The crisis in Christendom


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Fulton
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. Sheen

The Catholic Hour





THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM
By

RT. REV. MSGR. FULTON J. SHEEN
of the

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

Eighteen addresses delivered in the nationwide Catholic Hour (produced by
the National Council of Catholic Men, in cooperation with the

National Broadcasting Company) on Sundays from
January 3 to April 25, 1943, inclusive.

Page

January 3 War and Revolution 3
January 10 The Thing We Are Fighting Against — 9
January 17 Some Barnacles on the Ship of Democracy 15
January 24 More Barnacles on the Ship of Democracy 23
January 31 The Christian Order 28
February 7 The Christian Social Order 33
February 14 The Christian Order and the Family i 39
February 21 The Christian Order and Education 44
February 28 On Whose Side Are We? 51
March 7 How Overcome This Evil? 59
March 14 Evil Has Its Hour 1 65
March 21 War As a Judgment of God 72
March 28 Judgment of Nations 77
April 4 Freedom in Danger 82
April 11 Moral Basis of Peace 87
April 18 The Jew and Christian in History 92
April 23 The Passion 97
April 25 Easter

T 100
Statement of the Catholic Hour's Purpose \05
List of Stations Carrying the Catholic Hour 106
List of Catholic Hour Pamphlets 108

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Imprimi potest:

CARROLL RING, C.P.
Provincial

Imprimatur:

JOHN F. NOLL, D.D.
Bishop of Fort Wayne

October 15, 1952

Third Edition 20,500

DeacidUfed
Printed in U. S. A.



WAR AND
Address delivered

This year it is my privilege to
address you on the subject of the

Crisis in Christendom. Naturally,

it will concern itself with this aw-

ful cataclysm which has brought the

world to the edge of a great abyss.

There are two ways of looking at

this war: One as a journalist and

the other as a theologian. The

journalist tells us what happens;

the theologian tells us not only why
it happens, but also what matters.

If we look at this war through the

eyes of a journalist or a commen-

tator, it will be only a succession of

events without any remote cause

in the past, or any great purpose

in the future. But if we look at
the war through the eyes of God,

then the war will not be meaning-

less, though we may not presently
see its meaning. It may very well
be a purposeful purging of the

world’s evil that the world may have
a rebirth of freedom under His

Holy Law, for

“Every human path leads on to God,
He holds a myriad finer threads

than gold,

And strong as holy wishes, drawing
us

With delicate tension upward to

Himself.”

(E. C. Stedman, Protest of Faith)

REVOLUTION
on January 3, 1943

These broadcasts approach the

war from the divine point of view,

because it is the only explanation

which fits the facts.

The great mass of the American

people are frankly dissatisfied with

the ephemeral and superficial com-

mentaries on what is happening.

Being endowed with intelligence

they want to know why it is hap-
pening. A recent poll revealed that
one-third of the people did not know

what the war was about. We all
know what we are fighting against;

we want to know what we are fight-
ing for. We all know that we are in
a war; we want to know what we
must do to make a lasting peace.

We know whom we hate; but we
want to know what we ought to
love. We know we are fighting
against a barbarism that is intrin-

sically wicked; we want to know
what we have to do to make the
resurrection of that wickedness im-

possible.

In this broadcast we will show
what the war is not and then what
the war is. Let us begin by clear-

ing away three false conceptions of
the war.

First, this war is not merely a
political and an economic struggle,



4 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

but rather a theological one. It is

not political and economic, because

politics and economics are con-

cerned only with the means of liv-

ing. And it is not just the means
of living that have gone wrong,

but the ends of living. Never before

in the history of the world have

there been so many abundant means
of life. Never before was there

so much power, and never before
have men so earnestly prepared to
use that power for the destruction

of human life. The basic reason
why our economics and politics have
failed as a means to peace is be-

cause both have forgotten the end

and purpose of life. We have been
living as if civilization, culture,

and peace, were by-products of eco-

nomic activity instead of the other

way round. Politics and economics
alone are as incapable of curing

our ills as an alcohol rub is incap-

able of curing cancer; and if we
assume they will cure, or that they

are primary, then this world war

will end in socialism and socialism

is only an obligatory and enforced

organization of the means of liv-

ing to prevent utter ruin. In a

word, it is not our politics that has

soured, nor our economics that has

rusted; it is our hearts. We live
and act as if God had never made

us. That is why I say this war

is not political and economic in its

fundamental aspects; it is theo-

logical.

Second
,

this war has not been
caused merely by evil dictators. It

is too commonly assumed that our

milk of international peace has

curdled, because a few wicked dic-

tators poured vinegar into it. Hence

if we could rid the world of these
evil men, we would return to a
world of comparative prosperity.

What a delusion! These dictators
are not the creators of the world’s

evil; they are its creatures. They

are only boils on the surface of

the world’s skin; they come to the

surface because there is bad blood

beneath. It will do no good to

lance the boils, if we leave the
source of the infection untouched.

Have we forgotten that from 1914

to 1918 our cry was “Rid the world

of the Kaiser and we will have

peace”? Well, we got rid of the
Kaiser, but we had no peace. On
the contrary, we prepared for an-

other war in the space of twenty-

one years. Now we are shouting,
“Rid the world of Hitler and we

will have peace.” We must rid the
world of Hitler, but we will not

have peace unless we supply those

moral and spiritual forces the lack

of which produced Hitler. There

are a thousand Hitlers hidden un-

der the barbarism of the present

day. Peace does not follow the



WAR AND REVOLUTION 5

extermination of dictators, because

dictators are only the effect of

wrong philosophies of life, they are

not the causes. They come into en-

vironments already prepared for

them, like certain forms of fungi

come into wet wood. Nazism is

the disease of culture in its most

virulent form, and could not have

come to power in Germany unless

the rest of the world were sick.

Were we honest we would admit
that we are all citizens of an apos-

tate world, a world that has aban-

doned God. For this apostacy, we
are all in part responsible, but none

more than we Christians who were
meant to be the salt of the earth

to prevent its corruption. No! It

is not the bad dictators who made
the world bad; it is bad thinking.

It is, therefore, in the realm of

ideas that we will have to restore
the world!

Third, this war is not like any
other war. When hostilities cease,
we will not go back again to our
former way of life. This war is
not an interruption of the normal;

it is rather the disintegration of

the abnormal. We are definitely at
the end of an era of history. The

old wells have run dry; the staff

of unlimited progress on which we
leaned, has pierced our hands; the

quicksands of our belief in the un-

qualified goodness of human nature

have swallowed the superstructure

of our materialist world. We are
now face to face with a fact which

some reactionaries still ignore,

namely, that society can become in-

human while preserving all the

technical and material advantages

of a so called advanced civilization.

We will not get back, again to the
same kind of a world we had be-
fore this war ; in fact, he who
would want to do so would want the

kind of world that produced Hitler.

The world is pulling up its tents;

humanity is on the march. The old

world is dead.

That brings us to what the war

is. There are really two great

events in the modern world: The

war and the revolution.

A war involves nations, alliances,
men, armies, defense plants, guns,

and tanks. A revolution involves
ideas. A war moves on a horizontal
plane of land, territory, and men;

a revolution moves on the vertical

plane of ideology, doctrine, dogmas

and creeds and philosophies of life.

This distinction is very important,

for it explains how nations can be

on the same side of a war and on

different sides of a revolution. Rus-

sia, for example, i3 on our side of

the war, but Russia is not yet on

our side of the revolution; please

God some day it may be.

The war ^»dv an episode in the



6 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

revolution—something incidental.
It is the military phase by which
i-Vo revolution is working itself out.

The revolution is far more impor-

tant and will long outlast the war,

for this world war is not a con-

flict of nations, as was the last

world war, but a conflict of ideol-

ogies. A far more important ques-
tion than ‘Who will win the war?’

is the question: ‘Who will win the

revolution?* In other words, what

kind of ideologies or philosophies

of life will dominate the world when

this war is finished?

A revolution, we said, involved
ideologies, dogmas, and creeds. How-

many philosophies of life are in-
volved in this revolution ? It is quite

generally and falsely assumed that

there are only two : The democratic

and totalitarian, or the Christian

and the anti-Christian. Would to

God it were that simple ! There are

actually three great philosophies of

life or ideologies involved: First,

the totalitarian world view; second,

the secularist or sensate view which

has attached itself like a barnacle

to the ship of the Western World;

and, third, the Christian world

view.

We will devote a broadcast to
each of these later on. Suffice it

presently to understand that there

are three world orders struggling

for the mastery of the world. We

repeat. There is the Totalitarian

world view which is anti-Christian,

anti-Semitic, and anti-human. There

is the secularist world view which

is humanistic and democratic, but

which attempts to preserve these

values on a non-religious and non-

moral foundation, by identifying

morality and self-interest instead

of morality and the will of God.

And there is the Christian world
view which grounds the human and
the democratic values of the West-

ern World on a moral and religious

basis. This Christian view includes

not only Christians but also Jews,

who historically are the roots of
the Christian tradition, and who
religiously are one with the Chris-

tian in the adoration of God and

the acceptance of the moral law

as the reflection of the Eternal

Reason of God.

Our choice in this war is to be

made among three dogmas : Wheth-
er man is a tool of the State, as
the Totalitarian believes

;
or wheth-

er man is an animal, as the secular-
ist tradition of the Western World

—including too many Americans

—

believe; or whether man is a crea-
ture made to the image and like-

ness of God, as the Christian be-

lieves.

There is the essence of the con-

flict.

We simply cannot go on as we



WAR AND REVOLUTION 7

were. A nation cannot live in war
as it does in peace, nor can a Church

live in war as it does in peace.

What are we Catholics doing now,

as Catholics, which is any different

from what we did in the days of

peace? Do we realize that as mem-
bers of Christ’s Mystical Body on

earth we must repent for the world?

No occasional prayer for victory,
no fulfillment of the minimum of
Christian duties, no sporadic exhi-

bitionism, fulfills either our obli-

gation to the Church or to our coun-

try. We should know better than
anyone else, as the Holy Father

told us, that the whole world is in

darkness because Christ has been

re-crucified. May I therefore re-
new the appeal of last year that you
make a Holy Hour every day, in-

cluding in it the morning Mass.

Start tomorrow morning. Let ev-

ery pastor in the United States

notice the difference in the morning.

If you cannot go to Mass and Com-
munion, spend a Holy Hour in med-
itation and prayer in your home.

Pray for victory? Yes! We will win
that, there is no doubt! But the

peace, the restoration of the moral

law, a new order based on God’s

justice—that will come only by
a return to the mind and spirit of

the Church during the first few

centuries. Our bodies need not be

in catacombs, but our minds must

think and pray as if our bodies

were.

And my friends among the Prot-
estant and Jews, what are you doing

now that is different from what you

did in the days of false peace? Are

you saying more prayers, more

patiently making sacrifices in war

time, and living as if God meant

something in the dust of common
lives? Why should not you too
spend a Holy Hour a day in medi-
tation and prayer that the moral

law of God may win over both the
indifference and the hatred of a

world gone mad? To all, whomso-
ever you be, who writes us, we will
gladly send you, free of charge,

a Prayer Book for War Time, en-
titled “The Shield of Faith.’’

We have a double duty in this
war, not a single one. We must de-
feat the active barbarism from

without, and we must defeat the
passive barbarism from within. We
must use our swords with an out-

ward thrust against Totalitarian-

ism and its hard barbarism; but

we must also use the sword with an
inward thrust to cut away our own

soft barbarism.

We have a war to win; and we
have a revolution to win. A war
to win by overthrowing the power

of the enemy in battle; a peace to

win by making ourselves worthy

to dictate it.



8 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

Victory on the field will conquer

the hard barbarism. Repentence and

catharsis of spirit alone will con-

quer the soft barbarism. Guns,

ships, planes, dynamite, factories,

ships and bombs will put down the

first evil. Prayer, sorrow contri-

tion, purging of our hearts and

souls, meditation, reparation, sac-

rifice, and a return to God, will

alone accomplish the second. If we
merely defeat the hard barbarism

and lose to the soft we will be at
the beginning of cyclic wars, which

will return and return until we are
beaten and purged and broken in

the creative despair of getting back

to God.

This is the true revolution

!

All the other revolutions of the

twentieth century have been from

without; this time we want a rev-
olution from within. The revolu-

tions which shook Europe during

the last twenty-five years only shift-

ed power from one class to another,

and booty from one pocket to an-

other, and authority from one party

to another. This time we want a
revolution that will change hearts!

A revolution like the one pictured
in the “Magnificat of the Blessed

Virgin” which was a thousand

times more revolutionary than the
Manifesto of Karl Marx. The
trouble with all political and eco-

nomic revolutions is they are not

revolutionary enough! They still
leave hate in the heart of men!

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War

(adapted from Cardinal Newman)

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who in Thy
mercy hearest the prayers of sin-

ners, pour forth, we beseech Thee,
all grace and blessing upon our

country and its citizens. We pray
in particular for the President—for
our Congress—for all our soldiers
—for all who defend us in ships,
whether on the seas or in the skies

—for all who are suffering the
hardships of war. We pray for all
who are in peril or in danger. Bring

us all after the troubles of this life

into the haven of peace, and re-

unite us all together forever, 0
dear Lord, in Thy glorious heavenly
kingdom.



THE THING WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST
Address delivered on January 10, 1943

Three dogmas or philosophies of

life are struggling for mastery in

this war : The anti-Christian totali-

tarian world view; the non-Chris-

tian secularist world view of West-

ern civilization; and the Christian

world view. In this talk we shall
discuss the first: The anti-Chris-

tian totalitarian world view.

This anti-Christian, anti-human,

anti-democratic, totalitarian ideo-

logy exists in four forms widely

scattered throughout the world

:

First, in a historical form, as the

revival of the imperial traditions

of the ancient Roman Empire,
which is Fascism; second, in an

anthropological form, as the glori-

fication of the Nordic race, which

is Nazism; third, in a theological

form, as the identification of Divin-

ity with a dynastic house, which is

Japanese Imperialism; and fourth,

in an economic form as the pro-
clamation of class struggle on the

anti-religious basis of dictatorship

of the proletariat, which is Marxian
Socialism.

In his Christmas (1942) allocu-

tion the Holy Father condemned

these four forms as a “conception

which claims for particular nations,

or races, or classes. . . ‘the norm
from which there is no appeal/ ”

Let me say here, parenthetically,
that I make the same distinction
between Russia and Marxian Soc-

ialism that Stalin makes between

Germany and Nazism. Stalin de-
clared he was not fighting Ger-

many, but Nazism. In like manner,

we are glad to be allies of Russia,
to aid them in the defense of their

fatherland, to protect them against

barbarian invaders, and to welcome

them into the comity of the West-

ern World. But as Stalin would re-

ject Nazism as distinct from Ger-

many so we must reject Marxian
Socialism as distinct from Russia,

our courageous ally.

Not one of these four forms is a

State in the political sense of the

term; rather each is a philosophy

of life working through a unique

party which acts as a substitute for

the State. All agree in investing

primitive ideas of class, race, na-

tion, and blood with a divine signi-

ficance.

How did these pseudo-mysticisms
originate? In their European form
they arose in part as a reaction

against the excesses and defects of

the secularist and materialist cul-

ture of the rest of the Western

World. They corrected abuses af-
ter the fashion of a man who might



10 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

foolishly burn his barn to get rid of

a few rats. Anyone who looks at
history in the perspective of the

last few hundred years will see in

it a progressive repudiation of

Christian principles in social, poli-

tical, and economic life, which re-

pudiation produced first a non-re-

ligious civilization, and then by re-

action an anti-religious civilization,

and finally the new false religion of
Nazism against which we are
struggling.

The strength of these totalitar-

ian systems was that they supplied

some kind of an answer—false
though it was—to the hidden dom-
inance of the lords of finance, to

the indifference of democracies to

absolute values, and to the claim of

merchants that private gain must

have precedence over the common
good.

The ills they attempted to cure

were basically due to the de-Chris-

tianization of society. But through

a false diagnosis they attempted to

arrest that de-Christianization by

anti-Christianizing the world.

We are less concerned with the
origin of these systems and more

with their nature. By answering
this question we have the clue to
the thing we are fighting against.
The essence of totalitarianism is

threefold: It denies the value of a

person by affirming the primacy of

the nation, the race, the class, the

dynasty; it denies the equality of

men
;

it affirms that evil is the

method and the goal of the revolu-

tion.

The basic principle of democracy

is the sacredness of the individual

as a creature endowed by God with

inalienable rights. The basic prin-

ciple of Nazism and other totalitar-

ian system is that the individual

has no rights except those given

him by the Party or the State. In
America freedom resides in man;
in Nazism freedom resides in the
race. In America man endows the
State with rights which he received

from God; in Nazism the State en-
dows man with rights which it got
from Hitler. One of the best ex-
pressions of this Totalitarian idea

that the individual has no value is

to be found in that influential Ger-

man, Karl Marx, who in 1843 re-
jected a democratic conception of

man on the grounds that it was
Christian. These were his words:

“That each man has a value as a
sovereign being is an illusion, a

dream and a postulate of Christian-

ity which affirms that every man
has a soul.”

Later, writing in the first edition

of Das Kapital, he further develop-

ed the idea: “If I speak of individ-

uals, it is only in so far as they

are personifications of economic

categories and representatives of



THE THING WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST 11

special class relations and inter-

ests/’

In plain language, this means

that Marx had no use for the in-
dividual worker or proletarian as

such. The person in himself has no

value; he has value only as a re-

presentative of a revolutionary

class. Once the person ceased to be

a member of that class, he ceased
to have value. This disdain of the

human person, as such, is the first
dogma of all totalitarian systems.
It explains why the individual Jew
has no value or rights under Naz-

ism: Because he is not a member
of the revolutionary race. It ex-

plains Fascism which states: “So-

ciety is the end, individuals only

the means and the instruments.” It

explains the wanton disregard of

individual life by the Japanese Im-

perial Government and the state-

ment of the Japanese educators:

“The individual is not an entity

but depends upon the whole, aris-

ing from and kept in being by the

State.” These low and unspiritual

views of man are the beginning of
slavery.

If Europe today is in chains, it

is not because Nazism is cruel in
war; it is because Nazism is wicked
in principle—it denies the value of
a Jewish Babe in a crib. As the
present Holy Father said, “The

State may demand the goods of its
citizens and if need be their blood,

but the soul redeemed by Christ

—

never!”

American Democracy is founded

on the principle of the essential

spiritual equality of all men. When
President Roosevelt was asked at
the end of October (1942) to whom
his four freedoms were meant to

apply, he answered: “To everyone,

all over the world.”

Totalitarianism denies this basic

equality of all men as children of
God. Men are equal only on condi-
tion that they belong to a certain

class, a certain race, a certain dyn-

asty, a certain nation. Hitler there-

fore proclaims the superiority of

the German race over all the peo-
ples of the earth with the possible

exception of the Japanese, for Hit-

ler has discovered that one of the

Japanese sun-gods is a first cousin

of the German god, Wotan.

The persecution of the Jews

arises, therefore, not because, as

Hitler first claimed, they were too

wealthy, but simply because they

were not Nordic. “As for the

Jews,” he writes in one of his early

decrees, “they have simply been

placed outside the law”—as if any
signing of a law could make a man
a monkey.

According to the same principle

the Protestant Pastor Niemoeller

and the Catholic Bishops and

priests, such as Bishop von Galen,

are denied equality on the ground



12 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

that they put loyalty to Christ

above loyalty to the Feuhrer.

It was no accident that in his

attachment to Richard Wagner,

who accustomed three generations
of Germans to the myths of the

Nordic and pagan past of Germany,

Hitler should have built his nest

at Berchtesgaden. For in his prose

works Wagner wrote that Germany
had already had one re-incarnation

of Siegfried in Frederick Barbar-

ossa who established the first Reich
(Bismarck’s being called the sec-

ond). Wagner said that a day
would come when this Siegfried-

Barbarossa would have a third re-

incarnation, a “hero who turns
against the ruin of his race. . . .

the hero wondrously divine,” and

he said that when he comes he will

make his home over the spot where
the bones of Barbarossa and Sieg-

fried now are supposedly buried

—

in Berchtesgaden — where Hitler
has his home.

Totalitarianism is wicked be-

cause it makes evil the method and

the goal of the Revolution. Nazism

is not negative like Marxian Social-

ism. Marxian Socialism is anti-re-

ligious; Nazism is very religious,

but its religion is diabolical. There

is only one way to describe how it
grafted violence onto legality and

that is in the phrase of Rauschn-

ing: “The Revolution of Nihilism.”

And such it is: The following of

blind irrational myths; the com-

plete turning upside down of tradi-
tional morality; the enthronement

of the will to power. It is pointless

for us to argue against the Nazis

on the ground that they are cruel

and unjust, or because they have

built their system on another basis

than that of justice and righteous-

ness. We are not talking about the
same things. What justice is to us,
that injustice is to the Nazis.

The inspiration for this idea is

due principally to Nietzche who
sought to find a basis for mor-

ality other than that of Chris-

tianity, which he called slave-mor-

ality, and by so doing to release

the pent-up energies of the will to

power. “Morality must be shot at,”

as he put it—then adding, “We are
probably the first who understand
that a pagan faith is . . . the valu-

ing of all higher existence as im-

moral existence. . . ” This is a

frightful reminder to us, inciden-

tally, of what a nation can become

which abandons the moral law of

Christ. But such is the essence of

Nazism and all anti-religious sys-

tems.

Add these three ideas together

—

the denial of the value of the per-

son which the German Marx pro-
claimed; the denial of the equality

of all men which the German philo-
sophers proclaimed and which

Wagner set to music; and the pri-



THE THING WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST 13

macy of irrational power, lust,

cruelty which the German Nietzche
affirmed—and you have the thing
we are fighting against. It is not
a nation; it is not a State; it is a

spirit, the spirit of anti-Christ, the

last and awful perversion of a com-

munity that turned its back on God

and to whom Satan showed his
face.

It is not a nation or a people we
are fighting against. We will aid,
and we should aid, any people or
any nation under the sun to bring

them back again to a decent human
order where a person has value,

even though he owns private prop-
erty, or is a Jew, or does not wear

a certain color shirt, or does not

believe that the sun is a god. It is

our solemn duty to hate the error

and to love the erring, to fight the

evil and to embrace the wounded,

and to do all we can to bring any
nation back again into the Western

comity of peoples which accepts the

moral law of God as the foundation
of civilization.

Let no one stultify himself by be-

lieving that Totalitarianism as we
have defined it, can, in any of its

forms, be Christianized or demo-

cratized or humanized
;
for here we

are not dealing with wicked men
who could be converted through
God’s grace but with a wicked ideo-

logy that makes conversion impos-

sible. Erring sheep can be brought

into the sheepfold of Christ, but

evil philosophies, which are like

wolves, cannot. By their very na-
ture they are anti-Christian be-

cause they exalt the herd recog-

nized by the State, over the person

whose value comes from God. That

is why Totalitarianism persecutes
the Church. Its persecution could

be avoided only by emptying Chris-

tianity of Christ, man of his soul,
and the soul of its Justice and

Charity.

The War is exploding the fallacy
that it makes no difference what

we believe. It does make a tremen-
dous amount of difference what we
believe, for we act on our beliefs.
If our beliefs are right, our deeds

will be right. The evil of the Nazis

is that they practice what they

preach. If twenty years ago we so
educated ourselves along the line

of Christian morality as to see the

utter moral evil and logical absurd-

ity of these ideas, we would not
now have to sacrifice our lives to
blot them from the earth. What we
were once tolerant to as a wicked

idea, we must now be intolerant
to as a deed .

These demonic forces replaced

the spiritual anarchy of bourgeois

civilization with a semblance of

order; they found substitutes for

the doubt, the scepticism, and the

sophistication of an irresponsible

intelligentsia, in the certitude of an



14 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

absolute authority embodied in a

social philosophy. They proved that

any world view is better than no

world view; and that a regime that

possesses some authority is better

than a system of no authority. And
in doing so, they thrust the issue

before us very clearly: It makes

a war of a difference what you be-

lieve. This conflict is not between

men and nations; it is not only a
war—it is a revolution!
Our enemies have their creeds.

Where is ours? Which one shall

we adopt? The clue is to be found
in them. What do they all univer-
sally oppose? They are all opposed

to Christianity. These evil systems

know that they cannot totally pos-
sess man until they dispossess the
Church which asserts that man's

soul belongs to God. They are not

afraid of our liberalism, our par-

liaments, our capitalism, our uni-

versal education. But they are

afraid of Him Who said: “Render
to God the things that are God’s."

We are fighting against the De-
vil. There is a Devil! And man is
no match for him. Unless we very
quickly get on God’s side and trust

in God’s strength we will lack the
faith to see the Devil, and the moral

indignation to oppose him.

We are up against the kind of a
Devil now that the disciples could
not cast out when Our Lord told
them, “This kind can only be cast

out by prayer and fasting’’ (Matt.

17 : 20).

America awake! There is too
great a disparity between the ef-

fort on the battle front and the

effort on the home front. Our
American boys cutting away the
underbrush at Guadalcanal, fighting

sharks on rafts in the Pacific, rush-

ing Jap pill boxes at Buna village,
and attacking through mud one sea-
son and heat another at El Agheila,

have a right to ask a commensurate

sacrifice of those at home. If we

were fighting a nation we could
leave the job to the armed forces;

but we are fighting an evil, some-
thing intrinsically wicked; we are
in combat with the demon, and

that kind of a demon is driven out
only by prayer and fasting. Eddie

Rickenbacker made his Holy Hour
of prayer on a raft in the Paci-

fic. Anyone of us who thinks it is
too much to make it in our homes
or in Church is not worthy to sal-

ute the same flag. This is not a

war; it is a revolution against the

anarchic spirit of evil. Our busi-

ness is to send the demons back to

hell. But they will obey that com-

mand neither when we stand or
sit, but only when we are on our
knees, praying and fasting—watch-
ing an Hour. God love you!

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



SOME BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY
Address delivered on January 17, 1943

For the benefit of those who may
not have heard the Catholic Hour

the last two Sundays, I shall briefly

summarize the general theme of

these broadcasts: A war involves
nations anc^illiances

;
a revolution

involves ideas. Now there are three
distinct ideologies involved in this

war : Totalitarianism, which we de-
scribed last Sunday; the secularist

culture of the Western World; and

the Christian order. Today and

next Sunday we shall describe the
secularist culture of the Western

World.

By the secularist ideology we
mean the attempt to preserve
human and democratic values on a
non-moral and non-religious foun-

dation. Secularism means the sep-

aration of the parts of life, for

example, education, politics, econo-

mics, and the family, from their

center which is God. Each depart-

ment of life is considered as having

absolute autonomy and in no way to
be brought under the sway of ethi-
cal principles or the sovereign law

of God.

Condemnation of the secularism

of the Western World is not a con-

demnation of the Western World.

There is the same distinction be-

tween them as between a sick man
and his disease. We regard the di-
sease as evil, but the man as good.
In an impersonal order, we make a
distinction between the ship and its

barnacles. The ship in its passage

through the seas picks up barnacles

which impede its free passage

through the waters; the ship must

occasionally be taken to drydock

to have the barnacles scraped away.

Now Western civilization, or
what some call democracy, may be
likened to a ship. America, in par-

ticular, is a good ship. It carries

the precious cargo of belief in in-

alienable rights and liberties, in

the value of the human person, in
representative government and

equal opportunities. It is freighted

down with the precious cargo of the

four freedoms of which our Presi-

dent spoke: Freedom of religion,

freedom of speech, freedom from

want, and freedom from fear. It is

freighted down also with the cargo

of the right of sanctuary, for Amer-
ica has been in the past, and is now,

a sanctuary for the persecuted as

no other land on the face of God’s

earth has been a sanctuary. Finally,

this ship is good for it is freighted

down with the precious cargo of all



16 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

those values which make you and
me proud to call ourselves Ameri-
cans.

The barnacles of which I speak

constitute what we have already
called the passive or the soft bar-

barisms from within; and they are

a danger to Western civilization,

not quite as open as Totalitarian-

ism, but just as insidious. These

barnacles might be called supersti-

tions or false dogmas; in any case

they are assumptions of sensate

culture which the press, education,

and public opinion accept as un-

challenged truths. Today we shall
consider three of these barnacles:

Progress, Scientism, and Material-

ism—and then we shall attempt to
scrape them off.

The superstition of Progress as-

serts itself in some such fashion

as this, in our class rooms, best-

sellers, and high class journals:

Man is naturally good and indefi-
nitely perfectible, and thanks to

great cosmic floods of evolution will

be swept forward and will become

better and better until he becomes

a kind of god. Goodness increases

with time while evil and error de-

cline. History represents the grad-

ual but steady advance of man up
the hill of the more abundant and

happy life. No special institutions,
no moral discipline, no divine grace

are necessary for the progress of

man, for progress is automatic, due

to the free play of natural forces

and the operation of freedom in a

world released from the supersti-

tion of religion. Because evil and

sin are only vestigial remnants

from the bestial past, evolution and

science and education will finally

eradicate them. Such is the super-

stition of Progress.

This superstition confuses mech-

anical advancement with moral

betterment. There is no denying

the fact that there has been great

progress in the material order, but

mechanical development does not

necessarily imply moral develop-

ment. Progress in “things” is not

necessarily progress in “persons.”

Planes may go faster, but man does
not necessarily become happier.

Progress in medicine is not neces-

sarily progress in ethics, and mas-

tery over disease is not necessarily

mastery over sin. Conquest of na-

ture does not mean conquest of sel-
fishness. Time does not always op-

erate in favor of human better-
ment; because a man is sick, time
does not necessarily make him

better. Unless the evil is corrected,

time operates in favor of disease,

decay, and death.

The superstition of Progress de-

nies human responsibility. When
human goodness is attributed to
automatic laws of nature, but never



SOME BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY 17

to good will ; when evil is explained

in terms of environment, heredity,

bad milk, insufficient playgrounds,

and those naughty ductless glands,

but never to a perverse will, then

the world, howevermuch it may talk
about freedom, is most in danger of

losing it. True progress is ethically

and not cosmically conditioned; it

depends not on the refinement of

animal impulses, but on their de-

liberate control through human in-
tention. There is really therefore

only one true progress in the world

and that consists in the diminution

of the traces of original sin.

History does not prove we are
making progress; instead of evolv-

ing from savagery to civilization,

we seem to be devolving from civili-
zation to savagery. The interval
between the Napoleonic War and
the Franco-Prussian War was
fifty-five years

;
the interval be-

tween the Franco-Prussian War and
the first World War was forty-three
years

;
and the interval between the

first World War and this one was
twenty-one years. Fifty-five, forty-

three, twenty-one years—and each
war more destructive than the for-
mer, and at a time when man ma-
terially had more to make for hap-
piness than at any other period of

history. Is that Progress? With
great truth does the present Holy

Father say : “They boasted of prog-

ress when they were in fact re-

lapsing into decadence.”

The sad and tragic fact is that

modern man under sufficient stress,
and even amidst comforts spiced

with lust, will do deeds of evil as

terrible as any recorded in history.

Barbarism is not behind us; it is

beneath us. And it can emerge at
any moment, unless our wills, aided

by the grace of God, repress it. The

modern superstition of man’s in-

definite perfectibility without God’s

sustaining graces, forgets that his-

tory is creating ever increasing

possibilities for chaos and wars.

Our modern mechanical ability to

move quickly can go hand in hand

with power to do more evil. Let no

one deny it: Our scientific progress

has outstripped our moral progress.

We are a more comfortable people
than our ancestors, but are we
necessarily a happier people? The

myth of necessary progress is ex-

ploded. But that is no reason why
the Liberals who were so optimistic
about Progress should now fall into
a hellish despair. Because the evil

in the world does not evolve right

does not mean there is no right! It
only means that we have to put it
right; and in order to do this we
may have to learn the lesson of a
Cross, and the travail of Gethse-

mane. Maybe we had better get
back again to God

!



18 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

By the superstition of Scientism
is not meant science but rather that

particular abuse of it which affirms

that the scientific method is the

only valid way of knowing any-
thing. It is this superstition that

makes people say: “Science tells

us,” instead of “the Scriptures say,”

or “the Church tells us,” or the

“accumulated wisdom of the cen-

turies assures us,” or “the moral

law bids us.” Science is supposed

to be the last word on any subject.

Hence there is no place for values,

tradition, metaphysics, revelation,

faith, authority, or theology. God

has no purposes in the universe,

first of all because there is no God

and secondly because there are no

purposes.

Science is a very valid and neces>

sary way of knowing, but only of
knowing those things which are

subject to experimentation and to

the methods of a laboratory. The

great values of life—such as jus-
tice, truth, charity—are beyond
such experimentation. No one yet
has ever been able to put a moth-

er’s love into a test tube, and yet

who will deny its reality? Nor can
one throw a man into a cauldron
to boil to see if he gives forth thf

unmistakably green fumes of envy

and jealousy.

Scientism has ruined higher edu-

cation in the United States by pros-

trating itself before the god of

counting and by assuming that any-

one who has counted something
that has never been counted before

is a learned man. It makes no dif-

ference what you count, but in the

name of heaven, count! A certain
Western University awarded a Doc-

tor of Philosophy degree for a the-

sis on the “Microbic Content of Cot-

ton Undershirts.” A mid-Western
University has counted the ways of

washing dishes, and certain East-

ern Universities have counted the

infinitives in Augustine, the da-

tives in Ovid, and the four ways of

cooking ham, while another counted

the “psychological reactions of the

post-rotational eye-movement of

squabs.”

In the madness of specialization

we have come to know more and

more about less and less
;
but in the

meantime we have lost ourselves in
the maze of numbers. Fed with

huge quantities of undigested facts

our judgment has become hamper-

ed, and we have only unrelated bits
of information instead of wisdom,

which alone is true knowledge. Go

into any Catholic school in the

United States tomorrow and take

out a child in the first or second

grade and ask him: “Who made
you?” “What is the purpose of

life?” “Are you different from an

animal?” Any such child aged



SOME BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY 19

seven or eight could give you a

complete philosophy of life. But

ask a Ph.D. who counts the mi-

crobes on cotton undershirts why
he is here or where he is going,

and he could not tell you. He would
not have a five-cent gadget in his

house five minutes without knowing

its purpose; but he would live ten,

twenty, or sixty years without

knowing why he is here or where he
is going. What is the use of living
unless we know the purpose of

being a man?

It is not true, as is so often

asserted, that modern youth is

revolutionary because he has

lacked sufficient economic advan-

tages. Never in the history of the

world did youth have so many.

The modern youth is revolutionary

because he has no purpose in life

and hence doubts the worthwhile-

ness of living amidst plenty. Any-

thing that loses its purpose be-

comes revolutionary. When a boiler
loses its purpose it explodes; when
a man loses his purpose he revolts.

We are paying the penalty for
divorcing our science from God.

Nature, which science studies, be-

longs to God—and when man turns
against God, nature or science turns

against man. Francis Thompson
beautifully spoke of this when he
found that the whole world turned

against him because he would not

answer the call of God:

“I tempted all His servitors, but to
find

My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their

loyal deceit.”

{The Hound of Heaven)

That is the true story: Nature

will be false to anyone who is un-

true to its Maker. For years scien-

tists have been discovering the

wonders of nature, finding in the

tiny atom a miniature of the great

solar system. But instead of glor-

ifying God for the order, law, and

harmony they found in His uni-

verse, many of them vainly assumed
that because they discovered the

laws they were the authors of the

Bocfc of Nature, instead of only its

proof readers. Tearing nature away

from God, nature now turned
against them

;
for refusing to serve

God, nature refused to serve man.

The result : That science, which was

supposed to be our servant, is now
our master. Why do millions in the
world shrink in terror from a mach-

ine in the air? Why does man use
his technique to destroy man ? Why
do children crouch in dread and

mothers dig like moles into the

bowels of the earth as bombs fall

from the skies, and all hell is let

loose, if it is not because something

has got out of our control? Maybe



20 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

we had better get back again to
God!

The superstition of Materialism

affirms that man has no soul and
there is no future life. Man is not
a creature made to the image and
likeness of God but a “psychoana-

lytical bag with a physiological lib-

ido” or a “stimulus response mech-

anism,” the end of whose life is the

acquisition of money, the ceaseless

enjoyment of pleasure, and the

avoidance of sacrifice. Such is the

superstition of Materialism.

It simply is not true that peace

follows material prosperity, and

unhappiness follows the want of it.

The major frustrations of life are

not economic. Glance around at

those who possess abundance of ma-
terial goods. Does happiness* in-

crease with wealth? There is more

frustration among the rich than
among the poor. It is the former
who are most addicted to selfish-
ness, who are satiated and unhappy.
Sin and evil do not disappear with

the advent of gold. Society can be-

come inhuman while preserving all

the advantages of great material

prosperity.

If there are no standards outside

the material how shall we judge the
new acquisitive society which is
arising—based on the acquisitive-
ness of power? As fortunes dwin-

dle. as taxes eat up inheritances,

and as bureaucracies begin to ad-

minister vast sums of money form-
erly administered by capitalists and

bankers, envious, greedy, and lust-

ful men will seek to become dis-
pensers of that social booty—and
who shall say that these new fi-
nanciers of power are wrong ? Given

no standards other than material-

ism, wherein responsibility is dis-

joined from power, and we will
have a new capitalism.

“Bidding the law makers curtsey to
their will;

Hooking both right and wrong to
the opposite

To follow as it draws.”
(Shakespeare)

The modern man wants back his
soul: He wants the intelligentsia
to stop the nonsense of regarding

him as an animal, a libido, a tool-

maker, or a voter, and to begin to

look at him as a creature made to

the image and likeness of God.

It is pathetic to hear people ask-

ing: “What can I as an individual

do in this crisis?” So many feel
that they are like robots, like cogs

in a great machine, and that they

would like to get away from it all,

even if it meant climbing back into

the Catacombs. Like the Jews in

exile they hang their harps on the

trees, and ask how can they sing

a song in a foreign land.

In plain, simple language, all

these individuals want their souls



SOME BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY 21

back. They want to be whole again.

They are sick of being thrown into

a Darwinian pot to boil as a roast,

or into a Freudian stew to squirm

as a libido, or into the Marxian

sandwich to be squeezed between

two conflicting slices of capital and

labor. They want to possess that

which makes them human, gives

meaning to politics, economics,

psychology, sociology—namely, the
soul.

The modern view of war is
wrong, and if we go on following it
we will end in blind alleys, frus-
trated hopes, and unhappy exist-
ences. It is not nearly as funny as

we thought to make a monkey out
of a man.

The millions of our boys on the
battlefronts of the world, fighting

for their lives and for great moral

issues, will recover their souls.

Amidst wounds and death, fire and
shell, they will get close to the

meaning of life and to that some-
thing within them that makes them
human. They will be angry when
they look back on the way some of
them were educated. They will
come to hate not only the enemy
they meet in battle, but the intel-

ligentisa who told them they were
only animals. They will begin to
realize that they were robbed of
their greatest possession—faith in
the soul. For a while they will

wander around the battlefields like

Magdalen in the Garden saying:

“They have taken away my Lord;
and I know not where they have

laid him.” But when they do stum-

ble on Him, as Magdalen did when

she saw the red livid marks of nails,

they will enter once again into the

possession of the soul. And when
they come marching home there will

be a judgment on those who told
them they had none; they will live

like new men and they will give a
rebirth to America under God.

Why do we mention these bar-
nacles on the ship of democracy?

Because they are endangering a

sound American life; because they

belong to an outmoded way of
thinking that is dying with this

World War; and because we are
called upon in this war to be the

moral leaders of the world. Never

before was a greater task thrust

into any nation's hands than is now
thrust into our own. We have a
great vocation and we must be
worthy of it. The great ship of

America will one day be called upon

to cross the seven seas to bring

food, clothing, order, and peace to

the enslaved nations of the world.

And we do not want • that ship
to be held up in its mission by

barnacles and false superstitions.

May I therefore ask you—Jews,
Protestants, and Catholics—those



22 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

of you who believe that progress
is conditioned on morality, and that

over and above science there is a

knowledge of God, to do what you

can to make a Holy Hour a day

that America may be worthy of its
high calling. For it will be only

with shipyards of prayer and sac-

rifice and love of God and His law

that we can build an ark that will

resist the floods of blood let loose

in this World War

!

America awake ! You have a high
summons ! Walk worthy of your vo-
cation. Purge yourself ! Repent

!

Your greatness is in your return

to God!

Prayer In Time Of War



MORE BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY
Address delivered on January 24, 1943

Continuing the theme of last

Sunday’s broadcast, the great ship

of America has developed a few

barnacles which endanger our de-

mocracy and the stability of our na-

tional life. Today we mention three

more of these barnacles : the super-

stition of License, the superstition

of the Trojan Horse, and the super-

stition of Relativism.

First, the superstition of In-

cense. It asserts itself as follows:

Freedom means the right to do

whatever you please, and is to be

understood as the absence of law,

restraint, and discipline. A man is
said to be free when his desires are
satisfied; and he is said not to be

free when they are unsatisfied. The

goal of freedom is self-expression.

Such is the superstition of License

or perverted freedom.

This superstition is grounded on

a false definition of freedom. Free-

dom does not mean the right to do
whatever we please. If it did, it
would be a physical power, not a

moral power. Certainly, we can do
whatever we please, but ought we?
Freedom means the right to do

whatever we ought, and therefore
is inseparable from law.

Nor is it true that freedom con-

sists in the shaking off of conven-

tion and tradition and authority.

What is called self-expression is in
reality often nothing other than

self-destruction. About the only

curbs the sensate man allows him-
self are those which contribute to

his health. He diets, but never
fasts. He feels justified in throwing
off all restraints for no other reason

than because they are old. When
we reach a point where we judge
our freedom by the height of the

pile of discarded inhibitions, such

as the Commandments of God, then
anyone who would die for that dis-
emboweled ghost of freedom is a

fool.

Furthermore, the superstition of

License assumes that men will al-
ways do the right thing if they are

educated ; hence the contempt of re^

straint and discipline. And here we
touch on the basic weakness of sen-

sate education, namely, that it as-

sumes that sin is ignorance, and

not the abuse of freedom. Evil is

attributed to want of enlighten-

ment. When confronted with the
problem of evil, educators imme-

diately rush to a conference to dis-

cuss the means of diffusing greater

knowledge when what is really



24 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

needed is more discipline. The in-
tellect makes mistakes, but the will
sins. Educators must return to the
forgotten truth that character is in

the will, not in reason.

Why should it take a war to
bring out the heroic in us? Why
does no one think of the necessity

of discipline and restraint until we
set out on the business of killing?

And if the bravest die in battle,
whence shall come courage in

peace? There is only one solution:

We must begin to think less of the
things we want to be free from,
and begin to think of the things

we want to be free for.

Second, the barnacle of the Tro-

jan Horse: There is one grave

menace to our country and to the

world which we may not ignore, and
that is Marxian Socialism or Com-

munism. It is rather soft-pedalled

in these days because of our alliance

with Russia, but for no good

reason.

Because she is on our side, Rus-

sia never feels impelled to go into

ecstasies about the glories of de-

mocracy; neither do I see any

reason why, because Russia is on

our side, we should go into ecstasies
about Marxian Socialism.

What is making Russia great in
this conflict is not its atheistic

communism, but its love of the

fatherland, its fondness for its

earth, its natural asceticism and

self-sacrifice, its deep and righteous

hatred of an invader. These great

qualities of the Russian soul make
us hope that Russia will once more
re-enter the comity of nations of

the Western World—the roots of
which are Christian—and that she
will accept the Four Freedoms, one

of which is freedom of religion.

But we are here speaking of
Marxian Socialism, not of Russia;

in fact we speak of it, in particular,
with reference to our own country.

What we have to fear in this
country then is the new Trojan
Horse. The old Trojan Horse look-

ed like democracy on the outside,

but on the inside it was suppression

of property, religion, and personal

rights. The new Trojan Horse on
the outside looks like a united war

effort, but on the inside it is the

same old anti-Americanism. In

other words, under the guise of our

military kinship with Russia, Marx-

ian Socialism is seeking to under-

mine our government, our American

way of life. So skillfully is it done
that it is made to appear that any-

one who says a word against Com-
munism is against Russia, sabo-
taging our war effort.

This is nonsense. The two things

are quite distinct, and let no one

doubt it. Stalin himself said he

was fighting against Nazism, but



MORE BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY 25

not against Germany. This gives

us the right to say that we are
against Communism, but not

against Russia.

Now let us get the record
straight. We want Russia to drive
the Nazis out of their land; we want

their people to live in peace with

themselves and with the world

;

but we do not want Communism in
America or Germany or Poland any-

more than we want Nazism or Fas-
cism. And if anyone doubts the
sincerity of our love for the Rus-

sian Bear, let me say that every
Catholic priest in the world says

prayers every day to our Divine

Lord, The Blessed Mother, and the

Apostles, for Russia—and that is
more than the Communists do! In

other words, we American Catho-
lics are for the Russian Bear, but

we are not for the Trojan Horse.

We want the Russian Bear to eat
the swastika, but we do not want
the Trojan Horse to eat the Ameri-

can eagle!

Third, the superstition of Rela-

tivism : There is no distinction

between truth and error, right and

wrong
;

everything depends upon

your point of view. All values are

relative. When expedient, moral
conventions can be accepted; when
a hindrance, they can be rejected.

There are no objective moral

standards, and hence no absolute

distinction between good and evil.

Everyone is his own law-giver;
everyone is his own judge. Such is
the superstition of Relativism.

This notion that there is no abso-

lute distinction between right and

wrong, stems in this country from

the philosophy of Pragmatism. This

philosophy denies that God is an

Absolute; it judges truth not by its

consistency, nor by its correspond-

ence with reality, but by its utility.

In the words of one of its best

known exponents, “The ‘true’ is

only the expedient in the way of
thinking, just as the ‘right’ is only

the expedient in the way of our be-
having, expedient in almost any

fashion.” In other words, what-

ever succeeds is right.

Thousands of Japs studied in our

American Universities where they

heard these pragmatic ideas. They

wrote these ideas in their note

books. Then they closed their note

books, took them back to Japan, and

studied them again. Then one day,

when they learned the lesson well,
they decided to put their Pragma-

tism into practice. On December

7, 1941, they flew across an ocean

and bombed Pearl Harbor! Were
they right? Were they? Our Fas-
cist intelligentsia told them they

were right. Did not they say that

the expedient was right? Well, it

certainly was expedient! Thus did



26 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

our superstition come home to roost

on bombed and exploded American

soil.

Can we not see that in abandon-
ing the moral basis of life we aban-
don the right to call anyone wrong.

What moral standards are the Japs
violating, if the criterion of truth

and righteousness is expediency?

Why do we say that Japan has vio-
lated the conscience of the world,

if the conscience of the world has

no other measure than the useful?

Incidentally where was this moral

conscience of the world before the

war began? How shall the right-
ness of our cause be distinguished

from the rightness of our enemies

cause, if there is no objective stand-

ard outside of both? If there is no

objective distinction between right

and wrong, how can Hitler be
wrong? How can we be right?

We will either get back to God
and His moral law or we will
perish

!

Our enemy is the intelligentsia

—

and by the intelligentsia I mean

those who have been educated be-
yond their intelligence, who, by

destroying morals, wreck morale.

Our boys on the battlefronts of

the world do not share the views

of those educators, journalists, and

writers who have been sniping

away for years at the moral law,

calling it “reactionary,” “behind the

times,” and labelling purity and

truthfulness as “bouregois virtues,”

as Marx does. They believe in an
absolute distinction between right

and wrong.

When Colin Kelly as a selfless
pilot sank the first Jap ship of this

war and in doing so lost his life;
when Edward O’Hare shot down
the first Jap plane; when Dick
Fleming made himself the first hu-
man torpedo; when Daniel Calla-
ghan became the first Admiral to go

down fighting; when Mike Moran
became the first naval officer to sink

six Jap ships in single combat;

when Commander John Shea be-
came the first fighting man whose
last letter to his son became a fam-

ous American testament on patriot-

ism—these men had an opinion
about America’s cause. They did

not believe that the righteousness

of the Stars and Stripes depended

upon their subjective outlook. They

believed in an absolute distinction

between right and wrong, between

our cause and our enemy’s; in fact

so muoh did they believe in it that
life was secondary to that cause.

And while these and millions of men
in our armed forces believe in such

an absolute distinction between

right and wrong, our Fascist in-

telligentsia are telling us: “Right

and wrong are relative to expedi-



MORE BARNACLES ON THE SHIP OF DEMOCRACY 27

ency ; it all depends upon your point

of view.” Nonsense! It does not!

Our cause is right! It is right be-

fore God! It is right under God!

And in God’s name we will defend
it!

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER
Address delivered on January 31, 1943

We now come to the third of the
world-views involved in this war,

namely, the Christian which alone

is capable of defeating the hard

barbarism from without and the

soft barbarism from within.

All the Totalitarian views—the
Marxian, Fascist, Nazi—spring
from liberalistic 19th century atti-

tudes; their character was deter-

mined by the errors they combatted.

For that reason, Marxian Socialism

is nothing but rotted Capitalism on

a State basis; Fascism is nothing

but rotted Parliamentarianism on a

one Party basis; Nazism is nothing

but rotted Nationalism on a Racial

basis. In each case, they took their

position from the enemy. They

were inspired more by a hatred of

something they wished to over-

throw, than by a love of new ideals

they desired to establish.

Because they were rebellious

against the last revolution, they

tended to bestow an absolutely

sacred character on previously ne-

glected elements of the regime they

sought to overthrow. That is why,

we have capital in the saddle in one
revolution, labor in the saddle in the

next revolution, and poor John Q.

Public hitchhiking but never get-

ting a ride. That is why we need
an entirely different kind of revo-

lution, one that will not keep its

eye on the last revolution, or take

its character from it, but concen-
trate on man in his highest reaches
and noblest destiny. This is the

Christian revolution.

The Christian world-view differs
from the Totalitarian view and

from the Materialist culture of the

Western World in one basic fact:

It believes that it is man who makes
society

, and not society which makes

man. That is why our first broad-
cast on the Christian order must

begin with man.

After ail, what is the use of a

revolution, or a new system of eco-
nomics, or a new international so-
ciety, unless we know the type of
creature who will live in it.

For the last century the world

has had a very distorted notion of

man. In fact there were fashions

in man as there were in clothes, in-
asmuch as each fashion concen-

trated on one aspect of man to the
neglect of all the others, like the

five blind men who felt an ele-
phant, each describing it differently

according as he touched the trunk,

the tail, the ear, or the leg.



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER 29

For the last one-hundred years

blind men have been feeling man.
In the days of Darwin blind men
felt man and found him to be an
animal, and therefore concluded he

must have evolved to be one and

should be treated as one. So we had
jurists like Justice Holmes of the

Supreme Court defining man as a
“cosmic ganglion.” For the life of

me, I cannot see why if man is only
a ganglion we should go to war to
prevent Hitler from making mince

meat of ganglia.

Then came the new fashion. Blind
men felt man and found that he was
made up of nerves, reflexes, and
responses, so they defined man as a
“physiological bag filled with psy-

chological libidos,” and they con-

sulted dream books after each fitful

sleep to learn what Freud had to
say about their sex life.

Then came another blind philos-
opher, that German who denied de-
mocracy because its foundation was
Christian : Karl Marx. He dis-
covered that man spent much of his
time earning a living. Universali-

zing this particular aspect, he gave

us the economic man, for whom re-
ligion, culture, law, literature, and

the arts were by-products of his

method of production. And thus
did a German spawn Marxian So-
cialism.

Now we are at the beginning of

a new fashion in man. Blind men
discovered that man lived in a
State and that he was dependent

on it for his ideas and his values;

and thus was born the Political

Man who has rights because, the
new lawyers told him, the State
gave them to him.

These partial views of man—of
Marx, Spencer, Darwin, and Freud

—never treat man as he really is.
They are incidental activities erect-

ed into absolutes by shallow

thinkers whose thinking is of much
the same mental calibre as a den-

tist who thinks man is all teeth,
or a manicurist who thinks he is all
hands, or a pedicurist who thinks
he is all feet, or a phrenologist who
thinks he is all bumps.

The Christian view of man ad-
mits that man has ganglia, does
dream, experiences libidos, works,

and talks politics; but it insists

that man is none of these things
exclusively. It begins by asking

what it is that makes man differ-
ent from anything else in the world

;

and answers : an intellect and a

will: an intellect by which he can

know truth, and a will by which he
may choose goodness. Next, it says,
since he is different from an animal

he must have a different purpose

from an animal, just as a monkey-

wrench must have a different pur-

pose from a monkey. This purpose



30 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

will obviously be in keeping with

what is highest in his life, namely

his intellect and his will. He there-
fore wants Life—not for two more
days, or two more months, but un-

dying Life. He therefore wants
Truth—not the truths of geog-
raphy to the exclusion of science,

nor of art to the exclusion of his-

tory, but all Truth without a mix-

ture of error. He therefore wants
Love—not love for a limited period
of time, but an eternal ecstasy of

Love without the shadow of hate

or satiety. This Eternal Life,

Truth, and Love for which he seeks

is God. God therefore is his final

and ultimate end. Hence politics,

economics, education, rationing,

parliaments, parties, bureaucrats,

governments and social security are

not the ends of life but means to a

final end and derive their morality

from it. This is the Christian view

of man.

The choice before the world is

this: Will we build a New Order
on the Totalitarian assumption that

man is a tool of the State, or will
we retain the Old Order of the sec-
ularist culture of the last two hun-

dred years which holds that man is
only an economic animal, or will we
build a New Order on the Christian
assumption that man is a creature
made to the image and likeness of
God and therefore one for whom

economics, politics, and society exist

as a means to an eternal destiny
beyond the historical perspective of

planets, space, and time?

Judging by the speeches and the

writings of some of the present-day

post-war planners, they are still

assuming with Marx that man is
essentially economic, or with Dar-

win that he is essentially animal, or

with Freud that he is essentially

sexual, or with Hitler that he is

essentially political. Hence they

seem to think that all we have to do
is to change an economic system, or

form new parties, or give more sex
instruction, or provide greater li-

cense to the break-up of the family

—and we will have peace

!

These planners think they are

practical, because they talk in terms

of money, trade, international pol-

ice, geographical areas of influen-

ce, and federated States. The truth

is they are just as impractical as

men who might legislate for squir-
rels by passing laws about nuts.

Squirrels eat nuts, and man lives
economically

;
but as nuts do not ex-

plain squirrels, so neither does pro-

duction explain man. Because the

planners do not understand the na-

ture of the one for whom they are
planning, their plans are going to

lead us into a phase of history

“where—eldest Night and Chaos

—

Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER 31

Anarchy, amidst the voice of End-

less Wars” (Milton, Paradise Lost).

Unless they abandon the Dar-

winian, Marxian, or Freudian man,

whether they will it or not, they

will end in only one solution: So-

cialism.

Given the errant impulses, the

frustrated selfish existences, the

distorted human goals which these

partial views of man engender,
there is only one way to arrest that

chaos, and that is by organizing it,

and the organization of chaos is

Socialism. The individualism and

egotism which is begotten of a dis-

torted concept of man leave him
alone and isolated; and to overcome

this isolation there is only one non-

Christian solution possible : the

subordination of these rebellious

atoms to a compulsory principle in

the hands of the State. Socialism

is the secularized, atheized version

of a community and a fraternity of

men which Christian love was
meant to engender. It is the new
order into which man will bring
his tortured and isolated personal-

ity, in vain quest for peace, unless

he returns to the moral law of

God.

The Old Order of Liberal Indi-

vidualism is dead. Now man will
either become the subject of a non-

divine evil will embodied in social-

istic bureaucracy, or he will submit

himself to the higher Divine Prin-

ciple for which he was made and

in which he alone can find his peace.

Unless we restore the Christian

concept of man, and thus build a

human rather than an economic or-

der, we will be forced into totali-

tarianism in the very hour we are

doing our most to combat it.

Whether we perfume it or not with

the sweet scent of democracy, will

not alter its nature anymore than

bathing a skunk in Chanel No. 5

will make it anything but a skunk.

What is the objection to the basic
Christian principle, that we build

for the whole man as a creature of
God? The answer is on the ton-

gues of all the reactionaries

:

“Christianity does not suit the

modern man.” Certainly it does not.

And for the reason that the modern
man is not man; he is part-man, a
dissected man.

But Christianity does however

suit man in his entirety, or human
nature as it is, composed of body

and soul and made to the image and

likeness of God, with horizontal re-

lations to the right and left in

space and time, and yet never wholly

explained by these, because iden-

tified with something prior and

more fundamental, namely, vertical

relations with God, his Creator and

Redeemer in Whom is his Peace
and his Joy.



32 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

Up until now it has been said
Christianity does not suit the mod-

ern man, therefore scrap Christian-

ity. Now let us say, Christianity
does not suit modern man, there-

fore let us scrap modern man.

Maybe there is nothing wrong

with Christianity after all; maybe

—may we dare suggest it—there is
something wrong with us. Maybe

there is something wrong with

John Dewey and nothing wrong
with St. John; maybe there is some-

thing askew with H. G. Wells and

nothing wrong with Vincent de

Paul
;
maybe there is something

wrong with Gertrude Stein and

something right about St. Ger-

trude; maybe there is something

wrong with Progressive Education

and nothing wrong with the Light

of the World. Maybe science can-
not be a substitute for morality;

maybe morality is not identical with

self-will; maybe the goal of life

is not to get seven per cent on

mortgages; maybe the goal of eco-

nomics is not for management to be

responsible to bondholders but to

be responsible to the common good

;

maybe self-expression raised to a

national form could end in Nazism;

maybe we have been wrong. Maybe
we had better get back to God ! We
have given the Marxists their

chance, and the Darwinians theirs,

and the Freudians theirs, and the

Liberals theirs. Now let’s give man
a chance!

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ORDER
Address delivered on February 7, 1943

Why have not the moral forces
of the nation, such as education,

press, radio, all the clergy of all de-

nominations, the social reformers,

been more insistent on developing a

new order instead of patching up

the old one? Perhaps the principal

reason is because they have been

getting behind certain movements

instead of ahead of them. The first

thought that comes to a particular

group which wishes to further leg-

islation in its favor is to wire edu-

cators, clergymen, actors, and social

workers, to lend their names as

sponsors of its cause—and there are
at least five hundred such profes-

sional signers in our country who
keep their fountain pens uncapped

for just such demented and cheap

publicity. It is just this irrational

mentality which substitutes imita-

tion for thinking by pushing some

group or class instead of leading

for the common good, that has para-
lyzed the regeneration of society.

A few generations ago it was the
fashion to get behind Capitalism,

and political parties were formed to

support its legislation. Now it is
the fashion and mood to get behind
Labor which develops its own par-
ties, while John Q. Public and the

common good is like ground meat in
the sandwich. Each class demands

its rights in the name of freedom,
forgetting that, as Lincoln once

said, “Sheep and wolves never

agree on the definition of freedom.”

The Christian solution is to get
behind neither Capital nor Labor

exclusively; but to be behind Capi-

tal when Marxian Socialism would
destroy private property, and to be

behind Labor when Monopolistic
Capitalism would claim the priority

of profits over the right to a just

wage.

If we are behind either Capital or
Labor, at what point will either stop

in their demands? Or is there a
stopping point? Did Capital ever

decide for itself, when it was in the
saddle, that it would take no more

than ten per cent profits? Capital

took all the profits the traffic would

bear. Now that Capital is unseated
and Labor is riding the economic

horse, what limits does Labor set

itself? Is there a wage beyond
which it' will not ask? Are there

certain minimum hours below which
it will not seek to work? They too

will get all the traffic will bear.

When self-interest and class-inter-
est become the standard, then who



34 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

shall say there is a right and

wrong? As the old Chinese proverb

put it: “No good rat will injure the
grain near its hole.

,,

This brings us to a consideration

of the economic and political prin-

ciple of the Christian order. The

Christian order starts with man
;
all

other orders start with a class.

Capitalism and Communism, for ex-

ample, though opposite in their di-

rections, like branches of a tree,

are nevertheless rooted in the same

economic principle, that a class is

to take all. Communism is only
rotted Capitalism. Under Capital-

ism the employer takes all; under

Marxian Socialism the employee

takes all.

The Christian economic order

starts with man. Its basic prin-

ciple, is this: Economic activity is

not the end of human life, but the
servant of human life. Therefore,
the true primary end of economic

production is not profit, but the sat-

isfaction of human needs. In other
words, production exists primarily

for consumption, and only second-

arily for profits. The old order was

:

Consumption exists for production

and production for finance. The

Christian order reverses it : Finance

exists for production, production

for consumption. This demands a

revolutionary change of the whole

economic order, because it affirms

the primacy of the human over the
economic. Its starting principle is

that the right of a man to a living
wage is prior to the right of re-
turn on investments.

From this basic principle of the
Christian economic charter the fol-

lowing conclusions are drawn:

First, when an industry is unable
to pay a wage sufficient not only for

a moderately comfortable life but

also for savings, the difference

should be made up either by in-
dustry pooling a percentage of all

wages paid, or, in default of this,

by the State.

Second, neither the capitalist’s

right to profits nor the laborer’s

right to organization are absolute

and unlimited; they are both sub-

ject to the common good of all.
Both the right to profits and the

right to organization are means,

and as means they are to be judged

by the way they promote the true
ends of life: Religion, general

prosperity, peace, and happy human
relations. These rights therefore

can be suspended for the common
good of all.

Third, the consumer must not be

treated as the indispensable condi-

tion of unlimited demands by Labor

or unlimited profits by capital, but

as the person whose interest is the

true end of the whole process.

Fourth, the distinction between



THE CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ORDER 35

Capital and Labor which has its

basis in whether one buys labor or

sells it, must be broken down, and

must give way to a union of Capital

and Labor on the basis of the

common service they render to the

nation. To ask which is more im-

portant—Capital or Labor—is like
asking which is more important to a

man, the right leg or the left.

Since they both have a common
function, they should function to-

gether. Conflicts between Capital

and Labor are wrong, not because

they hold up the delivery of goods,

but for the moral reason that they

create distorted personal relation-

ships, just as the quarrel of a hus-

band and wife disrupts the good

of the family.

Fifth, the wage contract should

whenever possible be modified some-

what by a contract of partnership

between employer and employee so

that the wage earners are made

sharers in some measure in the

profits, management, or owner-

ship, of industry. Since both pro-

duce social wealth there is no reason

why both should not share in the
wealth produced. A worker in a fac-
tory has more right to the profits of

his industry than a man who clips
coupons. The only way to make
Labor responsible is to give it some

capital to defend
;
and the only way

to make Capital responsible is to

make it labor for its right to pos-

session. Did you ever hear an artist

agitate for a five hour day? Why
not? Because his work is his life.

Today men do not work; they have
employment. Work is a divine vo-
cation; employment is an economic

necessity. A laborer will sit down
on some one else’s tools, but no ar-

tist will sit down on his paint

brushes. The reason is, the artist’s

work entails responsibility. That is

why those who are getting behind
either Capitalists, to defend them

against labor racketeers, or behind

Labor, to defend it against eco-

nomic royalists, are delaying the

day of economic peace, and contrib-

uting to the present economic con-

flict. The Christian solution is to

unite them on the basis of a

common task.

Sixth, the State, while justly al-

tering an acquisitive society which

causes profits to take precedence

over the human, must avoid falling

into the opposite extreme of substi-

tuting for the acquisitiveness of

money an acquisitiveness of power,

or by substituting for the authority

of capital, the authority of labor or

bureaucracy.

Seventh, Democracy should be ex-

tended, not curtailed. For many de-

cades political power was controlled

to a great extent by organized Capi-

tal, by merchants, lords of finance,



36 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

and industrialists. Today the stage

is being prepared for the control

of political power by Labor. A class
transmission of power is opposed

to the basic principles of democracy.

The Christian concept of politics is

that government exists for the

common good of all. If democracy
is to be made effective the holders

of economic power, whomsoever

they be—whether Capital or Labor
—must be made responsible to the
community. They are its servants,

not its masters.

Instead of asking “What do I get
out of this,” they should ask “What
service can I render to my coun-
try?” Freedom, Fellowship, Ser-

vice, these are the principles of a

Christian social order derived from

the basic principles that man is a
creature of God, destined after a

life of free service to enjoy eternal

fellowship with Divine Love.

To be assured that a new order is
needed, we need only look to the
chaos around us. As the Holy
Father wrote in his Christmas

Message

:

“What is this World War, with
all its attendant circumstances,
whether they be remote or proxi-
mate causes, its progress and ma-
terial, legal and moral effects?
What is it but the crumbling
process, not expected, perhaps,
by the thoughtless but seen and
deprecated by those whose gaze
penetrated into the realities of a
social order which—behind a de-

ceptive exterior or the mask of
conventional shibboleths — hid
its mortal weakness and its un-
bridled lust for gain and power?

“That which in peacetime lay
coiled up, broke loose at the out-
break of war in a sad succession
of acts at variance with the hu-
man and Christian sense. Inter-
national agreements to make war
less inhuman by confining it to
the combatants, to regulate the
procedure of occupation and the
imprisonment of the conquered
remained in various places a dead
letter. And who can see the end
of this progressive demoraliza-
tion of the people, who can wish
to watch impotently this disas-
trous progress? ^Should they not
rather, over the ruins of a social
order which has given such
tragic proof of its ineptitude as a
factor for the good of the people,
gather together the hearts of all
those who are magnanimous and
upright in the solemn vow not to
rest until in all peoples and all
nations of the earth a vast legion
shall be formed of those handfuls
of men who, bent on bringing
back society to its center of grav-
ity, which is the law of God,
aspire to the service of the human
person and of his common life
ennobled in God?”

In conclusion, in order to build up

a new world we must begin think-
ing in a new way. Just as Totali-

tarianism cannot be defeated by

thinking in the selfsame grooves

which led to it, so neither can the

selfishness, the egotism, and the

class-conflicts of our social order be

conquered by patching up the prin-

ciples which produced it



THE CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ORDER 37

Why is it so important that we
start with an entirely new set of

principles, and a new standard of

values? Because if we do not, we

will end only by shifting power and

booty from one party and class to

another, instead of working for the

good of all.

This war is the end of the Eco-

nomic Man, and by the Economic

Man I mean the Man whose basic
principle was the primacy of profit.

Unless we accept Christian prin-
ciples based on the Primacy of the

Person and the common good, we
will end in the enthronement of

Political Man. This is where the ir-

religious revolutions of both Marx-

ian Socialism and Nazism ended;

in the substitution of the acquisi-

tiveness of power for the acquisi-

tiveness of money. And the Poli-
tical Man whose god is power, can
be just as lustful, just as avari-

cious, as the Economic Man whose
god is money. The decent human
person has little to choose between

the two.

Either we will restore Christian
order based on the dignity of the

human person, or we will shift from
a regime dictated by economics to a

regime dictated by politics.

This war is an expression of a
world disease. It will avail us

naught to give this old order arti-

ficial respiration, for we are doing

it to a corpse. Let us wear no

widow’s weeds of mourning because

our superstitions are being carried

to the grave. Rather should we be

putting on our wedding garments

to court a new world and a new

order, in a renewed Divine Justice.

If the old world of politicians who

promise to the electorate everything

it wants, from pillaging the Treas-

ury to new tires and more sugar

—

if this world is passing, God be

thanked. Let it perish

!

If the old world of capitalism

which thinks that property rights

mean the right to accumulate
profits uncontrolled by the common
good and the rights of organized

labor—if this world is dead, God
be thanked. Let it perish

!

If the old world of labor organi-

zations which think there is no

minimum to hours of work, no
maximum to salary demands, and
which would paralyze a national in-

dustry for five days because of a

five-cent transportation charge—if
this world is dead, God be thanked.

Let it perish

!

If the old world where a college

education was a social necessity, in-

stead of being what it ought to be,

an intellectual privilege—if this
world is dead, God be praised. Let

it perish

!

If the old world of social Chris-

tianity which emptied religion of



38 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

God and Christianity of Christ,

and which thought the whole busi-

ness of religion was to drive an

ambulance for social workers or to

pipe naturalistic tunes for the in-

telligentsia who said they were only

animals—if this world is dead, God
be praised. Let it perish

!

We are a creative people; we are
responsive to human rights and

needs as no nation in the world is

responsive: we have tremendous

powers of renewal. We must not
delay the reconstruction, for when

the boys come home from the battle-

fronts of the world, they will share

none of the old ideas. Every one of

them will want a job and they will

have a right to it whether they be-

long to a union or not; they will

not admit that joining a union is

the only condition on which a man
may work. Every one of them will
want a just wage and the right to

raise a family in comfort and de-

cency, and they will not admit that

these personal and family rights are

subject to and conditioned upon

bond-holders receiving six per cent

interest on their investments.

Every one of them will have lived

through a day when Capital ruled

and when Labor ruled
;
and because

they fought for neither while at

war, they will fight for neither in

peace. But they will fill up a great

vacuum in our economic and poli-

tical life, as they fight for the Com-

mon Good in which the uncommon
man of Capital and the common
man of organized power, will both
be subject to the resurrection of a

Justice under God. And with God
on their side—who can stand
against them?

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND THE FAMILY
Address delivered on

That the family is disintegrating

in our national life, no one will

deny. Courtship takes place out-

side the home, generally in a crowd-

ed room with a low ceiling, amidst

suffocating smoke while listening

to a tom-tom orchestra glamoured

by a girl who invariably cannot

sing. The wife listens to radio

serials with their moans, groans,

and commercials, where triangles

are more common than in a geom-
etry book. She reads magazine

articles by women who never stay
at home, saying that a woman’s

place is in the home. The Family

Bible recording dates of birth and

baptism is no longer existent be-

cause few read the Bible, few give

birth, and few are ever baptized.

One of the most evident symp-

toms of the breakdown of the fam-

ily is divorce. The universalizing

of easy divorce means that the in-

stitution of marriage is slowly de-

generating into State-licensed free

love.

This modern polygamy and poly-
andry are recognized now on con-
dition that husbands or wives, as

the case may be, do not harness
other wives or husbands together

to the coach of their egotism, but

February 14, 1943

that they hitch them up in tandem

fashion, or single file. To the ex-
tent that the courts disrupt this

natural unity of a nation, they will

incapacitate themselves for inter-

national fellowship. For if we de-
stroy this inner circle of loyalty,

through disloyalty, how shall we
build up the larger international

circles of loyalty from which world

peace is derived?

Divorce makes the right of living
souls to love dependent on caprice

of the senses and the terminable

pact of selfish fancy. We Chris-
tians argued with those who be-
lieve in divorce, but we know no
one was ever convinced by our argu-
ments. Not because the arguments
are not sound. That is the trouble.

They are too good! Good reasons
are powerless against emotions.

Like two women arguing over back
fences, we are arguing from differ-
ent premises. The majority of peo-
ple who are opposed to the stability
and continuity of family life for

the most part do not believe in the

moral law of God. They may say
they believe in God, but it is not

the God of Justice.

Instead then of arguing against

the modern pagan who believes in



40 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

the disruption of the family, let

us—for the sake of argument— as-
sume that his premises are right,
namely, that man is only an animal

;

that morality is self-interest; that

if there is a God, He never intended
that we should not do as we please

;

that every individual is his own
standard of right and wrong; that

the amount of wealth one has must

be the determinant of the incarna-

tions of mutual love; that when we
die that is the end of us—or, if
there be a heaven, that we all go
there independently of a moral law.

Now once you start with these
principles, then certainly divorces

are right; then certainly we should
shirk sacrifices. If we are only
beasts, and love is sex, then there

is no reason why anyone should as-
sume responsibility.

But why not go all the way? By
the same principle anything is

right if I can get away with it.

If bonds between husband and wife

are revocable at will and for ad-

vantage or self-love, why should
not the treaties between nation

and nation be revocable at the will

of either partner? If a husband

may steal the wife of another man,
why should not Germany steal Po-
land? If John Smith can break

his treaty to take Mary Jones until
death, who shall say Italy is wrong
in breaking its treaties with Ethi-

opia, or that Japan is wrong in
seizing Manchuria?

If divorces from marital con-

tracts, why not divorces from in-
ternational contracts? If in do-

mestic society moderns sneer at

marital fidelity as “bourgeois vir-

tue,” what right have they to ask

that “bourgeois virtue” be recog-

nized in world society?

What are the Christian princi-
ples concerning the family?

First, marriage is one and un-

breakable unto death, naturally and

supernaturally. Naturally, because

there are only two words in the

vocabulary of love: “you” and “al-

ways”—“you,” because love is
unique; “always,” because love is

eternal. Supernaturally, because the

union of husband and wife is mod-

elled upon the union of Christ and

His Church, which endures through

the agelessness of eternity.

