Make Satan Illegal Again

Earlier this year, I gave a talk on the doctrine of the Kingship of Christ, going through the work of Pope Pius XI, specifically referring to Quas Primas, wherein he explains what the Social Reign of Christ the King would look like. As part of the talk, I pulled from other pre-conciliar popes and writers to hammer home how severely the Church had dealt with Liberalism and its offshoots before we found ourselves in the New Springtime.

A friend of mine remarked to me after the talk, “So, basically a Catholic Caliphate?”

Of course, the comment was offered in jest, and we both laughed. But, I replied, “Well, sort of!”

In our modern era, we have become so completely imbued with Liberalism that any talk of restricting “liberties,” especially “the right to free speech,” is seen as something that would only be acceptable in a backward Muslim country where women can’t legally drive and the government is repressive. 

This is the modern world, and we love our “freedom,” which we are told we have because our ancestors died for it; and anyone who attacks our “values” is an enemy of it. Naturally, the majority of us could not define what freedom we have as a result of their deaths that we would not otherwise have. And, we aren’t really sure what we are free from, or free for. All we know is that we are free because we can vote, and we “govern ourselves,” and there is a “separation of Church and state,” and we have the right to say whatever we want!

Free speech, free love, free enterprise, free press, free consciences, free expression, and buy one get one free Dr Pepper at the gas station.

Despite all this freedom, which is sacrosanct in our various constitutional documents, we can’t seem to get the whole freedom thing right. We still deal with censorship, and sometimes we even have to go to the Supreme Court because our freedom not to bake a cake is trumped by the freedom of degenerates to make us bake the cake because they are free to love whom they love and deserve a cake that celebrates their freedom! 

Now, while the whole freedom paradigm isn’t always ideal, we can rest assured that if we are armed, we can protect our freedom because our guns make us free. However, with all our guns and all our slogans, we still aren’t happy with how free we actually are.

Sometimes our governments trample on our right to free speech by censoring our words, either directly or through tech companies. Sometimes we want to go to church but we aren’t free to do so because it is cold and flu season. Sometimes, our greatest advocates for the sacrosanct freedoms enshrined in our documents and in our hearts are gunned down by those who don’t like our definition of freedom.

The point is, the “freedom experiment” has never really guaranteed the liberties we believe we deserve. Yet we keep appealing to that amorphous sense of freedom anyway. Proponents of the modern understanding of freedom—which is really just Liberalism—would tell us that there is a fight between the “freedom people” and the “tyrants,” and that is why it is important that we keep fighting for the rights we deserve. While this is true, in a sense, perhaps these last two or three centuries of undulating battles between the various sides in the debate are demonstrative of the fact that our popular appeal to freedom misses the mark.

Maybe we should heed the numerous warnings of the popes who saw the modern of modern freedom as nothing other than Liberalism, which would ultimately be destructive and untenable for the common welfare.

Pope Gregory XVI, in Mirari Vos (1832), strongly denounces “immoderate freedom of opinion” and “license of free speech” as a “pestilence” leading to societal ruin; and he condemns “that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever” as spreading corruption and error. He argues that such liberty propels human nature toward evil when restraints of truth are removed. 

Pope Pius IX, in Quanta Cura (1864), condemns the notion that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right” and that citizens have “absolute liberty” to manifest any ideas publicly “by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way,” without interference from ecclesiastical or civil authority. He calls this notion, following Gregory XVI, “insanity.” Simply put, these popes view things like freedom of the press, freedom of expression, etc., as understood in our modern sense, as forms of madness. If they could watch news programs wherein hosts keep appealing to “free speech” or “freedom of religion,” they would have to conclude that the pundits had gone insane because they demonstrate the marks of insanity.

Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885), rejects the “civil liberty of every form of worship” and the “full power given to all of openly and publicly manifesting whatsoever opinions and thoughts,” stating it leads to “corruption of the minds and morals of the people” and the “plague of religious indifference.” In Libertas Praestantissimum (1888), he builds on Immortale Dei by condemning “modern liberties” like unrestricted freedom of thought and publication as “vitiated” fruits of disorder, enabling the “perversion or abandonment” of sacred duties and the exchange of truth for error under the guise of freedom. 

These represent but a small selection of the writings of popes spanning over many centuries. So, were these popes wrong? Is it Modern Man who has figured it out? Should we cast aside their wisdom and embrace the modern sense of liberty that has left us so free that we have to keep fighting to stay free?

The murder of Charlie Kirk should be enough proof to us, along with how the Covid regimes acted, that the Left couldn’t care less about freedom. They have never embraced the notion of a free press, free speech, or freedom of religion. They love censorship, they love their own version of blasphemy laws, and they have their own forms of excommunication and indexes of forbidden books. They do this because they are inspired by Satan, and Satan knows how to run a political movement. 

The devil isn’t as naive as we are, so he knows that “freedom” never works out like we hope it will. He knows that if we are to have a society made in his image, we have to suppress people who say and print the good things and use the power of the law to protect the people who say and print the bad things. He also knows that when conservatives uphold the modern sense of liberty, which includes the freedom for Satan’s minions to spread their spiritual and intellectual disease, he still wins because, as the popes have told us, the freedom to say and print whatever you want will undoubtedly corrupt the populace.

So, what should we do? Should we double down on our appeals to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc.? Or, should we try something new?

I think we should learn from the popes, and, ironically, the Left, who both understand that there must be blasphemy laws, indexes, and criminal penalties for those who spread evil ideas. 

Some may recoil at that assertion, but it isn’t as “extreme” as we think it is. I don’t think any reasonable person would object to parents storming school board meetings and demanding that teachers not teach their children things like Critical Race Theory or Gender Theory. Only a malevolent idiot would appeal to “free speech” to defend a teacher’s right to teach children vile and wicked things. Well, why don’t we stretch that common-sense approach to restricting what can be said to children in school, and apply it to what can be said to everyone in public institutions and in the press?

I think we should shut down schools that corrupt children, and we should excommunicate the perverts who do the corrupting from public life. I also think we should shut down CNN and MSNBC, and we should throw those who lie to the public in prison. We should shut down the vast majority of universities and colleges because they are dens of iniquity and blasphemy. We should restrict false religions from demonstrating their heresies and perfidy publicly.

Before we can dream of things like making America great or healthy again, we should cancel Satan—and all his works. We should Make Satan Illegal Again.