JOHN VENNARI, a traditionalist Catholic writer, died yesterday at the age of 59. May he rest in peace. Here is an excerpt from Vennari’s book The New Paganism and the War against Life:

What is the New Paganism?

There have been great men and women in the recent past who have warned in advance against the rise of the godless and anti-human period of history in which we now find ourselves.

One of the most keen-eyed warnings came from the renowned Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc, in a magnificent essay he wrote in 1931 called “The New Paganism”. He makes this point: the central aspect of the Old Paganism was deep respect for tradition, and the defining element of the post-Christian paganism is a revolutionary contempt for Tradition. Belloc wrote:

“The Old Paganism was profoundly traditional. Indeed it had no roots except in Tradition. Deep reverence for its own past and for the wisdom of its ancestry and the pride therein were the very soul of the Old Paganism; that is why it formed so solid a foundation on which to build the Catholic Church, and that is also why it offered so long a determined resistance to the growth of the Catholic Church. But the New Paganism has for its very essence contempt for tradition and contempt for ancestry. It respects perhaps nothing. But least of all does it respect the spirit of ‘Our Fathers have told us’.”1

Throughout history, our fathers have told us to respect human life; that human life is precious, that it is a gift from God, that we have a duty to protect the life of the most weak and vulnerable; that we may not treat human life as if it were merely animal life. Our great Fathers – whether they be the Fathers and Doctors and learned men of the Church, or great philosophers such as Aristotle, or truly upright statesmen who at least accepted the natural law – have told us these things. And they have told us these things not because it all sounded pretty and noble, but because these things are true.

The New Paganism, however, has no respect for what our Fathers taught us; and the New Paganism certainly has no respect for what Our Father Who art in Heaven taught us in the Commandments, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. The central tenets of the New Paganism come from the forces of Organized Naturalism, warned often by the Popes of the past, especially by Leo XIII in his encyclical against Freemasonry, Humanum Genus, and by Father Denis Fahey. Cardinal Pie of Poitiers explained in strong, clear language, the insidious nature of this Naturalism: [cont.]

Belloc’s essay can be found here.

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