Second, the foundation of mar-

riage is love, not sex. Sex is phys-

iological and of the body: love is

spiritual and therefore of the will.

Since the contract is rooted not in

the emotions, but in the will, it fol-

lows that when the emotion ceases,

the contract is not dissolvable, for

the love of the will is not subject

to the vicissitudes of passion.

A lifetime is not too long for
two beings to become acquainted

with each other. Marriage should



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND THE FAMILY 41

be a series of perpetual and suc-

cessive revelations, the sounding of

new depths and the manifestation

of new mysteries. At one time

there is the revelation of the mys-

tery of the other’s incompleteness

—which can be known but once,
because capable of being completed

but once
;
at another time, the mys-

tery of the other’s mind; at an-

other the mystery of a fatherhood

and motherhood which never before

existed; and finally, the revelation

of the mystery of being shepherds

for little sheep ushering them in

to the Christ Who is the door of
the sheepfold.

Third, love by its nature is not

exclusively mutual self-giving, oth-

erwise love would end in exhaus-

tion, consumed in its own useless

fire. Rather it is mutual self-giv-

ing which ends in self-recovery.

As in heaven the mutual love of

Father for Son recovers itself in

the Holy Ghost, the Bond of Unity,

so too the mutual love of spouse

for spouse recovers itself in the

child who is the incarnation of

their lasting affection. All love ends

in an Incarnation, even God’s.

Procreation then is not in im-

itation of the beasts of the field,

but of the Divine God where the

love that vies to give, is eternally

defeated in the love that receives

and perpetuates. All earthly love

therefore is but a spark caught

from the Eternal Flame of God.

Fourth, every child is a potential

nobleman of the Kingdom of God.
Parents are to take that living

stone from the quarry of humanity,

cut and chisel it by loving discip-

line and sacrifice, mould it on the

pattern of the Christ-Truth until

it becomes a fit stone for the Tem-

ple of God, whose architect is Love.

To watch a garden grow from day

to day, especially if one has planted

the seed himself, and cared for it,

deepens the joy of living. But it is

nothing compared to the joy of

watching other eyes grow, conscious

of another image in their depths.

Fifth, at a time when the first

wild ecstasies begin to fade, when

the husband might be tempted to

believe that another woman is more
beautiful than his wife, and the

wife might be tempted to believe

that another husband would be more

chivalrous—it is at that moment
that God in His Providence sends

children. In each boy the wife sees

the husband reborn in all his chiv-

alry and strength, and in each girl

the husband sees his wife reborn

in all her sweetness and beauty.

The natural impulse of pride that

comes with begetting, the new love

that overblooms the memory of a
mother’s pain as she swung open

the portals of flesh, and the joy



42 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

of linked creatures in each other’s

fruit, are as so many beads in the
rosary of love binding them togeth-

er in an ineffable and unbreakable

union of love.

Sixth, if the bringing of chil-

dren into the world is today an

economic burden, it is because the

social system is inadequate; and

not because God’s law is wrong.

Therefore the State should remove

the causes of that burden. The hu-
man must not be limited and con-
trolled to fit the economic, but the

economic must be expanded to fit

the human.

Such is the Christian position

concerning marriage, and one that

is, outside the Church, very large-

ly misunderstood. It is so often

said: “They can divorce and re-

marry, because they are not Cath-

olics,” or “the Catholic Church says

so-and-so about the duties of the

married ^tate.” No! No! No! Di-

vorce is not wrong because the

Church says it is wrong. Why
does the Church say it is wrong?

The Church says it is wrong be-

cause it is a violation of the nat-

ural law, which binds all men.

There is not one God for Catholics

and another God for Hottentots.

And all who violate the natural law
will be punished by God. A modern
pagan is no more free to break

God’s law than a Catholic.

But why does almost everyone
outside the Church associate the

objection to divorce with the

Church? Because the Church is

today almost alone in defending the

natural law. If a time ever came

when the Church alone defended
the natural truth that two and two

make four, the world would say:
“It is a Catholic doctrine.” And if
the natural law continues to be de-

fended almost alone by the Church,

a day will come when Catholics will
have to be prepared to die for the

truth that it is wrong to poison
mother-in-laws.

Men and women of America

!

Raise your altars to Life and Love

while there is time! If you have

not found the Citadel of married

happiness, it is because you have

failed to lay seige to the outer

walls of your own selfishness. The
purpose of war is not the loot of

the private soldier, neither is the

purpose of your marriage the loot

of life. Like Apostles you have

been sent out two by two, not that

you may merely eat and drink, buy
and sell, but that you may enrich
the Kingdom of God with life and

love and not with death. The soil

that takes the seed in the spring-

time is not unfaithful to its mes-

siahship of harvest, so neither may
you play recreant to the responsi-

bilities of love. The fires of heaven



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND THE FAMILY 43

which have been handed down to

you as to an altar, have not been

given for your own burning, but

that you may pass on the torch
that other fires may climb back into
the heavens from which they came.

Your marital love is happiest

when it becomes an earthly trinity

:

father, mother, and offspring; for

by filling up the lacking measure

of each in the store of the other,

there is built up that natural com-

plement wherein your love is im-

mortalized in your offspring. If

love were merely a quest or a ro-

mance, it would be incomplete; on

the other hand, if it were only a

capture and an attainment, it would

cease to rise. Only in heaven can

there be combined perfectly the

joy of the chase and the thrill of

the capture; for once having at-

tained God, we will have captured
something so Infinitely Beautiful

it will take an eternity of chase

to sound the depths. But here on

earth God has given to you who
are faithful in the Sacrament, a

dim sharing in those joys wherein

two hearts in their capture con-

spire against their mutual impo-

tence and recover the thrill of chase

in following their young down the

roads that lead to the Kingdom of

God. It was a family in the be-

ginning that drew a world of Wise

Men and Shepherds, Jews and Gen-
tiles, to the Secret of Eternal

Peace. It will be through the fam-

ily too that America will be re-

born. When the day comes where-
in mothers will consider it their

greatest glory to be the sacristans

of love’s fruit, and when fathers

will regard it their noblest achieve-

ment to be stewards of love’s

anointed ones, and when children

realize that nature set no limit on

the number of uncles one might

have but that a man could have
only one mother—then America
will be great with the greatness of

its Founding Fathers and the great-

ness of a nation blessed by God.

» * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND EDUCATION
Address delivered on

There are three points we should
like to make in today’s broadcast.

First, it is a sound American prin-

ciple that democracy cannot func-

tion without religion and morality.

Secondly, American democracy is

not making provision for religion

and morality. Hence, thirdly, the

necessity of restoring religious edu-

cation in order to preserve democ-

racy.

First, democracy cannot survive

without religion and morality.

The second paragraph of the Dec-

laration of Independence is at the

same time a Declaration of Depend-

ence, for it states that our rights

have come to us from God, and

therefore are “unalienable.” If our

rights come to us from God, as,

rays come from the sun, does it

not follow that only on condition

that we preserve our dependence
on God will we preserve our inde-
pendence from tyranny? A negative
support is given to this thesis by

the totalitarian systems, for it is

universally true that where religion

is most persecuted, there is man
most tyrannized.

This intrinsic connection between

democracy and religion is part of

the American tradition.

February 21, 1943

As George Washington the foun-
der of our country said : “Of all the

dispositions and habits which lead

to political prosperity, religion and

morality are indispensable sup-

ports. In vain would that man
claim the tribute of patriotism who
should labor to subvert these great

pillars of human happiness ...”

In the year 1928, Calvin Coolidge

stated : “Unless our people are

thoroughly instructed in the great

truths of religion, they are not

fitted to understand our institutions,

or to provide them with adequate

support.”

President Roosevelt said in 1940

:

“.
. . Practical steps should be taken

to make available to children and
youth through education the re-

sources of religion as an important

factor in the democratic way of life
and in the development of personal

and social integrity.”

We have now come to our second
point, namely, democracy is not at

the present time making provision

in education for religion and mor-

ality. About the only group mod-

ern education really caters to is

the group that neither practices nor

believes in any religion.

In order that this fact may be



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND EDUCATION 45

developed without provoking any

prejudices we shall quote only
Protestants and Jews in testimony

of its truth.

On December 29, 1940, Mr. Wal-
ter Lippman, addressing the Amer-

ican Association for the Advance-

ment of Science stated: “. . . Mod-

ern education is based on a denial

that it is necessary, or useful, or

desirable for the schools and col-

leges to continue to transmit from

generation, to generation the re-

ligious, and classical culture of the

Western world.”

Professor Hutchins of the Uni-

versity of Chicago, in June 1940,

stated: “In order to believe in de-

mocracy we must believe that there
is a difference between truth and

falsity, good and bad, right and

wrong, and that truth, goodness,

and right are objective (not sub-

jective) standards, even though

they cannot be verified experiment-

ally. Are we prepared to defend
these principles? Of course we are
not. For forty years and more our

intellectual leaders have been tell-

ing us that they are not true . .

The White House Conference of

1940, stated that of the thirty mil-

lion children in the United States

between the ages of five and seven-

teen, sixteen million received no

religious education whatsoever.

When you take out of this fourteen

million those who are being edu-
cated by the Catholic Church, at its

own expense, the proportion be-
comes more staggering still. It was

this growing irreligious element,

consisting of those who are devoid
of all training in religion and

morality, that prompted President

Roosevelt in 1940 to say: “We are
concerned about the children who
are outside the reach of religious

influences and are denied help in

attaining faith in an ordered uni-

verse, and in the Fatherhood of

God.”

Nicholas Murray Butler of Co-
lumbia University commenting upon

the fact that the pagan element

alone in our population is given

the benefit of our tax money stated

:

“Even the formal prayer that opens

each session of the United States

Senate and each session of the

House of Representatives, and

which accompanies each inaugura-

tion of the President of the United

States, would not be permitted in

a tax supported school.”

As regards the higher seats of
learning, such as colleges and uni-

versities, very few of them have

retained religion as an integral

part of education. Columbia Univer-

sity, for example, was established

in 1753 with the chief objective

to “teach and to engage children

to know God in Jesus Christ.” An



46 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

investigation made some years ago
revealed that one college had re-

duced the number of students be-
lieving in God from one in five at

entrance, to one in twenty at grad-

uation.

If this condition of ignoring re-

ligion and morality existed in less

important matters it would have

been remedied long ago. If, for

example, it had been discovered that

the geography of Russia was left

out of our schools, how quickly it
would be inserted. Why is noth-
ing done about that which our tra-

dition says is the indispensable

condition of democracy?

This brings us to our third point

—the necessity of restoring re-
ligious education in order to pre-

serve democracy. Just as Chris-

tian principles demand that de-

mocracy be extended economically,

so as to give both capital and labor

a share in the profits, management,

and ownership of industry, so too

the Christian Order demands that

education be made more democratic

by widening its influence so that

it satisfies not only the atheist, but

also the believer in God. For that

reason those interested in the pres-

ervation of democracy have sug-

gested that some assistance be given

to those who are aiding it by teach-
ing religion. As Professor Hutch-

ins has stated it clearly : “The

States may, if they choose, assist

pupils to attend the schools of their

choice. Since we want all Amer-
ican children to get as good an

education as they can, since we
know that some children will not
voluntarily attend public schools,

and since we are not prepared to
compel them to do so, it is in the
public interest to give States per-

mission to use Federal grants to

help them to go to the schools they
will attend and to make these
schools as good as possible/’

What possible objection could
there be given in a democracy to

equal opportunities for education

along religious and cultural lines?

The first objection urged is that

education should be “neutral”—and
“neutral,” in this sense, means that

religion should not be taught. This

is a fallacy. The fact is that there

is no such thing as neutral educa-

tion, that is an education without

morality and religion.

Religion and morality are not

related to education like raisins to

a cake, but as a soul to a body.

There can be a cake without raisins,

but there cannot be a man without
a soul. If education does not incul-

cate a moral outlook, it will incul-

cate a materialist or a Communist

or a Nazi outlook. Neutrality is ab-

solutely impossible in education.

By the mere fact that religious and



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND EDUCATION 47

moral training is neglected, non-

religious, non-moral—and in con-
sequence anti-religious, anti-moral

—ideology is developed. Religion is
either included or excluded in edu-

cation. Hence a school from which

religion is excluded, is bound to

become irreligious.

The old notion of “no indoctrina-

tion of religion” really meant “in-

doctrination of doubt and unbelief.”

To say we want an education
without dogmas is to assert a dog-

ma—the false dogma that man
has no soul, no supra-temporal pur-

pose, no other goal than to make
money, wed, and die. Without re-

ligion and morality there is no

philosophy of life, and therefore

no proper understanding of the man
to be educated. After all, what is

the use of living as human beings
if we do not know the purpose of
being human ? Those who are given
a so-called “neutral” education

have no reason for being anything

other than anti-social, or of using

society for their own personal ends.
The only way this egotistic impulse
in man can be combatted is by a
renewal of his nature from above.

This rebirth by God’s grace en-

ables man to be a member of so-
ciety without losing his personal

dignity. There is no disputing the

necessity of controlling selfish ten-

dencies. All education admits this.

The choice is in whether the State
will control it by its omnipotence,

or whether man will control himself
with the aid of God’s omnipotence.

The whole of civilized man is today
confronted with this question: “To
whom do you belong?” Education
will give the answer.

A second objection against ex-
tending democracy in education to

those who believe in God and mor-
ality, is that America was founded
on the principle of the separation

of the Church and the State. This

is absolutely true and we have no
desire to change this principle. But

our country was not founded on the
principle of the separation of re-

ligion and the State. Our Found-
ing Fathers intended that no parti-

cular religion should be the national

religion, but they never intended

that the State should be devoid of

religion. It never entered their

minds that we would grow up to be
an irreligious nation, nor did they

ever think that education would be

divorced from religion and moral-

ity. This is evident from the fact
that no signer of the Declaration

of Independence was educated in
a non-religious school. For a cen-
tury the United States did not have

a President who was educated in
a non-religious school. It is true

that the First Amendment of the
Constitution forbade the establish-



48 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

ment of any religion as a national

religion. This was because there
was an established religion in ten

of the thirteen colonies: The Con-

gregational religion in three; the

Episcopalian in seven. But the same

amendment ordered that Congress

should make no laws prohibiting
the free exercise of religion.

In the Northwest Ordinance

of 1787, our Government insisted

that “schools and the means of edu-

cation shall forever be encouraged,”

because “religion, morality, and

knowledge” are necessary to good

government and the happiness of

mankind.

Nor is the insinuation true that

religious schools are not American

schools. A Lutheran school which
teaches religion, or a Baptist school

which teaches religion, or a Cath-

olic school which teaches religion,

even though they are maintained at

the expense of these religious

groups, are public schools.

Why is it more important now
than at any other time to restore

religion and morality to education?

Because we are entering into a new

era of history wherein the grave

threat to man’s freedom is from the

Omnipotent State. Once a nation

ceases to believe it begins to obey.

As William Penn warned: “Men

must be governed by God or they

will be ruled by tyrants.” The

choice before the world is this:

Truth or Power, that is, either live

by God’s Truth or exist under State

Power. We are coming into the
days of Omnipotence where we will
live under the Omnipotence of God

or squirm under the Omnipotence

of Power.

When Hitler came into power in
1933, the first to capitulate were

the professors, and the one force

which has never capitulated is re-

ligion, as the Catholic bishops and

pastor Niemoeller bear witness. It

was the professors who allowed the
independent administration of the

universities to be abolished, the

universities offering no objections

to State elected “Rektoren” and

“Dekane” who were forced upon
them. It was a bitter disappoint-

ment for all who considered the
German universities the defenders
of right and justice; but when one

considers that specialization had

been carried so far, and a unified

philosophy of life so universally

abandoned, there was no one idea

around which they could rally.

Given a crisis in any country in

the world in which Totalitarianism

in any form threatens the liberty of

its citizens, and the first to capitu-

late will be the non-religious edu-

cators. How could it be otherwise,
for without a faith, how could they

oppose a faith? It will be only those



THE CHRISTIAN ORDER AND EDUCATION 49

schools which give a moral and re-

ligious training which will challenge

the right of the State to dominate

the soul of man.

That is why the safeguard of
American democracy and freedom

is in the extension of religious and

moral training, and not in its sup-

pression through excessive burdens.

There is no reason in the world why
any school in the United States

which teaches religion and morality

should be penalized for being pa-

triotic, or why it should bear all
the expenses for giving to the na-

tion the two supports without

which, as Washington told us, a

nation cannot endure.

It is not fair, it is not demo-

cratic, to cater only to the non-

religious in education. A child who
goes to a religious school may walk
on streets maintained by public

funds, but in many instances may
not ride to school in a bus operated

at public expense. The State will
build a chapel for citizens when
they get into a penitentiary; how
about building a few schools to pre-

vent them through moral discipline

from getting into a penitentiary?

We are preparing an army of ten
million men to defend Christian
liberty and justice on the battle-

fields. Shall we not tell them
something about that Christian lib-

erty before we give them a gun?

A government “of the people, for
the people, and by the people,

1”

should respect the will of those who

believe in religion and morality,

even though they be in the minor-

ity—for democracy is not the custo-
dian of majority privileges, but the

preserver of minority rights.

Would it not be a good idea for

America to cease talking about the

right to worship, and to begin talk-

ing about the duty to worship? We
may need God’s help and need it
badly before this war is over, and

it is not too soon now to begin

asking for it. For 150 years we
have been celebrating our Bill of

Rights. How about celebrating our
Bill of Duties? The first ten amend-

ments to the Constitution are our

Bill of Rights; the Ten Comand-

ments of God are our Bill of Duties.

God grant that America will not

be blind to its duties to God Who
has given us our rights; that par-

ents will realize that when God

made each of their children, He
made a crown for each in heaven,

and that a vacant crown is their un-

fulfilled responsibility and their

severe judgment; that children will

harken to the call of Him Who said

:

“Suffer the little children to come

unto Me, . . . For such is the King-

dom of Heaven” (Mark 10:14).
Given another generation of God-

less education and we will ha^



50 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

tyranny; given religion and moral-

ity in education and we will be the
most potent national influence

for peace in the world. Then shall

America be great. And we will
love it not because it is great; it

will be great because we will love
it in the name of God—and that
makes anything great.

Some time ago a Nazi soldier in

occupied France took his French

wife into a hospital. Seeing a cruci-

fix on the wall, he ordered the nun

to take it down. She refused ! He

ordered her again saying that he

did not want his child ever to look

upon the image of the Jewish

Christ. The nun took it down

under threat. The father’s wish

was fulfilled to the letter. The

child was born blind.

God grant that we may never
deny to our children the right to

gaze upon the image of the Saviour

of the World.

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



ON WHOSE SIDE ARE WE?
Address delivered on February 28, 1943

This series we have called “The
Crisis in Christendom.” Our reas-

on for doing so is because there are

three ideologies struggling for

mastery in this war: First, the

anti-Christian world-order which

exists under the form of Nazism,

Fascism, Communism, and Japan-

ese Imperialism; second, the non-

Christian world-order of part of

the Western world which seeks to

preserve human and democratic
values on a non-moral and non-re-

ligious foundation
; third, the

Christian order with its basic prin-

ciple that society exists for man,

not man for society, that politics
and economics are branches of

ethics, and that man is a creature
made to the image and likeness of

God.

After discussing all three in pre-

vious broadcasts, we are now in a
position to ask: On which side are
we? In order to understand the
answer, we must begin with a dis-
tinction: There are two ways of
being on any side—by conviction,
and by force of circumstances. For

example, one is a Catholic by con-

viction. But one is born in Illinois
by virtue of circumstances.

Now in this war, some Ameri-

cans are not on the Christian side

by conviction. Since they are not

living by Christian principles, how
can they be defending Christian

principles? Understanding “Chris-

tian” in the true historical sense

of the term, as one who believes
in the Divinity of Christ, it can-

not be said that as a nation we are
altogether Christian. Many Ameri-
cans believe in man more than they
believe in the Son of God. As a
nation it might be said that we
are more humanistic than we are
Christian.

But though we are not a com-
pletely Christian nation, neither

are we atheistic or anti-Christian;
though there are altogether too

many atheists and anti-Christians
among us. As a result, our prevail-
ing philosophy tends to become too

much that of indifferentism. For
that reason we are not in a state of
equilibrium, for a nation that is

indifferent to religion does one of

two things: Either it returns to

religion or it persecutes religion.

Because a return to religion is so

important we ask the Jews, Prot-
estants, and Catholics in this great

radio audience to take one hour a

day out of their twenty-four and



52 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

spend it in meditation and prayer.

Catholics should make the added
sacrifice of including Mass and

Communion in this Hour—for we
Catholics believe that Our Divine
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is

really and truly present in the tab-

ernacle.

We are not all of us, then, on the
Christian side by conviction; but

we are all on the Christian side by
force of circumstances, namely, by

our reaction to certain anti-Chris-

tian forces which would destroy

civilization.

For a long time many Americans
believed there was no absolute dis-

tinction between right and wrong;

tens of thousands believed with

that influential German, Karl

Marx, that man had no soul, there-
fore that democracy was wrong

and Communism was right; hun-
dreds of thousands believed that

since there was no absolute Truth

and Power, the majority was the

determinant of truth; hundreds of

thousands never worshipped God

on Sunday nor respected His laws

concerning the sanctity of mar-

riage.

But suddenly when other nations
began to put these ideas into prac-

tice, we became horrified. We were
not concerned when they were re-
tailed in America, but when our

enemies began to hand them out

in wholesale fashion we were
shocked beyond expression. We
had no idea that the philosophy of

expediency was so wrong when a
professor in a cap and gown taught
it from a rostrum, but we began to
realize how awfully wrong it was
when a Jap practiced it from an
airplane over Pearl Harbor. We
never thought atheism was so very

wrong until the Communists began

to put it in practice—and some
were even then unconvinced.

We never thought State control
of education was so wicked, until

we saw how Hitler made mental
pygmies out of the German youth.
We never thought the breaking of
contracts in domestic society was so

wrong, until we saw the terrible
consequences of the breaking of

contracts in international society.

We never thought religion was the
great bulwark against the Omni-

potent State until we saw the irre-
ligious schools surrender to the

State. Then we began to see what
Professor Einstein began to see:

That the universities and the press

surrendered to Hitler, but the

Church resisted. “Only the Church,

he said, “stood squarely across the

path of Hitler’s campaign .for

suppressing truth. I never had any

special interest in the Church be-

fore, but now I feel a great affec-
tion and admiration because the



ON WHOSE SIDE ARE WE? 53

Church alone has had the courage

and persistence to stand for in-

tellectual truth and moral freedom.

I am forced thus to confess that
what I once despised I now praise

unreservedly.”

Like a boy who, given to petty

thievery, will sometimes be shocked

back into honesty at the sight of a

burglar going to jail for life, so

we reacted. We said: “This thing
cannot go on; it is too evil, too

wicked, too cruel, too inhuman!”

We arose to slay the beast. And as
we went forth to battle with this

dragon we cried that we were

fighting for democracy. But that

was because we were too busy to

think; we are really not fighting

for democratic forms of govern-

ment, for we are fighting on the

same side with peoples who are not

democratic. We are fighting for
something deeper, namely, for hu-

manity. And since the cause of
man is the cause of God, in battling
against this dragon of evil we find

ourselves by force of circumstances

on the side of God, man, and the

God-man Christ. In this sense we
are definitely on the Christian side

!

To put our position in other

words: There is something com-

mon between our enemies and us

—

we are both sinners and we have
both abused God's grace

—“For
there is no distinction, for all have

sinned, and do need the glory of

God” (Romans 3:23). But there is

also something different: We have
not committed the same kind of

sin. We have been guilty of mortal
sin, but the totalitarian ideologies

have committed the unforgivable

sin.

We have committed mortal sin by
knowing what is right, and doing

what is wrong ; the totalitarian

ideologies do what is wrong and

call the wrong right. We are like a
man who abuses his health by vio-
lating the laws of health which he

still knows to be right. But the to-

talitarian ideologies affirm that

disease is normal, health is abnor-

mal
;

thus recuperation is impos-

sible. For that reason, the Church

has condemned Totalitarianism,

Nazism, Fascism, Communism, as

intrinsically wicked. Erring sheep

can be brought back into the fold,

but the wolves never. Deny you are

a sinner and you make your re-
demption impossible. The blind

man who thinks blindness is nor-
mal will never want to see. How
can a sin be forgiven that can not

even be recognized? Such is the

final state of rottenness and the

penalty the human race pay3 for
denying the objective moral stand-

ards of right and wrong. Such is

the mystery of iniquity.

