The Catholicpunk Manifesto

By Paul Sofranko

The Catholicpunk Manifesto is a call to arms, or rather, a call to pens, paintbrushes, and video cameras, for creative Catholics to take up St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe's call to infiltrate pop culture and help alleviate the ills that pervade contemporary society. St. Maximilian saw back in the 1920s how the use of cinema, radio, and mass-market books was corrupting society. He thought that those same tools could be used as a force to counter this corruption. The Catholicpunk Manifesto tells how the teachings of the Catholic Faith can be used to provide a road map out of our current morass and a blueprint to build a more just and fair society constructed according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and other elements of traditional Catholic Social Teachings (CST).

 

A Catholicpunker is someone who Catholicpunks. Catholicpunk is, to borrow from the Manifesto:

 

"…a literary and artistic form that seeks to make use of Catholic Social Teachings to lead the world away from the cliff of self-destruction it is heading towards...

 

The '-punk' suffix as typically used in literary and artistic forms suggests a countercultural, anti-establishment, and anti-authoritarian ethic.

 

Think of 'cyberpunk,' 'steampunk,' 'solarpunk,' and so forth.

 

Therefore, 'Catholicpunk' utilizes countercultural values in opposition to secularist and modernist mores and values. It is anti-establishment inasmuch as it defies the increasingly centralized authority of modern governments and the intrusive reach of corporations and is anti-authoritarian based on Catholicism's traditional opposition to dictatorships.

 

Catholicpunk addresses how the future might look if humanity survives the contemporary social and moral collapse plaguing the Western world and the poverty and oppression prevalent in the Global South and the East. Catholicpunk illustrates how applying CST solves major contemporary challenges made by globalism, militarism, and the anti-life and sexual libertine agendas. When Catholicpunk emphasizes sustainability, it will be with an eye towards responsible management of resources so that there will be plenty for future generations, and not through restrictions on population such as aggressive birth control and abortion agendas. People from womb to tomb will be viewed as resources to be cherished and valued, not as parasites or polluters.

 

Catholicism is the purest form of counter-cultural expression there is today. Catholicpunkers capitalize on this... and inspire people and give them a way out."

Are you a creatively inclined Catholic? Are you an aspiring writer or musician, do you write poetry in secret, do you want to go to Hollywood and sell a spec script for millions, or did you draw on walls when you were little and never could color within the lines but loved drawing and coloring anyway, despite the critical opinions of others?

 

Then you need to be a Catholicpunker, find other Catholicpunkers and mutually support one another in Catholicpunking! Buy and read one another's works, listen to Catholicpunk music, watch Catholicpunk videos, support Catholicpunk painters, and so forth."

 

This book can hopefully inspire you to get going and start creating and applying your Catholic faith to your works! Become a Catholicpunker!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Sofranko
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223712114

Paul Sofranko

My writing efforts so far have been blogging at “Sober Catholic” (SoberCatholic.com since 2007!) and “Paul Sofranko Space” (PaulSofranko.net since 2012.) I am also the author of the “Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics,” and “The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts,” and “The Catholicpunk Manifesto,” all offered on Smashwords.com. While I focus on writing devotional booklets for Catholics who are affected by alcoholism and addictions, “The Catholicpunk Manifesto” branches out from that and is more akin to some of what I write at “Paul Sofranko Space.” I am currently working on novels and shorter works in the speculative fiction genre that include exploring the Works of Mercy, the shadowy boundaries between life, death and what is beyond; and what exactly exists in that stage between awake and asleep? I am convinced that some things do lurk out of the corner of your eye. And what does sentience and humanity (or "alienity,") mean, actually?

Book preview

This book intends to be an encouraging wake-up call for Catholic creatives to get busy and apply their faith to their artistic creations, whether they’re the written word or visual imagery.

Failure to heed this call can result in my seeking you out, walking up behind you to yank on your scapular and scream, Get creating! The world needs you! I’m jesting, since that would require online surveillance technology, pluckiness, and a travel budget that I lack. (But if this book sells really well...)

Why does the world need you?

