The Patron Saint of Dixieland

Catholics make up a sizeable portion of the
modern Dixieland Nationalist Movement.

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Those who read this blog know I am a Southern Nationalist, a Son of Dixie, and unreconstructed to the core. Those who regularly read this blog also know I am descended from Cherokee Natives who fought for the South during Lincoln's War, as well as white men who lived in the South and fought for the South, and white men who lived in the North and refused to fight for the North. (They moved West instead.)  Yes, I have good historical reason to be a Southern Nationalist, but heritage is not the sole reason. You see I was raised in California, before moving back to the Ozarks as an adult, and my Arkansan mother never instilled a deep love in me for the Confederacy. To her the South is just Dixie, and she never really was one for politics. My father, the Yankee in the family, privately tells me he too believes the South was right during the war, which is why his ancestors moved West, but he also tells me not to tell my mother or she'll never let him hear the end of it. I figure if he passes before she does, I'll probably tell her some years afterwards, just to watch her jaw drop. She'll swear I'm lying.

All that anecdotal stuff aside, I am not so much a Southern Nationalist because of my heritage, though that is part of it, but rather because of choice. I could go through a dozen reasons why the South was right during Lincoln's War that robbed her of her short-lived independence, but that is not the purpose of this blog entry. If you want to read my apologetic for Dixieland, just mash on the "Dixie" category below and read to your heart's content. This article is not about the past. It's about the future, and I've chosen today, the Feast of St. Andrew, to release this essay to the public.

The Martyrdom of St. Andrew
Brother of St. Peter
First Disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ

St. Andrew was the brother of St. Peter, both fisherman, but it was Andrew who was the first disciple of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Andrew immediately recognised Jesus as the promised Messiah, and introduced him to his brother Peter as such. After the death and resurrection of Christ, the Church historian Eusebius quoted Origen as saying Andrew preached in Asia Minor and in Scythia, along the Black Sea as far as the Volga, Kiev and Novgorod. Hence he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to tradition, he founded the See of Byzantium in AD 38. St. Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras in Achaea (Greece), on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. He was crucified on an 'X' shape cross, in which he was tied as opposed to nailed. This 'X' shaped cross is called a 'saltire' or 'Cross of St. Andrew.' It is said that he preached the gospel for two days on this cross until his death by dehydration. His feast day is today, November 30, and he is the patron saint of Russia, Ukraine, Romania.

Flag of Scotland

Some time passed after his death, and a monk named Regulus was charged with watching over the remains of St. Andrew.  He had a vision of an angel who told him to take the relics to the far west.  Obeying the command, Regulus set sail for the west coast of Europe when he came to be shipwrecked on the shores of Scotland.  He then evangelised the people there and named the city founded on the place of his shipwreck after St. Andrew.  As a result St. Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland.  Centuries later, the Scots would settle much of the American south-eastern states in what has since come to be known as Dixie or Dixieland.  He is now the unofficial patron saint of Dixieland, and his saltire cross became the symbol of many Southern states and the old Confederacy.

Alabama State Flag

After all is said and done. After all the Civil War re-enactment canons are silenced. After all the real history comes out, in spite of Yankee revisionism, and the South is finally vindicated. It really doesn't mean a whole lot until you look at the future. Dixie is an occupied nation. It has been occupied for 145 years now, and like the Hebrews after the Babylonian exile, we have been occupied for so long that most of us have forgotten who we are. Not all of us have forgotten though, and thanks to the advent of the Internet, we are beginning to remember. Long gone are those terrible days of institutionalised slavery and segregation. Dixie has emerged as a free land for people of all races, colours and ethnicity. Even the modern secessionist movements, such as the 'League of the South' for example, have officially condemned racism in a public policy statement (see here), calling upon its members to act with Christian charity toward all men regardless of race, colour and ethnicity. Now when Southern secessionists are calling for racial harmony, in a Christian context, you know something has changed for the better!

Florida State Flag

Dixie is occupied by a federal regime that the states consent to, but only for one reason really -- THEY FEAR IT!  That's right, I dare say that the ONLY reason why the Southern states of the former Confederacy remain within the United States of America is because they honestly FEAR what the federal government will do to them should they ever try to regain their independence. For if Washington DC ever issued a declaration, stating that democratic secession is perfectly legal, and states that want to secede may do so without fear of military attack from the federal government, than I guarantee the Southern states would peal off one by one, and likely reinstate the old Confederacy, or some modern variation of it.

Mississippi State Flag

Why wouldn't they? They certainly have good reason. When we look at the federal government's war against God in public schools and other public places, it only makes sense that a deeply Christian people would reject that. When we look at the federal government's war against babies, by mandating abortion-on-demand in all fifty states, it only makes sense that a deeply moral people would reject that. When we look at the federal government's current attempt to make homosexuality 'accepted' and 'normal,' it only makes sense that the family-centred South would reject it. When we look at the federal government's ungodly wars against Arabs and Muslims, it only makes sense that a deeply Christian people, who themselves were once conquered by the same government, would object to it. When we look at this unimaginable debt the federal government has amassed over the years, equalling approximately $200,000 per American family, it only makes since that such a fiscally conservative people would reject it. Sadly, it doesn't matter what the people of the South think about these things, for Washington DC has made it crystal clear that it doesn't care.