We have been guilty of mortal



54 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

sin! Yes, we have broken God’s
law a million times and we shall
have to do penance. But we have
not identified God with our wicked
deeds or made right synonymous
with a race or a class or a nation.

Our sins leave the way open for
penance, amendment, redemption,

and resurrection. God can there-

fore use us as instruments for the

restoration of His Justice and

Goodness in the world. We have a
greater potentiality for Divine Ac-

tion than those enemies who glor-
ify the wrong as right. He can lift
us up because, though doing evil,

we still believed in a Righteousness
over our heads. He can lay His
absolving hand on us like Magda-

lens at His feet, as we rise to pro-
claim the sweetness of the ‘‘pas-

sionless passion and wild tranquil-

ity” which is the love of God. As
He took the bruised and rotted
tree of Eden and transformed it

into Calvary’s tree of Life; as He
took the darkened intellect and

weak will of an Adam and elevated
it into the New Man of Nazareth;
as He took the proud Eve and made
her the instrument of the human

race for begetting, through His

grace, the New Eve, the Glorious
Virgin Mary; as He takes the drop
of water in the gutter and lifts it

up through His Divine Alchemy to

be a snowdrop on a mountain top

—

so He in His mercy can use us as
His instruments for the restoration

of a world order where shepherds

need not be killed because they

kneel at a crib, or Johns beheaded

because they say divorce is wrong,

or Poles martyred because they

want their earth. In the sense that

the weak, and the blind, and the

deaf left the way open to His heal-
ing power, we are on God’s side!

To the extent that we are on
God’s side, we must make ourselves
worthy of it. We will need God’s
help a3 we have never needed it
before in our national history, to

attain that justice and charity

which are essential to peace. And
these are the four dangers which

we must pray God to avert:

First, we must be careful in
changing from a regime where

profit was primary to one in which

social good is primary, that we do

not exchange Mammon or the
power of gold, for Moloch or the

power of the State. There is little

to choose for free men between

being dominated by financial lords,

or being overlorded by State bu-

reaucrats. Only the recognition

that man is a creature of God can
save us from this absorption.

Second, in a war, the economic

resources of a nation must be and

should be bent to the political for

the sake of victory, but we must



ON WHOSE SIDE ARE WE? 55

be careful that in peace this identi-

fication does not continue, for eco-

nomics must be distinct from poli-

tics. The one way to resist this is

to affirm in practice the Christian

principle that private property is

the economic guarantee of freedom,

and that therefore the common
good demands as wide a diffusion

as possible of private ownership.

Third, we must do all we can to
restore Russia to the Christian

heritage of civilization and to the

natural law. It would be very easy

for us to fall into the assumption

chat because Russia once persecut-

ed religion, therefore it should al-

ways be regarded as a sinner and

an outcast and beyond redemption.

Certainly, if God were to deal that

way with individuals, how could
any of us be worthy of His pardon ?

We must not act like the elder son,
who when the prodigal came back
protested that he should not be re-

ceived by a forgiving father.

I hope that that greatest of all

Russian writers, Dostoievsky, was
right when he pictured Russia as
being converted from its evil ways.

Quoting St. Luke, Dostoievsky pic-

tures Russia like the young man
of the Gerasens who was full of
devils, and Our Lord came one day
and drove the devils out of the pos-

sessed youth into the swine who
cast themselves into the sea and

were drowned. Dostoievsky then

comments: “You see, that’s exact-

ly like our Russia, those devils that

come out of the sick man and enter
into the swine. They are all the

sores, all the foul contagions, all

the impurities, all the devils great

and small that have multiplied in

that great invalid, our beloved Rus-

sia, in the course of ages and ages.

But a great idea and a great Will

will encompass it from on high, as
with that lunatic possessed of

devils . . . and all those devils will

come forth, all the impurity, all
the rottenness that was putrefying

on the surface . . . and they will

beg of themselves to enter into

swine
;
and indeed maybe they have

entered into them already! . . .
They shall cast themselves down,
possessed and raving, from the

rocks into the sea, and they shall

all be drowned, and a good thing

too, for that is all they are fit for.

But the sick man will be healed and
‘will sit at the feet of Jesus’, and

all will look upon him with aston-

ishment.”

Fourth
,
but at the same time we

must be careful not to allow

Nazism, Fascism, or Communism,
or any other form of Totalitarian-

ism, to raise its head in America.

There is a danger of all three un-

less we are careful: A danger of
Fascism if we allow Communisip



56 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

to grow, for Fascism always arises

in reaction to Communism; a dan-
ger of Nazism if we allow either of
the others to grow, for they would

deliberately foster Nazism as a ve-
hicle for disrupting national unity.

For proof of this we refer to the
meeting the Communist Interna-
tional held in Mexico City in 1941.

The Communists assembled there
decided, among other things:

a) to incite world revolution

after this war, particularly in Eng-

land and America, b) to take steps

that free movements within var-

ious countries shall be dominated

by Communist influence, c) that

Nazi activities must be utilized for

revolution but never allowed to con-

solidate their action against Com-
munism. d) to make use of the
pretext of Nazi or Phalangist ac-

tivities to create the occasion for

Red militias to conquer them in the

name of democracy and thus seize
power.

For that reason, I say, pray that

Russia may be restored to the four
freedoms, but pray also that Com-

munism does not destroy our own.
Welcome Russia back as a prodigal

to the land of liberty, but keep an

angel with a flaming sword at the

gates of America, lest Communists

enter and poison the tree of our

national life.

Maybe we will be better as a re-

sult of this war. Perhaps Pearl

Harbor saved us from being an-

other France. Like Apostles asleep

in the Garden we were awakened
by the hand of a Loving Master

Who said: “Watch !” “Watch and
Pray!” And this applies to all of
us, for as I mentioned before, by a

Christian civilization we mean one
in which democratic values are

founded on moral and religious

values, and to this Jews, Protes«

tants, and Catholics can alike con-

tribute according to the light of

their consciences. And we are
watching now! We are beginning
to live more for one another within

our borders; we are giving un-
measured material aid to other na-

tions which are fighting against a

common enemy. Perhaps there is
being verified in our national life

the paradox of the Benedictus :

“Salvation is from our enemies and

from the hand of those who hated

us.” We will be stronger, better,
and a more righteous nation be-

cause of what our enemies have

done to us.

A figure which describes the
position of many today is that of
Simon of Cyrene. As his name im-

plies, he was not a native of Jeru-

salem. But like all mankind he

was curious about the death of his

fellowman. So he stationed him-

self by a Jerusalem roadside to



ON WHOSE SIDE ARE WE? 57

watch what to him were three com-

mon criminals dragging their gib-
bets of death to the Hill of the

Skull. He was perfectly indifferent
about the whole spectacle; he was

what we today call “broadminded.”
He saw no great issues involved;
right and wrong was to him a
question of a point of view. If any-

one had told him that he was wit-
nessing the greatest act of evil of

all time, the crucifixion of Truth,

and that from the exhaustion of

evil by that deed, Life and Good-

ness would come, he would prob-

ably have sneered as Pilate did:

“What is Truth?”

But as he stood there, an indif-

ferent watcher of the great drama

of redemption, the long arm of Ro-
man Law reached out in the first
military conscription of the Chris-

tian ages and laid itself upon his

shoulders, saying: “Carry that

man’s Cross.” “Take it up!” He
did not want to do it; he had taken

no sides. But he was forced to do it.

Following in the footsteps of the

Master with that queer yoke of the

Cross upon him, he made a great
discovery. He began to see that
the yoke was sweet, the burden

light. And in the end what to him
was constraint, became the begin-

ning of freedom. His two sons,

Alexandrinus and Rufinus, became

bishops and martyrs of the early

Church.

That is the position of many in
America! Like Simon they have

stood as indifferent spectators on

the roadway of our modern Golgo-

tha. They saw the phenomenon of

Totalitarianism arise, with its

anti-semitism, its anti-Christian-

ity, its repudiation of the Sermon

on the Mount. At first sight they

felt that they should be broad-

minded about these things. It was

all a question of a point of view.

Then suddenly the invasion of

Poland, the destruction of the low

countries, the expulsion of the

Jews and Christians, persecution,

and the bombing of Pearl Harbor,

startled all of us out of indifference

and in almost so many words said:
“Take up your cross! Carry the

cross of Justice, Freedom, Truth,

and Law that are rooted in God.”
We did not want that cross of war.
We did not ask for it. It was forced
on us. But we took it up. We can
carry it; we must carry it; we will
carry it. Like Simon we are
trudging along the highway of the

centuries carrying something the

meaning of which is not yet clear.

We do not yet know all of the
meaning of this war; we do not yet
know we are carrying the Cross of
Christ.

We are fighting a nobler cause



58 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

than many of us know; we are
fighting a nobler cause than many
of us deserve. What a great people
we will be when all of us do know!

0 Christ! Make us worthy of the
great cause we are asked to defend.

Open our blind eyes to see that

worship is not a right but a duty,

that freedom is not an end but a

means. Strengthen us to walk

worthy of the vocation to which we
have been called. Give us a love

of Thy Cross, and the power to
carry it, in Thy Name, to Victory,
to Justice, and to Peace.

Prayer In Time Of War



HOW OVERCOME THIS EVIL?
Address delivered

This war is not a conflict of na-

tionalities but of philosophies of

life. The philosophies of life which

are intrinsically evil are Nazism,

Fascism, Communism, and Nation-

alism which identifies itself with

deity. How overcome this evil?

In order to answer that question

one must know the strength of the
enemy. In all human forces there
are two factors: physical and psy-

chological. The first determines the

ability to fight; the second deter-

mines the zeal with which one

fights. A weaker weapon in the
hand of a man who has a great
passion for his cause may well over-
come a stronger weapon in the

hands of a man who has little or
no faith in his cause, or who does
not know what he is fighting for.

From a purely material point of
view, our enemies are well armed,

technically perfect. But their great

strength lies in a psychological fac-

tor: They believe in an absolute .

They have a dogma, a creed, a

faith, a religion, a pseudo-mystic-

ism, which gives the people a loyal-

ty around which they can rally.

That pseudo-religion may be cen-
tered about a race, an emperor, a

Caesar, or a corpse, but in its es-

on March 7, 1943

sence it is the same: The affirma-

tion of an absolute other than God.

Call it fanaticism, call it diabol-

ism, the fact of the matter is that

the Nazis, for example, are men of
faith

;
they have faith in the primi-

tive purity of their race, faith in

their Messianic call to be the mas-

ters of the world. From that faith
has come those un-Pentecostal fires

which in the course of less than ten

years built them the strongest

army the world has ever seen.

It is no answer to say that their

faith is false—certainly it is—it is
like the faith of the demons in hell

;

but without a faith nothing great

can ever be accomplished. It is the

faith of the demons that inspires

the demons to the ceaseless energy

of the destruction of the Kingdom

of God, as it is the faith of the

saints that inspires the saints un-

to its building.

Whence came this fanaticism for

an absolute? It is the manifesta-

tion, in a false form, of the zeal

which men should have for a true
faith. For the last two centuries

it has been a fault of the Western

world to ridicule zeal for religion.

Tolerance which should have been

applied to persons was transferred

to truths, so that men became in-



60 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

different to right and wrong, to

truth and error. But zeal which

men should have for the true God
could not long be kept chilled and

frozen by indifference and by our

so-called broadmindedness; it final-

ly swept up through the surface

and came out as fanaticism for

false gods.

The young people in these totali-
tarian countries were dissatisfied

with the husks of a secularized cul-

ture; they wanted an absolute that

would command conviction, a hardy
wine of sacrifice, a creed for souls

and a fire for hearts, an altar for

oblations—they found it in a re-
ligion which is anti-religion. Their

answer to a civilization that had

forgotten the Christian religion

was to be anti-Christian, to erect a
counter-Church of the City of Man
which would war against the City
of God until the end of time. That
is why the world today is in the
peculiar mood of having more en-
ergy for the spread of the false

gods of race and class and power

than it has for the spread of

knowledge of the true God of Life
and of Love. This faith explains

the zest with which they fight. That

Is why young Japanese aviators be-
lieve their death is the condition

of their god’s victory, and why
young Nazi soldiers ask that when
they die their epitaphs read: “He
died in peace with Hitler.”

The human heart must have an
absolute. As Voltaire has said:
“If man had no God, he would
make a God for himself.” Deny
men the right to make a pilgrim-
age to the shrine of a saint and in

fifty years they will be making pil-
grimages to a tank factory. Deny
them a God Incarnate, and in a
few generations they will adore the

emperor as the incarnation of a

sun god. Deny men the right to
worship One Who rose from a tomb,
and in a decade they will try to

deify a dictator. The Totalitarian
powers have convinced us that man
cannot live without religion, a

faith, an absolute. The question no
longer is whether we will or will
not have an absolute

; the only

question is which one will we have?

This very enthusiasm for false

gods is the explanation of the cruel-

ty of our enemies. There is noth-

ing temporal that can bear the

strain of being deified; it is like

placing a marble bust on the stem

of a rose
;
it distorts man like beat-

ing a cripple with his own crutches.
Endow a machine with infinite pow-
er and it will kill you; endow a

finite human being with the power
of an infinite God, and he will slay

you. “Absolute power”, as Lord

Acton says, “corrupts absolutely.”

And as Chesterton said, speaking
of the horrors of the new religion:
“God is more good to the gods that



HOW OVERCOME THIS EVIL? 61

mocked Him, than men are good to
the gods they made.”

When therefore a man with an
eternal destiny is enlisted in the

service of an earthly absolute, he

becomes its fiercest and its most

fanatical soldier. And therein lies
the total strength of our enemies:

Their cause is a religion—the an-
imal religion of false gods to whom
its devotees pray. In the language

of Lady Macbeth:

“Come, you spirits. . . . And
fill me from the crown to the toe
top-full of direst cruelty! make
thick my blood; Stop up the ac-
cess and passage to remorse, that

no compunctious visitings of na-

ture shake my fell purpose, nor
keep peace between the effect and

it!” (Macbeth, Act 7, Sc. 5)

Our problem is to overcome that
false absolute. How do it?
Not by hate. There is a group

in our midst who, feeling the lack

of a great crusading idea and sens-

ing the need of zest in battle, offer

the substitute of hate. They con-
tend that the condition of victory

is a hatred of our enemies. Hatred

is a poor alternative for faith; it

inspires men to fight because
their enemy is wicked rather than
because their own cause is right-
eous. It looks to the poison of their

arrows, rather than to the justice

of their archery. Lamenting the
wickedness of our enemies will

make us cruel; but it will never
make us strong. I would rather
think that our soldiers were in-

spired more by the country they

loved than by the country they

hated. If we spend our war time
setting on the eggs of hate, in vain

will we expect to hatch the dove of
peace. As Milton wrote: “Nor can
true reconcilement grow, where

wounds of deadly hate have pierced

so deep.”

Neither shall this false absolute

be overcome by force alone, for no

idea can be killed by force. A
false idea can be conquered only

by a true idea
;

a false dogma
only by a true dogma. When Hitler
says the power of money is dead,
we must not counter with a defense
of financial plutocracy, but with a

new idea in which money shall be
exclusively a medium of exchange.
When Hitler says the power of
monopolistic capitalism is dead, we
must not defend its abuses, but

counter with a new idea of econ-
omics based on the moral order.

We cannot conquer Hitler’s New
Order by seeking to preserve the

Old Order from which it came. The
one and only effective means is to
build a New Order ourselves—one
grounded on the true absolute of

God and on His principles of justice
and morality.

Neither will we overcome the
false absolute by indifference to



62 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

any absolute, or by saying that we
are fighting to preserve the status

quo. I know of a good simple soul
who, on being asked the meaning

of status quo, defined it rather cor-

rectly as the “mess we are in”. We
are not fighting to keep the world

just as it was; if we were we would
be fighting to preserve the world

that produced Nazism and Com-

munism and Fascism. We are not
fighting to keep just what we have,
otherwise we would be defending
our personal or sectional interests*

rather than the good of all.

No vague sentiments about liber-
alism; no catchwords about free-

dom of the press; no great mass
production however great the

eight-hour sacrifice of those who
make it; no American sportsman-
ship transplanted from a football

field to a sea or a fox hole; no

boasting and bragging; no com-

plaining or haranguing of our pub-

lic officials and no change of legis-

lators—will carry us safely through
this crisis, unless we are prepared
to give up our coat in time of fire

or our cargo when our ship is

sinking. The Savior was right

when He spoke of the crisis that
faced Jerusalem: “Go not back for

your coat”. . . Let it perish!

The strength of our enemies is in

their absolute; our weakness is in

the want of it. Their power is their

ideology; our weakness is the lack

of it. They are sweeping ahead be-
cause they have dogmas; we are
falling behind because we have
none. The dynamism of a false pa-
ganism cannot be overcome by the

irreligion of a democracy. The en-
thusiasm for false gods cannot be

drowned by an indifference to the

true God. No secularized, non-re-
ligious theory of political freedom

is strong enough to overcome their

faith. A people who lack the
strength of an ultimate conviction

cannot overcome their false abso-

lute. The effective answer to a false

religion is not indifference to all re-

ligion, but practice of the true re-

ligion. Their totalitarian false re-

ligion can be overcome only by a

total true religion. Their dogmas

must be met with dogmas; their

faith must be met with faith
;
their

absolute must be countered with an

absolute.

Unless there is a positive convic-

tion to pit against the assaults of

the demon, the citadel of the soul

will fall. In other words, what we
need above all things is the offen-

sive of a great idea.

Is there place for an absolute in

American Democracy?

There are those who say that
democracy by its nature is rela-

tive, that it is indifferent to all

ideas as equally valid, and there-

fore that it can have no absolute.

This is not true. Democracy is



HOW OVERCOME THIS EVIL? 63

based on a political and economic

relative, but on a theological abso-

lute. That is to say, it tolerates all

political and economic policies and

suggestions which contribute to

democracy, but it is intolerant

about the foundation of democracy.

If we doubt this we need only
read the Declaration of Independ-

ence which affirms that the “Crea-

tor has endowed man with certain
unalienable rights”. The State is

not autonomous, but subject to a

higher law. Power thus becomes re-

sponsibility. God is the absolute in

democracy. Either democracy will

rest on this divine foundation or it

will be laid to rest.

Trying to preserve freedom and

democracy without God, in Whom
alone they are grounded, is like

preserving the false teeth of a

drowning man. If we save the man,
we will save his teeth; and if we
save our souls in God, we will save
our democracy and our freedom

—

but not otherwise. Only a faith

can prevail against a faith. All

other substitutes for God and His
Moral Law are delusions. Face the
facts! The more we outlawed war
with our pacts which denied the

moral law of God, the more war
outlawed us. The more we worked
on social security, the greater be-

came our insecurity. The more we
educated, the less common truths
we had and therefore the more ig-

norant we became. Are we blind?
Can we not see, as Shakespeare
put it:

“If that the heavens do not their

visible spirits

Send quickly down to tame these
vile offences,

It will come,

Humanity must perforce prey on
itself,

Like monsters of the deep”

{King Lear, Act U, Sc. 2.)

This is the issue involved in this

war, that is, the choice of abso-

lutes. No one in the United Na-
tions has put it as clearly as in a

recent Nazi book published in Ber-

lin entitled, God and Race

:

a Sol-

dier's Creed, by Theodor Frisch, in

Chapter II of which we read:
“Where there is a struggk

there is a front. The fronts are

evident; one is called Christ, the

other Germany. There is no

third front, nor is there any com-

promise, only one clear decision.

Today it is not a question of

weakening Catholicism in order

to reinforce Protestantism. To-

day every alien religion is re-

placed by a flame in the deepest

depth of the German soul. Each

epoch has its symbol. Two epochs
and two symbols are now facing
each other: the cross and the

sword. Today Christianity is un-

der the sign of the cross; Chris-



64 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

tianity, but not the Christian.

Our struggle is not against man.
It is against an idea. The front
of the cross has a strong wing

and a weak one. . . We struggle
against both, and the object of

the struggle is Germanity. There

will be neither dogma nor church,
only the German community. No
confession, not even a general

Christian church, but only one

people that believes in God and
in itself!”

That is one of the clearest ex-

pressions that has yet come from
any nation in this world war.

Truly indeed it is a struggle of

the Cross and the Sword. We are
on the side of the Cross, Hitler is

on the side of the Sword. So be it

!

* • •

Prayer In Time Of War



EVIL HAS ITS HOUR
Address delivered

The charioteers of evil are on

the march. The last red embers of

the sun set on a sorrowful genera-

tion. During the last World War,

Lord Grey of England said that

the lights of the world were being

put out, and they would not be

lighted again in our generation.

The first encyclical of the Holy

Father was entitled, “Darkness

over the Earth,” in which he liken-

ed our times to the darkness that

hung over the earth when Christ
was crucified, and the sun at high

noon hid its face in shame.

In the face of the evil of the

present day, some are tempted to

doubt either the goodness or the

existence of God. They feel that
war, hunger, hate, and the triumph

of power over virtue puts God in
difficulty, and puts all believers in

Him on the defensive. But this is
because they do not understand the

nature of God; they falsely assume

that the supreme business of God
is to insure prosperity. Like the

thief on the left of Our Savior
they refuse to admit that God is
good unless He can unhook a thief
from a cross and let him go on in
his business of thieving.

It is not our position here to re-

on March 14, 1943

concile the existence of God with

evil, for evil is due, as we know,

to an abuse of God’s gift of free-

dom. It is the price we have to pay
for divorcing freedom from God.

Rather, we seek here to justify the
startling thesis that God permits

evil from time to time for the sake

of a greater good, so that in the

language of St. Paul: “Where sin

abounded, grace did more abound”

( Romans 5:20).

For some salutary lessons for

these darkened hours, let us ac-

company in our mind’s eye the

Savior into the Garden of Gethse-

mani. Three companions went with

Him, Peter, James, and John,

whom He strengthened for this or-
deal by revealing to them His

glory on the Mount of the Trans-

figuration. No one in God’s king-
dom is ever called to glory and
honor, except for the sake of tre-

mendous responsibilities. Bidding

them to watch and pray, He went
as far away from them as a man
could throw a stone—what a signi-
ficant way to measure distance

—

and prayed to His Heavenly Fath-

er, pledging to drink the chalice of

redemption to its very dregs in

ratification of His Divine Will.



66 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

Pulling down upon Himself the
burden of the world’s sin, as if He
Himself has been guilty of sin;

thrusting into His hand every open

deed of evil and every secret deed

of shame, as if He Himself has
committed them, He breaks out
into a bloody sweat, as the crimson

drops like so many words write on
the pages of earth the story of its

greatest Love and its fondest Hope.

When He had prayed, He came
back to His chosen three, and

found them wrapped both in their
cloaks and in sleep. In return for

His Love Our Lord had asked but
one small thing—that they fall not
asleep. He bade them stay awake
like sentries of earth and bade

them pray like sentries of heaven.

Everything slept about them. The
city with its white-washed wails

sprawling over the hills, was
asleep; in all the houses of all the

cities of the world, men were
sleeping. Perhaps the only ones

awake were a thief in ambush in
the dark, or a fond mother at the

bedside of her sick child, or a

sophomoric youth over a cup of

wine in a dimly lighted tavern,

asking his fellows: “Does God

exist?”

Why did the Apostles sleep?
Men sleep when they are tired, but
they never sleep when they are
worried. But these men slept, and
for only one reason—because they

were not conscious of the awful-

ness of the hour. They were pre-
pared for external dangers, for

Peter was sleeping with his sword.
But they were not prepared against

themselves. One can be armed and
still be asleep—armed because one
fears his enemies, asleep because

he is not worried about his sins.

Danger is physical; evil is moral.
Are we in America like Peter?

Do we think of our times solely in
terms of a war ? Do we think of the
Nazis and the Japs as being our

only enemies? If so, as Our Lord
told Peter, the sword is enough!

