholic means that parishioners are part of the Catholic church that’s headquartered in Rome, and follow all of that church’s teachings, although anybody can think of some exceptions. The non-Roman Catholics either openly dissent from Roman Catholic teachings or are part of a separate organization — like Greek Orthodox.
My point is valid. I cannot see that your post does anything to undermine it.
Roman Catholics arrogate to themselves the judgement of whether any other Christians are Catholic. But there are many Catholics who are not Roman Catholic. It is not up to Roman Catholics to say that they are exclusively the only Catholics in the world.
For example, the Eastern Orthodox Church officially calls itself the Orthodox Catholic Church. Is it wrong to do so? If so, why?
Various Christian denominations around the world (including protestant churches) pray with the Apostles’ Creed, which includes a statement of belief in ‘the holy Catholic church’. Are they wrong to do so? If so, why?
Back to my earlier analogies: Citizens of the United States call themselves ‘Americans’. And of course they are. But would they be entitled to say that Canadians, Mexicans, or the people of Central and South America are not also American?
My point is valid. I cannot see that your post does anything to undermine it.
Roman Catholics arrogate to themselves the judgement of whether any other Christians are Catholic. But there are many Catholics who are not Roman Catholic. It is not up to Roman Catholics to say that they are exclusively the only Catholics in the world.
For example, the Eastern Orthodox Church officially calls itself the Orthodox Catholic Church. Is it wrong to do so? If so, why?
Various Christian denominations around the world (including protestant churches) pray with the Apostles’ Creed, which includes a statement of belief in ‘the holy Catholic church’. Are they wrong to do so? If so, why?
Back to my earlier analogies: Citizens of the United States call themselves ‘Americans’. And of course they are. But would they be entitled to say that Canadians, Mexicans, or the people of Central and South America are not also American?
I’m not a Catholic, but your comparison is nonsensical. “Roman” Catholic means that parishioners are part of the Catholic church that’s headquartered in Rome, and follow all of that church’s teachings, although anybody can think of some exceptions. The non-Roman Catholics either openly dissent from Roman Catholic teachings or are part of a separate organization — like Greek Orthodox.
That’s incorrect. Pope Francis lifted the excommunications (which only ever applied to three bishops), and restored their faculties to hear confessions. They are Catholic. At worst they’d be guilty of schism, but probably not even that since they say they recognize the Pope. All their disagreements are on matters of discipline, not dogma or doctrine. A Catholic who believes Popes have done lots of stupid things is still a Catholic. You could even think the Pope was a heretic, and remain a Catholic.
It’s no different than the Eastern or Oriental Orthodox. The Catholic Church still recognizes them as legitimate Churches with valid priesthood and sacraments. A Catholic can receive sacraments from an Eastern or Oriental Church if necessary, and they are equally valid to those performed in St. Peter’s.
I am not a member of the SSPX, but to say they are as Roman Catholic as Anglican Anglo-Catholics is categorically untrue; they are is a state of separation, not a formal schism. Further, Pope Francis has extended faculties of priests of the Society to conduct catholic marriages and to hear confessions. Something no Pope has ever done or will ever do for ministers in the Anglican communion.
Quite agree James. The problem the church faces , along with its continuing scar caused by the largely homosexual scandal with young men, 81% according to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice study, is narcissistic hedonism which frankly underlies some themes of this article.
With the sexual “Revolution” of the ’60’s neoMarxist Herbert Marcuse named it..and that same neoMarxist spirit of child sex abuser Simone de Beauvoir whose “Ms.” sought to present men and women as if men and women were somehow intelligible outside of their mutual and obvious interconnectedness in the service of joy and life. The PILL as the great Dr. Jordan Peterson observed, has had a greater effect upon men and women and subsequently human life, than the Hydrogen bomb.
Everyone in the west is still terrified to point out the most obvious and blatant facts about human sexuality or ever mention the truly naturally disgusting acts that have killed so many and are currently Monkeypoxing so many at sodomy orgies around the world.
Catholicism literally IS the answer to all of the above and there is a huge amount to admire in the culture and profound generosity of the people of Poland and their leadership whatever its flaws.
For Roman Catholics to declare that other Catholics are not Catholic is about as reasonable as (say) the EU declaring that Norway or Switzerland are not European because those countries are not in the EU.
Or an English person declaring that Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders (and so on) do not speak English ‘because only the English speak English’.
That’s incorrect. Pope Francis lifted the excommunications (which only ever applied to three bishops), and restored their faculties to hear confessions. They are Catholic. At worst they’d be guilty of schism, but probably not even that since they say they recognize the Pope. All their disagreements are on matters of discipline, not dogma or doctrine. A Catholic who believes Popes have done lots of stupid things is still a Catholic. You could even think the Pope was a heretic, and remain a Catholic.
It’s no different than the Eastern or Oriental Orthodox. The Catholic Church still recognizes them as legitimate Churches with valid priesthood and sacraments. A Catholic can receive sacraments from an Eastern or Oriental Church if necessary, and they are equally valid to those performed in St. Peter’s.
I am not a member of the SSPX, but to say they are as Roman Catholic as Anglican Anglo-Catholics is categorically untrue; they are is a state of separation, not a formal schism. Further, Pope Francis has extended faculties of priests of the Society to conduct catholic marriages and to hear confessions. Something no Pope has ever done or will ever do for ministers in the Anglican communion.
The SSPX, whom the author discusses here, are not Romans Catholic. They are as Catholic as Anglican Anglo-Catholics are Catholic – they see themselves as Catholic, but we in the church do not for the simple reason they are not in communion with Rome.
As someone who understands the allure of the Tridentine rite Latin mass, it also needs to be mentioned that there is another and likely larger community of Catholics who attend masses in this rite who are not in schism. While often still composed of reactionaries, it is also made up of all kinds of people who find in it something they have struggled to find elsewhere, including many young people disillusioned by the secular world and it’s vapid noise. However, both tout similarly over simplistic solutions to the problems the church faces today, and sadly the disputes over this distract from the clear imperatives of living and bearing witness to the Gospel.
Lately, I find myself declining to read anything with “far-right” in the headline in the belief it was assigned, written and edited by journalists on the left, which now can be fairly described as the far-left. It has been the case in my previous experience.
Lately, I find myself declining to read anything with “far-right” in the headline in the belief it was assigned, written and edited by journalists on the left, which now can be fairly described as the far-left. It has been the case in my previous experience.
Where is Bakiewicz’s ‘burly physique’? I don’t see it in the picture. But of course, this is not the only way that this piece drips with contempt for conservative people or causes.
Where is Bakiewicz’s ‘burly physique’? I don’t see it in the picture. But of course, this is not the only way that this piece drips with contempt for conservative people or causes.
They should nip over to Ulster and wind up the polydraylon and acetate suited Orangemen…!!!
They should nip over to Ulster and wind up the polydraylon and acetate suited Orangemen…!!!