If at First You Don’t Secede, Try Converting

Chuck Baldwin writes about what he considers the inevitable breakup of the United States. He’s promoting secession, and further making the case that there is a grassroots pro-secession movement across the country. As intriguing as that subject is for me, I’ll demur from any comment on this part of his article. What caught my eye was this:

However, whether one subscribes to the doctrine of secession or not is quite immaterial. The breakup of the US is inevitable! Short of another Great Awakening, nothing can stop it. And given the spiritual deadness of most American churches these days, the prospect of a modern-day national revival seems remote at best.

There are traditional Catholics that read Chuck Baldwin regularly. They should be aware, if they are not already, that the Great Awakenings he refers to (there were more than one) were the Protestant revival movements that gave us such things as Pentecostalism, tent revivals, etc. There were four of them, respectively, the First (c. 1730–1755), Second (c. 1790–1840) Third (c. 1850–1900), and Fourth (c. 1960–1980) Great Awakenings.

Heresy won’t help the nation. My counter-offer to Pastor Baldwin is the conversion of America to that one religion Orestes Brownson said was necessary to sustain popular liberty. America’s destiny will be realized only when the several states and the one nation (if the Union holds, contrary to Chuck Baldwin’s forecast) embrace the Faith that saves.

Brownson was an anti-secession man, although he was a strong states rights advocate. He modified his views after the War between the States and held that the several states were sovereign, but only as part of a Union. If, like me, you find this theory unsatisfactory, don’t let that lead you to dismiss Brownson altogether. He was a genius, and considered so by Cardinal Newmann, whose theory of doctrinal development Brownson had searingly critiqued in his Quarterly Review.

Further, regarding peace, national security, and the like, the Blessed Virgin gave the Church and the world a no-fail recipe at Fatima. With the Holy Father now backing off the “official” interpretation of the Fatima message, there is hope that he may soon carry out the collegial consecration of Russia Our Lady called for. That won’t be very “ecumenical” by the common standards of that art, but it is necessary. (Then again, Saint Andrew Bobola, today’s saint, was not very ecumenical by those standards, either. Labeled the “robber of souls” by the Russian Orthodox, he was a true apostle of Church unity, as well as a martyr for that noble cause.)

My personal opinion is that the consecration and subsequent conversion of Russia will take place during a time of particular need. As Aragorn was forced to traverse the Paths of the Dead because, in the words of the prophecy of Malbeth the Seer, “need shall drive him,”* so too, the Holy Father will have a great need to save Europe and the Church from some dire enemy (militant Islam?). Then will the Double Eagle fly to the aid of Christendom and Christ’s Vicar; then will Holy Russia come to the help of Holy Holy Mother Church, into which that happy nation is newly reintegrated.

I stress, this is my opinion. The details of how Our Lady’s promises are realized are not mine to say. That they will be realized, we must all believe.

* * * * *

* From Return of the King, pgs. 43-44. See here for an interesting comparison of Tolkein’s fiction about Aragorn and the Paths of the Dead to certain legends of St. Wenceslaus. Malbeth the Seer’s full prophecy reads:

Over the land there lies a long shadow,
westward reaching wings of darkness.
The Tower trembles; to the tombs of kings
doom approaches. The Dead awaken;
for the hour is come for the oathbreakers:
at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again
and hear there a horn in the hills ringing.
Whose shall the horn be? Who shall call them
from the grey twilight, the forgotten people?
The heir of him to whom the oath they swore.
From the North shall he come, need shall drive him;
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead.