The Modern Attack in its main character, materialist and atheist and being atheist it is necessarily indifferent to truth. For God is Truth.
"Those who think that the subject of heresy may be neglected because it sounds to them old-fashion are thinking in words instead of ideas". Hilarie Belloc
The battle is between the Church and the anti-Church the Church of God and anti-God the Church of Christ and anti-Christ.
There is a battle on between the retention of Catholic morals, tradition, and authority on the one side, and the active effort to destroy them on the other. The attack will not tolerate us. It will attempt to destroy us. Nor can we tolerate it. We must attempt to destroy it as being the fully equipped and ardent enemy of the Truth by which men live. The duel is to the death. p146-148
The new advance against the Church, what may prove to be the final advance against the Church, what is at any rate the only modern enemy of consequence--is fundamentally materialist. It is materialist in its reading of history, and above all in its proposals for social reform.
Being Atheist, it is characteristic of the advancing wave that repudiates the human reason..
The great Modern Attack is indifferent to self-contradiction. It merely affirms. It advances like an animal, counting on strength alone. Indeed, it may be remarked in passing that this may well be the cause of its final defeat; for hitherto reason has always overcome its opponents, and man is the master of the beast through reason.
The Modern Attack in its main character, materialist and atheist and being atheist it is necessarily indifferent to truth. For God is Truth.
Therefore with the advance of this new and terrible enemy against the Faith and the civilization which the Faith produces, there is coming not only a contempt for beauty but a hatred of it; and immediately upon the heels of this there appears a contempt and hatred for virtue.
The less vicious converts of the enemy, talk vaguely of "a readjustment, a new world, a new order; but they do not begin telling us, as in common reason they should, upon, what principles this new order is to be raised. They do not define the end they have in view.
This Modern Attack professes to be directed towards a certain good, to wit, the abolition of poverty. But it does not tell you why this should be good; it does not admit that its scheme is also to destroy other things which are also by the common consent of mankind good; the family, property (which is the guarantee of individual freedom and individual dignity) humor, mercy, and every form of what we consider right living.
Well, give it what name you like, call it as I do here, "The Modern Attack" or as I think men will soon have to call it "Anti-Christ".
It is not the revolt of the oppressed; it is not the rising of the proletariat against capital injustice and cruelty; it is something from without, some evil spirit taking advantage of men's distress and at their anger at unjust conditions.
Now that thing is at out gates. Ultimately, of course, it is the fruit of the original break-up of Christendom at the Reformation.
It began with the denial of central authority, it has ended by telling man he is sufficient to himself. and it has set up everywhere great idols to be worshipped as Gods.
It is not only on the communist side it appears also in the organizations opposed to them; in the races and nations where mere force has been set up in place of God. These also set up idols to which hideous human sacrifice is paid. By these also justice and the right order are denied.
The modern enemy is a rising flood.
Before the Church created Christendom, in the realm of morals one thing stands out, the unquestioned prevalence of cruelty in the unbaptized world. Again, Cruelty is the main feature of the modern attack and the revival of slavery the main feature in the social realm.
The issue between Catholicism and the complete new pagan thing of The modern attack, that is (the destruction of all tradition, the breaking with our inheritance), is now clearly marked. p 160
There is not, as there was even quite a short time ago, a confused and heterogeneous margin or penumbra which could talk with confidence of itself under the vague title of Christian and speak confidently of some imaginary religion called "Christianity " No. There are today already almost quite distinct and sharing the filed between them, soon to be as markedly exposed as black and white, The Catholic Church on the one side and on the other the opponents of what has hitherto been our civilization.
The ranks have lined up for a battle; and though such clear division does not mean that one or the other antagonist will conquer, it does mean that a plain issue is defined at last; and in plain issues a good cause, like a bad one, has a better chance than in confusion.
Even the most misguided or the most ignorant men, taking vaguely of "Churches" are now using a language that rings hollow. The past generation could talk,
in Protestant countries at least of "the Churches". The present generation cannot. There are not many churches; there is one, It is the Catholic Church on the one side and its mortal enemy on the other. The lists are set.
