Catholic during the Great Apostasy

I witnessed a discussion. 
An eighteen-year-old boy was opposing the entire gender ideology and the pandemic narrative. The specific arguments are not the main point here. He was debating with a forty-six-year-old man who claimed that all these parades, pride months — they are a very good thing, and everything said about the pandemic is true. 
We are currently dealing with a clear division in society: those who blindly believe the media and those who try to think for themselves. 
However, the conclusion of this discussion struck me deeply. It didn’t surprise me, perhaps, but it hit hard. The older man, as his ultimate argument, brought up something truly grotesque: he told the young man that he was talking nonsense because he himself reads different things on Facebook — and he believes that if he reads it there, it must be true.

The greatest absurdity is that I very often hear from people of this man’s age and older that young people spend too much time on social media, that they read nonsense there, frivolous things detached from reality. But when it comes to supporting their own — often false — arguments, suddenly those same social media platforms are perfectly fine.

Unfortunately, this is how things look today. 
A good example is the attitude toward various left-wing media, which are ruthlessly condemned by right-wing commentators. But if those same left-wing media — let’s say, in the past — praised Karol Wojtyła, John Paul II, then suddenly it was okay.

No one asked themselves why they were doing it. Could it be that their narrative was just as false as most of their messages? No, because that information fit our narrative.

This is grotesque. It’s a pure parody of thinking.

We observe such things literally in every aspect of life today. 
When it comes to matters of faith, it’s exactly the same. I once came across a discussion about the revelations of Faustina Kowalska, conducted by people associated with the Society of St. Pius X. The ultimate argument that ended the entire conversation was: “The image described by Faustina hangs in the Society’s chapel.”

I didn’t quite understand why this was supposed to definitively settle anything — though today I know why, for some, this is a decisive argument.

https://timeofapostasy.blog/2023/08/15/donate/

People rely on the judgments of others, and the worst part is that believers do not rely on what our Lord, Jesus Christ, has passed down to us — the Gospel, the Revelation — but on the opinions of other people.

That becomes their ultimate argument.

By quoting the Gospel itself, you can be accused of contradicting the words of some priest, bishop, or other person. 
This is no longer just grotesque — it’s a comedic vision of the world, a parody of thinking. You could say it’s funny, but in reality, it makes you want to cry. 
We have become like Pilate — we sentence the truth to death. 
For us, truth is no longer what it truly is. It depends on our views, our position, the opinions of others. It is not tied to real and objective facts. 
A lie can be the truth — it’s enough that it suits our way of thinking or our actions. And then we accept that lie as truth because it’s simply convenient for us. 
Very often, we blame others. It’s someone else’s fault that they lie, that they act wrongly, that they pass bad laws, that they introduce evil.

But shouldn’t we consider whether all of this doesn’t simply stem from the fact that someone says what we want to hear? That they do what we ourselves expect?

We have rejected God — in our hearts, in our souls — and we pretend to fight a system that is undeniably evil. But we still support it.

Who keeps voting for the same people?

Who supports this modernist construct that has nothing to do with the Catholic faith?

The same people who condemn it with their words.

Because in their souls, there is no longer God.

The problem is not communists, globalists, or modernists. The problem is people whose souls are dark and poisoned by lies.

There is one matter that no one wants to talk about openly. 
These new “laws” we often fight against are not mandatory laws. 
What does the so-called right to abortion really give us? What does this law say? It’s something very wrong, but does it mandate performing an abortion? No.

Of course, there are cases where someone is pressured or encouraged to do it, but abortion is not a mandate; no one faces punishment for not performing an abortion. 
Catholics, people with clean consciences, should not be affected by it. Yes, they should fight against it, for example, by persuading non-believers, but since the law does not force abortion, in many cases, it can simply be considered a dead letter.

We often don’t see this, or we don’t want to see it.

A law that is not mandatory, even if it’s completely evil, should not affect our lives, yet it does.

Why?

Because the worst thing is not the system itself, but the way people think — or rather, their lack of thinking. This includes the so-called Catholics.

A mother explains to her teenage daughter that she should be careful, not walk alone, because there are many Ukrainians and other immigrants on the streets. She worries about her child, which is normal behavior. 
But during this conversation, she hears a statement from a certain politician who wants to stop this influx. 
What happens? A conditioned response kicks in — full of hatred, almost a scream: “Idiot!” 
The daughter, who still knows how to think, looks at her with pity, but soon the conditioned responses to stimuli will take hold, and she, too, will become the same.

Everyone has probably heard of Pavlov’s experiment.

Pavlov’s Dogs:
Neutral stimulus: bell → no reaction 
Unconditioned stimulus: food → salivation 
Repetition: bell + food 
Result: bell → salivation

A person in political conditioning:
Neutral stimulus: politician’s name / migration topic → no reaction 
Unconditioned stimulus: anger / contempt stirred by media or group 
Repetition: name / topic + negative message 
Result: name / topic → automatic outburst of emotion (“Idiot!”)

The reaction is not the result of logical thinking but a learned reflex — exactly like Pavlov’s dogs.

I don’t mean to offend anyone with this, but this is the scientific explanation.

This is not only visible among people with left-wing views. They often react with baseless aggression because they lack a reference to higher moral and social values. 
Their entire ideology is based on human ideas tinged with lies and a complete lack of logic.

The right, whose social and ideological conditioning is based on values rooted in God, often responds to constructive criticism with silence — which is no better — and anonymous reports to the system, which blocks such people.

Can you imagine a leftist reading Catholic teachings and looking for a fragment that could be labeled as hate speech?

No — that’s not very realistic. It’s their own people who report it, regardless of which side of the barricade they’re on. That’s where the greatest censorship lies.

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No system can defeat people who love God and have pure souls. 
It’s only people themselves who cause the system to win. 
They don’t want to accept the truth; they reject facts for some human ideology and ruthlessly fight against it.

Anyone who rejects the truth rejects God — and it doesn’t matter how many times a day they’re in church.

God and Truth are an inseparable unity.

One more element can be added — logic.

A lack of logic is the same as a lack of truth. It’s impossible for God, who is perfect, to act contrary to logic.

It’s illogical for God to contradict Himself. That’s why it’s said that if you have even a shadow of doubt that something comes from God — reject it. 
The problem is that people consider the teachings of some human as Catholic teachings while rejecting the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ because they don’t suit their sins.

Is the statement that we live in a matrix true?

Certainly, yes. But the greatest matrix is in our minds, and we become like those dogs.

And that is the truth because what is a person whose soul does not dwell with God, if not an animal? And even that’s not accurate — because animals care for their offspring, while humans kill, calling it by a substitute word: abortion.

St. Bishop Pelczar, calling people who don’t pray “beasts,” didn’t realize that a human could fall even lower — and that insults those animals.

Arkadiusz Niewolski