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Entry: Antichrist Still on My Mind Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/antichrist_still_on_my_mind#833 Post contents: This was an excellent series of articles. Some time back, I realized that when a man finds that his theology differs from his basic culture (which features his sense of history and its alliances), he must make a choice, for he cannot serve two masters. In America, the lie is that all can serve two masters by being good Americans. Catholics, to stick to the subject, assimilated to American culture. The American culture to which they assimilated was largely that of the mandarin Yankees: the culture of the New England Anglo-Saxons. That culture, rather obviously being based on Henry VIII's creation of a new church with the English sovereign as its head and then the Puritan revolution making the demoncratic will that sovereign (each trumpeting the Anglo-Saxons as a chosen race), is antithetical to Catholic theology and identity. The Catholic in America who has assimilated fully to American culture will have a theology that conflicts with, that often contradicts, his basic culture. If he recognizes the dichotomy, that Catholic either will try to convert the culture, or he will make his WASP culture the arbiter and judge the Catholic Church and its leaders by the standards of WASP history and values. Because of assimilation, America is filled with all kinds of Catholics, many of whom sincerely believe themselves very good or even ideal Catholics, who actually have made the mandarin WASP culture of the US their guiding star. That is the ideology to which they have reduced the Gospel story. Neocons are Cromwellians at least as much as they are Jacobins. Each group was sanctimoniously, violently anti-traditional. Today's Neocon Republican American Catholic is the 'conservative' half of that anti-traditional revolutioanry impulse, while today's liberal Democrat Catholic is the antinomian/libertine/egalitarian half. For each, WASP culture and its values in the American form, rather than Catholic teachings and identity, take precedence. They are Catholics whose cultrally WASP hearts and minds rule them. Benedict XVI fails the test of each, for different reasons because Benedict does not judge and lead as a Good American who knows that liberal American democracy is the last best hope of mankind. Sent at: 2008 07 24