Up in Flames
Auburn, AL
July 19, 2020
Partly as therapy to lift my spirits, I have devoted recent space to recollections from other places and earlier days. The last several weeks, I have pilfered a basement box containing notes from a long-ago trip to France.
It is pleasant to re-live those wonderful experiences. But their memories make it that much more depressing to shift focus from old letters to current news. The latest indicative horror comes from Nantes, in southeastern Brittany.
Since before Nôtre Dame de Paris caught fire last year, a rash of church burnings has infected France. This weekend, the Cathedral at Nantes was the target, and appears to be another arson.
Construction of St-Pierre-et-St-Paul began in 1434, and took almost 500 years to complete. In a few hours, the façade’s stained glass was destroyed. The 17th century grand organ went with it, and its platform is still susceptible to collapse. Mercifully, the fire was contained, and the rest of the church seems safe.
But the rest of The Church is not.
Postmodernists and neo-Marxists are wielding the hammer of racial division and the sickle of viral fear…to smash and slash what Mao called the four “Olds”: Culture, Customs, Habits, and Ideas.
To do so they seek to undermine or control traditional institutions of Family, Religion, and Education. They must co-opt or corrupt anything that exists before, above, or beside the State.
I’m sure they can’t believe how easy it’s been to do so. Pronouns proliferate like bad ideas in an Ivy League lounge. Kids are taught to denounce “homophobia” (whatever that is), and to extol “transgenders” (whoever they are). Schools have for years been indoctrination centers. Now corporations are converting themselves into racial re-education camps.
And we have a new priesthood. We now wave incense before the god of “science” and the cult of the “experts”. They throw their ideological holy water on economics, medicine, and geopolitics, create spectacular failures in each, yet continue to fill their collection basket. In theory, separation of Church and State is supposed to be beneficial to both, and to us. In practice, it always means less Church and more State. And nothing for us.
Most churches, on orders from the state and with minimal complaint from spineless bishops, closed for months. Including on Easter! They were complicit not only masking Our Lord, but gagging Him. The Faithful no longer kneel at the altar, but their bishops ask Christ to take a knee before Caesar.
After piecemeal “re-openings“ under often indecipherable restrictions, churches are again being harassed. Singing is prohibited at services in California. In Toronto, Mass can be heard…but Communion is banned! That’s like allowing a restaurant to open as long as it doesn’t serve food, or a hospital to operate only if it avoids treating patients.
These authoritarians either genuinely don’t understand what churches are for, or they simply don’t care. Most likely, it’s both. If parishioners pretended to be protesters (for the right cause), perhaps they’d be left alone.
Across the US, as in France, churches are consumed by intentional infernos. The two-century old San Gabriel Mission is the most prominent example, but across the country sanctuaries burn and statuary falls.
Unlike similar crimes with different motives, these are not unequivocally condemned. They’re rationalized…and “discussed”. Feelings (of the perpetrators!) must be considered.
This has nothing to do with race. Race is a smokescreen to silence perceptive critics and conscript useful idiots. This is a war for the culture…and for power. It’s open season on the West. And the dwindling forces of civilization have laid down their arms.
So the Revolution rolls on. Confederate monuments were the initial targets. All “respectable” people agreed they needed to go, and our contemporary Girondists assured us the purge would then stop.
But it never stops. The Founders were next. Jackson and Calhoun followed. Then Junípero Serra and the Franciscan friars. Even Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and the Progressives…progenitors of our modern Montagnards…felt the pull of revolutionary ropes. The vandals won’t stop tugging till they reach the mirror.
But they’re not stupid. “Racism”…like “terrorism”, “inequality”, or “poverty”…is a perfect enemy. It is abstract enough to mean almost anything, and subjective enough to never be eradicated.
The objective is inarguably worthy and inherently elusive. There’s no nuance. Supporting slavery is synonymous with questioning quotas. Condoning lynching is no different than saying “colored people” rather than “people of color”. Compliments are akin to condescension. To oppose is to oppress.
To be wary of the war is to endorse the foe. The question is, what is their real foe? We can deduce it from empty pedestals in New Orleans, New York, St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore, Portland, Richmond, and Charleston. As well as targeted monuments in London, Barcelona, Bristol, Brussels, Genoa, and Paris. This is about revolution, not race.
But our cultural cleaners missed a spot. We found it this afternoon in Opelika, Alabama.
Alexander and I came to Auburn today. He drove us in his car, we found his dorm, and had a nice lunch at Tacorita on College Street. Unfortunately, Toomers Drugs is temporarily closed on Sundays, so we were deprived the best lemonade on the Plains…and perhaps the planet.
They are closed because the campus is empty. Some on-site summer classes resumed in June, but today the place looked like it was expecting a fundraiser for the state’s flagship university.
But it was beautiful, despite the sweltering heat. Alexander’s housing is on the Lower Quad, a comforting grass lawn framed by four stately brick dorms. The Upper Quad is just across a narrow street. The student center and Jordan Hare Stadium are only a few blocks away. In two weeks, he will settle into a lovely academic village.
We decided on our way home to swing thru central Opelika, within ten miles of Auburn. I had been nearby several times, but always for golf weekends at the Grand National leg of the Robert Trent Jones Trail. I’d not seen the town, and figured we may as well do so while we’re here.
It had a traditional Southern center but, whether from the virus or this being Sunday, most shops were closed and streets empty. On the way in, I noticed something, and asked Alexander to park.
As we approached, I told Alexander to take a good look. He may not see this sort of thing again. He may not see this again, even in two weeks. Before us was a statue commemorating the Confederate dead of Lee County, Alabama (that county name is not long for this world either).
This was no monument to a particular man, a beloved hero, or a specific slaveholder. This, like many scattered throughout the South, was a heartfelt commemoration of the unnamed many who gave their lives to defend their home.
Most of these men were not slave owners. But even if they were, what else would we have them do? Allow invaders to ravage their farms, raid their homes, and rape their wives? Would they have kept their monument then?
This memorial was erected in 1910, when many similar statues went up. The timing was not coincidental, but neither was it nefarious. It approached the fiftieth anniversary of the war, and across the country aged veterans of both armies came together in bonds of unity. And they were not alone.
One man who helped raise funds for the Opelika Confederate monument put it well. He noted that men like Confederate veteran (and Opelika resident) George Paul Harrison “are true friends of our race.”
Booker T. Washington went on to say that “any monument that will keep the fine character of such heroes before the public will prove helpful to both races in the South”.
He may have been right, or may have been wrong. But his perspective was worthy of debate.
I’m afraid that’s no longer the case.
JD
