Despite the efforts of many well-intentioned “conservatives,” the Western world’s ever-downward spiral has not slowed down. The four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance are not only rampant but legal in most “First World” nations.
The spiritual effects of original and actual sin, coupled with our hedonistic culture and the institutions we have erected to reinforce our corporate rejection of the Catholic faith, seem to have taken such a toll on mankind that the West has little chance of recovering from the dense fog it has plunged itself into save Divine Intervention. One sometimes wonders whether liberalism has so disfigured modern man’s nature that grace has nothing left to build on.
The Dispatch
What are Catholics to do?
It is clear that Catholics are faced with a dilemma unlike any they have confronted before. One option is to continue doing what they have for decades: building ecumenical coalitions, issuing public statements, and voting for political parties that claim to oppose “the radicals” and “the leftists.” More than likely, there will be some momentary victories if this path is chosen.
Another option is to recognize that a different, more supernatural course of action is available, one that is rooted in how the Church operated in centuries past.
In his book The Liberal Illusion, 19th century French Catholic writer Louis Veuillot (1813-1883) said the following.
Imagine a King deposed from his throne, the last, best hope of his conquered fatherland, who was suddenly to declare that he considered himself justly deposed and that he only aspired to enjoy his personal possessions according to the laws governing all citizens, beneath the protection of the very men who were plundering his subjects…
The King, we would imagine, would disgrace himself in vain. No one would believe him. Those to whom he offered to sell his rights and his honor would tell him: ‘Are you mad, you are King!’
What Veuillot is saying is that seeking coexistence with the liberal, modern world and its anti-Christian institutions is not what Catholics should strive for. The Kingship of Christ extends to all corners of the earth. All nations owe him obedience. A “free Church in a free State” is not enough. Caesar himself must give homage to his creator.
Consequently, a liberal, pluralistic society — even one that respects the natural law — does not, objectively speaking, fulfill its debt to God. It cannot be said to be pleasing to Him (Hebrews 11:6). If natural law truths are something Catholics want enshrined into law, they should be desired insofar as they are stepping stones to the eventual public recognition of the one true faith.
Integrity co-founder Carol Robinson understood this. In Integrity’s first issue in 1946, she said, “we tend to overly preach the natural law, especially in matters of social reform and economic planning.” But “all these things the heathens do.” A man “does not, by becoming more and more zealous in the practice of natural virtue, grow into supernatural life.” Are “we trying to convert them to the Church via private property…?”
Christ is the Prince of Peace
While it is true that the intellect is capable of grasping the natural law, St. Pope Pius X in Acerbo Nimis in 1905 and Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis in 1950 affirmed that without the Catholic faith guiding man’s thinking, his reason will inevitably falter and his understanding of the truth will gradually subside. Said another way, you cannot have a truly moral society without Jesus Christ at its center and you cannot have Jesus Christ apart from the Catholic religion.
Carol Robinson knew this as well. She reiterated it in her writings. “Western society is in an unprecedented mess,” she said, “because we have been trying to run it without grace.” The “salvation of America will depend not on converting Americans to the idea of goodness and unselfishness … they must be converted to a sense of the life of grace, a desire to do penance, a love of solitude and quiet, a respect for contemplation.”
The solution to the errors of our time, therefore, is, as it has always been: to convert the world to Christ. Pope Leo XIII said precisely this in 1899 when he noted that the “abundance of evils which have now for a long time settled upon the world … pressingly call upon us to seek for help from Him by whose strength alone they can be driven away.” I pray more Catholics will come to realize this in the years ahead.
