Humankind cannot bear very much reality

I’ve just been watching the video of large numbers of Manchester students, gathering to

spit shout, scream, and intimidate, a small group of their fellow students who have set up a

pro-life group amongst university students there.

The secular and progressive left have always hated any questioning of the abortion rights

and abortion practice in our society, but they seem to be moving from an irrational dislike to

something approaching group psychosis which is expressing itself in an increasing threat of

violence and a deeper and more threatening intimidation.

Watching the rage and video of the anti-pro-life protesters was an experience that I would

rather never have had. I can’t imagine the courage it took for those brave young men and

women to walk through the gauntlet of hatred and intimidation simply to attend the

University meeting to discuss the virtues of caring for pre-born children in the womb.

The threat of Orwellian doublespeak, and a complete public inversion of the truth, is

becoming a concrete reality in our daily experience. The protesters were screaming as one

of their chants “you don’t care if people die.” And yet, that was the very reason that these

brave students have come together, precisely because they were the ones who cared if

people died, and the pro-choice mob had come together only to enforce their will that the

mass destruction of pre-born babies should not only continue, but continue without any

obstruction of any kind.

Mark, Lambert, in one of our conversations, made the point that on one of the pro-life

Marches in London, a habitual activist, who is always there harassing them warned his

fellow activist, not to talk to the pro-life people, because “there’s always the danger they

might change your mind.”

Jordan Peterson has been very helpful in some of his public observations that even of the

level of psychological analysis what seems to be happening is that people have become

possessed by an idea.

It’s no longer the case that people have ideas, it’s become the case that the ideas have

people. Peoples have become controlled by ideas, and suddenly, it’s no longer just the

Gospels and the diocesan exorcists who are talking about possession, but we see a form of

ideological possession, taking place in front of our eyes.

It is a possession that expresses itself in the screaming and shouting of hatred, and visual

condemnation and threat. It’s an ideological possession that expresses itself in a profound

antipathy towards the human conscience, human responsibility, and freedom of speech.

The Manchester, pro-choice protesters set themselves a task of shutting down any student

who didn’t consent to be silent about abortion.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, if those of us, with some experience of ‘life in the Spirit’ draw on

Peterson’s analysis and say this possession is not just a psychological possession, it’s also in

fact a phenomenon rooted in a spiritual reality. We need to both recognise, articulate and

describe the spiritual dimension to what is taking place, otherwise we can’t understand the

depths and the intensity of what’s happening.

We should though be careful of using the word ‘possession’, since technically, demonic

possession, is a very rare event. But what we’re seeing is a degree of widespread and

deepening spiritual oppression. And this force or energy of oppression is extending its

capacity for control to alarming levels as we see in the behaviour of crowds, like the one

that gathered in Manchester recently to threaten the pro-life students.

One of the reasons why Mark, Katherine and I began Catholic Unscripted is because we

were aware of the trajectory, but our society has taken it all in and in it freedom of conscience and freedom of speech are increasingly under threat. We were aware of the increasing intensity of anti-Catholic dislike, which was turning to hatred. We were aware of the increasing lack of confidence in the Catholic community in our country, in the face of a more aggressive, secular, contempt, and, in educational terms, brainwashing. We were aware of the need for a more astute analysis of what is taking place in our culture and the opportunity to reinvigorate and renew the church we love and belong to. Every passing week and month, deepens our commitment to what we think God has called us to do to defend his church and help reinvigorate his people. Every passing week and month shows a greater depth of spiritual antipathy and corruption that seems as it always does to have the Catholic Church in the crosshairs as its first target.

Any of you who have seen the video footage from Manchester will find your own sense of shock and perhaps even anxiety deepened and sharpened.

It’s been the shared conviction between the three of us at Unscripted that the Catholic

Church and Catholic faith is the only real antidote to save a society that was built on

Catholic Christian foundations in the first place.

One of the reasons why we’ve set aside, such a large proportion of our time and our energies

to broadcasting, commenting, writing, and sharing our analysis of what’s going on is

because it’s not just a matter of encouraging Catholics in their faith, it’s also a matter of

safeguarding, our right to think, believe and speak, according to our consciences. With the

analysis comes the antidote of believing in Jesus, the help of his most blessed mother of the

communion of saints.

And more than that, if the Catholic church can find a conviction to speak out in the public

place that until now has been lacking, there are some real possibility of slowing down or

halting this alarming collapse in a societal and civilizational values.

There is nothing in human society, or experience that guarantees either the progress or freedom we cherish.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life and while we don’t believe in

progress as the secularists do, we do believe that God has opened up a way for us to walk

towards him and that is the kind and quality of progress we are committed to; the progress

of the human pilgrimage.

Only Christ guarantees not only the objective truth about our creation, and our salvation,

but he also provides us with a means of finding the courage to speak the truth, as well as

live the truth.

We ought to be haunted by TS Eliot’s reminder, that humankind cannot bear very much

reality. Truth is not a given it has to be fought for.

And Jesus is the Life, not only in terms of being the gift of eternal life, but also in terms of

the quality of life, we are called to and invited to. He promises life in all its fullness. That

become so much more important when we see the quality of life, being sucked out of our

society and out of our neighbours’ hearts and heads, and our neighbours reduced to a kind

of anti-human hollowness and emptiness that begins to blur and distort the image of God

they were given at birth.

We want take the opportunity to invite you to our meeting in London on March 14, so

that we can continue to provide platforms on which we can articulate this vision we share,

and to ask you to share it with us.

If you’re free on March 14 please come and join us. We’ve made it a ticketed event, because

inevitably it costs money to do things, and we have to raise funds in order to achieve what

we believe we’ve been called to do, for the church, for our faith, for our Lord, and for the

truth.

Thank you for all the support you give and for any future support that’s possible. We look

forward very much to meeting you on March 14 at The Rosary Shrine https://rosaryshrine.co.uk/ if you could make it, but if not, on future

occasions like the spring retreat at Stonyhurst in May, and our visit to Chicago in April.

God bless you, and thank you for your support spiritually and practically.

By Gavin Ashenden