Originally the Confederate Naval Jack
This flag has become the symbol
of Dixieland Culture and Identity

There are those who say 'the South will rise again,' but I say it won't have to. You see, while I am a Southern nationalist, I am not a secessionist.  Secession has been tried once already, with disastrous results.  The U.S. Constitution makes no provision for secession, though the nation itself was founded on it in the Declaration of Independence.  Besides, the character of Washington DC has already revealed itself.  The U.S. federal government is an EMPIRE and it proved this in Lincoln's War.  It has continued to prove this more and more with each passing decade.  It is more of an empire than the British Empire ever was.  It demands absolute allegiance, and will accept nothing less than total submission.  Children are trained in public schools to revere former American presidents almost to the point of idolatry.  The greatest of all these gods (er, I mean 'presidents'), so the children are taught, is none other than Abraham Lincoln himself -- America's first Caesar -- the man who suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the North, and waged war against what he deemed to be his own citizens in the South.  For fifty years (1892-1942), America's school children were taught to salute the American flag in stiff-arm fascist style, (eventually imitated by the Nazis), as they pledged their allegiance to the government as an 'indivisible nation.'  It was a direct assault on the concept of state secession.  Yes, we the people of Dixie, are an occupied nation, like ancient Israel or modern day Scotland.  We are the 'Bavaria' of North America.  We are very much in America, but not necessarily of it.  Nobody can deny that the character of the South is different from the rest of the Union.

Old St. Andrews Episcopal Church
Charleston, South Carolina
Antebellum Chapel Still Standing Today

Besides all that, the federal government has made its point clear, if not by law, than with the end of a bayonet, that secession is illegal in the United States of America.  Even though these United States were founded on secession, it does not matter, because the federal government will not allow the same right to anyone else within U.S. territory.   The federal government has become everything the British Empire once was, but worse, and just as that empire fell, so this one will too.  History demands it.  So that being said, Christians are called to obey the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.  'My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.' - John 18:36.  Jesus instructed his disciples to obey the Roman authorities, even though they occupied the Holy Land in the most cruel and corrupt way.  As bad as Washington DC is, the Romans were far worse.  If the early Christians were compelled by Christ to obey the Romans, than we too must be compelled by Christ to obey the U.S. federal government -- for as long as it lasts -- until it is gone (or defunct) and the way is made clear to rebuild as an independent Christian nation!  Until then all we need do is rebuild our Southern culture, and refine our Southern language, because this is what will define our borders when the day of our independence finally comes.  The word 'culture' is based on the Latin word cultus meaning 'religion.'  It means what we define as 'culture' is the way in which a religion interacts with certain people in a particular region.  It is the character of these people, defined by religion, and expressed by their religious experience in their environment.  To revive a 'culture,' one must look back to the religion of the Old South which was dominated by high-church Episcopalianism (Anglicanism), especially in the inner cities of the Confederacy.  Both President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee were high-church Episcopalians.  Today, this type of religious tradition is best preserved in Protestantism among the more traditional Anglican jurisdictions.  On the Catholic side it is best preserved by Anglo-Catholics both within and outside the Catholic Church's U.S. Ordinariate for Anglicans. 

St. Thomas Episcopal Church
Orange, Virginia
On November 22,1863 General Robert E.Lee
and President Jefferson Davis attended mass here.

There will be no need to take up arms and fight Washington DC ever again. Because in time, perhaps after a brief period of open dictatorship, culminating in the outright persecution of Christians (even high ranking Vatican officials see this coming), Washington DC just won't put up a fight any more. It will collapse under the weight of its own colossal size and crushing national debt. Can there be any doubt that our federal government has incurred the wrath of God? How many babies does it have to kill before God says enough? How many children's prayers does it have to silence before God says enough? How many homosexual marriages have to be performed before God says enough? How many third-world nations do we have to destroy before God says enough? How much debt has to be amassed before God says enough? How many family-owned businesses have to be run into bankruptcy before God says enough?  How many fomerly independent families have to be put into poverty before God says enough?  How many Catholic charities have to be shut down, over gay adoptions, before God says enough?  History is not on America's side. Nations such as ours have always fallen -- and fallen hard -- there is no reason to believe the same won't be true for us. The United States federal government will fall -- eventually -- and when it does, the Confederate States of Dixie will only need to pick up the pieces and start over where she left off in 1865.  Secession is unnecessary and a waste of valuable resources, when we should be saving our energies to rebuild Dixie as an independent nation after the federal government collapses.  And yes, it will collapse, just as sure as there will be a tomorrow, this federal government has signed its own death certificate.  No government in the history of the world has done what ours has done, and lasted long enough to write its own history thereafter.  I am convinced that some other world power will be writing America's history within several decades. 

So what should a future Confederate States of Dixieland (CSD) look like?

1. The CSD should honour the place of Jesus Christ in our nation's culture and people's history.
2. The CSD should allow prayer in public schools and all public facilities.
3. The CSD should have no "Department of Education" and allow states to run their own education systems as they see fit, respecting of course the parental right to homeschool or use private and parochial education. State voucher programs should not be challenged by the CSD.
4. The CSD should allow states to outlaw abortion, and set their own regulatory statutes on matters related to birth control.
5. The CSD should not recognise homosexual marriages, and honour state constitutional amendments forbidding them.
6. The CSD should pursue a foreign policy of armed neutrality in all international conflicts not involving a direct confrontation with the CSD.
7. The CSD should require a balanced budget for the Confederate government by constitutional law.
8. The CSD should structure laws to favour small family-owned businesses and cooperative ownership of large businesses.  

Well that certainly seems like a much more 'Catholic' and 'Christian' nation than what we currently have. You've got to admit, it's something to think about for the future.  In the mean time let us look to the example of St. Andrew, who boldly and tirelessly preached the gospel from the saltire cross for two agonizing days.  His is our example of patience and long suffering.  His is our example of how to deal with the tyranny our people have faced for a century and a half.  Our brothers and sisters in Scotland (and Northern Ireland) understand our plight.  Our day of independence will come.  Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.  Saint Andrew -- Ora Pro Nobis.

Happy St. Andrew's Day!
Deo Vindice.