What is a Desert Catholic?
Where Orthodoxy Went When Rome Got Comfortable
Statement of Baptismal Allegiance
Every Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday, the Church commands her faithful to reaffirm the truths of their Baptism verbally, publicly, and without apology.
You know these oaths well:
Do you renounce Satan? And all his works? And all his empty show? Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord… ? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church… ?
Our answer, “I do” is the shout of a soldier, a warrior, a father willing to do battle day in and out.
We said “I do.” That was our enlistment and everything that follows is a field manual forged from that vow.
Q1: Is Desert Catholicism heretical?
No. It’s Catholicism, period.
It’s fidelity in its rawest form. It’s pre-schismatic “Old Catholic,” not a sect, a splinter, or a spiritual experiment.
It is a reclamation of the ancient fire that’s the Desert Fathers of Egypt, Carthage, and Scetis lived by, long before scholasticism, before digital discipleship, and before Catholicism was comfortable.
It affirms:
• All dogmas of the Catholic Church
• All seven sacraments
• The primacy of the pope
• The authority of the Magisterium
• The truth of the Catechism
• The call to Rome
It’s not novelty seeking, it’s a severe pursuit of purity with Eucharistic clarity. If you think fasting, silence, obedience, and martyrdom are heresy, you’re not defending orthodoxy. You’re defending comfort.
“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death…”(Romans 6:4)
“By canonizing some of the faithful… the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness…” (CCC8280
Q2: Why doesn’t this guy cite Aquinas?
Because Aquinas isn’t the native tongue of the desert and he doesn’t speak for every aspect of Catholic tradition.
Desert Catholicism draws from the blood-soaked wells of Africa and the East:
• St. Moses the Black: repentance through suffering
• St. Anthony the Great: spiritual warfare in silence
• St. Cyprian of Carthage: unity through martyrdom
• St. Augustine of Africa: interior fire and paternal clarity
• Athanasius & Didymus: Incarnation, exile, Eucharistic defense
Forget scholastic revivals, were fathers and we need to meditate on pre-scholastic crucifixion. So, I cite those who bled in sand, not those who reasoned in marble halls.
“Not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power.” (1 Corinthians 2:4)
Q3: What does “Carthaginian Catholicism” mean?
Carthaginian Catholicism is the fire at the root of Desert Catholicism. It’s the Catholicism of North Africa before Rome was the center and before comfort was canonized.
Carthage was governed by bishops who bled, not bishops who blogged. Its teachers were mothers like St. Monica, who wept their sons to salvation. It was defended by warriors like St. Perpetua, who bled in arenas, and were ultimately martyred, instead of bowing to Rome. It was interpreted by men like Tertullian, who forged theology before he fell.
Important Note: Tertullian isn’t a saint. He defected. But I quote what was true before he turned. I honor the early fire. I reject the heretical ash.
Carthage was ultimately toppled under pressure.
And it wasn’t an accident. Internal fractures cracked her foundation. Then came the pagan invasion that swallowed her whole.
Sound familiar?
But the fire lit in Carthage cannot be put out. It burns in you now.
It burns in the fathers who bleed in silence, in the houses governed by the sacraments, and in sons raised with fierce devotion and physical discipline.
The Church forgot. But the desert remembers.
And so do we.
“They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us…” (CCC957)
Q4: Do you think you’re holier than the Pope?
No.
And I pray I never have to carry what he carries. But I still have to carry my cross as a Catholic husband and a father.
This isn’t about him. This is about you and me and whether we’re obeying Christ.
My authority doesn’t come from status. It comes from my Baptism, the rigorous demands of fatherhood, my willingness to allow God to form me daily as brutally as he may wish, and the silence of the desert
I am not above the Pope. I am beneath Christ.
“Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?” (Galatians 1:10)
Q5: Why don’t you promote unity over critique?
Because unity without truth is complicity and I’m tired of this lukewarm Catholicism that’s wants to lob softballs all day.
“Why do you expose rot when you could keep the peace?”
That’s not charity, it’s cowardice with a nice name. And Christ was no coward. He didn’t unify with Pharisees. Christ exposed their rot publicly. He met people where they were at and still challenge them to rise up and eradicate their sin.
He didn’t make private pacts to “keep peace.” He lit the infection with fire. And frankly we’ve seemingly forgotten that in favor of an affirming, inclusive hippie Jesus.
Paul didn’t appease Peter. The Desert Fathers didn’t beg heretics for collaboration so when I name rot, it’s to guard my wife, my sons, and my house.
If you want unity, start with truth. Not silence. Then get up and start training, now.
“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” —Matthew 10:34
Let This Stand
Desert Catholicism is apostolic, violent, and ancient.
It doesn’t care for relevance. It shouts from the caves where martyrs bled and It remembers who died before Aquinas ever wrote.
You said, “I do.” Now bleed for it.
Remember your oaths everyday. Train like it’s war. Because it is.
⸻
Built in the Desert. Covered by Mary. Forged in Fire.
☩ Sans Peur
– Emmanuel