Catholics must flee the applause of the world and the voice of the tempter. The modernist addictive vice of protagonism.
The Vice of Protagonism
A visual representation of the vice of protagonism: an applauding crowd and a figure tempted by the Devil. The applause of the world and the voice of the tempter: two faces of protagonism that threaten the Christian soul.
Yousef Altaji Narbón
Oscar Wilde enunciates the following phrase, which exemplifies today's gloomy thought in a few words: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." A miserable, disastrous, and terrible way to conceive our aspirations in this life. Protagonism: This concept, propagated everywhere without realizing it, is a current evil that particularly attacks, within the bosom of the Holy Church, the laity buffeted by the cares of the world. Wilde evokes the fallacious need for protagonism as a general goal of life, arguing that if you are not a protagonist in society, it is the ultimate punishment a person can endure. The foolishness of the world, which insists on this theme, is overwhelming, causing anguish in the pious Catholic who must be someone important in order to mean something to the godless masses. The focus to be considered below is not specifically on protagonism in the various settings of daily life, but rather on understanding the gravity of this vice when it enters our soul and how it ends up destroying the apostolate, along with the convictions necessary to wage true Christian struggle.
In the face of protagonism, the first thing that can be observed is how quickly it transforms into a vice. The Large Catechism of Pope Saint Pius X defines vice as: “an evil disposition of the soul to flee from good and to do evil, caused by the frequent repetition of evil acts.” The moment one tastes the limelight, due to our concupiscence and tendency to opt for evil, it becomes something one doesn’t want to let go of; ergo, it becomes a vice. This meshes well with the pride that lies within our soul due to original sin; it fuels it so that it continues to grow. The dopamine it generates is like gasoline that blinds us to the saints’ advice to completely remove ourselves from those things that ignite our passions and evil inclinations. It’s like a drug that, once you gain the applause of others, or even just a good comment from one or two people, is enough to begin to provoke an addiction to recognition and to being someone. In short, it's not a one-time thing, but rather repeated acts fostered by the respective ecclesial environment in which we operate, in order to sell us the illusion of our indispensable importance for the work we do.
The other thing that can be pointed out about this fatal vice is its terrible utility as a device of the devil to seduce us down a path that corrodes the very depths of our soul. The deception of the evil one enters very easily through prominence for the simple reason that it makes us believe we are more than we really are. The calamities and desolation that plague secular daily life can make us feel alone, without any specific direction. Fewer and fewer people are achieving greatness in the world, so many are returning to the Church because they see it as a fertile ground for cultivating a cult of personality. Seeing this, the perverse serpent seduces the pious soul with delusions of grandeur in their ecclesial environment, making them think they can establish their name among those they esteem in the Church's hierarchy, pondering the possibility of being taken as a reference for the edification of all. Oh! Deception and more deception! This temptation to take center stage can be subtly disguised by the good intentions feigned by those who propose magnificent possibilities before our eyes with gigantic apostolates, laudable undertakings, or apostolic works that—as they say—“have nothing wrong with them since they are for a good purpose.”
The brutal consequences of this vice are so many that they can be summed up as the self-destruction of the apostolate and of the good fight we have the obligation to wage. This taking center stage prevents one from escaping an ecclesial environment contaminated by doctrinal and spiritual deviation, as many avenues for standing out within the community become available. It causes the person to be pigeonholed into a role that appears to have enormous potential, thus locking them into the cell of their pride, undermining the cause of God. If there is no available space, then one is created, inventing spaces so that each person, according to their tastes, can hold the unofficial title of doing X or Y within the parish. In this way, the person is tied to their responsibility.
In this way, the person is tied to their responsibility or office, ignoring the underlying problems that manifest everywhere and swarm around them, gradually eating away at the spiritual life of the affected person until the ruinous end of turning them into followers of error. The desire to show off one's talents, abilities, or skills within one's parish (to continue with the same image) is inherent to protagonism. One cannot not be someone or not do something within the ecclesiastical structure; this is not compatible with what is being sold. The moment one becomes tied to these environments, one is influenced by the overwhelming doctrinal contamination; pretending to be immune to this is only a temporary illusion. One falls into the direct example of the boiling frog syndrome, accepting or ignoring critical evil to avoid losing one's place in everything.
