The dictionary defines “woke” as the past-tense version of awakening, becoming alert, or to emerge from sleep. Wikipedia defines “woke” as a political term, having African-American origin, that refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice. It is derived from the African-American vernacular English expression “stay woke,” whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. The Urban Dictionary defines “woke” as a sudden understanding of what’s really going on and finding out you were wrong about much of what you understood to be truth. It compares the expression to what happens after taking the red pill in the original Matrix movie.

If you’ve never seen the 1999 Matrix movie, you can watch a 30-minute condensed version of it here. The film is a science fiction thriller about a dystopian future in the late 27th century, wherein machines have taken over the world and turned human beings into biological batteries as an endless source of energy to run their computer networks. Babies are grown in machine-run, test tubes and imprisoned from “birth” by artificial feeding and breathing machines. To keep their consciousness pacified and docile, these imprisoned people are fed a “virtual reality” directly into their brains, via a computer “matrix” program, wherein they believe they are living normal lives within the 20th century. It’s a fascinating film exploring the idea of mind control and thought police in classic science-fiction extremism. I enjoyed the first Matrix film. The sequels were not as good in my opinion, and one can get more out of watching the original by just leaving the unanswered questions — unanswered. That’s the beauty of the original film. It allows you to make of it whatever you want, and apply its message to anything you want. The movie has produced a cult following, and introduced a few new phrases into contemporary English vocabulary, such as: matrix, red-pill, and woke.

Today, the term “woke” is commonly used as an expression to characterize somebody who has come to the startling realization that the entire 20th century was about destroying national identity and establishing a one-world government (globalism), as embodied by the creation of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN), essential stepping-stones to accomplishing this plan.

The globalist ideology follows the narrative that nationalism leads to world wars. Therefore, to prevent wars, national borders must be eliminated, mass migration of peoples must be encouraged, pride in one’s national heritage and ethnic identity must be shunned, gender roles must be obliterated and religious norms must be put down. The concept is totally Marxist in origin. It was founded in the 19th century, and played out in the 20th century by Marxists taking control of the educational systems and mainstream media. This is, of course, complete hogwash. Nationalism didn’t cause two world wars, but sloppy attempts at globalism did.

World War I was caused by entangling military alliances (a messy form of quasi-globalism) and would have ended in a stalemate had the United States not entered the war near the very end, ensuring the demise of the German monarchy. The fall of the German monarchy (thanks to America entering a war that was essentially over), led to the rise of German dictatorship in the form of the Third Reich. Adolph Hitler sought to enact his own vision of globalism — Nazi globalism — by attacking Germany’s neighbors in all directions, with the express intention of conquering them and forcing them to submit to the Nazi vision of world governance. I say “Nazi” and not “German” because there really was nothing “German” about Nazism. Case in point, the swastika (indisputably associated with Nazism) was never a symbol of Germany or the German people. It was a global symbol of the ancient world with religious connotations. One can find carvings, jewelry and pottery, bearing the swastika in ancient Europe, Iran, India, and China. The Nazi’s adopted the swastika with full knowledge of this and intended it to symbolize global governance. Nazism was intended to be a global ideology, so it needed a truly global symbol. The ancient symbol of the swastika fit this necessary requirement. Had Hitler stopped his campaign with uniting the German-speaking people (nationalism instead of globalism), he likely would have been successful and there never would have been a Second World War. It would have been awful for the German people, but nobody else would care, and Germany’s internal political problems wouldn’t have been an issue for global conflict. Instead, however, Hitler attacked France, Russia, and British interests in North Africa and the Middle East. Nationalism didn’t cause two world wars. Messy globalism did, and if we’re not careful, it may happen again in the very near future. If there is going to be a World War III, globalism (not nationalism) will be the cause, just as globalism was the cause of World War I and World War II. People who are politically woke have come to understand this. It’s not about Republicans versus Democrats, or liberals versus conservatives. It’s about globalism versus nationalism, and it always has been. This has been the defining struggle of the last 100 years, with globalism fueled by Marxist ideology that is hell-bent on controlling people through re-education and social engineering. The modern-day “matrix” is globalism, and all the media, education, corporate, government and religious institutions working together to push toward that end. A person who is politically “woke” is someone who has become aware of this, and is trying to arouse a sleeping population that still thinks “everything is okay,” and “this is all perfectly normal.”

The Catholic Church is not immune from this struggle as well. The only difference is this. The Church has dealt with globalist movements throughout her entire history, and she has learned two things by both experience and divine revelation. One, globalism is inevitable. It is the inevitable trajectory of the human race. Human beings are social creatures, and our natural tendency is to create relationships. In the modern age, it is inevitable that such relationships would encompass the globe. Two, globalism always descends into tyranny without strong nationalist underpinnings. So in other words, it is possible to have a global order, but it must be one built on strong nationalist and ethnic identities. Therefore, the Church has historically pushed for subsidiarity in all spheres of public life: politics, economics and culture. Subsidiarity is the principle that it is immoral for institutions of the higher order to do what institutions of the smaller order could reasonably do for themselves. In other words, higher institutes should be subordinate to lower institutes, allowing the lower institutes to direct themselves on everything they can reasonably do themselves. Thus the Church places the family first, as the institution of the lowest social order, which should be supported and lifted up by all higher institutions. Then follows the community or tribe. In modern life, this might consist of a neighborhood, village, town or city, which must be lifted up and supported by the larger institution of the state. Only when these smaller institutions are properly supported (politically, economically and culturally) can states then be properly lifted up and supported by some kind of global-governing system in the same way, maintaining national sovereignty. Anything else is tyranny. From the 1880s through the 1960s, the Catholic Church faithfully taught this, but sometime after the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965) the Church began to lose her way, resulting in what has become a religious endorsement of a top-down approach to politics, economics and culture.

The most prominent way we see this play out within the Church is via the promulgation of the New Roman Missal in 1970, otherwise known as the Novus Ordo, meaning “new order” of the Church’s liturgy. In centuries past, new liturgies were developed organically within various ethnicities and cultures, creating new uses and rites for faithful Catholics to observe within the wider context of the Catholic Church. The creation of the Tridentine Order at the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563) was a synthesis of all Western rites and uses at the time, organically developed and rolled into one. This allowed all European Catholics to enjoy small elements of their cultural rites within the wider universal liturgy. This system worked fairly well for the following five centuries. Had vernacular translations of the Tridentine liturgy been permitted widely before the Second Vatican Council, there would have been no impetus for what came in the latter half of the 20th century. The creation of the Novus Ordo, following the Second Vatican Council, was an entirely new liturgy, considerably disconnected from its Tridentine origins, having little to no organic contact with the cultures of Western peoples. The implementation of the Novus Ordo liturgy was worse than the liturgy itself, subject to the globalist musings of various liturgists who created new “traditions” and “customs” out of thin air, with the intent of replacing the old traditions and customs outright. In most parishes throughout Europe and the Americas, they were successful.

Make no mistake about it. Catholicism has always been a global religion, but it was one built on subsidiarity and inculturation — the idea that local people should be left to develop their own Christian culture, liturgy and customs based on their own unique identity in Christ. Previous elements of their Pagan cultures could be easily incorporated into the Christian paradigm, provided they were no threat to Christian doctrine. In other words, Christianity has always been respectful of local ethnicities, languages and cultural directives, never trying to “pave them over” with a Jewish ethnic, linguistic or cultural ethos. That is, after all, where Christianity comes from — Judaism. Maintaining local ethnic/cultural identity was high on Christianity’s priority list. Also high on Christianity’s list of priorities was respect for borders and regional governments. Kings might ascend to power by whatever means were common in a respective society, but the coronation of the king was usually done by a high-ranking Church bishop, so as to demonstrate not only the Church’s respect for the sovereignty of the nation, but also to invoke God’s blessing upon it. Kings, in turn, were happy to be crowned by the Church because it gave their reign the added dimension of religious authority over civil matters, which should be obeyed with religious zeal. I bring this up to demonstrate the historic nature of the Church, as an institution that generally respects borders, language and culture.

This is simply not the case in the post-conciliar Church of the 1970s – present. In the 70s through 90s we saw the deconstruction of Catholicism itself both in liturgy and catechesis. This was accompanied by the introduction of a New Age, globalist, counterfeit Catholicism, dealing in ambiguities and “fuzzy morality.” New traditions, new teachings, new morality: all of this was part of a much broader plan that would reach a climax under Pope Francis.

