Has anyone read The Benedict Option by lady killer and official Veeky Forumsboi Rod Dreher? Is it good?

I wonder at that, as a Catholic myself.

Obviously our first duty is to the Church. Or, not the Church, but to Christ, and our duty therefore is naturally to the Church, insofar as the Church is the expression of Christ's will. We must obey the Church, and therefore obey Christ, to the utmost degree, even if that means disobeying the civil authorities.

But is the Benedict Option our preferred political path? I almost wonder if it might not be more worthwhile to try infiltration and subordination, at least at first. The Supreme Court is already packed with Catholics to a large degree. It might be worthwhile to try and subvert the secular government into one that more closely aligns with the Church's teachings. And of course this would all be done through legal means, without violence or corruption.

And THEN if that doesn't work, the Benedict Option becomes more attractive. But I don't believe we should give up at the political level without a fight.

Lol, good luck with that one. Get all the Catholics in government that you want. They won't follow the Church's teachings and no one in the clergy will give a fuck about it. Catholicism has been dead since Vatican II.

To the average dude religion seems like this fanatical, marginal thing. But we're not talking about religion, we're talking about Catholicism. Or rather we're talking about religion in as much as Catholicism is 'a religion,' not in as much is Catholicism is convertible or relatable with other religions.
In reality Catholicism is the core of human existence. Not just of the west but of the entire human project. All philosophy, all theory, all science, all history, all art, for all its worth, is dead without the Church. Because the end of philosophy isn't to know the truth per se, but to attain to salvation through the truth.
So, it's one thing to know, but it's another thing to follow knowledge all the way to its conclusion.
That's what the Catholic church is, an institution constructed around the truth; the universal in the particular, God in man, to do on earth as it is in heaven, by the authority of saint peter and by the power of the binding and loosing of the keys of heaven bestowed to him by Christ himself in whatever fashion.
So you want to come here and act like you're seeing some disturbing procession of a strange and esoteric culture full of men in robes chanting things like lost souls drifting in the dark, but really you're just a stunted normie shit who can't even step.

>Catholic
>intellectual circles
Choose none.

Meaning that christians can't shill "muh religious persecution" right now with drumpf in power and the GOP controlling both houses.

Why not? There are 50 states in the US, each with the ability to continue with it alongside already passed laws and mores left from Obama UNTIL and IF Trump actually does something about it.
The Church will do nothing untill it first has a new counter reformation. The gates of the church were opened to evil with the ambiguity and spirit of the V2 and with the attempt at destruction of the Tridentine mass, which was dogmatic, meaning literally given to us by the Holy Spirit. Once the Church starts to do the will of God and puts Christ back at the altar so that he may become the absolute focus of all the believers, only then will the politicians start moving the legislation in the right direciton.

delusional

>In reality Catholicism is the core of human existence.
Only to catholics. And even then, only those who take it seriously.

It's just a reaction to social liberalism.

> insofar as the Church is the expression of Christ's will
Dead wrong.

Pair it with Agamben's upcoming book on end times and Pope Benedict's resignation.

This is a good thread

>Many are called but few are chosen

>Catholic Doctrine
>Out of context quotes

If you read the sermon on the mount in Matthew, you cannot mistake that you cannot commit violence against your fellow man. I am with Tolstoi on this. Jesus is pretty fucking clear.

If read as fiction this looks fantastic

>you cannot commit violence against your fellow man
But Muh Slims...

>you cannot mistake that you cannot commit violence against your fellow man
Of course all Chruch fathers did

That very basic tenants of Christian faith were corrupted right off the bat is a grotesque abomination.

Matthew 5:34-37 is shit upon promptly by the Nicene Creed, and those self-same church fathers.

>That very basic tenants of Christian faith were corrupted right off the bat is a grotesque abomination.
God is clearly an idiot, je cannot establish a Church at all, his son basically died for nothing, since almost nobody untill Tolstoy could even interpret his "clear" meaning.

Don't you think I know that? I am a Catholic. The question is why it appears that way to Catholics and not to atheists or what ever.
I'm telling you this shit because it's true, I know that it isn't going to seem true to you, but that's because you have no clue.
Generally, people think that if want to know something you have to prove it first and then accept it, but the reality is the inverse.
You probably don't even know what I mean when I say 'the core of human existence.' I know that to an atheists for example the core of human existence might appear to be the human psyche or the mechanisms of evolution etc. Hence we organize into civilized states in accordance with our natural tendency to socializing and inventing as a means to maintain homeostasis or for procreation and so on. But that's manifestly not the case, it's how we operate but can you really say that's the core of human existence? No, because the core of human existence must be a human prerogative, not just something that explains how we act, even if it applies to everything we do.
Can you tell me, what you think the core of human existence is if not the Catholic Church? Genuinely curious.