Unto the Ages of Ages: Essays on Political Traditionalism

by Sebastian Morello

Arouca Press, Waterloo ON, 2025

I had no sooner reviewed earlier this year a book by Sebastian Morello-  Mysticism, Magic and Monasteries – than the author published a new volume: Unto the Ages of Ages: Essays on Political Traditionalism. His purpose in this new book is to lay out a positive response of traditionalism to the crisis of today. For Morello states that on the right, there is much criticism of modernity, but not much articulation of a positive alternative to the world of today. To do so, Morello returns to Burke, de Maistre and other “first responders” to the crisis of modernity as it emerged in the French revolution.

Unto the Ages of Ages collects essays published in the European Conservative. The political focus  – or awareness – of Unto the Ages of Ages is reminiscent of the writers of Triumph magazine in the United States (1966-74). This is in contrast to those authors who restrict themselves more to liturgical, cultural or religious issues. But Morello would argue that the Catholic faith has an inherently political aspect. Christianity should not set out to accommodate itself to the “secular age” but:

{R]eject it outright and undergo the hard slog of retrieving a pre-modern mind and heart. (p.xxii)

For Christ’s admonition to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”  did not at all support the existence of a separate, autonomous secular “city.” For ultimately everything belongs to God and whatever Caesar has is by delegation. 

It is unsurprising that in this book the hierarchy of the Catholic Church plays a minor role. Morello does believe in the importance of truth and that the Catholic Church is the bearer of truth; indeed, he was active for years in catechetical programs of the ”institutional Church.” But gradually he realized how different his beliefs were from those of many of his co-religionists  – because “the Catholic Church is largely run by progressive activists.”

Morello opposes the leveling and globalist policies of the present ruling powers of the West. So, for example, he argues against mass immigration and for patriotism. He denounces modern Western entertainment culture as found in music, movies and television (compare the remarks on this subject of Solzhenitsyn!). Morello argues for the concrete, the organic, the traditional (in the best sense of the word).  He sees these as inherent features of English culture as embodied in the landscape of England, the customs of England, the institution of the British monarchy, etc.

We see the influence of the late Roger Scruton, but also of Chesterton. For example, reading this book I recalled  Roger Scruton’s book on wine culture:  I drink therefore I am in which he identifies as the unique, defining aspect of wine the specificity of the vineyard’s location and the individuality of the producer. And did not Chesterton’s The Rolling English Road make a point like Morello’s in 1913? Morello too uses a similar image – whether it is totally accurate I cannot say –  contrasting the appearance of the “rationalistic” agricultural landscape of France with the irregular, organically developed fields of England.  

Yet, the United Kingdom today is also one of the most modernistic societies on the planet – a true surveillance state. And political “conservatives” – which in the United Kingdom is, after all, even the name of a political party – have been instrumental in creating and perfecting this regime.  Again and again in this book, Morello returns to the topic of “conservatism.“ Inherently problematic, conservatism as practiced in recent decades has often been a vehicle for imposing, modernistic, and anti-traditional policies on the peoples of the West. That is because, in most cases, the conservatives fundamentally do not disagree with the ideology of the global liberal society. 

There are some gems in Unto the Ages of Ages that should delight the liturgical traditionalist. Morello makes the case for the elaborate Sarum rite – the predominant pre-Reformation use of the Roman rite.  Morello considers the Anglican “Ordinariate”  within the Roman Catholic Church as a potential champion for restoring the Sarum rite. This may be unrealistic – but have we not seen at least one recent instance – in Princeton, N.J. – of Sarum Rite Vespers being splendidly celebrated with the participation of the Ordinariate?  Morello acclaims as a counter-revolutionary deed the building of the basilica of Sacre Coeur in Paris after the tragedies of France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and the civil war of the Commune (1870-71). It was a bold reassertion of Catholicism on one of the most prominent sites in Paris. Furthermore, the devotion of the Sacred Heart has always had a specifically counter-revolutionary aspect going back to the wars of the Vendee. The new church was a celebration of the Catholic identity of France  – not in triumph, but in penance after the horrors the nation had just lived through. And it has been successful – Sacre Coeur has remained an “iconic” image of Paris ever since.

Morello also gives tips on how a traditionalist revival can begin at home – for example, by exposing our children to traditional folk music. For it is highly unlikely that someone raised on the pop music of today, which Morello calls demonic,  can ever have any appreciation of classical Western music. But openness to classical music can be made possible if in the family a foundation is laid through listening to  – and performing – the folk music of the past. Morello tells us how the slovenly or even obscene dress of today conveys a powerful anti-Christan message. With a little imagination, however, one can work against this force. Morello gives hints on how with, the aid of consignment and secondhand stores, any one of us can vastly improve his or her appearance. 

These ideas of Morello ideas resemble those we have already heard, and, in the case of some of us, already practiced. But it is still instructive to find an author who systematically unites these themes and integrates them into a whole. And what Morello argues for is not just an alternative, private,  lifestyle but the beginnings of a political recovery. For Christianity was not meant to be lived as a separate cult, but of necessity must permeate the whole culture, society and politics. Morillo is arguing for such a political movement. But should we call this “conservative” anymore? According to the author:

Perhaps in decades past, the conservative cause looked like an attempt to direct people back into a cage at the very moment they felt themselves emancipated. Now, however, people are crying out to be liberated from the fetters of self-indulgence and reclaim their “roots”. They want to engage in a “meaning-based” discourse, and it is in such a discourse that the conservative tradition can shine like a great beacon leading people into the calm harbor of sanity. This then, is an important moment for a true conservative revival, but conservatives –  calling themselves “conservatives” –  will need to wake up and seize it. (p. 135)

Sebastian Morello, based on Solovyov’s Tale of the Antichrist, even hopes for a “right-wing ecumenism” of Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism based not on submergence in some kind of uniform, undogmatic liberalism but upon the shared truths of Christianity. Truths that increasingly face the opposition  – and downright hatred – of the despotic society of modernity. 

Is Morello’s political initiative unrealistic? Perhaps! But we are seeing today, both in and outside of the Church, in religion, art, politics and family life, movements underway to return to a sane world.  Can this undercurrent eventually prevail against the asphyxiating grip of the current culture? Ultimately, yes, but we should not be surprised if that eventually requires martyrdom. For the price of returning to traditional Christian culture in the face of the all-engulfing control exercised today by the masters of our society may well be a high one.