“One of the elements that unequivocally confirms the criminal nature of the Great Reset is the perfect synchrony with which all the different Nations are acting, demonstrating the existence of a single script under a single direction.”
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Message to the American People (December 19, 2021)
“The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult but the design. Through all the fire and the smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organization. The managers remain stubbornly masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first.” Lord Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution (1910)
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“Throughout the world, in the name of a perverted concept of freedom, we have progressively erased God from society and laws. We have denied that there is an eternal and transcendent principle, valid for all men of all times, to which the laws of States must conform . . . . In short, we have subverted the entire moral order that constitutes the indispensable basis of the laws and social life of a people.”
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” St. Paul, Ephesians 6:12
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“Political and religious leaders, representatives of the people, scientists and doctors, journalists and those who work in the media have literally betrayed their people . . . . The electoral fraud of the 2020 presidential election against President Trump has shown itself to be organic to this global operation . . . .The Democratic Party, part of the deep state, is carrying out its task as an accomplice of the system, just as the deep church finds in Bergoglio its own propagandist.”
“The devils are mighty spirits, and therefore called ‘principalities,’ and ‘powers’; and the chief of them the ‘prince of darkness’ . . . . The devil is a mighty prince, and he hath a power or force under him, many men and devils . . . and all those evil spirits which he hath under him are called, ‘the rulers of the darkness of this world’ . . . . They have power upon men’s senses both external and internal, they can operate on men’s minds and wills to move them.” Richard Saunders, Angelographia (1701)
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“How was it possible to arrive at such a betrayal?”
“In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5
“For it was in the fourteenth century that tyrannical governments began to teach their successors the policy of retaining men of letters in their pay, to deceive the world.” Ugo Foscolo, “Dante and Petrarch” (c. 1820)
“And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies . . . . And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” Revelations 13: 4-7
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“How have we come to be considered enemies by those who govern us, not in support of the common good, but rather to feed a hellish machine of death and slavery?”
“Perhaps there would be real conspiracies . . . but there would certainly be simulated ones. At certain moments, when the prince’s popularity has decreased, they could be an excellent means of exciting the sympathy of the people in favor of him. By intimidating the public spirit, one could thus obtain . . . the severe measures that one would want . . . . False conspiracies . . . would have another advantage: they could permit me to discover real conspiracies, by giving rise to investigations . . .” Maurice Joly, Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (1865)
* * * * * *
“The pandemic emergency, the farce of global warming and the green economy, and the economic crisis deliberately induced by the Great Reset with the complicity of the deep state, are all only the consequence of a much more serious problem, and it is essential to understand it in depth if we want to defeat it.”
“The world is controlled, so it seems, not by a single specific conductor, but by a new apocalyptic beast, a kind of anonymous, omnipresent monster, and one that, in some primordial time, must have vowed to destroy the Western World. The beast has no set plan. It seizes whatever occasions arise . . . . Dostoevski analyzed it once upon a time. And Péguy too . . . when he railed against the ‘intellectual clique.’ And even one of our former popes, Paul VI, toward the end of his reign, as he opened his eyes and discerned, at long last, the work of the Devil . . .” Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints (1973)
The Orthosphere 
@JMS – Setting aside his analysis of ‘the problem’ (which I agree is superb); what do you think of Vigano’s proposals concerning what ought to be done by those who agree with him?
It is easy to see how the proposed Anti-Globalist Alliance could turn into one more “conservative” grift, but I think Vigano’s call for individual fortitude is encouraging. The Beast is incredibly powerful, but we must always remind each other that it is never as powerful as it looks, and that it cannot punish everyone who is not intimidated by its snarling face. Civil disobedience works, even when it is only the civil disobedience of thinking forbidden thoughts and preaching impolite truths. The Archbishop makes clear that the root of the problem is spiritual, not political, and this spiritual problem will not be solved overnight. I’m afraid that many people who agree with Vigano expect to solve this problem with an election and some legislation, and I’m afraid our religious institutions are not prepared to lead us through the long and painful repentance that we need.
Yes.
But I would like to see Vigano being more explicit about this. As you say below, he is preaching schism – and spiritual schism (of individuals, plus or minus groups as and when possible) is absolutely necessary if we are not all to be converged with the anti-Christian church majority.
But I think this needs to be said – not just implied.
I wonder if he isn’t walking as close to the edge as he thinks he can. I don’t know anything about the job security of an archbishop, and I have any idea how much backing he has in the Curia. I’m quite sure he has strong backing in a big chunk of the laity, but am not sure that all of that big chunk knows how to read between the lines. People accustomed to an honest, high-trust culture will take awhile to learn that what is said is often not being said, and what is not said is often being said. But as we become more and more dishonest and low-trust, they’ll get used to it.
A hot-headed descendent of hillbillies, my mind and heart don’t go to elections but to force. I must be descended from crusaders. I know as a fellow hillbilly descendent you can relate professor.
