The visions are structured as follows:

1. The seven letters.
2. The seven seals.
3. The seven trumpets.
4. The assaults of hell: the dragon, the woman, the two beasts, and the justice of the Lamb (Chapters 12-14).
5. The seven cups or vials of divine anger, with Chapter 17 (the scarlet woman) acting as an appendix.
6. The sixth grand vision: final divine justice, encompassing the ruin of Babylon (Chapter 18), the victory of Christ (Chapter 19), and the culmination in the final judgment (Chapter 20).

There is a pattern: the letters to the seven churches were spread somewhat evenly over the ages of Church history. The seven seals began to concentrate towards the end; for instance, the sixth seal was the persecution of Antichrist. The seven trumpets also show this concentration: after the first four, the fifth jumps to heresies preceding Antichrist (the locusts of Chapter 9, the modernists), followed by the two witnesses. The vision of the dragon and the woman covers some early Church history, but the two beasts and the justice of the Lamb clearly concern the end. Each successive vision concentrates more towards the end of Church history, towards the greatest fight and persecution of all.

The fifth vision, the seven vials, details seven kinds of punishment. While the first few vials relate to early apostolic preaching, the later ones jump forward to the end of the world: Antichrist, the beast, hypocrites, and so on. At least half of this vision concerns the end. The final divine justice (Chapters 18-20) is almost entirely about the end: the ruin of Babylon, the victory of Christ, and the final consummation. This represents a zeroing in on the end of Church history. This is one broad pattern for reading the Apocalypse, pulling it together.

This sixth vision depicts God’s judgment at the end of the world. These three chapters can be seen as:

• Chapter 18: The condemnation of Babylon.
• Chapter 19: The condemnation of the Antichrist.
• Chapter 20: The condemnation of the devil.

The angel in Chapter 18, verse 1, is Christ, coming down from Heaven in the Incarnation, having great power, illuminating the earth with His glory—‟Gloria in Excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.‟ He cried out, proclaiming in His strength. What Christ proclaims is the warning of the end of the world, as found in the Gospels. His preaching cannot be silenced. He proclaims, „Babylon the Great has fallen, has fallen.‟ Babylon is the empire of evil, welcoming devils, a dwelling place of devils.

This sounds entirely likely. While one cannot say it is all the fault of the whites—that would be stupid, as it is also the fault of the Blacks—if the Blacks had been properly led, not misled into the dead end of materialism by the whites, they would not be in this state. They were not like that on the plantations in the South. Liberals thought they knew better and destroyed the South. Many Blacks then streamed north, sold on the idea of how wonderful, enlightened, and superior the North was. What were they given? Essentially, money. When a quarter of Los Angeles was destroyed, the government rebuilt it, keeping them quiet with money.

Whites often do not genuinely like or respect Blacks. There is a great pretense of union, but it is not real because there is no true charity or love of God in it. It is based on a humanistic sense of liberal superiority and equality. Blacks were given liberty and equality but did not know what to do with it, often ending up filling prisons. Building more prisons seems to be the whites’ primary solution. It is the liberals among the whites who have absolutely poisoned the Blacks.

This leads to what might be called the law of rising disappointed expectations. When people are disappointed with materialism, they are given more material goods. This merely postpones the problem, like a drug requiring increasing doses. Eventually, there are no more material goodies to distribute, and the law of rising disappointments leads to a major explosion. Some, like those in Los Angeles, do not care what they destroy, even their own facilities. A short circuit occurs, and the whole thing blows up. This is how they are, but not how they have to be. The Catholic Church in Africa, as Archbishop Lefebvre noted, has done wonders. The Church works with them effectively, provided the whites fulfill their own duties. If you call this racialism, so be it, just as distinguishing between men and women might be called sexism. It is reality.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa, outlines a method:

1. An sit: Does it exist? The question of existence.
2. Quid sit: What is it? Its essence, nature.
3. Quot sit: Its parts, divisions, species.
4. Ordo partium: The order of parts, their hierarchy.

