The Heretics of St. Possenti

by Rolf Nelson

  “I did not take liberties with the Book.”

  “You do. The Good Samaritan helped the man with his own money and took him to an inn, not his own house. He helped, but he didn’t put himself or his family at risk. He didn’t give his son’s job to the man. He didn’t take care of him forever, just until he was well enough to continue on. He spent only cash he could afford to pay. He didn’t care for a whole host of enemies, just a single man, from his own pocket. You preach an unreasoned and unreasonable extension of that. First Timothy 5:8 says we must take care of our own first. From the pulpit just now you would ask that we put family behind those who hate us.”

  “They are not all terrorists, you know.”

  “Never said they were, so please do not put words in my mouth I did not speak. Most are basically good people. But the masses of good people are the ocean that the sharks swim in. And you demand we let the ocean flow in without filter or fishermen.”

  “I’m not asking that you support and let in the entire world. That’s absurd! But they are families. Good, hardworking people.”

  “Perhaps you should ask the American Indians about unrestricted immigration of hardworking families of good people. How’d that work out?”

  The small group of parishioners surrounding the two and listening to the exchange stood in near open-mouthed amazement that someone would state, so baldly and self-assuredly, yet quietly and humbly, something so contrary to their priest, yet so self-evidently true.

  Behind Clint an old man stood up a little straighter. “I hate to disagree with you, Father Carlyle. But what this man says sure sounds like what you were preaching today.”

  “That’s not what I said at all!” objected the Reverend Father.

  “Seemed ‘bout right to me. Honestly,’’ said a poorly dressed matron, “if it’s not what you meant to say, you gonna have ta’ rethink the words you use.” She cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable at speaking up against a priest but feeling the strong urge to do so. “It’s not a thing I like to hear, what with my granddaughters being the age they are.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they are safe enough,” said Carlyle.

  The matron’s face stiffened. “Didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Gisel was attacked and almost raped on her way home from school day a’fore yesterday.”

  “Only thing that saved her was being a faster runner than the three who jumped her. They gave up in less than a block,” added the old guy. “They were smokers and lazy.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that. But there are bad apples everywhere, and you don’t know they were–”

  “Yes, I do know,” the matron shot back. “They was arrested and released the same day. Cops said a cute girl like Gisel should walk a different route home or cover up more. Wear sweats or something baggy.”

  “Different cultures have different standards, and it takes time to learn the—”

  “They been here three years. They knew, the bastids.” The matron may have been a God-fearing woman, but now that she had opened her mouth, she was not about to be shut down by some wet-behind-the-ears newly minted priest who was a third her age, and her tone was not what most would consider respectful of place or addressee. “They been followin’ her before. They been arrested before. Nuthin’ they can do, the po-po say.”

  “They always say that,” agreed another man, a broad-shouldered and bull-necked older man who could have been delivered from central casting in response to a request for a Polish steelworker. “Useless parasites. Both of them. Police and FSA foreigners.”

  “Be that as it may,” Carlyle said hastily, unexpectedly facing contradiction in his own church for the first time, “we must do what we can for these impoverished people. We can’t simply turn our backs on people in need–”

  “At what cost?” Clint’s interruption of him was quiet, but intense.

  “It is the Christian thing to do anything you can for them.”

  Clint faced the matron. “And that is why I will not be attending this church, my good woman. He doesn’t support Christians. He supports diversity.” Clint’s tone was gentle, almost sad. “He’s demanding that your granddaughters sacrifice themselves rather than offend the cult of diversity. Your sons must give away their jobs, your daughters must give up their chastity, and you must all give up your culture and bow before the invaders. He’s turned his back on Pope Leo. He’s turned his back on Popes Urban II, John XVI, and more. He preaches not meekness and humility before God, which is good, but weakness and helplessness before the forces of all that is not good and Christian. I had hoped for better. I will continue my search for a Catholic Church that preaches the Bible, not the socialist feel-good of the spineless politician.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand me. That isn’t what I was saying at all!” Carlyle objected. “Stay a while and let us continue this discussion in private.”

  Clint glanced at his watch and looked at the priest and the parishioners. “I have things I need to do… I can be back at 2:30.”

  Father Carlyle started to object about the time but bit back his response—it was a free two-hour stretch he’d planned on golfing—and smiled as friendly a smile as he could before he replied “Certainly. That would be fine. Just fine.” He didn’t know that Clint had checked the priest’s schedule carefully before attending.

  Clint stare searched faced the priest, his expression unreadable. He turned and walked out without another word. After looking back and forth between Clint’s retreating back and the flustered young priest, the matron and the broad-shouldered man hurried after the monk-errant to continue the conversation with the stranger who had summed up their displeasure at recent homilies so well.

  * * *

  Brother Clint, monk-errant, came back at 2:30 sharp. Father Carlyle ushered him into his office—the smallest, as befit the most junior priest at the church—and offered him a seat and coffee or tea and generally tried to be as friendly and hospitable as possible. Clint was nearly silent as he towered over the fussing priest, his size and curt manner flustering the man more than it should a man confident in his faith. Finally, Father Carlyle sat down.