So glad Bruce saw this- my first thought was to post it at his site – fits with his thoughts so well.
Generally speaking, people who wish to “continue negotiations” feel their position is growing stronger, whereas those who think the time has come to flip the table and pull out the six shooter feel their chance of winning today is better than their chance of winning tomorrow.
May God in His sovereignty, use His 1+ billion Chinamen (who are neither purely good nor purely evil) to subvert the evil plans of the leaders of the formerly Christian nations (including, sadly, the Russian oligarchs – Putin is not all powerful no matter what you read.)
Professor Smith I agree about rational calculations of fighting vs waiting but I think you may overestimate the rationality and underestimate the impulsiveness of the born fightin’ Scots Irish. LoL! 🙂
Pugnacity is prudent when one’s power is on the wane.
Bruce, I always wished the same of Pat Buchanan (“ok Mr. Buchanan, what do we DO now”). Some men’s gift is to be descriptive, some prescriptive. Maybe someone else will continue where Vignano stopped.
Reactionary thought is by nature pessimistic because it perceives that very little can be “done” about the evils of this world. If Vigano is correct that the Pope is just a propagandist for a sinister “deep church,” that “deep church” really, truly controls the Church. If the United States is run by the invisible government of a “deep state,” that will not be changed by elections, or even by memes on Gab. I think it is significant that St. Paul says we “wrestle . . . against spiritual wickedness in high places.” I suspect he says “wrestle” because we cannot defeat that spiritual wickedness, only struggle enough to prevent it putting us in a full nelson.
What an unfortunate analogy for your title, or are you suggesting Vigano is following the tradition of the “Reformation”? Whatever the case may be I doubt he would approve of such an analogy.
Given that he names the Pope as tool or accomplice of the conspiracy, it is hard not to see Vigano as somewhat Luther-like. It is also significant that he does not name the Church as the soul of his “Anti-Globalist Alliance,” but rather strongly implies that it has been lost to the intrigues of a “deep church.” This is the stuff of which schisms are made, or at least made public.
Perhaps when Luther nailed his theses he was not yet a heretic or scismatic. Papa (assuming Benedict isn’t still Pope) is not above serious criticism nor was his predecessor St Peter. These are strange days my friend.
I was not bothered by JM Smith’s title.
My understanding is that Luther took up the hammer with the intention to save the church, not destroy it.
Since we’re delving into Luther’s motivations, perhaps we need to resolve the often raised question–at least commonly raised among orthodox Catholics–of what role his unruly passions had in the taking up of the hammer.
I think we should focus on the divisions of today, and not the divisions of five hundred or a thousand years ago. I have personally thought the Catholic obsession with Luther’s concupiscence was unseemly, just has I have personally thought that the Protestant obsession with the sale of indulgences is unseemly. Greed and lust are universal passions that we manage, or fail to manage, individually, not by confessions or creeds. Today, so far as I can see, the actual division runs through the old divisions of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant. I don’t know enough about the Orthodox churches to say if they have a liberal wing, but liberal Catholics and Protestants obviously have much more in common with each other than they do with the conservative wings of their own churches. One can see this affinity in the present instance because conservative Protestants are sharing, liking, applauding Archbishop Vigano. It is also noteworthy that Vigano speaks of “Christians” rather than “Catholics.” I’m not sure the present division goes “deeper” than the old divisions, but I do believe it goes deep in a way we moderns can understand. There is not one Christian in ten thousand who can today give a clear explanation of transubstantiation or the Filioque, but rebuilding the Tower of Babel is something they can see, understand and reject. There is obviously danger of mapping this division too directly on today’s party politics, but it is also naive to think that theology is not connected to political philosophy.
Writing this comment made me think how the great schisms of Christianity have so far come every five hundred years, the first in 1054 and the second in 1517. If that means anything, we may be due for another one soon.
You forgot the Chalcedon division? You’re right – every 500 years.
It is also noteworthy that Vigano speaks of “Christians” rather than “Catholics.”
The significance you attach to this (and you may be correct in it vis a vis Vigano – I couldn’t say for certain) is where I cannot be on board with the Orthosphere philosophy*. It’s not a novel idea that for much of Christian history Catholic and Christian were inseparable realities. I’m guessing that these are at heart inseparable in the end for Vigano as well.
It seems the despair of the Orthosphere is that the idea of Christianity being so immanent as to be inseparable from things so human as actual institutions or human hierarchies can’t be true in an exclusive sense. Just look at the mess around us, and there’s the proof it isn’t true. The Catholic Church isn’t true or it wouldn’t look so ugly to us. And it seems that what is lashed out at here is precisely that immanence, what makes Christianity Catholic. Christianity here must be disembodied, much safer and less assailable I guess. This seems indeed to be a despair – a horror that there’s at least a certain corner of reality where Christ the King holds no reign.
*Yes I do recall you are not fond of the name or the perhaps even the idea of a principle common to all the collaborators. It does seem clear to me there is a common principle as I try to make clear above.
