Dividing The Kingdom
“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth,” words of our Lord in today’s Gospel. He made this declaration in answer to an objection that he is casting out demons in the name of the devil. Those who made this ridiculous claim were evidently not thinking straight. It makes no sense. How can anyone fight evil with evil and expect anything good to come of it? To vanquish the kingdom of Satan we must use “good” to fight evil, surely? And yet, how many of us are tempted to fall into this trap of fighting one evil with another?
Ridiculous though it might be when you get right down to thinking about it, so often we simply don’t think about it! We act instinctively, we lose our temper perhaps, and with it, our reason. It’s something we probably do more often than we’d care to think about, but there it is! What’s our reaction, for instance, when another driver cuts us off on the highway? How far do we take that anger we feel? Is it just a passing wave of annoyance that we brush aside with the help of God’s grace? Or do we try to fight the perceived “evil” by escalating the situation—maybe tailgating the other driver with our hand on the horn? Or do we get out of our car at the next red light and pick a fight with him? There are various levels to which we can take our crusade against what we see to be wrong, but none of them are pleasing to God if we react to this wrong with more wrong, fighting evil with more evil. Such a reaction is pleasing only to the devil, who loves nothing more than stirring up trouble, dividing good people against good people. For then it is the Kingdom of God that he succeeds in dividing against itself.
Our Lord warns us against this in today’s Gospel. Any kingdom divided against itself will surely fall.
We see this in our country today, where there is a plain divide between the two major political parties, at least in their public positions. While we cannot in any way claim that the Republicans are the saintly opposites of the evil Democrats, it is nevertheless true that there’s a fight between good and evil taking place in our halls of government. Unfortunately, so many on one side of the aisle seem intent to fight evil with more evil. Any time there’s a problem they come up with a way of fighting it that can make only the devil happy. They see the suffering of the elderly as they fight terminal illness, and what is their solution? Not by caring for them with love and patience, but by euthanizing them. Or they think they see racism in white people? What better way to fight this racism than by practicing racism against white people! Just two examples, but they serve to show how we end up—more divided than ever, unable to reconcile with each other, but plunged instead into an ever-escalating rift between fellow-Americans.
The so-called “Catholic” Church of Rome has lost all sense of her identity by following this same practice. Before Vatican II, Catholics were so very proud of their Church, able to point to her as being “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” These four marks of the Church shone as a bright beacon to the world, beckoning all to the safety of salvation on her shores. But is the Church “one” today? Are we “one with” the local bishop? Are we one with their “pope”? Even within this conciliar Church of theirs, division is becoming every day more pronounced, more open. The bishops of Africa are in open rebellion against Bergoglio’s latest blasphemy of blessing same-sex couples. Conservative bishops like Strickland and Burke who dare to criticize Bergoglio are being publicly humiliated in every way imaginable, even as he promotes the most revolting members of mankind to the highest positions within his church. Are we, are any true Catholics, in union with the evil that is taking place in the name of Christ’s Vicar on earth?
The fact is, our Church is divided like never before, with no central figure around which we can unite ourselves. There are many ways in which Catholics are reacting to this civil war in the Church—some, like us perhaps, withdraw from the battle to practice the true faith and worship in peace and quiet. Others prefer to remain within the apostate Church to fight the evils from within. Personally, I don’t think their way is the right one. It goes completely against what our Lord tells us in today’s Gospel. People like the good Bishop Schneider, Taylor Marshall, Matthew Matt and others, are on a crusade against the evils they know are taking place in their church, and yet their war cry is “We must pray for our beloved Holy Father that he sees the light and converts.” Instead of doing battle against the man who is hell-bent on destroying the Church, they fondly imagine that they can invoke his name to fight the evils that he himself has brought on us. They sincerely want to rid themselves of the devil, but they do so in the name of the very devil they want to get rid of. Let’s see how that works out! Our Lord told us plainly, a kingdom divided against itself will fall. And unless these many thousands of sincere Catholics within the Church finally realize who their true enemy is and fight him as they should, defying him to his face, the Church of Rome is doomed to become the one-world Church of Antichrist that Bergoglio dreams of in his demonic fantasies.
Meanwhile, our job, we must remember, is not just to step aside from the battle and enjoy our peaceful little chapel here, so happily free from division as a Catholic church should be. We must continue our fight against the conciliar Church and especially against the devil who controls it. But we must not fight this evil with evil. Our weapons should not be harsh condemnations or violent disputes, so much as the prayer of our Lady’s Rosary. None of us realize just how powerful this Rosary is. We should make use of it every day, imploring the intercession of the Mother of God in our fight to stave off the total obliteration of our holy Church. Only our Lady’s prayers stand between us and the righteous anger of God. She has held back his hand for now. But unless we few remnant Catholics do our part in the battle, fighting evil with prayer and charity, we should fear the consequences. Christ promised that he would be with his Church until the end of the world. The end of the Church therefore signals the end of Christ’s kingdom here on earth. For at that point, heaven and earth shall pass away and the ultimate division between the sheep and the goats will surely take place.