Thus we are now in presence of the most momentous question that has yet to be presented to the mind of man. Thus are we placed at a dividing of the ways, upon which the whole future of our race will turn.
The battle is between the Church and the anti-Church the Church of God and anti-God the Church of Christ and anti-Christ.
There is a battle on between the retention of Catholic morals, tradition, and authority on the one side, and the active effort to destroy them on the other. The attack will not tolerate us. It will attempt to destroy us. Nor can we tolerate it. We must attempt to destroy it as being the fully equipped and ardent enemy of the Truth by which men live. The duel is to the death. p146-148
The new advance against the Church, what may prove to be the final advance against the Church, what is at any rate the only modern enemy of consequence--is fundamentally materialist. It is materialist in its reading of history, and above all in its proposals for social reform.
Being Atheist, it is characteristic of the advancing wave that repudiates the human reason..
The great Modern Attack is indifferent to self-contradiction. It merely affirms. It advances like an animal, counting on strength alone. Indeed, it may be remarked in passing that this may well be the cause of its final defeat; for hitherto reason has always overcome its opponents, and man is the master of the beast through reason.
The Modern Attack in its main character, materialist and atheist and being atheist it is necessarily indifferent to truth. For God is Truth.
Therefore with the advance of this new and terrible enemy against the Faith and the civilization which the Faith produces, there is coming not only a contempt for beauty but a hatred of it; and immediately upon the heels of this there appears a contempt and hatred for virtue.
The less vicious converts of the enemy, talk vaguely of "a readjustment, a new world, a new order; but they do not begin telling us, as in common reason they should, upon, what principles this new order is to be raised. They do not define the end they have in view.
This Modern Attack professes to be directed towards a certain good, to wit, the abolition of poverty. But it does not tell you why this should be good; it does not admit that its scheme is also to destroy other things which are also by the common consent of mankind good; the family, property (which is the guarantee of individual freedom and individual dignity) humor, mercy, and every form of what we consider right living.
Well, give it what name you like, call it as I do here, "The Modern Attack" or as I think men will soon have to call it "Anti-Christ".
It is not the revolt of the oppressed; it is not the rising of the proletariat against capital injustice and cruelty; it is something from without, some evil spirit taking advantage of men's distress and at their anger at unjust conditions.
Now that thing is at out gates. Ultimately, of course, it is the fruit of the original break-up of Christendom at the Reformation.
It began with the denial of central authority, it has ended by telling man he is sufficient to himself. and it has set up everywhere great idols to be worshipped as Gods.
It is not only on the communist side it appears also in the organizations opposed to them; in the races and nations where mere force has been set up in place of God. These also set up idols to which hideous human sacrifice is paid. By these also justice and the right order are denied.
The modern enemy is a rising flood.
Before the Church created Christendom, in the realm of morals one thing stands out, the unquestioned prevalence of cruelty in the unbaptized world. Again, Cruelty is the main feature of the modern attack and the revival of slavery the main feature in the social realm.
The issue between Catholicism and the complete new pagan thing of The modern attack, that is (the destruction of all tradition, the breaking with our inheritance), is now clearly marked. p 160
There is not, as there was even quite a short time ago, a confused and heterogeneous margin or penumbra which could talk with confidence of itself under the vague title of Christian and speak confidently of some imaginary religion called "Christianity " No. There are today already almost quite distinct and sharing the filed between them, soon to be as markedly exposed as black and white, The Catholic Church on the one side and on the other the opponents of what has hitherto been our civilization.
The ranks have lined up for a battle; and though such clear division does not mean that one or the other antagonist will conquer, it does mean that a plain issue is defined at last; and in plain issues a good cause, like a bad one, has a better chance than in confusion.
Even the most misguided or the most ignorant men, taking vaguely of "Churches" are now using a language that rings hollow. The past generation could talk,
in Protestant countries at least of "the Churches". The present generation cannot. There are not many churches; there is one, It is the Catholic Church on the one side and its mortal enemy on the other. The lists are set.
Thus we are now in presence of the most momentous question that has yet to be presented to the mind of man. Thus are we placed at a dividing of the ways, upon which the whole future of our race will turn.
Comments
Post a Comment