  “So what exactly was it that you objected to, my son?”

  Clint contemplated the question a moment. “Most of it.”

  The priest laughed a nervous laugh. “That sounds like someone looking for an argument, not a believer looking for a church.”

  “I had a long conversation with some of your flock earlier this afternoon. They gave me quite an earful. They appear to object to much of what you have said as well.”

  “I had hoped we could have a more substantive discussion, my son. If you are simply going to object, you are wasting your time.”

  “Not looking for an argument. Looking for someone who speaks truth. Let us go through the specifics of what you said, shall we?”

  Over the next ninety minutes, Clint deconstructed what the priest had said that day, covering the logical connections and underlying passages and principles, generally flaying the homily alive, and tacking the salted skin of it out to dry in the desert sun. Father Carlyle felt more than a little out of his depth and often thought that he was letting his teachers at seminary down rather badly. At every turn where there was disagreement on context, the man before him proved to be right when they looked things up.

  He felt drained and uncertain when he sat back after a particularly humbling discovery on his part. He stared intently at the man in working-class clothes who smiled back at him in a way that was self-confident without being arrogant. Clint let him sit and stare a long time. “Who are you? I mean, who are you really?”

  “The name is Clint. Not long ago, I was called Brother Caelum. Latin for ‘sky’ ’cause I’m so vertically challenged. It was time to leave the abbey and get back out into the world again. Spending my whole life there wasn’t my calling. They gave you your diploma too soon, Father. Time spent arguing in a hardnosed monastery would do you a world of good.”
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  “Ah! I see!” Suddenly, Father Carlyle didn’t feel so bad. He was losing to a professional peer of sorts, not a mere layman.

  “I’m not sure you do. You are losing parishioners rapidly. Evil you will not name you cannot fight. You are trying to walk a squishy, politically correct line that is at odds with the faith.”

  “But times change, former-Brother Clint.”

  “Times change. People don’t. The Word doesn’t. You lose people not because you seem to be weak but because you are weak. They want to support you but see you are not supporting them. You spend their time and wealth where there is no return on the investment.”

  “There is a return! Some of them convert!”

  “Yes. Under one percent. It’s like pouring water in your sinking boat because if you scoop it in fast enough some will splash back out. And they have more children than your faithful, who are taxed to support the invaders. You demand others piss their wealth away as well. You do not see the mathematical incompatibility of open borders and a welfare state.”

  “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”

  “Meek, not weak. Meekness and humility before God and his designs, accepting that which you don’t understand, not passivity in the face of clear and obvious murderous intent. Tremendous difference.”

  “I do not teach weakness.”

  “Can you explain the difference in a way most people could understand?”

  Father Carlyle stumbled around the definitions, trying to clarify and explain a difference of significance, and finding he had a surprisingly difficult time. Clint let him stumble before finally holding up his hand and shaking his head.

  “You cannot expect to attract strong and humble men if you denigrate all that makes them men in the eyes of the women who look to them for protection. A man who is weak and submissive to all that he faces cannot show mercy or protect his own. Mercy requires strength. The good shepherd does not want to seek and hunt the wolf but will use what force is required to protect his flock and family. The wolf fears the good shepherd doing his job correctly every bit as much as the hunter; for the hunter, though deadly, may be distracted by other game.”

  “I watch over my flock very carefully!”

  “Week by week you watch the wolves pick off your flock, one by one. You are not guarding your flock. You preach submission before all things and therefore weakness. Meekness means accepting that which you cannot change or challenge or understand. If you get cancer, you pray, but accept. If you don’t get a job, you accept that rejection notice… and redouble your efforts to find another job. If your nation is invaded, you repel the invader. If you fail a test, you should study harder. Not simply shrug, sit back, and say, ‘Oh, well, God’s will,’ like the sad sack village that does nothing about the Russian minefield put in fifty years before, saying it’s God’s will with a fatalistic shrug.”

  “But that is not the way of the Church. God’s way is love.”

  “Love yes, but love does not mean ‘be a nice doormat at all costs.’ Jesus loved and helped the weak and sick and frail, but not the greedy, lazy, unrepentant sinner. The good parent uses the rod if he has to. The devout soldier kills without hate. There is more than a little smiting in the Good Book.”

  “Martyrdom ensures you will see God’s glory.”

  “If all are martyrs and slaves, who will raise the next generation of believers?”

  “I hardly think that’s a fair assumption.”

  “So the pope did not bless the soldiers halting the invasion at the gates of Vienna in 1683? The Papal States were not present and fighting at Lepanto in 1571, freeing thousands of Christian galley slaves? Catholics missionaries did not walk beside the Conquistadors facing a heathen New World soaked in the blood of human sacrifice and slavery? Inspiration by God didn’t hand Constantine victory at Milvian Bridge in 312 and turn the Roman Empire Christian? Really? All that was done by meek men—in your meaning of the word—turning the other cheek and quietly accepting the evil they faced? Or strong men and confident men humble before a Christian God?”

  “That was a different time.”

