 |
A Conservative website
Judica Me, Deus first appeared as an occasional newsletter whose aim was to defend the social teaching of Pope John Paul II mainly against the attacks of Traditionalist groups, who claimed that a philosophical naturalism underwrote the Pope's highly developed social thought.
In the course of time the heat went out of the Lefebvre (Traditionalist) issue, which took up most of the space in the early issues. Protagonists, including me, retreated to entrenched positions where they were content to break cover occasionally to let fly a salvo. So when I went on line in 2002 with Judica Me, Deus, my comments inevitably broadened in topic.
My attention shifted away when I was concentrating on my novel writing. After the self-publication of the first two novels of the Winterbine trilogy and the favourable response generally of readers and critics, I reviewed my writing activities.
I decided to consolidate my fiction and non-fiction writing on the one website under my name but maintain psalm 43 (Judica Me, Deus) as the guide to my efforts. The plan was to continue my comments while I pushed on with my novel writing projects.
Social and political developments since then have brought incremental adjustments. Although leaving questions of theology and Church teaching to websites more competent to deal with them, I remain alert to attacks by anti-Catholic bigots in the media. Anti-Catholic bigotry is merely a particular face of an ideological position that in 2009 informs most governments in the Western world. The defeat of the strongly conservative Howard government in Australia in 2007 and the victory of Barak Obama in the 2008 US presidential elections have meant a deep entrenchment of that ideology and almost full political power to the class that has dominated Western Society for fifty years.
A critical factor in the triumph of this political class has been their success in infiltrating and gaining control of the Western world's major institutions. Often skirting the democratic process, radical representatives of that ideology have succeeded in filling important roles and functions in many official decision-making bodies. The law, education (most importantly schools), public service, and the media are now for the most part the territory of that dominant class where radical feminist and homosexual propaganda is spread uninhibited while their opponents are held in check by legislation and slander. The proof of what I am saying is all around us. Unfortunately, many people who are really conservative in their bones are unaware of what is happening above their heads and, even more dangerous, are no longer able to articulate their most cherished social and political beliefs and feelings. They no longer know how their views justifiably differ from those of the class hogging the nation's legislative wheel.
These circumstances have motivated me to explain conservative ideas, and make comment on social and political issues from a clear conservative perspective. Why do I think I am qualified for this task.?
The major influence in my writing, fiction and non-fiction, is my Catholic Faith and the Church's extensively developed social teaching. An important intellectual influence is my long study of the thought of Edmund Burke whose influence harmonises with my faith.
It is astonishing to find that Edmund Burke, particularly in his speeches and pamphlets on the French Revolution, anticipated many of the points that Pope Leo XIII made in his social encyclicals against rationalism and the materialist philosophy of the Enlightenment. It is equally astonishing to find that Burke also anticipated the ideas of Pope John Paul II on the role of the heart and natural feeling in moral judgment, of the role of culture, social organisations, and the family in the person’s full social and moral life. My two non-fiction books, The Media of the Republic and The Telecard Affair: Diary of a Media Lynching, are heavily influenced by Burke’s thoughts on the speciousness of rationalist thinking as he applied them to actual social and political events of his day. In fact, the critical framework of this website is Natural Law Conservatism, as interpreted and derived from Edmund Burke's speeches and writings. Although I call this a Natural Law Conservatism website, it is at the same time a website of Burkean conservatism.
Seeking the Divine Spark: A Satire in the Style of Evelyn Waugh is printing. Official publication date will be 1 January 2010 but copies will be available for ordering shortly before Christmas. I have begun a revision and updating of my Masters thesis on Edmund Burke while at the same time researching for my childhood memoir.
I am now on Facebook for those interested: http://www.facebook.com/gerard.wilson1
Gerard Charles Wilson, December 2009
Judica Me, Deus are the opening words of psalm 43, the psalm that introduces the Extraordinary Mass of the Latin Rite.
