Radio Derb is on the air.  To get the podcast, follow the instructions at Taki’s Magazine.   The transcript will be archived on my own website Tuesday morning.

In this week’s show I use the story of the statue at St. Louis University to lead off some speculations about where the Roman Catholic Church is headed.

Roman Catholicism used to be a great reactionary force, standing athwart History crying “Stop!” Sure, there were radical elements in the Church, at least from the 1960s on. There was Liberation Theology, there were the Berrigan Brothers, there were John L’Heureux’s fictional priests making bombs in their basement. The hierarchy, though, and the mass of the laity, were conservative down to the 1990s.

Now it seems the radicalism has seeped up and outwards. The Pope told us back in January, for example, that he would like to cross into the U.S.A. from Mexico as, quote, “a beautiful gesture of brotherhood and support for immigrants,” by which he plainly means illegal immigrants. Similarly, we get regular pronouncements from the Vatican calling for more welfare socialism, apparently confusing private charity, which is a Christian virtue, with state policy.

Among the Roman Catholic laity, conservatism has melted away. These were traditionally philoprogenitive populations; but now Catholic countries of Southern Europe have lower fertility than those of the Protestant North.

As Radio Derb reported last week, the first nation to have a male-homosexual First Couple — a male Prime Minister married to another male — is Luxembourg, a Catholic nation. And now here come the Irish, the most Catholic nation of all, cheering on a complete reversal of moral values.

There is some division here between the shepherds and the flock. The Vatican seems not to have been pleased by the Irish result. Here’s a quote from Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, number two to the Pope, quote: “I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.” End quote. The Vatican seems to smile at economic Marxism, but not yet at Cultural Marxism.

As I said, I don’t have a god in this fight. As a traditionalist, though, I like to see traditionalists maintain themselves with their principles intact. The Church of Rome seems not to be doing very well on that score; and that, to echo Cardinal Parolin, is a loss for humanity.

The full Radio Derb playbill:

• How are things in Glocca Morra? (Buggery in the bogs.)
• No god in this fight. (Disclaimer, with nested grammar lesson.)
• Quo vadis? (What’s up with the Roman Church?)
• Another GOP hopeful. (Who might actually be worth voting for.)
• Buy Ann’s book! (She says what others can’t.)
• Institutional amnesia. (In our cities, the social-order pendulum swings.)
• Enjoy your flight! (Air Traffic Control gets diversity.)
• The moos from Ireland. (Buttercup lashes out.)
• The good of counting. (It brings every thing to a certainty.)
• Carry me back to 1960. (I liked the B side better.)

It’s all there at Taki’s Magazine.