  “You keep saying that. Times were different. People are not. Faith is not. If you can change and preach the strength that comes from faith put into action to protect the faithful, I may return. If not… attendance will continue to decline. And you will know the source. It will not be from evil outside these walls.”

  * * *

  Clint walked with Gisel and her grandmother down the street. They made an odd-looking trio: tall biker-looking guy, old woman in threadbare clothes, fashionably dressed high school girl, chatting about goings-on in the church, the neighborhood, and life in general. The dark-haired girl looked up at the tall and—to her young eyes—tough-looking and handsome man walking with them, almost wishing her grandmother wasn’t along. Granny saw the look and knew it well but said nothing, having talked long with the not-so-stranger-anymore two days earlier. They walked the street past the apartment complex with several dark-skinned men hanging out on the stoop, smoking and speaking in Arabic and eying the approaching threesome.

  As they got closer, the four men started laughing and joking when they recognized the girl. Clint apparently paid them no mind as they made to walk past. One of the loitering men stepped out in front of them, much more in front of the girl than Clint. The other three stepped away from the stairs and angled to get more behind them. Clint smiled at the obvious predatory surrounding. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said in heavily accented but understandable Arabic. They stopped, surprised, before all four of them started speaking rapidly at once. Clint held up his hand to wave off their confusing babble. When they paused, he continued.

  “I know some Arabic but cannot understand when you all talk at once.” He looked at one of them closely. “Aleppo?”

  The man off to Clint’s side looked startled and shook his head. “Afrin.”

  “Ah. Close. Thought I recognized the face and accent.” He didn’t explain that he’d also researched the claimed origin of the “refugees” relocated here. Most were Syrian. It was an easy guess. The four watched him warily. A couple more looked on silently from windows. “This girl is under my clan’s protection.”

  The four looked at him, incredulous, before they burst out laughing. “So are all her friends who are Americans. My clan is all the Christian people in this nation.” They laughed even harder. “Are you a leader?” he asked the man who had stepped in front of them.

  The shorter shrugged while he drew on his cigarette and leered at Gisel, who moved slightly behind the calm safety of Clint. “You can call me that,” he said in passable English. He exhaled smoke toward Clint’s face close enough to be offensive, but not quite so close it was an open insult. The taller man ignored it, seeing it for the baiting it was.

  “Good enough. We both know clans protect clan honor…. Your clan is everyone in this building,” Clint said.

  “Not really,” the shorter man replied. “Some are; some aren’t.”

  “If anything happens to her or her friends by anyone in your clan—and I’m telling you that everyone in this building, or any other refugee apartment like it, is part of your clan, now—we will make sure you pay the penalty. You. The clan leader.” He looked right at the man in front of him. “If we cannot be sure who exactly did it… then you will pay a price for your clan’s crime.” Suddenly, the smoking man wasn’t laughing. He understood the idea of clan responsibility all too well; it was what had chased him from Syria. Clint glanced over his shoulder. “And if this man can’t be found, then you three are next on the list. Then anyone else living here. Then the imam of any mosque you attended who preaches violence. I believe you know qanas?” Two of them clearly did know the word sniper and suddenly took a sharp look around. One lunged for cover. He must have been near the receiving end of American snipers in the past. Good to know.

  Clint continued in his imperfect but clear enough Arabic. “I am not alone. My clan does not work alone. My tribe does not w
ork alone. You will not see us. You will not hear us. You represent your clan and will pay the price for any of them transgressing our laws. Act accordingly.” He spoke quietly. The two women with him noted the dramatic effect his words had on the other men. “If all of you are here in peace and obey our laws and customs, fine; we have no quarrel. If any of your clan is here to wield the sword of Islam or spread drugs and crime to our people, you shall reap the gunpowder of America.” For the first time, he spoke with slightly a harder edge. “Make sure the message is passed along. Now if you will excuse us….” Clint waved the two women ahead of him. “Take care. Be sure to keep your eyes open for anything that might be considered criminal activity by locals because the police won’t always be around.”

  Blowback

  To Aid Those in Trouble

  The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, Ch. IV #16 (The Instruments of Good Works)

  Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.

  —Psalm 82:4

  Dwain Smith recovered consciousness in an alley. His new friends, Kidil Hassani and Bashir Azmeh, lay next to him. He groaned and tried to move, but it was hard. His whole body hurt. He tried to remember how he’d gotten here.

  Everyone was pissing on him recently. His EBT card had been stolen, and his mom hadn’t bothered to fill out the paperwork for a replacement. He tried working some, but getting up and getting there were always problems. He’d been fired from the last three places he tried, always within a week. They hated him and never seemed to understand the reasons he was late. His girl was doing some other guy on the side… no, two other guys on the side, and never returned his calls. She never had. The cops always hassled him. His life had been pretty shitty overall. But these two guys seemed to understand him. They knew how The Man was keeping him down and told him how Islam was the future. He could have four wives, and if he died fighting, he was guaranteed all the sex he wanted in the afterlife. It was like a worldwide gang with great fringe benefits and extra spending money, always in cash.