The Undead

Here is a timely rerun of a post from a couple of years ago.

In the last several years there has been a large increase in Zombie fiction, movies, and references to Zombies in the culture. The excellent World War Z, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the opening of Zombieland this weekend, and the hilarious “Sean of the Dead” are just some of the examples of Zombies used in modern culture. Discussions have popped up all over the place on how to survive a Zombie apocalypse. Of course this topic is all in jest, but I think it distracts from the real Zombies living among us.

Zombies are undead, but they are animated going through the motions of the living. They survive as a mockery of what they once were and only imitate a truly living thing.

But Zombies already walk and talk among us. There are plenty of dissident Catholics and dissident religious orders that are nothing but Zombie Catholics. The Zombie religious orders have no postulants and an aging community. These orders are truly dead since they don’t grow and are full of providing dead theology and the corpse of aging heresies. Yet at the same time appear to be living animated things fooling some into believing that there words have life. The truth will set you free which is why Zombie Catholics will concentrate on one truth while ignoring others leaving them trapped in the world of the undead.

Outside of religious communities there are also plenty of Zombie professors in Catholic institutions. Now it would be nice if these Zombies would physically rot so that you could see the source of the corruption they teach. Unfortunately these undead often look just like everybody else. Though Zombie priests and religious sometimes can be identified because they will wear anything but a Roman collar or a habit. They can often be identified because they teach from the “Culture of the Undead.” Zombie Catholics might seem quite comical, but don’t ever forget that they are quite dangerous to those they convince. They teach of death in two ways – physical and spiritual . You can hear them promoting abortion or relativizing it. Creating reasons for why it alright to withdraw medical treatment from someone who is not dying. Justifying sacrificing embryos on the altar of science. When it comes to spiritual death the Zombie Catholics proclaim how a sin is not a sin and in fact something to be actively accepted. Whether it is the advocacy of homosexual acts, contraception, or any other normalization of sin; it is all a part of the Culture of the Undead.

The undead like to make other things dead to. Now Catholic Zombies don’t go limping around mumbling “Brains, Brains.” No they usually walking around saying “My brains, My brains.” One way to identify Zombie Catholics is that they call themselves “thinking Catholics” and constantly call attention to how much smarter they are than other Catholics. They love to minimize and mock the devotional practices of other Catholics and will ransack school rooms and sanctuaries to remove statues, paintings, and other signs of the devotional life. They are also love to talk against the hierarchical church even sometimes when they are apart of it.

The idea of Zombie Catholics might not seem to be very scary. But if you have ever attended a Mass influenced by the undead I say be afraid, be very afraid. Zombie Catholics being of the undead like to liven things up to give the appearance of life and most of all to be relevant.

So how do we rid ourselves of the plague of Catholic Zombies? Well we can’t just go around shooting them in the head as in pop culture Zombies. There is some folklore that they are afraid of crucifixes like Vampires since they go to so much effort to remove Crucifixes wherever they go. The only real way to get rid of Zombie Catholics is prayer and fasting and of course personally living a life of holiness. Though we must remember the Zombie Catholics will always be among us to some extent. There will always be Zombie Catholics among the Wheat. We just need to make sure they are not taken seriously so that the damage they can cause is minimized.

Just remember that you don’t turn into a Zombie Catholic because you are bitten by another Zombie Catholic. No the infection spreads when people are bitten by ideas spread through the culture. The popular fads can seem new and exciting when you don’t see the pearl of great price in your own backyard. So the best way to inoculate yourself from Zombie Catholicism is to know your faith, scripture study, prayer, fasting, the devotional life, and obedience.