The Catholic state

A few days ago Paul Thompson poasted at Anxious Bench a tantrum: on the topic of race, hierarchy-construction, and Christianity. I find difficult to describe this article in any other sense. Little argument was made; we do get some definitions, but only at the end at which point it simply isn't earned. Meanwhile a Christian, Eric Aaron Castro, has offered the classic Habsburg view of hierachy-construction. This one, also a bit screedy, does offer its own definitions up front.

"This is the time of the blog that we juxtapose", as Small Dead Animals used to say. I don't believe that the two articles were aware of each other.

To link the two, race has existed since the old folk of Neander Valley. Families are good; extended families inevitable. But. The Catholic argues by Divine writ - preceding Paul - that race ceases to exist in heaven, which is glimpsed at the Altar of Christ. Likewise the Catholic argues from Queen Isabella's decision against Columbus that race does not exist in her court, either. The Admiral of her fleet enjoys the same rank as the cacique of an Haitian village, and likewise the meanest sailor and the dirtiest villager under each.

"Nationalism" from this perspective is an abomination. Nahuatl (say) can be the voice of sermons and hymns; but the celebrant priest speaks (more-usually, sings) Latin to God, be he a Tlaxcaltec or a Castilian. We can argue over whether we should be using New Testament Greek or Jesus' dialect of Aramaic, or Imperial Persian, rather than Latin. Doesn't matter. It's not like the Basques are any of the above either. Latin is nothing more or less than some link to a shared transnational culture. Gotta choose something.

We are not here to argue for or against the Catholic conception of a transnational and dyothelete Church and State in harmony. This blog has handled that ad, as they say, nauseam. We are here to argue for whether, from a Western Christian perspective, Thompson offers a rational counter. I don't think he is.

Thompson is speaking the cant of a rather different Jew than that of the son of Mary when he speaks of "oppression". He slips into critical-race cant when devolving to "discrimination", "racializing", "European colonialism and imperialism", "inequities". Thompson should know what Castro knows about what Empire meant; but Thompson elects not to cite those sources. It is all resentment, for Thompson. Likely affected, for his Anxious Bench base.

Thompson may want a dictatorship of the racialized proletariat. Christians must oppose this... and oppose the Patheos website.