But suppose they are only symp-

toms of evil and sin; then will the

sword be enough? When we have
defeated them on the field of battle,

will we have defeated the godless-
ness from the womb of which they
sprang? Will we in reality be cut-
ting off only the evil fruit, but not

uprooting the evil root? Do we
realize how evil the times are? We
will search history in vain to find

any ages, other than our own, when

nations made expediency the sole

ground of justice, when freedom

was derided and denied, when

truth was made the slave of a na-

tion, a race, or a class, when some

dictators would extinguish religion

altogether, when others would

poison it. This war is not between

rival political systems or nations,

but between contrary philosophies



EVIL HAS ITS HOUR 67

of life. Man is at war with his
brother on the battlefields of the

world, because man has first
warred with God on the battlefield

of the soul. This war involves suf-

fering only because it first involved

sin. We are well armed as Peter
was, and if all we had to defeat

were the Nazis and the Japs, our

task would be easy and victory

certain. But suppose we are fight-
ing a devil? Suppose we are de-
fending ourselves against philoso-

phies of life which, as the Holv

Father said of Nazism, Fascism,

and Communism, are intrinsically

evil. Then let us ask ourselves:

Will the sword be enough? If we
think of war only as a physical

combat as Peter did, we need to be
aroused as he was by the Savior,
who reminded him of two other
arms: “Watch and Pray.” Watch!

Be vigilant on the outside. Pray!

Pray that you may be armed on
the inside with the armor of God.

Taunting Peter’s false confidence

in the sword alone, Our Lord ask-
ed: “Could you not watch one

hour with me?” (Matthew 26:40).
In other words, “Peter, there are

twenty-three hours a day you may
spend with your armaments. But

can you not give one hour to invok-

ing divine aid and imploring divine

forgiveness?”

But why watch and pray? Be-
cause in times of crisis, evil can be

more awake than goodness. Evil

never sleeps. Across this hill comes

the evil man—Judas is his name.
He leads a band of soldiers, Saddu-
cees, and Pharisees, bearing lant-

erns and torches and weapons.

Judas has already given to them a

sign saying: “Whomsoever I shall

kiss, that is he; lay hold on him

and lead him away carefully”

(Mark 14:44). Then throwing his

arms about the neck of Jesus, he

blistered His lips with a kiss. That

kiss was at once the first and most

horrible sullying of the lips

which had pronounced the most

heavenly words ever heard on this

mad earth of ours. The betrayal of
holy things must always be pre-

faced by a mark of affection. The
kiss was the first use of the Tro-

jan Horse in the history of Christ-

ianity ! Oh, how religion must
guard against those wicked influ-

ences which say they are friends

of religion.

This was no surprise to the

Master. The very day He an-
nounced the Eucharist, He made
known that Judas would betray
Him. A few hours ago, before He
gave the Eucharist, He told Judas
himself he would betray Him. It

was thus around His most solemn

promise and His most noble gift

that the betrayal centered. As St.
John put it: “Jesus therefore

knowing all things that should



68 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

come upon him, went forth and

said to them: Whom seek ye? They
answered him: Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus saith to them: I am he”
(John 18:4-5). When He said this
the whole cohort of them fell back-

wards to the ground. Some burst
of majesty halted them, some

flaming glory which surpasses our

puny minds. It was another way of
revealing that no man could take
His life away, but that He could
lay it down Himself.

Giving them power to rise, He
took no thought of Himself, but of

His faithless friends: “If there-

fore you seek me, let these go their

way” (John 18:8).

“And Jesus said to the chief
priests, and magistrates of the

temple and the ancients, that were

come unto him: Are ye come out,

as it were against a thief, with

swords and clubs? When I was
daily with you in the temple, you

did not stretch forth your hands

against me: but this is your hour,

and the power of darkness” (Luke

22:52-53).

“Your Hour”—the Hour of be-
trayers, deceivers, and crucifiers.

“Your Hour”—the Hour for evil
to put out the Light of the World

—

for that is all it can do during that

Hour. The Hour of wolves for scat-
tering the sheep and seizing the

Shepherd! The Hour of Power and
Might and swords and clubs where-

in Innocence and Truth are beaten

to the ground. The Hour of con-
centration camps, Gestapos, 0. G.

P. U.’s, the Hour of the raping of
Poland, the Hour of sending a
peace envoy with a kiss while pre-

paring an attack! “Your Hour”

—

not because your weapons are

stronger, nor because you come

armed to seize Me, but because in

obedience to the Father’s Will, I

deliver Myself into your hands

that evil having done its worst may
be overcome by Goodness rising

from the dead.

In clear unmistakable language,

Our Divine Lord here tells us that

God permits the evil begotten of

the rebellious hearts of men to
have its brief holiday even at the

expense of God Himself. The ig-

norant think that a war creates

difficulties for belief in God. And
here the God-man says that the evil

seed man has planted will bear
fruit in our evil hour! It is not

God’s goodness we should doubt. It
is our own ! Evil did not come from

God. It came from our sin, our

pride, our egotism. Therefore it

will have its hour! Are we not
living at such a moment now in the

world’s history? Do not the times

in which we live belong to Satan

and the power of Darkness, where-

in Divine Law is ignored, sanctu-
aries polluted, family life trampled

under the feet of false freedom,



EVIL HAS ITS HOUR 69

and children raised as if there

were no Cross, no Savior, and no

Divine Love? But if evil has its

hour, how meet it? Will the sword

be enough?

Peter thought so ! Profiting

by the confusion of the guards

Simon Peter came suddenly to

himself from sleep, drew a sword

and struck Malchus, the servant of

the high priest. It must have been

a poor blow for it got only his right

ear. Action is so often used as a

substitute for prayer. So many
think that the way to conquer an
enemy’s evil heart is to cut off his

ear. Simon’s blundering action was

remedied by the last act of divine

surgery wrought by the Savior

Who heals the wounds that over-
zealous people make on others’
souls.

This untimely action was repu-

diated by Our Lord. Addressing
Peter, He said: “Put up again thy
sword into its place: for all that

take the sword shall perish with

the sword” (Matthew 26:52).

Why did Our Lord not take up
the sword offered in His defense?

Certainly not because by using it,

He might be courting military de-
feat, for “Thinkest thou,” He said
to Peter, “that I cannot ask my
father, and he will give me present-
ly more than twelve legions of
Angels?” (Matthew 26-53). And
did He not say to Pilate: “If My

kingdom were of this world, my
servants would certainly strive that

I should not be delivered to the

Jews: But now my kingdom is not
from hence” (John 18:36).

His reason then for rejecting the

sword was not that He would
have been no match for His adver-

saries. He asserts that if He did
take to the sword, He would win
every victory swordsmanship could

achieve. And yet, believing this, He
still refuses to use the weapon! A
physical enemy can be conquered

with the sword. But moral evil can

be overcome only by a Cross.

Armaments will defeat a foe, but
arms alone cannot conquer evil;

and that is why He refused the
sword in the Evil Hour!

Apply this to the war. Are

we fighting the Nazis or the Japs,
or are we fighting Evil? If only
the former, our guns and tanks will

do the job: but if they and other

dictators and evil philosophies are

the products of our pride and ego-

tism, then our armaments offer no

guarantee of victory. Evil has the

devil on its side and no military

power on earth can defeat the

devil

!

How blind are those that say:
What good will prayer do? That is
what Peter thought as he slept

alongside his armaments. One
might just as well ask: What good
will courage do? What good will



70 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

faith in righteousness do? What
good will belief in the Four Free-

doms do? Do we realize that what
our totalitarian enemies are out

to destroy is not what we have, but
the principles for which we stand

—

a belief in human freedom and the
value of a man against the power
of the State? The soldiers who
came into the Garden that night

did not want Peter, James, or

John. They were let go. Caesar

wanted only Christ. Our enemies,

who are more numerous than we
believe, seek to destroy the last

vestiges of Christian civilization,

so that they might, in the language

of Nietzche, so transvaluate values

that evil from now on might be re-
garded as good and good be re-

garded as evil.

This warning, then! Unless we
realize the fact that we live in an
evil hour and that that hour must

be spent watching and praying,

we may end by drawing the enemy
out of the House of Western Civili-

zation while into that empty house,

which should have been filled by

Godliness, seven devils worse than

the first will come and dwell,

and the last state of civilization

shall be worse than the first.

There are indications that Amer-

ica is recognizing that the hour

is so evil that only by living ac-

cording to God’s law and love can

we overcome it. The President re-

cently quoted the Sermon on the
Mount to remind us of another
law than force; General MacAr-
thur in the full flush of a battle

wherein the enemy lost more ships
than we lost men, did not blindly
believe the sword was enough, for
his communique read: “A merci-
ful Providence has granted us a

great victory.”

That is the reason why we have
been insisting on the Holy Hour.

Today I wish to give it a new em-
phasis. There are a number of
children who listen to me, and
hundreds of good sisters who teach
these children the ways of God.
To them I address myself in a
very particular way today. I want
to call your attention to the sad

plight of some other children in

another part of the world, whom
you cannot help materially because

there is no means of bringing them

aid. But why worry about that?
We never believed anyway that
man could be helped only by man!
God can aid them, and to Our
Divine Lord we will go.
The ones I have particularly in

mind are the 500,000 Polish child-

ren under 16 years of age in

Russia. Their story was recently

told to me by Bishop Gawlina,
Chief of Chaplains of the Polish

Armed Forces, presently in the Uni-
ted States in behalf of Polish vic-

tims of the war. The children he



EVIL HAS ITS HOUR 71

told me about once lived in houses
like you and me ; they once slept in
beds like you and me; they once

sat down to tables with knives and

forks, and food to use them on,

like you and me; they once used

to dress for school and come home

to their mothers and fathers like

all school children. Today, three out

of four of these children are

orphans; they are dying by the

hundreds for want of a piece of

bread which we would throw under
our table to a dog; they are too

sick to be homesick; too tired to

play; too hungry to laugh. And
their plight is undoubtedly no worse

than that of hundreds of thousands

of their little fellows in German-

occupied Poland. They have only
one thing in common with you

—

their faith. Will you pray for them
every day both at home and at
school, and add an invocation to

Our Lady of Czestochowa, who is
the patroness of Poland? Ask Our
Lady to intercede with her Divine

Son that they may one day be freed
from their exile and brought back

home again. As Mary once lost her
own child for three days, so now
she has lost 500,000 of them for
three years. Tell her not to look in

the temple for them—for there are
no temples for them to hide in.
Tell her to look for them in a land
where they do not belong. Do that,
won’t you? They are a great
people; they have suffered much in
this evil hour. Would you want to
be back home if you were a prison-

er in Japan? Well, these little ones

want to be back home again. So I
say: Pray! Pray! Pray! Evil has

its Hour! Can you not watch one

Hour?
* * •

Prayer In Time Of War



WAR AS A JUDGMENT OF GOD
Address delivered on March 21, 1943

We commonly speak of this war
as a Crisis. Now our English word
crisis is taken from a Greek word

which means judgment; and that

is just what this war is—a judg-
ment of God.

In the life of every human be-
ing, there is a particular judgment

and a general judgment. The par-

ticular judgment comes at the mo-

ment of death, for we are individu-
ally responsible for the way we
use our God-given liberty; the

general judgment comes at the

end of time, because we work out
our salvation in the context of the

social order and the brotherhood of

Christ, and therefore we must be
judged with the entire world.

History too, like individuals, has

its particular and general judg-

ments. Particular judgments come

at various moments in a nation’s

history, when it works out the full
moral consequences of its decisions

and its philosophy of life. The Gen-

eral Judgment will be at the end of

time when Our Lord shall come to

judge all the nations of the world.

We find a reference to both the
particular and the general judg-

ments in history, in Our Blessed

Lord’s warning to the City of Jeru-

salem. Because it had not known

the time of its visitation, He said
that a particular judgment would

come before that very generation

would have passed away, when the
enemy would beat it flat to the
ground, not leaving a stone upon a

stone. That judgment actually came

to pass in the year 70 when Titus
destroyed the Holy City. But Our
Divine Lord also foretold, in the

same passage, the general judg-

ment of the world in the distant

future unknown to the sons of men,
when nations which judged Him
would then be judged by Him, as

He would come in the clouds of
heaven bearing His Cross in tri-

umph. By speaking of the two to-
gether, He seemed to suggest that
particular judgments in history are

merely rehearsals for the General

Judgment when the decisions of
free men shall be sealed for all
eternity.

'

We are presently living in a
moment of particular judgment on
history. In other words, our pres-

ent world crisis is a judgment of

God on our era and our times.

But what is meant by the Judg-

ment of God? We mean by it a
“verdict of history.” It is a time

when the full consequences of our
way of life become evident. The



WAR AS A JUDGMENT OF GOD 73

Judgment of God definitely does

not mean that God is outside his-

tory as a mighty Potentate Who
occasionally, to remind subjects of

His power, smites them for His

good pleasure.

The Judgment of God means

that the Transcendent God is al-
so inside history by His Laws, far

more intimately than an inventor is

in his machine, or an artist in his

painting. God has implanted cer-

tain laws in the universe by which

things attain their proper perfec-

tion. These laws are principally of

two kinds: natural and moral. Na-

tural laws for things; moral laws

for persons because they are free.

To the extent that we obey God’s
moral law we are happy and at
peace; to the extent that we freely
disobey it, we hurt ourselves—and
this consequence we call judgment.
Judgments are clear in the na-

tural order. For example, a head-

ache is a judgment on my refusal to
eat, which is a law of nature; and

atrophy of muscles is a judgment

on my refusal to exercise; ignor-
ance is a judgment on my refusal
to study.

No one who over-drinks wills the
headache, but he gets one; no man
who sins wills frustration or lone-
liness of soul, but he feels it. In

breaking a law we always suffer
certain consequences which we
never intended. God so made the

world that certain effects follow

certain causes. Now when calam-
ity comes upon us, as a consequence

of our neglect or defiance of God’s

will, that is what we call the Judg-

ment of God. The world did not

will this war, but it willed a way of
life which produced it; and in that

sense it is a judgment of God. Sin

brings adversity and adversity is

the expression of God’s condemna-

tion of evil, the registering of Di-

vine Judgment.

In disobeying God’s moral law,

we do not destroy it—we only de-
stroy ourselves. For example, I am
free to break the law of gravita-

tion: I may toss myself from the
Empire State Building; but in

doing so, I kill myself—and the
law still stands. God does not in-

terfere with the world when it suf-

fers judgment, anymore than He
interferes with it when we ruin
our health by disobeying the laws

of hygiene. He does not need to in-
terfere, because He is already in
the universe by His law. The

judgments of God are no more

due to God’s interference with the

laws of nature than thunder is due

to His interference. God did not

suddenly decide to applaud with a

thunderbolt at the sight of fire-

works in the heavens. But He so
made the universe that where there

is lightning there is thunder, and



74 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

where there is forgetfulness of the

Fatherhood of God there is for-

getfulness of the Brotherhood of

Man.

Every now and then, we said,
there are particular judgments in

history. Each era of history is a

field in which certain seeds are

planted. They grow, bloom, bear

fruit, and die; and the kind of

ideas that are planted determines

the lot of that civilization.

The Religious Revolution was a

judgment of God on Christian peo-
ple for not living up to the full

meaning of the Christian life.

The French Revolution was a

judgment on the selfish privileges

of a monarchy and the denial of

political equality.

Communism was a judgment on
Czarist Russia and Capitalism;

Nazism a judgment on Versailles;

and this war is a judgment on the

way the world thought and lived,
married and unmarried, bought

and sold—a judgment on the
world’s banks, its schools, its fac-

tories, its homes, its legislatures,

its international order, its hearts

and souls, and above all on its hu-

manist illusion that man could
build a peaceful world without

God.

This war is to time what hell is

to eternity—the registering of
the conflict of the human will
against the Divine. It was forged

in exactly the same way as the
Cross. As the Cross was made by a
horizontal bar of man crossing the
vertical bar of God, so the war is
the result of the contradiction of

the Divine Will by the perverse

human will.
What is the purpose of Divine

Judgments in history? They are
guarantees of the permanence of

the laws of God. Would men so uni-
versally respect the laws of health,

if the violation of those laws did

not entail such painful consequen-

ces? Where would moral develop-
ment be if fire burned today and
froze tomorrow, if refusal to sleep

strengthened us today and weak-

ened us tomorrow, and if the moral

law of God had consequences in the
morning but not in the afternoon.

Judgment is a reminder that
God’s moral law will never be de-

stroyed, as the sun will never cease

to rise in the east. He made the
world that way. In stabbing Him,

it is our own heart we slay. By
catastrophies must we sadly learn
that the moral law is right and will

prevail.

The judgment at the end of the

world will be a guarantee of the

eternal distinction between right

and wrong. That is why there is a
Heaven and a Hell

;
namely, be-

cause right is everlastingly right

and wrong is everlastingly wrong.

This war is a guarantee of that



WAR AS A JUDGMENT OF GOD 75

distinction for the time in which

we live. All nations and all peo-
ples must learn, in sorrow and

tears and blood and sweat, that

wrong attitudes toward the nat-

ural law and the moral law are

simultaneously and necessarily a

wrong attitude toward God, and
therefore bring inevitable doom,

which is the Judgment of God.

The war has thus driven us back
to the recognition of a moral law

outside ourselves, and, in fact, out-

side the world. For if the moral
order for which we are fighting
was of our oum making, then why
should not the Nazis say they had

a right to fight for a moral law of

their own making, that the only
way to decide between the two
would be by force and war. If
morality is national, there is no

criterion except might. But sup-
pose that the moral law for which
we fight is not our own, but a de-
rivative of the Eternal Reason of
God. Then we fight not to decide
which is the more strong, but
rather to defend what is right.

This is the idea that needs to be

emphasized more in our national
life. It is pathetic and tragic that
so many movies can think of no
other way to justify our cause than
by emphasizing the wickedness and
cruelty of the Nazis and the Jap-
anese. Do we become angels by

calling them devils? Does the crow

become white by calling a leopard

spotted? Must we in America be
so impoverished intellectually and

morally that we cannot produce a
drama or write a speech, or even

produce comic movies, unless we
have Nazis under every table, and

buck-teeth Japs hiding behind

every camera, and saboteurs in

every beauty parlor. These writers

do not understand either the psy-

chology of the American people, or

the reason we are at war. They do
not know the American people, be-
cause we are the most idealistic
people on the face of the earth.

There is nothing that appeals

more to Americans than fair play;
we are traditionally for the “un-
derdog.” In the last world war we
did not receive a single square mile

of territory, because we wanted
none. In this war, we have already
assured France that we will get out
of her colonies when the war is
over, and in the Atlantic Charter

we have assured the small nations
of Europe of their integrity and
their territory. We have made
America the arsenal of the world,
caring little whether we were
thanked for it; and when this war
is over, we will make America the
pantry of the world, as we hope to
make it the hope of the world.

It is the moral law we are out
to preserve, for right is right if



76 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

nobody is right, and wrong is

wrong if everybody is wrong.

May we realize then that we are
fighting not for freedom from

something, but freedom for some-

thing; namely, the right to develop

personalities which are made to
the image and likeness of God. We
are fighting not for the right of

religious worship, for religion is

not a right anymore than patriot-

ism is a right. They are both

duties. Patriotism is a duty to

country; religion is a duty to God.

We are fighting not for any par-
ticular form of government, but
for the right of all peoples to

choose their own governments,
which will exercise power with re-

sponsibility because that power

comes from God.

We are fighting not for democ-
racy, but for something deeper,

namely, for the moral and reli-

gious foundations which make de-
mocracy possible.

May God be merciful to us as He
was to the centurion. Many of us,
like the centurion thought little of

God, until the day He went to the
war on Calvary’s Hill. Gazing up
at those three crosses silhouetted

against a darkened sky, that hard-

ened sergeant of the Roman army
saw something he never saw be-
fore: The difference between right
and wrong, and the need of dying

to make the wrong right. In the
ecstasy of that great vision he

cried out in an act of perfect

faith: Indeed this is the Son of

God.

God grant that we who thought
little of the need of faith during

a false peace, may like the centur-
ion find it on the battlefields of the

world, as we champion the cause

of justice and cry out in the joy

of our regeneration: “Have thy

way, 0 Lord, it is best for me.”
* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



JUDGMENT OF NATIONS
Address delivered on March 28, 1943

War is a Judgment of God, not
in the sense that God acts outside

history as a catastrophic effect fol-

lowing the breaking of God’s moral

law.

Today we shall mention two in-
stances of how forgetfulness of
God brought on the ruin of nations,
namely Jerusalem and Rome, and

then show how two great Ameri-
cans expressed the same vision of

Judgment in our national life.

First the Fall of Jerusalem. The
Great Patriot Who loved the Holy
City as His own, stood on a hill

opposite, and looking down upon
it wept at the consequences which

He knew would inevitably follow
from a refusal to submit to the
truth of which their consciences

had already been convinced. “Jeru-

salem . . . how often would I have
gathered together thy children, as

the hen doth gather her chickens

under her wings, and thou wouldst

not?” (Matthew 23:37).

That is the heart of sin! “I

would” . . . “thou wouldst not.”

Human will set up against Divine
Will.

“I would have gathered” . . .

One man? A carpenter? No man
can gather a civilization. Only the

Son of God can gather a whole
people.

And it came to pass as foretold.
Vespasian, going to Rome to be-
come Emperor, gave the order to

his son Titus on Easter day in the

year 70 to lay waste Jerusalem.

The Temple was destroyed as the
Savior had said, not a stone left

upon a stone. History was the
stage on which Jerusalem worked

out the full effects of its severance

from the laws of God. The city had
not known the time of its visita-
tion. “Unless the Lord build the

house, they labour in vain that

build it” (Psalm 126:1).

The second example of how for-
getfulness of God brought on the
ruin of nations is the Fall of Rome.

During the winter of 57-58 A. D.,

St. Paul addressed a letter to the

Romans, and on the very year of

his death St. Peter likewise warned

Rome of a judgment that awaited
them because of their sins.

Years later, in the year 370, at

the mouth of the Danube, of a

great Visigoth family, was born

Alaric. Alaric himself was prob-

ably a Christian, but Baptism had

not destroyed in him a war-like

lust. On three occasions he made
visits to Rome, the third time be-



78 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

ing on the fourth of August, 410.

With horses darting like hawks,

and moving battering rams like

mountains, he forced the Salarian

gate, allowing his soldiers, who
were the scum of Europe, to put

the metropolis of the earth to sack

and to humble the giant of the na-

tions of the world.

The fall of that city was ter-

rible. Not for eight hundred years,

since the taking of Rome by the
Gauls in 387 B. C., had the Capital

of the Empire been invaded and

outraged by barbaric hordes. Her

surprise then was greater than her

terror, and her shame greater than

her surprise.

At the close of that century, the

Holy Father, Gregory the Great,

standing at the tombs of the Apos-

tles Peter and Paul, preached this

sermon affirming the truth of the

words of these Apostles already

mentioned: “Today, there is on

every side death, on every side

grief, on every side desolation, on

every side we are smitten, on every
side our cup is being filled with

draughts of bitterness . . . (On

the other hand) those saints at

whose tombs we are now standing
lived in a world that was flourish-

ing, yet they trampled upon its

material prosperity with their

spiritual contempt. In that world

life was long, well-being was con-

tinuous, there was material wealth,

there was a high birth-rate, there
was the tranquillity of lasting

peace; and yet when that world
was still so flourishing in itself, it
had already withered in the hearts

of those saints.”

In other words, almost four cen-

turies before Rome fell, Peter and
Paul said that it would, because it

had forgotten God. Now Gregory
says that these men of the Church
knew it would fall—and they saw
it when no one else saw it; namely,
when Rome was strong, and mist-
ress of the world. In their eyes the

city had written its own sentence
of death with its own godless
hands.

Now turn to our own American
history. We find here also a recog-
nition of the Divine Judgment.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the
Declaration of Independence he

penned these lines: “All men are
created equal.” He made no ex-
ception: “All men” But Jefferson
kept slaves! And he knew it! To
his credit, it must be said that he

introduced a law into the Virginia

legislature in 1778, prohibiting the

slave trade, though slavery contin-

ued in the State. Recognizing, how-

ever, the inconsistency and know-

ing that the blood of some men
was in his own time being spilled

by other men, because they denied

equality, Jefferson expressed his

fear in these words : “I tremble for



JUDGMENT OF NATIONS 79

my country, when I reflect that
God is just and His justice does

not sleep forever.” It was a langu-

age almost identical to that which

Peter used against Rome. And well
might Jefferson be concerned, for

any nation which spills blood,

either its own or another’s, will
have its own poured forth in re-
paration. “He who takes the sword
shall perish by the sword.”

