Every now and then, a book, an article, or an interview perfectly sums up the current age and calls men to the appropriate action.  Usually one can find a decent summary or our times, but perhaps the author does not call for the appropriate response, or even a response at all.  Sometimes the author lacks the authority or respect to garner sufficient movement in his call to action.  In Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic, Austin Ruse sufficiently snapshots Western Civilization’s present state and offers practical action items that we can all do.

Who is Austin Ruse?  Ruse began fighting bad guys in the UN in 2000.  He has done countless radio programs, written for Breitbart, and is a columnist for Crisis Magazine.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, he runs a hate group… that should tell you everything.  

Under Siege reads like a book written over a period of years leading up to and through the demise of our culture.  While there are a few mentions of Covid, it could have been released two years ago and would have the same effect upon the sincere Church Militant.  In fact, because of the work Ruse has done, especially within the UN, he is able to expose the darkness better than the vast majority of us ever could.  And as a man who has devoted decades to fighting the beast so closely in this darkness, his wisdom and veteran-ship must be respected.

He starts by describing the darkness, which is really a collection of phenomena that have invaded our culture for about the last twenty years.    Most people believe that they know just how bad things are.  They don’t.  Ruse breaks down the biggest weapons that have torn apart our culture as follows:

1. The hijacked rainbow group.  Fifteen years ago, warning people about where the “equal rights” slippery slope would lead was met with charges against one’s mental health.  It was only seven years ago that Facebook first allowed for 55 different gender entries upon creating a profile, and the vast majority laughed at the ridiculousness.  Just a few years ago, Bruce Jenner was a man who hit a pedestrian with his car and consequently earned jokes about his transition to become a “woman”.  “Isn’t he a bad enough driver already?!”, the late night hosts (in virtual unison) howled.  Weeks later “Caitlin” Jenner was the most celebrated person in America.  As we have witnessed over the last few Junes now, America is no longer supposed to tolerate those who have adopted the rainbow as their symbol.  Celebrate them, or be punished.  That was a quick!

2. Abortion.  Perhaps one issue our bishops have actually been consistently clear on is the intrinsic evil of abortion, though recent debates about Joe Biden’s worthiness for communion are casting doubt onto that.  The skinny is this: even pro-abort politicians used to defend abortion by claiming a desire for it to be “safe, legal, and rare”.  Fast forward to 2019, and the same politicians celebrated aborting babies to the moment of birth in New York.  Why are we in such peril? Because every nation that has tolerated Moloch worship for 50 years has eventually paid the piper.

3. Pornography.  Thank God people are becoming more willing to talk about this epidemic.  Personally, I have watched kids transition from slider cell phones to personal pocket computers with high speed internet over the last 13 years.  I used to alert parents of the diminishing standards we were holding Gen Z to, their lack of repect for authority, out of touchness with reality, and their desensitization.  I would tell parents, “They’re watching porn. Hardcore porn.  Lots of it.  Our next generation of adults will have spent their entire youth addicted to a hard-core drug”.  The typical response, “My Johnny isn’t into that.  We watch his activity very closely.  He thinks girls have cooties.” Or “Pffftt… this is nothing new, Playboy magazine has been around since the 50’s”.  Yikes.  This past year should be a wake-up call for what happens when you pretend away what should be the obvious.  How desensitized were the kids rioting in the streets this past summer?  Some have answered the wake-up call and have made great efforts to take control of the demons that may get inside their homes, phones, movies, or what-have-you since the scamdemic.  It has truly helped so many re-evaluate the lives and habits of their families.  But sadly, others have demonstrated their lack of resistance or willingness to get off the NWO train as evidenced by their belief that putting their kid in online school was the safest option for them this past year.  Online school.  At home.  Alone.  With high speed internet and a minimal school workload.  The best you can hope for is hours of Minecraft.  Good luck.

Where did all of this darkness come from?  Ruse argues that, at first glance, it seems to have come from the slow takeover by “secularists” in our country since God was kicked out of schools and subsequent “secularist” favoring decisions kept coming out of the Supreme Court.  But the zealous agents of the darkness aren’t really secularists.  They are instead followers of a new religion; the New State Religion.

A couple of weeks ago I witnessed this first hand when I watched an Atheist, wearing a jacket proclaiming him to be Atheist aggressively attempt to evangelize to a couple of young pro-lifers outside of an abortion clinic.  At least he attempted to be civil, unlike many his fellow worshipers of the New State Religion.  People would not aggressively dox and cancel others with a righteous indignation if they were simply “secularits”.  Mobs don’t physically threaten Rand Paul, author of legislation that would have fought no-knock warrants, while mindlessly yelling, “say her name!” if they just wanted less God in our politics.  The new religion is the one that celebrates all the darkness mentioned above and fights for it with religious fervor.  Who does Ruse say are the priests of this new religion?  “Anyone who wears a robe: judges and justices, academics, and scientists” (Ruse, 49).  Just look at last year as the Supreme Court recognized gender identity as protected under the Civil Rights act,  the effects of academics teaching critical race theory were finally realized, and “the Science” was practically its own religion, complete with cleansing rituals, clerical masks, and the CDC as its Magisterium.  