I don’t mean to lash out at immanence as such. I believe grace is mediated by sacraments, or at least sacramentals. The hazard of a sacramental
I don’t mean to lash out at immanence, since I believe that grace is mediated by sacraments. But sacramentalism has the danger of an inherent tendency to superstition and idolatry, in which the immanent medium is revered above the grace it mediates. Protestant critics overstate this problem, but they are not altogether wrong about it. Nor are they altogether innocent of it themselves. They become very attached to certain verbal formulas of piety, for instance, and this is just as idolatrous as an attachment to statues or icons.
I think I appreciate the danger of overreacting to the danger of idolatry, and of consequently falling into a formless and purely spiritual religion. You are probably right that Orthosphere writers incline in that direction, but the inclination is more personal than philosophical. I’m no expert on Vatican II, but my understanding is that it set out to clear the church of outdated forms, but that it failed to replace those forms with new vehicles of grace. I think your charge about ugliness is not altogether fair, since we would all be Episcopalians if we were just aesthetes. But I also think your charge about ugliness is not altogether wrong. There is a kind of outward ugliness that suggest, at least to me, an inward ugliness.
One can be in schism from the true church and not from an heretical ape church . Time
to elect an alternative Orthodox pope of Rome
Or it’s time for the heretical Roman branch to return to Orthodoxy.
See my answer to Buckinky, which benefited from brooding over your comment as I drove to work.
No Christ’s Church doesn’t teach marital sodomy (contraception) and adultery (divorce with up to two additional marriages).
The “electoral fraud” comment undermines his argument.
Fraud may not be the right word, since it focuses attention on the fraudulent ballots. These certainly existed, but it turns out they were not needed because the election was not that close. What the Archbishop is alluding to, however, is the way in which the “deep state” and media “swung” the election with fraudulent investigations, fraudulent reporting, and emergency voting procedures that favored the candidate they favored. The big tech platforms also “interfered” with the election in ways that would have made Democrats scream if such interference had come from Energy sector or defense contractors.
It’s your blog sir.
Whatever good this place served is quickly ceasing, ozymandias. I hope the cautionary tale is instructive and encouraging.
It seems thre orthodphere is nothing more than a group of complainers, intellectualizing their dislikes of the world without the power of making any meaningful change in the world. They are academicians who forfeited their control of their sphere of influence to the Woke. And now they present themselves as victims. Meanwhile the woke present themselves as victims of the white patriarchy. Can’t you all see that you both are opposite sides of the same coin?
So what? What would you have us do, lay down our rhetorical arms and “agree” that the insane, incoherent, evil notions of the woke are true, when any honest fool can see that they are insane, incoherent, and evil? No way.
We are indeed two sides of a single coin: one is evil and wrong, the other righteous and correct. We think we are the latter. Give us an argument that demonstrates otherwise. Otherwise, we’ll all know you are just waving your hands in a fatuous indifferentist nominalist appeal to the middle, of the well intentioned sort that always leads to Hell.
Or worse, that you only pretend to the nonexistent Middle Way, but are in fact an agent of the sinister path. You do not, forsooth, honestly believe that the woke are correct, do you? Egad.
In my opinion neither you nor the woke are correct.
Well, at least you don’t think the woke are correct. There’s hope for you.
But do, please, give us an argument that demonstrates how we are wrong. Otherwise, it will appear to everyone that you are no more than a shill for a vacuous middle ground, that cannot bear to utter any commitments one way or another – and that, therefore, opens the way to the prevalence of the woke madness.
Not to commit is to commit to madness.
I don’t think complaint is the dominant theme of the Orthosphere. Much of what we post attempts to interpret the world. Some, such as my recent video, celebrates the beauty of the earth and the mystery of existence. The post to which this comment is appended is only a set of parallel passages. We are all in some sense reactionary, but reactionary rants are far less numerous on this site than discussions of philosophy, books, words, historical events, etc.
You are quite correct to say that we lack “the power of making any meaningful change in the world.” We are obscure and unimportant men who mostly dissent from the views of those who possess “the power of making any meaningful change in the world,” and we dare to publish our dissent on an obscure and unimportant website to amuse and encourage people like ourselves.
I’ve read most everything posted on this site for the past six or seven years and cannot think of any real complaints of victimhood. My report of my ordeal over my Matthew Gaines post may come closest, but even that did not have much “poor, poor pitiful me” in it. I happen to know that all of my collaborators have born professional slights and disappointments with fortitude and in silence. I don’t think any of us believe that in a world of social justice the Orthosphere would have one hundred million views a day and all its contributors would have endowed chairs at Harvard.
There is some complaint on this site, but there is also a great deal of contentment. We are all men who could complain that an unjust world as relegated us to writing at an obscure and unimportant website, but instead we are all men who are mostly content to do just that. I like to think this is Christian humility. If God had wanted us to write articles for the New York Times, that is what we would be doing. As it is, he apparently doesn’t.
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