In the Light of Truth: Making Sense of the Madness

Letter from the District Superior, Rev. Robert Brucciani, May 2021

My Dear Faithful,

There seems to be alarming escalation of conflict and madness abroad in society today. A frantic zeitgeist of deranged ideologies is accelerating the demise of the Catholic Church and the whole of western civilisation: liberalism, feminism, child-centred learning, free love, gender ideology, reproductive rights, environmentalism, pandemic ideology, critical race theory and others.

These are promoted and then imposed by the pillars of world power: governments, academics, multinational corporations, banks, media and celebrities. Never before have they been so coordinated and unopposed in their efforts. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, once mighty on the world stage as the guardian of both natural and supernatural truth and morality, pathetically repeats their message in pseudo-theological language so as not to be left behind.

How can so many embrace the madness? Where does it come from?

Motives for accepting madness

That the new ideologies of the zeitgeist are mad is easy to see for they contain manifold internal contradictions, and have catastrophic consequences in society when implemented.

Some really do not care whether the zeitgeist is a fair wind or foul, but cynically embrace multiple deranged ideologies for personal gain—as long as following the ideology of the world “is good for me”.

Some just want to get on in the world and so, despite their reservations about its ideologies, capitulate to its demands.

Some, not knowing the love of God, crave the love of the world and so are ready to believe the world. Thinkers among this group will attempt elaborate intellectual gymnastics to make sense of the ideologies, but failing to reconcile contradictory propositions, will accept them on faith because they want the world to accept them.

Finally, there are those who would bring the whole world into servitude to themselves. These are the ones that propose and impose deranged ideologies in defiance of, and with a will to break, the established order. When challenged on the irreconcilable nature of their deranged ideologies, they are wont to lie freely and proclaim fiercely “It’s my truth!” and then set about destroying all opposition.

This last group are unlike the others, for they do not accept the madness, but are actually mad. It is in their retort, “It’s my truth” that we have our evidence of this, and an explanation of the zeitgeist.

It’s my truth

To explain, the only being that can say “It’s my truth” as a claim of dominion over the truth is God. “God owns the truth” one might say.

Just as a carpenter might look closely at his work and say with satisfaction “This door is true,” because it conforms perfectly to the plan, God may look at one of His creatures and say “This creature is true” because it conforms to His plan. As the Creator of all beings, God is the author of all truth because He is the author of the plan against which every creature is measured. We call this truth in a thing, ontological truth: the conformity of a being to the Divine plan.

Now, as intellectual creatures, we cannot be authors of truth, but we can be enlightened by the truth. This happens when the intellect is sufficiently informed by an object under consideration, or when the intellect conforms itself to its object. We call this truth logical truth. In philosophy, logical truth is defined as “the conformity of the intellect to a thing understood (adequatio intellectus cum re intellecta).”

It is this truth that we need if we are to arrive at our natural and supernatural perfection. We must know God and know all things in relation to God. Natural truths are possessed by simple apprehension, judgement or reasoning of information received through the senses. Supernatural truths are possessed by the supernatural virtue of faith applied to Divine Revelation contained in Scripture and Tradition and taught to us by the Church.

The nature of madness

The irony for those who claim dominion over truth is that, in claiming a divine prerogative for themselves, instead of becoming masters of the universe as they would wish, they limit themselves to a tightly restrained personal universe, cut off from every other creature. In seeking freedom from God, they enter into a prison of their own making and throw away the key. They fall squarely into G.K. Chesterton’s characteristically pithy definition of a madman: “A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason” (Orthodoxy). They renounce all external reference points; they have no sense of proportion because there are no models to compare things to (which also explains why they have no sense of humour); they have no point of departure upon which all can agree, no common foundation upon which one can construct a universal edifice of understanding.

As such, their refusal to accept the order of reality—the order of truth—is simply an echo of that cry of Lucifer at the dawn of time: “non serviam!”. They might as well have cried “I will not accept Your universe, Your reality, Your truth, but will fashion one for myself!” With Lucifer, they reject the datum, the anchor in reality, and find themselves alone, refusing to accept that there is an ultimate reference for all things, a measure of all things outside of themselves by which a thing is objectively true or false, good or bad.

They sow the zeitgeist, and they reap a whirlwind of evil.

The remedy

There is only way that such poor isolated and deceived souls may be helped. Appealing to damaged reason to restore reason will not work: they can only be helped by supernatural grace.

The same is true for the other groups: the slaves of pleasure, the slaves of fear, and those who want so desperately to be loved by the world. They all need the supernatural theological and moral virtues to return to the sanity of Truth and the security of Goodness.

By human calculation, the madness we presently witness will escalate until the Church is destroyed and human society passes through tyranny to become hell on earth. By Divine calculation, however, the victory is already won over sin and hell. They killed the Author of Life and Truth, and unwittingly worked the salvation of many. They attempt to kill Him again and again and are simply setting the stage for His return in glory God-willing, into their own souls first before they die, then at the Last Judgement.

Our part in the remedy

This inevitability of victory, however, does not mean that we can throw up our hands and leave everything to God, for we are called to be His instruments of the supernatural grace that will save their souls. Our future actions, although they be free, are already woven into the Providential plan of the universe. We must be true to the Divine plan. Not only must we pray for all those who sow and follow the zeitgeist, we must become to them as the Apostles at Pentecost were to the Jews and the gentiles.

Our lives must become like the Paschal candle we have seen burning over the last few weeks at every Mass. We must be a light to world, the light of good works, an evening sacrifice of praise, a glowing fire in God’s honour, a fire which may into many flames be divided yet never be dimmed by sharing its light.

We are facing a battle, my dear faithful. In Ireland, the erstwhile Isle of Saints, public Mass remains forbidden, and hearing confession is now a criminal offence. Those who claim dominion over truth would have us accept their lies and join them in their personal prisons of madness.

But we have the Blessed Virgin Mary as our mother, and her month of May is upon us! We have every reason to deepen our devotion to her by praying the family rosary and reciting her Litany of Loreto. How can we fear when she is there to hold out He Who is the Truth, not my truth, but The Truth, and the Way, and the Life? The month of June is also near: a perfect time to bring that light of Truth into our homes by the consecration of our families to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In Jesu et Maria,

Rev. Robert Brucciani

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