Rome’s embrace of environmentalism, sexual relativity, synodality and open borders, marks a radical departure from everything the Church once taught. Like the militant globalism pushed in the secular world, it must be resisted. It’s time for Catholics to wake up from their slumber. All is not well in the Church, and everything is not going to be okay if it stays on this trajectory. We, as Catholics, have been robbed of the authentic Catholic faith known to our forefathers and given a matrix of counterfeit Catholicism in its place. This matrix is not what you think it is. It’s artificial and contrived, and it is joined at the hip to secular globalism. It is but a shell of what the authentic Catholic faith really is. For decades, traditional Catholics have been warning us, trying to get us to wake up. Now it’s time that we listen. It’s time for a “Woke Catholic” movement.

Woke Catholicism is…

A rejection of modern and innovative styles of liturgy, in exchange for embracing traditional liturgy based on organic development from culture. These consist of the Tridentine liturgy, otherwise known as the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), and Divine Worship from the Anglican Patrimony (or Anglican Use) otherwise known as the Traditional English Mass (TEM), the Ambrosian Rite, the Mozarabic Rite, the Dominican Rite, the many Eastern rites and minimally a celebration of the Novus Ordo made to look and sound as much like the Tridentine liturgy as possible.

A rejection of modern catechesis, in exchange for embracing the traditional catechesis of the Baltimore Catechism.

A rejection of prudential social teachings being taught as if they were essential… This includes a rejection of the claim that Catholics must accept open borders as if it were essential Catholic teaching. It is not, and it actually violates previous Catholic precedence from ages past. This includes a rejection of radical environmentalism taught as man-made climate change. Not only is the science disputed on this, but it is not within the jurisdiction of the Church to teach science as doctrine, and compel people to act on it. This includes a rejection of Marxist solutions to economic problems. The Church has historically opposed Marxism on all levels, and offered Distributist ideals as a way to morally augment Capitalist markets. This includes a rejection of anti-European bigotry and racism, popularized by cultural Marxists, but now creeping its way into the Church. Europeans are no less valued than any other race and must not be held collectively guilty for the problems of the world. It would be considered racism to do this to Africans, Indians or Asians. Why is it acceptable to do it to Europeans? This includes a rejection of the Church’s concession to the United Nations as the “keeper of peace” when that has historically been the Church’s role by offering the world the only true path to peace, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A rejection to modern universalism, which asserts that there are many ways to heaven, in exchange for embracing what the Church has always taught, that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

A rejection of the homo-heresy, which is the idea that homosexuality can be “good” and “accepted” in some cases, in exchange for embracing the Church’s traditional teachings on sexuality.

A rejection of feminism, in exchange for embracing traditional gender roles, augmented by Christian principles of marriage and family.

A rejection of funding for all bishops, dioceses and parishes that have a “fuzzy” or ambiguous record on sexual abuse of both adults and minors, in exchange for funding bishops, dioceses, ordinariates, fraternities and parishes that have a strong record on disciplining sexual abusers.

A rejection of globalism, in exchange for embracing Christian nationalism, which is the recognition of national borders and the preservation of cultural uniqueness, allowing nations to decide their own destiny, laws and trade policies.

A rejection of the tyranny of relativism, in exchange for returning to traditional Catholic moral teaching on all levels, regardless of whatever church leaders say or promote.

A rejection of modern indecency, returning to more traditional modes of Christian attire, including swim-shirts, swim-skirts and long-shorts at public beaches and pools.

A rejection of the heresy of neo-ultramontanism, or papal-idolatry, which is the idea that everything the pope says is to be taken as divine instruction or religious truth, in exchange for embracing the teaching of the First Vatican Council, which limits papal infallibility only to those specific statements made ex cathedra, in addition to the canonization of Saints.

A rejection of the “cult of personality” that accompanies the pope in modern times, and some popular churchmen, in exchange for a faith based on what the Baltimore Catechism actually teaches, and what the Bible instructs, in addition to the examples of the Saints and martyrs.

This is what it means to be a Woke Catholic. Are you a Woke Catholic? If you are, what are you doing to wake fellow Catholics up from their slumber in the matrix of counterfeit Catholicism?