This pattern underlies St. Thomas’s analysis. He examines how a thing divides and the order of its parts—a leading part and subsequent parts. Applying this to humanity: humans exist; a human is a rational animal. What are the different kinds, the different races? It is obvious that races exist and have different characteristics. Different nations within a race have different characters; different regions within a nation vary. The south of France differs from the north, as does the south of England from the north. Even individual parishes or missions have distinct atmospheres, much like the churches to whom St. Paul wrote his Epistles. Each letter reflects the specific character of its recipients.

God’s creation is full of differences, and these differences imply inequalities. In the Summa Theologiae (Prima Pars, Question 47, likely in De Deo Creatore), St. Thomas addresses inequality. Origen suggested inequality arose as a punishment for sin, stemming from our instinct that justice requires equality. If creation is unequal, God must be unjust. St. Thomas refutes this, explaining that God designs inequality because each part of His creation has a different role to play. Every part, as it comes from God, is well-designed for its purpose.

A humanity of all chiefs and no Indians would not work, nor one of all Indians and no chiefs. God distributes His gifts to ensure the right number of each. If men disrupt this order, pretending everyone is a chief, they create immense problems by deviating from reality. This is the error of Rousseau—the imposition of equality on everything. Pope Leo XIII affirmed that one cannot forcibly equalize the realities of life, where inequality is evident in all directions. The goal is not to level inequality but for everyone to do what God gifted them to do. Those with special talents have a responsibility to use them for leadership and service, not to waste them or pretend equality by behaving like the lowest. To do so is to go against God’s plan and incur judgment.

Regarding the American South, while not idealizing it (slavery is a dangerous institution given human nature, though not necessarily a mortal sin), there was arguably more genuine knowledge and appreciation of Black individuals there than in the liberal North. Liberty is not the ultimate good; if it were, slavery would be the ultimate evil, as liberalism posits. However, slavery, while dangerous, is a system that can be operated.

As Catholics, we are all souls who will stand before God’s judgment seat. There, we will be judged with absolute equality according to our talents, gifts, and positions—those in higher positions more severely. This is the only true sense in which we are absolutely equal. This deep, instinctive realization of fundamental human equality is what reacts against perceived injustices. Origen misinterpreted this, suggesting inequality was a punishment. St. Thomas corrected this: inequality is part of God’s plan. For an untalented person to pretend to be talented, or a talented person to shirk their role by pretending to be untalented (e.g., whites denying any special role or responsibility), is equally against God’s plan.

The answer lies in a debased Christianity. Before Christ, the equality James speaks of would have been absurd to a Roman senator. The Catholic Church gave humanity the idea that all are equal before God, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. This deep sense of belonging to one family in Christ is expressed by St. Paul in Galatians 3:27-28: „For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.‟ St. Paul is not abolishing natural differences but revealing a profound spiritual equality in Christ previously unimagined.

Consider three stages:

1. Ugly reality due to original sin, with little meaningful equality.
2. That same reality, lifted by Christ into a new dimension where spiritual equality exists alongside natural diversity.
3. Christ is removed. The idea of equality, derived from Christian influence, remains but is now detached from its source. This secularized equality then clashes violently with unredeemed reality because Christ, who alone could harmonize them, is gone.

The problem is the loss of faith. Rousseau’s power comes from Christian ideas of Christendom, perverted by the pretense that Christendom can work without Christ. This idea—having the benefits of Christ (like equality) alongside the advantages of the devil and original sin—is immensely attractive. It is the promise of „having it both ways.‟ Anyone offering to combine Christ and the devil will have a popular product, but it is utterly false. The power of Rousseau, and thus of liberalism, comes from pretending that the fruits of Christ can be had without Christ.

This is why the liberal North’s pretense that treating Blacks with worldly equality will make everything wonderful is Rousseauean. It assumes an equality that only makes sense when lifted by Christ. Take Christ out, and this imposed equality collides with reality, leading to chaos. The same applies to issues like capital punishment.