For many Catholics, this past year has been what it took to finally wake up.  Culture warriors saw this slide in real time because they were fighting the beast up close.  Personally, I am ashamed to admit that I saw most of the things Ruse recounts in this book, but didn’t make the choice to seriously fight until I was totally convinced that the Covid response was a scam.  As things are starting to “feel normal again” (yeah, right), I think this is a good time to remember that fighting Covid restrictions and safeguarding against ANTIFA are only new missions that come from this larger battle we have been called to for years.  Decades.  Our whole lives!  Witnessing how far the enemy has come through the ridiculousness of Covid isn’t the whole picture.  Ruse’s book is a great reminder that fighters have been in the breech defending Western Civilization from all of the subversive mess that has gotten us here.  And even if you are never forced by the state to take the poison jab, the sins of sodomy, child-murder, trafficking , pornography, and the like have always been there as weapons you were supposed to defend against.  Now that you woke up in 2020, re-assessed your priorities, and took your spiritual life to a new level, get into the fight against it all, against evil itself as you have always been called to do as a soldier for Christ.

Ruse recognizes two main things that are still getting in the way of good Catholics answering the call.  1. nostalgia and 2. entertainment.  

When you feel like the world is falling apart, it can be tempting to romanticize about the past.  “The 50’s were a better time.  No wait, the medieval ages were an even better time!  Aaaannnddd… Distributism is the ideal economic system!”  All of these things might actually be true.  I don’t know.  And don't get me wrong, I appreciate nostalgia.  I own a turn-table.  I also enjoy looking at the note left by my Great-Grandfather (widower) to his second wife in my inherited 1962 Missal.  But considering the need to work in the present for a better future for my children, I don’t have time to think excessively about olden days of yore.  I would add to Ruse’s assessment that the Quietists tend toward this kind of inert nostalgia.  

Far more common, I believe, is the Catholic held captive by entertainment.  I invite men to take part in real missions all the time.  ALL… THE… TIME.  And I am happy to live in a community where many men consistently answer the call.  We pray outside of abortion clinics, we volunteer for events at church regularly, we are attending our Legislative District meetings and grilling squishy Republicans.  Some are even running for office as a response to this past year!  But I’m old enough and wise enough to know that the guy who declines every invite, because he “hasn’t got the time” might just be a Binger.  What is a Binger?  Why, it’s someone who binge watches television.  By the way, how did it become socially acceptable to say “I binge watched [insert Netflix show] all weekend!”?  If I was morbidly obese and told you that I binge ate all weekend, or if I was an alcoholic and told you that I binge drank all weekend, I would rightly be judged as an intemperate man with deep issues.  But here we are, the world sucks, many know it, and because they “can’t do anything about it!”, they choose escapism.  Ironically, many choose to escape into entertainment designed to keep them on the sofa while simultaneously making them unhappy (looking at you boomer binging Fox News on the big screen with the volume blaring).

Alright enough smack talk.  There is darkness.  There are Catholics who need to act.  And if you are wondering if I would change my tune and encourage you to binge my content if I actually produced enough of it, my answer is “no”.  And I can tell you that Austin Ruse doesn’t want you to sit around and read every article in Crisis magazine and read every article on Life Site News and every article on Church Militant and listen to every Taylor Marshall podcast etc…  There are too many real nameable things to do.

Not all of us are called to fight within the UN.  In fact, not all of us are even called to be on the front lines in our own community “storming the snipers nest”, as Ruse puts it.  But some of us are.  Some of us are called to run for school board.  Some of us are called to run for City Council.  Some of us may be called to volunteer as Catechetical teachers at our parishes.  Some of us are even called to take the torch from our ever aging bulldog sidewalk counselors at the abortion clinics.  Because if you don’t take one of these posts, some dope will.

But for those of us called to something different, there are other posts that must be held.  Now is the time to show the flag.  At least turn off the TV and get to the gym with your conservative protest shirt or your Miraculous medal, St. Benedict Medal, or crucifix proudly showing.  Strike up a conversation and let the others who think like you know that they are not alone.  Invite them to groups of fellowship where they can grow in solidarity with you and other conservative Catholics looking to make today and tomorrow better for ourselves and for our children.  Make it a priority to support the businesses of true Patriots.  Show the flag.  Show the cross.

Finally, you may not even feel like you can do that much, but perhaps there is another thing you can do that no one else can.  Do you have money?  Do you actually believe Christ was serious when he told the rich man to sell all he had and give it to the poor?  That it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle?  If you have talked even slightly apocalyptically about these times and you are well off, then what money have you to miss if the world ends soon?  Give a few thousand dollars to the old ladies club fighting human trafficking, the women’s care center, or the college Republicans who get harassed constantly at your nearby university.  Ruse suggests taking it a step further.  Donate a few hundred dollars to that club and show up at one of their meetings to thank them for what they are doing.  If you are afraid of today’s cancel culture and believe you cannot fight on the front lines, that’s understandable.  But if you have other means to help your fellow soldiers, but you choose instead to spend all of your time and money on a never ending wish list of guns, then you are a hallow man.  

I have said it over and over again this past year; bad times have come ,they are going to keep coming, but if you open yourself wide to the grace that will come along with it, then this is ripe time for sainthood.  In April 2020, I sat down with a great mentor of mine and lamented about how horrible things are and how disastrous things are going to turn out.  When he laughed and said, “You couldn’t be more wrong, these are the best of times!”, I thought he was crazy.  Hundreds of rosaries, a deeper bond with dozens of pious and fervent Catholics, many security gates watched, several Jericho marches walked, countless thumbs (and middle fingers) up at the abortion clinics, and a few active political recruits later, and now I fully understand.  For those of you who have not “gotten off the bus” yet, you don’t know what you’re missing!  

This book spoke that message clearly.  It related to the experience I have had personally in watching the crumble and now spending real time and effort attempting to prevent further cracks and to piece together any broken pieces that I can.  Read this book to get a taste.  Because Austin Ruse is right, there is “No finer time to be a faithful Catholic”!

God bless,

Gadfly