Centuries ago, Catholic artists gave the world beautiful works of art, music, poetry, and literature. The world stood back and looked on with awe at these ornate, labor-of-love expressions of the Catholic Faith. Cathedrals, basilicas, sculptures, paintings, symphonies, and written works all proclaimed the beautiful way in which the Catholic Church glorified God, who was the object of most Catholic artistic expression. Many of these works endure to this day and continue to inspire people.

Faith inspired these works.

But does it now? When one thinks of contemporary Catholic creative output, the list of writers and others is not as long or even as influential as in Medieval and Enlightenment times. This is not to imply they are bad or have little impact. It’s that fewer people nowadays care to create or consume artistic works rooted in the Faith relative to earlier ages. How many people actively seek out Catholic novelists and musicians, for example?

Granted, the Medieval world which produced the beauty I mentioned was almost universally Catholic (and European) and creative expressions of the Faith were common. In the world today, fractured by the Protestant Reformation, it’s ‘not so much,’ and the Catholic Church is regarded as a bothersome relic by the Enlightenment and its ideological offspring. Catholicism has been pushed into the realm of religiosity and spirituality, with the practical displays of Catholic culture relegated to a bygone era. Now the ‘world’ is just that, the entire planet Earth, with Europe sharing the stage. We are not isolated by oceans and deserts. The ‘world’ is ‘one’ and faithful Catholics are a distinct minority. However, there’s no reason we cannot try to reclaim that heritage or our former influence and apply it in the contemporary world.

Now, more than ever, the world needs hope and inspiration. The political arena is marked by increased divisiveness and a hardening of positions, and debates are driven more by attempts to destroy, rather than understand, the other side. Extremism is on the rise on both sides of the political spectrum. Economics is suffering from similar maladies: the wealth disparity within Western societies is increasing and the poorer countries are choking on debt-induced poverty. That the ‘rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer’ is no longer just an axiom from the past. It is reality. The combination of political and economic injustice can only lead to despair, violence, and revolution. Then there are the cultural identity issues such as gender, ethnicity, race, and so forth. These add fuel to the fiery mix.

Why should Catholic creatives offer solutions to this worldly mess? Because Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and as His followers we are called to take up His Cross, follow Him, and transform the world by preaching the Gospel any way we can.

So how can Catholic creatives offer solutions to a world weary of strife and torment?

By becoming Catholicpunkers! Read on...

I: In the Beginning was the Word

The first three verses in the Gospel according to St. John (Douay-Rheims version) reveal something profound:

In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by Him: and without Him was made nothing that was made.

God was the Word, an Utterance. Through that Utterance the Universe was created, and nothing was created that didn’t come through that Utterance. God spoke, and the Universe came into being: the entire Universe and everything in it. We see that God is a Creator, and the creative act was through the Word.

In our day, we use words (small ‘w’) to create things: novels, stories, plays, movies. Even music, paintings, and sculpture, while not always containing words, can by their beauty inspire them.

Words are creative acts, regardless of the artistic medium they are used in. By their power, they create images in the mind of the reader or listener. Words create.

God made you, He ensouled you, and thus imparted His Divine life into you. Made in His image and likeness, you reflect Him and so cannot help but create. If you are a Catholic creative, you cooperate in the creative act in a special way. Acts affect change. There’s every reason to assume that the creative acts you perform can affect a positive change in the world.

You can use that power.

Why?

Catholics have essentially built Western Civilization through the work of the Church: from Irish monks establishing monasteries throughout Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire in the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ to preserve the Greek and Roman classics and teach barbarians agricultural skills and their letters, to developing political forms through the Holy Roman Empire and the corresponding principles of feudalism and medieval guild systems, to developing teachings that later inspired, for better or for worse, the various ‘rights’ movements of modern times, to establishing the university system, the basics of Western concepts of law and judicial procedures, and the hospital system and schools.

Even the so-called ‘sins of the Church’ in the Medieval period that begat the modern era’s historic foundational events brought about a Catholic response to these evils by the creation of Catholic Social Teachings,