We know well when the injus-
tice was righted and the judgment

came.

One man was great enough to
see in the Civil War, a manifesta-

tion of the Justice of God: Abra-

ham Lincoln.
These were his words: “It is the

duty of nations as well as of men
to own their independence upon

the overruling power of God. . . .

“And inasmuch as we know that
by His divine law nations, like in-

dividuals, are subjected to punish-

ments and chastisements in this

world, may we not justly fear that
the awful calamity of civil war
which now desolates our land may
be but a punishment inflicted upon

us for our presumptuous sins, to

the needful end of our national re-

formation as a whole peoole? We
have been recipients of the choicest

bounties of heaven. We have been
preserved these many years in
peace and prosperity. We have
grown in numbers, wealth, and

power as no other nation has ever

grown; but we have forgotten
God. We have forgotten the gra-
cious hand that preserved us in

peace, and multiplied and enriched

and strengthened us; and we have
vainly imagined, in the deceitful-

ness of our hearts, that all these

blessings were produced by some

superior virtue and wisdom of our
own. Intoxicated with unbroken

success, we have become too self-
sufficient to feel the necessity of

redeeming and preserving grace,

too proud to pray to the God that
made us.

“It behooves us, then, to humble

ourselves before the offended Pow-

er, to confess our national sins, and

to pray for clemency and forgive-

ness.”

This is one of the greatest docu-

ments ever written by the pen of

any American. To Jefferson goes
the credit of writing our Declara-

tion of Independence. To Lincoln

goes the credit of writing our De-

claration of Dependence. Jefferson

declared we were independent from
tyrants; Lincoln added, we are de-

pendent on God. The ethical com-

plement to our Bill of Rights, Lin-

coln told us, is our Bill of Duties.

If Lincoln could come back to-

day, would he not remind us in the

midst of this awful war that we
are under the judgment of God,

and that prayer and reparation for



80 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

our national sins may well be the
essential condition of victory?

Are we convinced of this truth?
How little prayer there is for
victory and peace

;
how little

thanksgiving there is for victory.

Armies alone cannot defeat the

cohorts of Satan. We need God’s
help. Let us therefore pray for it.

On the other hand, are we thank-
ful to God when we do have victor-
ies. What public thanksgiving was
there for the victory at Guadal-

canal, the Coral Sea, the Bismarck

Sea? To the great credit of General

MacArthur it must be said that, af-

ter his recent victory in the Bis-

marck Sea, where he lost less men
than the Japs lost ships, he wrote

in his communique: “A merciful
Providence has granted us a great

victory.”

And what did the journalists of
the country do to that message?

One of the most widely syndicated
articles ridiculed MacArthur’s
thanksgiving to God. And when a
Rickenbacker is saved at sea by

prayers, and boys on the rafts are

rescued through prayer, and both

thank God for their safety, our
newspapers write of the prayer-

fulness of these heroes in the same

startled spirit, as if these brave

men had been saved by goblins.
One would get the impression that

for anyone to pray in danger is as

unusual as for anyone to recite the

soliloquy of Hamlet, and that to

be saved through prayer was as
little to be expected as that Hamlet

himself should come to their rescue.

The whole tone of the press in

these affairs is “Imagine—Pray-
er!” As if no one prayed! And as
if there were no God!

How, except by prayer, can we
make effective in deed the words
of the Atlantic Charter.

We are on record in the Atlantic
Charter as guaranteeing the free-

dom and integrity of small na-
tions, e. g. Poland and Lithuania.

Now the Atlantic Charter is a
kind of political counterpart of the

Sermon on the Mount, for it is a

defense of the weak and the poor.
That is no compliment but a tre-

mendous responsibility, because in

the Sermon on the Mount Christ

prepared for His own Crucifixion;

how little do those who isolate the
Beatitudes from the Cross under-

stand that one is entailed in the

other. He knew that the weak
could not be defended except by

bearing the slings and arrows of the

strong, and that to speak for the

poor was to invite a cross from the

rich.

How then shall our Atlantic
Charter, which defends the integ-

rity of small nations, become effec-

tive except by bearing the oppro-

brium of the strong? How shall we
liberate the oppressed, except by



JUDGMENT OF NATIONS 81

being smitten with the sword of

the oppressor? I tell you, the day

we wrote that Atlantic Charter we
wrote in ink something that can

be fulfilled only in blood. The At-

lantic Charter can come into being

only as the Sermon on the Mount

—

by enduring a Golgotha for a few

hours from the powerful Caesars
of the earth who would swallow up
the weak and infirm.

Lincoln saw that when he wrote
his Proclamation for freedom of

the Negro—and we must see it too
as we proclaim the freedom of the
children and nations of the world.

And we will need God’s help to
overcome the temptation to com-

promise with the strong.

The word “God” was left out of
the Atlantic Charter, but our

President did not leave it out of

his declaration of war, for he end-

ed it with these words: “So help

us God.” And all Americans who
are one with him in this war trust
that when the day of Victory
dawns, we will begin to talk of
peace with the same words: “So

help us God.”

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



FREEDOM IN DANGER
Address delivered on April 4, 1943

Today we shall speak about a
grave danger facing the world

—

not America alone. That danger

is the threatened loss of something

which is on the tongue of every-

one, namely, freedom.

A proof that we are in danger
of losing it, is that everyone is

talking about it. If you suddenly

came into a country where every-

one was talking about the health

of the lungs, you would immediate-

ly conclude that a disastrous mi-

crobe was rampant. In the last war
everyone spoke about “making the

world safe for democracy,” and

yet the world became so unsafe

for democracy, that within twenty-

one years democracy had to stum-

ble into another war to preserve
itself.

Now, we ought to be worried
about freedom, simply because ev-

eryone is talking about it! Slaves

talk most about freedom; the op-

pressed talk most about justice;

the hungry talk most about food.

We are all agreed that the ex-
ternal threat to our freedom and

the freedom of the world comes

from the totalitarian states. There

is no need to develop this thesis.

They are Satan’s vicegerents of

tyranny, the anti-Christ’s advance

agents of adversity.

But our point is that the grav-

est threat to freedom comes from

within; I do not mean within
America alone, I mean within the
hearts and souls of men through-
out the world.

While the world is attempting

to preserve freedom in the po-

litical order, it is surrendering it

in those deeper realms upon which

the political reposes.

Picture a group of men on a
roof-top proclaiming in song and

story the glories of architec-

ture, while below saboteurs have

already knocked out half the foun-

dations of the house—and you have
the picture of modern freedom. Pol-

iticians in the upper stories are

glorifying freedom while false

philosophy in education, and so-

called Liberal Christianity, have

knocked away its supports.

Firstly, freedom is denied in edu-

cation today. This may sound
bizarre to some educators who have

been shouting catch-words about

freedom for decades. But I sub-

mit they are talking about license

—not freedom. They are concerned
with freedom from something; not



FREEDOM IN DANGER 83

freedom for something; they are

interested only in freedom without

law rather than freedom within the

law. And the proof? Do not many
educators today assume that evil

and sin are due to ignorance, and

that if we educate, we will remove
evil? Do not others assume that
evil is due to bad environment, bad

teeth, or bad glands, and that an

increase of material wealth will

obliterate evil? Can they not see

that these assumptions destroy

•freedom; for if evil is the result

of ignorance, and not the result

of a perverse use of freedom, then

Hitler is an ignoramus, but he is

not a villian? Can they not see that
education without a proper philos-

ophy of life can be made the ser-
vant of evil, as well as of good?

Have they not the vision to see that
if evil and sin are to be attributed

solely to external circumstances,

then man is not free to do wrong?
Then wrong is in our environment,
but not in us. Is it not inconsis-

tent to praise a free man for choos-
ing what is right, and at the same
time, when he does wrong, to deny
that he is free?

That kind of education which

denies guilt and sin is destroying

freedom in our schools, while our

soldiers are fighting for it on the

battle fronts of the world.

Modern religion has also denied

freedom. Oh, do not misunder-

stand! I know it preaches freedom.

But here we are searching hearts,
not lips. Modern religion denies

freedom because it denies hell. In

a recent survey of ministers it was

discovered that seventy-three per

cent did not believe in hell.

If there is no hell, why should
there be a heaven? If there is no

wrong, and hence no sin for which

men ought to be punished, why
should there be a heaven where

they should be rewarded for their

virtues? If there are statues erec-

ted to our patriots, why should
there not be prisons for our

traitors? Whom do they think God
is—a kind of grandmother who
laughs off the wrong-doing of His

children, as if there were no scales

of Justice, and He were not the
God of Righteousness?

This sugary, pale ersatz of

Christianity has set at naught the

very words of the Christ Whom
they preach—the Christ Who on
more than a dozen occasions said

there was a hell. Hell is the eter-

nal guarantee of human freedom.
If God were to destroy hell, at

that moment He would destroy hu-
man freedom. So long as there is
a hell, we know that He so re-
spects human freedom that He will
not by Force or Power destroy
even that free will which rises up



84 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

against Him with an everlasting
“I will not serve.”

Satan is thus destroying our

freedom at the very moment he
has let us believe that we are most
free. He did so by the very same
temptations which failed when he

tempted Christ on the mountain

at the beginning of His public life.

Satan tried to tempt Our Lord

from His Gospel of Love by of-

fering three substitutes. In the

first temptation, instead of win-

ning souls through love, Satan sug-

gested that Christ buy them with

bread, inasmuch as men are hun-
gry.

In the second temptation, Satan

suggested that Christ win them by

manifesting great Power over na-

ture, such as throwing Himself

from a temple tower unhurt.

In the third temptation, Satan

suggested winning souls through

politics. He unfurled before the
mind’s eye of the Savior all the

kingdoms and empires and nations

of the world, and in a frightening

boast, as if to imply all were his,

said: “All these will I give thee, if

falling down thou wilt adore me”
(Matthew 4:9).

Our Lord refused to surrender
freedom. If souls would not love

Him without the bribery of bread,
without the exhibitionism of Pow-
er, and without selling himself to

Caesar, He would still not force
them. Freedom would endure

through an eternal heaven and an

eternal hell.

Satan is now back again in the
world, and oh, how he is succeed-
ing in destroying freedom. Souls

are today selling themselves out for

that bread which today they call

security; for that power which

is now called Science and Progress,
while others, in over a fifth of the

world’s surface, have bartered their

freedom for dictators and tyrants.

Dostoievsky, that great Russian

writer of the last century, was

right when in a great flash of
genius he warned that the denial of

sin and hell in education and re-

ligion would end in a world Social-

ism where men would surrender
freedom for a false security. He
pictured anti-Christ returning to

the world and speaking to Christ,

thus: “Dost thou know that the
ages will pass, and humanity will

proclaim by the lips of their sages

that there is no crime, and there-

fore no sin; there is only hunger?

And men will come crawling to our
feet, saying to us: ‘Give us bread!

Take our freedom.’ ” (1) I wonder

if those days are not already here.

Finally, in place of free men,

the anti-Christ pictures the new

(D Dostoievsky, The Brothers Ka-
ramazov, p. 268 .



FREEDOM IN DANGER 85

Socialistic State in which he and

his followers will organize every-

thing after convincing people there

is no sin—there is only hunger.

And Dostoievsky again pictures
anti-Christ speaking to Christ:

“They will tremble impotently be-

fore our wrath, their minds will

grow fearful, they will be quick to

shed tears like women and children,
but they will be just as ready at

a sign from us to pass to laughter

and rejoicing, to happy mirth and

childish song. Yes, we shall set
them to work, but in their leisure

hours we shall make their life like
songs and innocent dance. Oh, we
shall allow them even sin, they are

weak and helpless, and they will

love us like children because we
allow them to sin. We shall tell
them that every sin will be ex-

piated, if it is done with our per-

mission, that we allow them to sin
because we love them, and the
punishment for these sins we take
upon ourselves. And we shall take
it upon ourselves, and they will

adore us as their saviour who have
taken on themselves their sins be-

fore God. And they will have no
secrets from us. We shall allow or
forbid them to live with their wives

and mistresses, to have or not to

have children—according to wheth-
er they have been obedient or dis-

obedient—and they will submit to

us gladly and cheerfully. The most

painful secrets of their conscience,

all, all they will bring to us, and

we shall have an answer for all.
And they will be glad to believe our
answer, for it will save them from

the great anxiety and terrible agony

they endure at present in making

a free decision for themselves.

What I say to Thee, 0 Christ, will
come to pass, and our dominion will

be built up. I repeat, tomorrow

Thou shalt see that obedient flock

who at a sign from me will hasten
to heap up the hot cinders about

the pile on which I shall burn Thee

for coming to hinder us. For if

any one has ever deserved our fires,

it is Thou. Tomorrow I shall burn
Thee. Dixi” (2)

This frightening spectacle is al-

ready taking place on a large part

of the earth's surface. By denying
responsibility to God, men have
surrendered their freedom to Sa-

tan. Such is the inevitable outcome

of the world unless we pray.
Pray we must, lest we succumb to
the challenge the world hurled at

the Cross : “Come down and we will
believe.” They were willing to ad-
mit that they would believe if He
would only show His Power by step-

ping down from His gibbet! Poor
fools! Did they not see that they

were asking Him to force them to

{2) Dostoievsky, Ibid pp. 269-270.



86 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

believe, which would have been the

end of freedom? They were free

to believe that He was the Son of
God, as the thief did, so long as

He did not come down to smite
them!

They had freedom so long as

He left their faith in their own
hands and not in His. His refusal

to come down was the guarantee

of freedom. The nails which

pierced Him were the stars of the
flag of freedom; the bruises of His

body battered by free men, were

the stripes of that flag. His blood

was its red; His flesh its blue and

its white.

So long as Our Lord hangs on

His Cross, man is free! The mo-
ment He comes down in Power, man
is His slave, and He is man’s dic-
tator. But come down He will not

!

Freedom will never be destroyed

—

not even in hell, for even there He
leaves man the eternal choice of
his rebellious will.

So He did not come down! If
He came down He would have made
Nazism, Fascism, and Communism
before their time. The coming

down is the death of love. If He
came down, He never would have
saved us! It is human to come
down. It is divine to hang there!

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



MORAL BASIS OF PEACE
Address delivered on April 11, 1943

I will state the subject of this

broadcast in the language of Pius

XI:

“To create the atmosphere of

lasting peace neither peace treat-

ies nor the most solemn pacts,

nor international meetings or

conferences, nor even the most

disinterested efforts of any

statesmen, will be enough, unless

in the first place are recognized

the sacred rights of natural and

divine law.”

In other words a strong sword

can put an end to this war, but it

cannot beget peace; for peace does

not come from the womb of ar-
rested hostilities, but from a Jus-

tice rooted in God.

Families who are quarreling
over a back fence may stop fight-
ing when one of them runs out of

bricks, but peace will not follow

unless a change takes place in

their hearts.

In order to bring home the im-
portance of a moral basis for

l

peace, we ask these questions:
Why should any of the treaties or
pacts signed at the close of this

world war be kept? What guaran-
tee have we that they will be hon-
ored from 1943 to 1963 any more

than they were in that twilight of

honor from 1918 to 1939?

No one ever seems to discuss
these questions: But they are so

elementary that until we answer
them there is no reason for mak-

ing any treaties.

One reason given for the keep-

ing of treaties is that treaties bind

because nations freely enter into

them. But what is to prevent na-

tions from freely walking out on

treaties, as Russia and Germany
did in the case of Poland, and Ja-

pan did in the case of China, and

Italy did in the case of Ethiopia?

Another reason, which is the

Pragmatist or Positivist theory of

law, and which is most common to-
day even among our own jurists,
is that a treaty is binding because

it is advantageous or expedient to

have it so. But suppose it ceases to

be advantageous, or suppose it be-

comes more expedient to abandon

it—Then Hitlerism! Pragmatism
is the philosophy which holds that

the true is the useful, and certain-

ly nothing could be more useful to-

day than to be something more

than a Pragmatist.

When one gets down to rock
bottom, there are only two pos-

sible reasons for keeping treaties;



88 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

that is, because of force or be-

cause of moral obligation. If force,

then Might makes Right; then the

Nazis are right in Holland and

Belgium, then the Japs are right

in the Philippines; then if the

Nazis and Japs conquered us,

which God forbid, the treaties they

would make would be just because
imposed by force. The theory of

force seems right when we can
apply the force, but in itself force

can never make right. Force works

on brutes, it does not work on men.

Power without morality is power

without responsibility.

Beware of power. It is more

dangerous now than ever, for pow-
er is today passing again from the

many to the few. It used to dwell
in the masses; now it is in the
dictators.

Outside this false view of force,

there is only one reason for keep-

ing treaties, namely, because a

treaty imposes a moral obligation

rather than a physical one. A
treaty is a sacred thing because

the God of Justice is its witness.

That is why there runs through
history a record of sacredness of

treaties based on the moral order.

The Jews made their treaties “in
the name of the Lord God of Is-
rael”. Almost all the nations of

antiquity surrounded their treat-

ies with religious symbols and

rites.

Horace expressing the best of

the Roman traditions warned

:

“What profit vain laws without
moral support.”

Lincoln in his first Inaugural

Address, expressed the American

tradition by reminding himself

that his oath was registered in
heaven.

And all the treaties of Christian
Europe from the very beginning
were written in the spirit of an ob-

ligation rooted in morality, for they

all began: “In the name of the
Holy and Undivided Trinity.” So

they continued in that name until
the Treaty of Versailles, which be-

gan “In the name of the High Con-
tracting Parties”. Men had become
“wise”. In the meantime they

learned that man came from a
monkey, that progress was due to

evolution, that evil was due to bad

glands, that morality was conven-

tion, and that God, in the language

of a professor from the state of

Ohio, was “a projection into the

roaring loom of time of a unified

complex of psychical values.”

And we wonder why we should
have a second world war in twenty-

one years?

Are we blind? Can we not see
that if law is divorced from moral-

ity and religion, then treaties

cease to be obligatory and begin

to be mere arrangements, binding

only so long as they are advantag-



MORAL BASIS OF PEACE 89

eous? Rob international justice of

its foundations in morality, and

treaties are hypothetical, not cate-

gorical; convenient tools, not hon-

orable obligations, while law be-

comes an attorney’s cloak woven

from the flimsy fabric of legalistic

phraseology artfully placed on the

shoulders of arbitrary power.

No wonder we had 4,568 treaties
signed before the League of Na-

tions from 1920 to 1939 and 211

signed the eleven months before

the war.

Cowper described the result:

“And hast thou sworn on every
slight pretence

Till perjuries are common as bad
pence,

While thousands careless of the

damning sin

Kiss the book outside, who ne’er
look within.”

What should be done? First, the
new League of Nations, or what-
ever it is called, should not be open

to everyone, but should have mem-
bership in it conditioned upon the

acceptance of certain basic moral

principles of Justice. It should be

more like a club than a street car;
that is, it should have certain

standards of admission. The sub-
scription rate of the last league

was too low. Because anyone could
walk in, anyone could walk out.

Hence a nation or a state that will
not accept a common ethos or set

of moral principles, as superior to

the sovereignity of any nation and

existing before any nation began,

and binding even when its appli-

cation goes against itself, should

not be permitted to sit in that

august body, any more than a

foreigner may sit in the councils
of the United States. Hence if a

big nation makes a condition that

it will not enter the League unless

it can swallow up half a dozen

small nations—then let that power,
whether it be Japan, Germany,

Italy, Great Britain, Russia, or the

United States, be quarantined until

it recovers its ethical health. No
court of justice can survive if the

thief agrees to its decision only on

condition that he may keep the
loot.

Is there hope for the restoration

of a moral order based on Justice?

There is! Mr. Churchill last week

told England that the nation’s edu-

cation must return to religion and

morality—or perish. Mr. Roosevelt
too said: “We are especially con-
scious of the Divine Power. It is

seeming that at a time like this

we should pray to Almighty God
for His blessing on our country

and for the establishment of a just

and permanent peace among all the
nations of the world”.

There is hope too in the fact

that a new America is being
forged on the anvil of war with



90 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

the hammers of Divine Justice.

Most of the young men in our
armed services are getting a

sounder education than if they

stayed in school, for they are now
learning that the difference be-

tween right and wrong is so hard
and so absolute that it takes death

sometimes to make the right pre-
vail. Their thinking has broken

with our gilded past. Some mar-
ines at Guadalcanal, looking at a

few moronic, pathological youths

bedecked in “zoot suits,” said:

“Maybe we ought to go back and
clean up America”. Another wound-

ed boy just back from the Pacific

said: “Before I went to war, I be-

lieved that Justice was what I
wanted; now I have learned to live
and to fight for others”. And one
need hardly recall the words of

the soldier at Bataan: “There are

no atheists in fox holes”.

These boys are learning Justice

the hard way, and they will love

America even more when they come
back. For a parallel, look to the

American Legion of the last war,

which more than any other organ-
ization in the United States—out-
side of the Catholic Church—con-
sistently and fearlessly opposed the

growth of Communism in our
midst, which opposition within the

past few days found its echo in the

statement of the Attorney General

of the United States: “It may not

be good for Russia to get rid of

the Communists, but it will be

good for America”.

These boys of ours in like man-
ner will know the wrong things
and the right things when they
come back, for they are now find-
ing them out in the mud of Africa,
on the rolling seas of the Atlantic

and the Pacific, in the jungles of

New Guinea and the swamps of the
Solomons. When you and I go out
to work, we know we will come
back; when they go on the field,
in the air, or on the sea, they have

a rendezvous with uncertainty and

they seem not to care because

they have one supreme interest

—

the taking of the “objective”. And
morality is grounded on an ob-

jective—on an end, a goal—on
God.

We will have an invasion when
this war is over—not from a
foreign enemy, but an invasion of

great men, twice-born Americans.

And unless we get down on our
knees and transform our hearts by

prayer as they have by sacrifice,

we will not even understand the

language that they speak. Their

values will be different, their out-

look on life will be different. They

will be the new America!
And those who do return will

never be able to blot out of their

memory the thousands of little

white crosses they left behind



MORAL BASIS OF PEACE 91

marking a spot where foreign

earth is piled high on hearts that

loved American soil.

Those crosses will be symbols of

the Justice for which they fought,

vertically pointing up to God from
whom Justice is derived, and hori-
zontally pointing outward t o

America to which that Justice is

to be applied. Each little white

cross will be as a miniature Cal-

vary, a cameo Golgotha, a splinter

from a Great Cross whence comes

“Greater love than this no man
hath”. And as finally the taps

sound on the first night of peace

when the guns of the world go to
sleep, we will join with these re-
turning soldiers in loving memory
of those little white crosses, and

we shall pledge to them that
America shall have a rebirth of

Justice under God, thanks to our

martyred dead who have given to
the earth some of the noblest red

blood this earth of ours has drunk

since Calvary drank the blood of

Christ.
* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE JEW AND CHRISTIAN IN HISTORY
Address delivered on April 18, 1943

The two greatest vocations ever

given to any peoples by God were

given to Jews and Christians. The

vocation of the Jew was the “giving

of the Law, and the service of God

and the promises” (Romans 9:4).
The vocation of the Christian

was to establish the brotherhood of

men under the Fatherhood of God
in the unity of the Spirit: “one

body, one Spirit. . . . One Lord,

one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians

4:4-5).

We must not allow individual de-
fections from this unity to blur the

picture. Whether individual Jews

ignore the God of their fathers, or

whether individual Christians live

as if Christ had never died for

their sins, does not alter the fact

that there is in each instance a

communal vocation, a divine mis-
sion entrusted to a people and to a

kingdom.

The relation between the Jew and
the Christian, from the Christian
point of view, is the relation of

father to son, of roots to branches.

The Jew was given a vocation
to be the chosen people announcing

the law of God. The Christian was
given the vocation of establishing

the brotherhood of man in the
Fatherhood of God, through the

merits of Jesus Christ. This brings

us to this question: Have the Jews
and the Christians been faithful to

their vocations?

First the Jews. There is a vast

number who still are a devout, God-
fearing, and God-loving people, but

the spiritual condition of many
Jews throughout the world today is

sad—I say spiritual condition, for
that is even more serious than their

political condition. Very distin-

guished rabbis have told me that
only one out of ten Jews attend a

synagogue, either liberal or ortho-

dox.

Some of their most distinguished
fellows have repudiated all connec-

tion between Judaism and God.