Instead of speaking the truth head-on, what protagonism causes is complicit silence in exchange for a small position among the available activities or ministries. It devastates the duty to fight evil because the moment someone decides to open their mouth, perhaps even question what is happening, the Parish Sanhedrin immediately takes action, ultimately mercifully dispensing with the person who raised their doubt or disagreement. They become a nobody again, but that is precisely something modern man cannot bear. He feels the need to be part of the group of people who arrange flowers, organize the parish council, sing in the choir, and are in charge of the sacristy, among a wide range of responsibilities that bestow the seal of good parishioner upon those who participate in this. The only payment this prominence demands is silence in the face of a sea of elements that make up the modern parish and that attack the perennial teaching of the Church. And if you don't like it, then at least keep your comments to yourself, provoking the whirlwind of internal arguments and moral debate that gradually devours the conscience.
It's terrifying to count the number of well-intentioned people who have fallen prey to this tacitly offered prominence everywhere. The worst part is the fact that people don't realize they've succumbed to this vice, but rather see it as normal or as an opportunity God has placed in their path. They struggle to surrender their acquired place as choir members, priest's advisors, or lay leaders, because it feels so good to be on stage as a main character in a play. In short, prominence disarms people, sedates them with an opiate of complacency in their polluted environment, makes them complicit in the modern debacle, and leads to the sad end of abandoning the pretensions of fighting for the truth at all costs.
The Catholic counterposition:
To avoid the traps and seductions set by our mortal enemy, there is a simple solution that can be applied in any circumstance. A blessed friar of the Capuchin Order named Friar Innocenzo da Berzo revealed the key to us in a single sentence composed by himself: "Do good and disappear." There is nothing more to add to an inspiring premise like that of Blessed Innocenzo. We are called to precisely that: to disappear so that Christ, with his truth, may shine forth. The act of exchanging the spirit of struggle for principles we know to be true, only to be supplanted by the applause or congratulations of a small group, is to fall victim to an atrocious deception that seeks only to neutralize as many people as possible.
An objection may arise that accuses this article of discouraging apostolate, which would be absolutely false and a grave fallacy. Here, we are not discouraging people from engaging in and initiating apostolate; here, we are warning of a very serious deviation that is proliferating everywhere, acting as a death trap for the development of the apostolate. When the spotlight enters our soul, the apostolates we carry out become about us, our profit, our performance, our goals, our image, and everything that has to do with the self. One can begin or participate in an apostolate without any problem; moreover, one must do apostolate to save souls. The problem arises when people believe themselves superior and put their tastes before pure truth. The moment one says yes to a pacifist and soft Christian lifestyle within an environment built to favor the revolutionary, one has fallen into a deadly ruse that rarely turns back.
The teachings of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux on humility are illuminating in understanding the obvious threat of the spotlight.
In one section, we see the great saint say:
Pride of mind is that enormous, thick beam in the eye, which, because of its vain and swollen enormity, neither real nor solid, darkens the mind's eye and obscures the truth. If it comes to monopolize your mind, you will no longer be able to see or feel yourself as you are or can be; but rather as you want yourself, as you think you are, or as you hope to become. What else is pride but, as a saint defines it, the love of one's own prestige? Moving to the opposite pole, we can affirm that humility is the contempt of one's own prestige.
Apt words that show the need to put aside our self-image and avoid paths that can make us feel indispensable to the detriment of the truth. Despite everything the world may offer us, we must reject this to maintain the integrity of the faith and the doctrine that makes up the Deposit of Faith. Being just one of the crowd, fulfilling the duties of state, learning about the faith, practicing the virtues, and living the spiritual life are essential to achieving holiness. Living the life that God shows us is what He wants for us is exactly what we are called to do. To conclude, let us take the example of Saint Conrad of Parzham. This saint was the caretaker of a Marian shrine for years.
He did not seek prestige, prominence, or standing out; he simply did what he had to do, and today he is a saint. He wanted to be just another cog in the machine for God's greater glory. If God wants to use us to do something spectacular or for people to know about, let us be assured that we will not be able to do anything. It will be a path where we abandon the truth and the spirit of struggle, but rather He must do His work perfectly while we will only be instruments.
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