Ludwig Lewisohn, well known in

the Zionist movement, says “the

Jew need believe nothing to be a

Jew”; and Albert Einstein pro-

claims disbelief in a personal God,

paying homage to a “cosmic reli-

gion” rather than to the God of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Louis

D. Brandeis confessed that “he had

never gone to a synagogue.”

To all who have the interests of

God and immortal souls at heart,

this condition is regrettable.

On the other hand, how many
Christians are living up to their



THE JEW AND CHRISTIAN IN HISTORY 93

vocation? A survey made by a
Professor of Northwestern Univer-

sity into the belief of seven hun-

dred ministers and theological stu-

dents in and around Chicago repre-

senting twenty denominations, re-

vealed that 43% disbelieved in the
inspiration of Sacred Scripture,

though four hundred years ago that
was their basic article of faith;
51% disbelieved in the necessity of
Baptism; 69% disbelieved in the
resurrection of the body; 52% de-
nied that Christ would come again
to judge the living and the dead;
61% denied the redemption of
Christ on the Cross; and 37% de-
nied the Divinity of Christ. Sup-
pose the same proportion of Amer-
icans disbelieved in the first ten

amendments to the Constitution of
the United States. What would be
the condition of democracy? How
many so-called Christians in the
United States can recall the Third
Commandment, and how many in
this radio audience joined with
their fellowman today in the wor-
ship of God? This mass defection
of Christians from Christ is tragic
and it grieves the heart of all good
Protestants who, with Catholics,
confess Christ to be the Son of the
Living God.

In order to bring home the awful
consequences of this vocation-fail-

ure among Jews and Christians,
look to its social effects in the con-

temporary world. Before our very

eyes there is being fulfilled the

terrible warning: “The kingdom of

God shall be taken from you” {Mat-

thew 21:43). And so it has! By
the Nazis and by the Communists.

Hitler, the arch-barbarian of all

that is sacred has in some ways

become, like ancient Assyria of the

Bible, the rod of God’s anger, as

if to say to the Jews: “You have

thought you had a vocation: the

vocation to announce and to pre-

serve the knowledge of the law of

God, and to await as a chosen peo-

ple the fulfillment of the promise

given to you by God. But you have

forgotten it, or abandoned it So I

shall take the empty shell of your

past, created by your own apos-
tasy, and I shall further empty it

of its Divine content: I shall pros-

titute it, secularize it, and pro-

fane it. I shall substitute the idea

of the German race in place of the
race of God, and the German Mis-
sion in place of the Divine Mission.

This shall be the Messiahism of the

twentieth century.” And to the
Christians, he says in effect: “I

reject your faith in a Redeemer

who died on a Cross. I reject His
teaching of humility, and assert

the virtue of Might.”

Communism says to the Chris-
tians: “You spiritual heirs of the
Jews, you too had a vocation—the
vocation to preserve the brother-



94 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

hood of men under the Fatherhood
of God and under the Headship of

His Son Jesus Christ—you have
repudiated your Christ, your need

of Redemption, your oneness in the

Spirit. You have failed this sup-

posed vocation and it has failed

you. But we shall take it up, empty
it of its Christian content, dese-

crate it, pervert it, harden it, and

substitute the comradeship of vio-

lence for the brotherhood of love,

and unite society on the basis of

class hatred instead of universal

love of man in Christ. And this
shall be the brotherhood of the

twentieth century.”

Just as the French Revolution-

ists once prostituted the altar of

Notre Dame by enthroning on it a
courtesan as the Goddess of Rea-

son, so now these pseudo-religions
and false mysticisms empty the

people of God of God, and the

brotherhood of Christ of Christ,

and give to the world its anti-Semi-

tic and anti-Christian Nazism and

Communism.

As we supplied the Japs with
steel which they converted into bul-

lets to turn against us, so too have

Nazism and Communism melted
down the steel of two great voca-

tions and made them instruments

of persecution, of slavery, and of

world disorder.

Thus, the very ideas that were

meant to be channels for the salva-

tion of souls have become sewers

for the pollution of the world. But

they would not have so overflowed

modern history if we, Jews and

Christians, had been faithful unto

the mission given us by God.

Nazism and Communism in a cer-
tain sense are a punishment on the

Jews for failing to be faithful

Jews, and on the Christians for

failing to be faithful Christians.

Both of them have forgotten the

rock from which they were hewn,

the fountain of living waters from

which they sprang; and both have

provided the instruments of the

world’s* apostasy. For that reason

Nazism and Communism are in
their essence not the resurrection

of primitive barbarisms; they are

worse—they are perversions of the
spirit due to abandonment of faith

in God.

Jews and Christians alike are

being persecuted by the very ideas

they either rejected or forgot.

Never before in the history of the

world has there been such a per-

secution of Jews and Christians.

There is as much anti-Semitism as
there is anti-Christianity, and

there is as much hatred of the
Christians as there is hatred of

the Jews. This should be to us a

sign that we have entered into an
apocalyptic period of history.

Drinking as we are, from a com-



THE JEW AND CHRISTIAN IN HISTORY 95

mon chalice of misery, means that

we have a common destiny.

In this new era of the world into

which we are entering, there will

be no persecution of one without

the other. We are and will con-
tinue to be persecuted together, be-

cause the spirit of the world is not

non-religious, or indifferent to reli-

gion, or secularist, or humanist—it
is anti-God. That means that all

those who have any relation with
God in their collective capacity

will be persecuted. To Nazism and

to Communism the Jews and Chris-
tians alike are demons. If the

world hates the Jews and hates the

Christians, it is because by voca-

tion they are both “Outsiders” to

the spirit of anti-God, regardless

of how many faithless Jews or
faithless Christians join their

ranks. There is a natural discon-

tent in anyone who has a mission
from God. Whether he be faithful

to that mission or not, does not

alter the fact. The anti-God world

hates us because we have been God-
summoned, and that is sufficient to

inspire a persecution.

The Jews and Christians both
possess a revolutionary character;

they are in the world but not of it.

Since God gave them a work to
do, they are both alien, a ferment,

a leaven forever disturbing the

slumber of an anti-religious world.

That anti-God world will be touched

neither by the finger of Abraham
nor the finger of Christ, neither by

the historical mission of Israel in

time nor by the healing mission

of the Cross for eternity. It will,

as the new City of Man, make war

against the City of God until the

consummation of the world. It has

stolen our thunder and now we
must shrink in fear from its bolts.

In the name of God let all the

Jews stop talking about anti-Semi-

tic persecutions and all the Chris-

tians stop talking about anti-

Christian persecutions, as if a tree

could be cut down without affect-

ing both root and branch. Oppo-

sition to the persecution of the

Jews is and ought to be a Christian

cause, as it is in Paris where the

Catholic Auxiliary Bishop wears

the five-pointed star of David on

his sleeve in protest against the

way the Jews are treated. Opposi-
tion to the persecution of the

Christians is and ought to be a

Jewish cause as it is with some

Dutch Jews who make their de-
fense synonymous with the defense

of Christianity.

The solution to the problem of
the persecution of Jews and

Christians is therefore not along

lines of good fellowship, so-called

tolerance meetings, or slap-on^the-

back humanism which never men-
tion religion. Rather does the solu-

tion lie in these great vocations



96 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

snatching back from Nazism and

Communism the ideas of a chosen
people and the brotherhood of man
and infusing them once again with

the Spirit of God, unto the regen-

eration of a world already reeling

on the abyss of great disaster.

Take back from Nazism the idea

of the elect of God; steal back from

Communism the idea of the broth-
erhood of man ; revitalize them
with the natural law and Divine

Revelation and build a new and a
decent world where a Jew and a

Christian can live together because

God’s righteousness and peace

reign.

We are being driven together by
the anti-God forces of the world.

Hence the Jew will look in vain

for peace in a secularized Mes-

siahism or a Kingdom of God in

some distant future here below.

And the Christian will find only
chaos in a humanism that attempts

to make men brothers without
recognizing a common Father.
Flimsy, indeed, is the unity of

Jews and Christians which is based

only on the hatred of a common

enemy. Strong will it be the day

we ground it on prayers to a com-
mon God.

I am going to summarize all I
have said by appealing to my imag-
ination. Picture the Nazis dese-

crating a Christian Church, turn-

ing it into a kind of temporary Hall

of Nazi Justice. Hitler walks in

and sits down before a large cru-
cifix above the main altar. All the

Jews in the neighborhood are drag-

ged in by the soldiers to hear their

death sentence. After a mock trial

they proceed to march out of the

Christian Church, under the eyes

of the soldiers of the double-cross,

as Hitler cries out : “Death to

every Jew.” And as he says it and
before the Jews reach the door, the

figure of Christ on the Cross loos-

ens His hands and feet from the

gibbet and walks in a blaze of

glory behind the last Jew, as He
turns and says to Hitler: “In

that case, you will want Me too”!
Someday we will learn that

Christ is the Savior of all men.
* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE PASSION
Address delivered

“Father, forgive them, for they

know not what they do” (Luke

23 : 34).

On the mountain of the Beati-
tudes Our Divine Lord said: “Love

your enemies.”

Now, on the Mount on Calvary,

He practices what He preached.
As He is nailed to His Cross, for
the first time in the hearing of our

world there was uttered a prayer

for those who gave one pain.
“Father, forgive them for they

know not what they do.” Father!
God is no vague cosmic power, no

Mindless Mover, no Mathematician

—He is a Father. Now, in the
name of all the prodigal children of
the world, He says, “I will arise
and go to the Father,” to ask par-

don for all of us. Father forgive!

Forgive whom? Pilate, Annas,
Caiphas, Judas—yes, and all of us.

Only God can forgive. Nature
never forgives. If you cut your

finger, it bleeds. Our fellow men
but rarely forgive. Society never

forgives. That is why there are
sanctions, punishments, and pris-

ons. Nor can we ever forgive our-
selves. Lady Macbeth after the
murder of Duncan said she could
not even say “Amen,” it choked in
her throat. Never could she wash

on April 23, 1943

the blood off her hands. Not all

the waters of the seven seas were

enough to wash that blood incar-

nadined from her hands.

Only God forgives. “Father,

forgive them.” And the reason?
“Because they know not what they

do.”

Who are the “they” who know
not? They are the aimless people.

How many aimless people there
were in His day, and how many in
our own, whose lives have no pat-

tern, no object, no goal; whose ex-

istence is very much like the stac-
cato paragraphs of our modern

columnists jumping, flitting like a

butterfly from one idea to another,

but never tying them together into

a coherent whole. How many ex-
istences there are like the make-

up of a newspaper, a conglomera-

tion of all points of view, but noth-

ing to live by; lives that resemble

modern music that allows any in-
strument to pick off a tune and

carry it on its own, quite apart

from the concert and the harmony
of the whole. These are the people

who know not what they do.
But why was Our Lord so ready

to forgive? I think the reason is

because He loves us. In just the
proportion that we love anyone,



98 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

we are willing to forgive him. A
mother without much education
will write a letter to her son who is
in camp. If he were to show it

to a grammarian, he would say that

it contained many mistakes; but to
that son the letter is flawless.

Why is every mother much more
willing to condone the faults of her

own child thah to condone the
faults of her neighbor’s child? Is

it not because she loves her child

more than her neighbor’s? When-
ever there is love, there is forgive-

ness. Hence when Peter came to
an understanding of love, after

Pentecost, one of the first sermons

that he preached was: “The

author of life you killed . . .

I know that you did it through
ignorance” (Acts 3:15, 17). Peter

was filled with love; therefore he

was willing to understand. Early

in Christ’s public life, James and

John were angry because the Sa-

maritans had rejected Our Divine
Lord and received Him not into
their city. These two brothers,

whom Our Divine Lord had called
“the sons of thunder,” asked God
to send down lightening from
heaven and destroy them. It was
indeed fitting that the “sons of

thunder” should want Him to send
down lightening. But Our Divine
Lord said : “You know not, you
know not what spirit you are. You

have no love. You are not willing
to forgive.” John understood that

later on when as an old man he
was constantly sending out mes-

sages of love. Almost every line

of his epistle reads love, love, love.

Love thy neighbor and then you

will forgive!

Because God loves, He is willing
to forgive

;
and therefore God never

adds our sins. If we return that
love, He only subtracts.

If this Word from the Cross has
any meaning for us, it should in-

fuse into us two resolutions. First

a willingness to forgive. There is

a terrible increase of hate in the

world today. Perhaps war in-
creases the tension of people and

therefore makes them hate. If peo-

ple only knew it, every time they

hate somebody else, they fall vic-

tim to that person. Think of how
many there are in our land today
who have fallen victims to Hitler
because they hate him. They do not

love justice. They just despise

someone. If we but know it, every
time we hate anyone we are criti-
cizing ourselves. Our Divine

Lord said: “Judge not, that you

may not be judged” (Matthew 7 :1).
Judge not, that you may not be
judged—by whom? By those who
hear you judge your neighbor. The

criticism that we make of others
is in almost every instance a crit-



THE PASSION 99

icism of ourselves. The measure

of a person’s character is the size

of the things that make him mad.

Who are those who are most apt
to condemn infidelity in someone

else except those who are them-

selves unfaithful? They minimize

their own guilt by projecting it

into someone else. That is why
every time they judge, they

judge themselves. Those who are
constantly accusing someone else

of dishonesty are generally dis-

honest themselves. That may be
the reason why so many politicians
are always fond of calling one an-

other grafters.

To seek forgiveness is the second

resolution. Never deny that you

are a sinner. There are tens of

thousands of people in the United

States who are today going to
psychoanalysts, when all they need
is a good confession. Our Divine
Lord is. willing to forgive. “If your

sins be as scarlet, they shall be

made as white as snow” ( Isaias

1:18). “I am not come to call the
just, but the sinners . . . they that

are in health need not a physician,

but they that are ill” (Matthew
9:12-13).

Now that we enter into these
last few days of Holy Week, let
any one of you who may be Cath-

olic and has not been to Confession

for some time resolve to go

tomorrow. Be convicted of sin,

not just because sin is wrong; be

convicted of it because you see its

relation to the Cross. That is the

way we should be convinced of our

own wickedness in every case. How
often, for example, when a hus-

band and wife are blessed with a

child, will they stand before that

baffling bit of humanity and be-

gin to see their want of selfless-

ness. That child convicts them of

sin. They never knew before how
selfish they were. Let this Cross

and the forgiveness of Our Lord

convict you of sin. He is more
willing to forgive you than you

are to be forgiven.

There is a legend to the effect

that one day the devil went before

the throne of God and said, “Why
is it that you are willing to for-

give some people thousands and

thousands of sins and yet you can

never forgive me for my one sin?”
And the answer that God gave was,
“Well, did you ever ask Me?” Have
you? Peter was not made Pontiff
until he had fallen three times.

And if you had never sinned, you
never could call Christ, “Savior.”

* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



EASTER
Address delivered on April 25, 1943

The supreme instance of all his-

tory that the voice of the people is

not necessarily the voice of God,

was the moment when a mob
passed beneath a cross, flinging at

the helpless figure there upon it

the blistering sneer of the ages

:

“He trusted in God; let him now
deliver him” (Matthew 27:43).

Two days later, early in the
morning, a converted sinner is

found walking in a cemetery—she
whose heart had been captured by

Him without, as other men had
done, laying it waste. She was in

search of a tomb and a dead body

which she hoped she might anoint

with spices. The idea of the Res-

urrection did not seem to enter

her mind—she who herself had
risen from a tomb sealed by the

seven devils of sin. Finding the

tomb empty she broke again into

a fountain of tears. No one who
weeps ever looks upwards. With
her eyes cast down as the bright-
ness of the early sunrise swept

over the dew-covered grass, she

vaguely perceived someone near

her, who asked : “Woman, why
weepest thou?” (John 20:15).

Mary, thinking it might have

been the gardener said: “Because

they have taken away my Lord
;
and

I do not know where they have laid
him.”

The figure before her spoke only
one word, one name, and in a tone

so sweet and ineffably tender that

it could be the only unforgettable

voice of the world; and that one,

word was: “Mary.”

No one could ever say “Mary”
as He said it. In that moment she
knew Him. Dropping into the
Aramaic of her mother’s speech

she answered but one word: “Rab-

boni”! “Master”! And she fell at
His feet—she was always there,
anointing them at a supper,

standing before them at a Cross,

and now kneeling before Him in
the Glory of an Easter morn.

The Cross had asked the ques-

tions
;

the Resurrection had an-

swered them. The Cross had asked

the question: How far can Power
go in the world? The Resurrection

answered: Power ends in its own
destruction, for those who slew the
foe lost the day.

The Cross had asked: Why does
God permit evil and sin to nail

Justice to a tree? The Resurrec-

tion answered: That sin, having

done its worst, might exhaust it-



EASTER 101

self and thus be overcome by Love

that is stronger than either sin or

death.

Thus there emerges the Easter

lesson that the power of evil and

the chaos of any one moment can

be defied and conquered, for the

basis of our hope is not in any con-

struct of human power, but in the

Power of God Who has given to the
evil of this earth its one mortal

wound—an open tomb, a gaping
sepulchre, an empty grave.

If the story of Christ ended with

that cry of abandonment on the

Cross, then what hope have we that
bruised Goodness and crucified

Justice will ever rise triumphant

over the massed wickedness of

men?

If He Who died to give us the
glorious liberty of the children of

God could not break the chains of

death, then what hope is there that

the enslaved peoples of Europe will

ever rise from the slavery of their

graves to a freedom where a man
can call his soul his own?

If there be no Power of God that
can raise to the newness of life

Him Who said, “I am the light of
the world,” then in broken-hearted

I

misery must we say to our sol-
diers: “Out, out brief candle”

—

there shall be no light again.

If there be no Power of God to
bring back to life the Redeemer

of our sins, the Teacher of our

minds, then the pathos of man’s

mortality is deepened and the

riddle of human existence darkened

forever, as the prison doors of

death are everlastingly shut by the

Jailer whose name is Black Des-

pair.

You say the Resurrection con-

tradicts science and human experi-
ence; I say to you that the rotting

in the grave of Supreme Truth

would contradict it a thousand

times more.

I can accept a universe where

Goodness is crucified by Power,

but I cannot accept one where there

is no higher Power to raise it to

justification. I can accept a world

where Evil has its hour, where a

Poland suffers from her enemies,

where Jews and Christians are ex-

iled, where the Cross is double-

crossed by a swastika, where

40,000 churches are closed because

religion is the opium of the people

—but I cannot accept a world
wherein Goodness does not have its

Easter Day to sing triumphant on
the wings of victory.

Apply this Easter lesson to the

Dark Hour in which we live.
Whence shall come our hope of
victory? Whence shall come our
hope for peace? Whence shall come
our hope for the Church?

Our hope for victory in this war



THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM102

must not be in the power of arms

alone, for the enemy has the Devil

on his side, and guns, planes, tanks,

and shells are no match for Dem-

ons. As Isaias warned: “Woe to

them that go down to Egypt for

help, trusting in horses, and
put-

ting their confidence in chariots,
be-

cause they are many : and in horse-

men, because they are very strong;

and have not trusted in the Holy

One of Israel, and have not sought

after the Lord” (Isaias 31:1-2).

Let the enemy come as so many

armored and panoplied Goliaths

thinking that steel must always be

met by steel alone, and we shall,

like other Davids, go out to meet

them unto victory clothed in the

Power of Him Who gave to the evil

of this earth its one mortal wound

r-an open tomb, a gaping sep-

ilchre, an empty grave.

Whence shall come our hope for

eace? It will not come from the

common man unpurified by faith;

for once in power, he will cease to

be the common man, the proletar-

ian, and will become the uncommon

man, the bureaucrat.

Rather we must trust in the

common man made uncommon by

the Power of Him Who dared to

say to the first of all Totalitarian

Caesars of Christian History

:

“Thou shouldst not have any

power . . . unless it were given thee

from above” (John 19:11).

And for all of us who have the

fullness of faith, be not cast down

because the persecutors of reli-

gion, having laid the Church, like

its Founder, in the tomb, utter the

boast: “Behold the place where we

laid it.” Remember the law of

Progress of the Church is the re-

verse of the law of Progress of the

world. We are most progressive
when we are most hated.

Whence shall come our hope for

the Church? It will not come from

the world, for if the world loved

the Church, the Church would be

no salvation to the world. If it

were not hated, it would be weak.

It is only because the fires of its

Truth are blinding evil eyes and !

convicting them of sin and judg-

ment, that the world vainly tries

to put them out. And though the

world is tearing up all the photo-

graphs and blue-prints of a society

and a family based on the moral

law of God, be not disheartened.

The Church has kept the negatives.

Francis Thompson compared the

Church to the lily, depicting first

its defeat, then its resurrection, in

these magnificent lines:

“0 Lily of the King! low lies thy

silver wing,

And long has been the hour of

thine unqueening;



EASTER 103

And thy scent of Paradise on the
night wind

spills its sighs,

Nor any take the secrets of its

meaning.

0 Lily of the King! I speak a
heavy thing,

0 patience, most sorrowful of
daughters

!

Lo, the hour is at hand for the

troubling

of the land,

And red shall be the breaking of
the waters.

“Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the
blast shall with thee talk,

With the mercies of the King for
thine awning;

And the just understand that
thine hour is at hand,

Thine hour at hand with power in

the dawning.

When the nations lie in blood, and
their kings a broken brood,

Look up. 0 most sorrowful of
daughters

!

Lift up thy head and hark what
sounds are in the dark,

For His feet are coming to thee
on the waters!”

(Lilium Regis )
We are living in a period of his-

tory like unto that of the Roman
Empire when Julian the Apostate
sat upon the throne of the Caesars.
The persecution of Christ which he
initiated was not like the earlier

persecutions, which were prompted

by the release of a barbaric in-

stinct, but rather was due to the

perversion and the loss of faith

in Christ. Like his successors in

the modern world, Julian perse-

cuted because he had lost his faith

—and since his conscience would
not let him alone, he would ntft let

the Church alone. There is a story

to the effect that he made a tour of
the Roman Empire to investigate
the success of his persecutions. He
came to the ancient city of Antioch

where, disguising himself, he en-

tered into the inns, taverns, and

public markets better to learn the

fruits of his hate. On one occa-
sion, watching thousands of people

crowd into a temple dedicated to

Mithra, he was recognized by an old
Christian friend whose name was
Agathon. Pointing to the crowd

and to the apparent success of the

pagan cult, he sneered this ques-

tion to his friend: “Agathon,

what ever happened to that carpen-
ter of Galilee—does he have any
jobs these days?” Agathon an-

swered: “He is building a coffin
now for the Roman Empire, and
for you.”

Six months later Julian thrust a

dagger into his own heart. Throw-
ing it toward the heavens against

which he had rebelled, as his own
unredemptive blood fell back upon



104 THE CRISIS IN CHRISTENDOM

him, he uttered his last and most

famous line: “0 Galilean, Thou

has conquered!”

He always does!
* * *

Prayer In Time Of War



THE PURPOSE OF THE CATHOLIC HOUR

(Extract from the address of the late Patrick Cardinal Hayes at the in-
augural program of the Catholic Hour in the studio of the National
Broadcasting Company, New York City, March 2, 1930.)
Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the National

Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all who, by their financial
support, have made it possible to use this offer of the National Broad-
casting Company. The heavy expense of managing and financing a
weekly program, its musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent an-

swering of inquiries, must be met . . .

This radio hour is for all the people of the United States. To our
fellow-citizens, in this word of dedication, we wish to express a cordial
greeting and, indeed, congratulations. For this radio hour is one of
service to America, which certainly will listen in interestedly, and even
sympathetically, I am sure, to the voice of the ancient Church with its
historic background of all the centuries of the Christian era, and with
its own notable contribution to the discovery, exploration, foundation
and growth of our glorious country . . .

Thus to voice before a vast public the Catholic Church is no light
task. Our prayers will be with those who have that task in hand. We
feel certain that it will have both the good will and the good wishes of
the great majority of our countrymen. Surely, there is no true lover
of our Country who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less
material, and a more spiritual standard among our people.

With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympathy for
all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue. So may it be ful-
filled. This word of dedication voices, therefore, the hope that this radio
hour may serve to make known, to explain with the charity of Christ,
our faith, which we love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve
to make better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven; a strength, and a power divine through Christ;
pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating our common every-day duties
and joys, bringing not only justice but gladness and peace to our search-
ing and questioning hearts.



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