“The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society.” —Catholic Catechism, 2207
Yesterday (the 29th) my good lady interrupted my computer browsing to read to me the quotation below, from “A Presumption of Death.” The book (a continuation of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey series by Jill Paton Walsh) is set in England at the very first part of World War II. The heroine, Harriet Vane (Lady Wimsey), is reading a letter from Miss Climpton, an aide to Lord Peter. I quote from that letter, since it shows how the Nazis tried to destroy the family as an institution, which is what the Left has been attempting for the last 60 years. The goal? The same as that of the Nazis—replace the family as a source of moral teaching by an authoritarian government. Here is the quote:
“… Christians in Germany and Austria are being really persecuted so subtly and wickedly, too, the older people being allowed to go to church, and all the CHILDREN being kept away by Hitler-jugend meetings on Sundays, and being taught to insult Christ and despise their parents for believing in religion. It must be terrible to be a father or mother and feel the government is deliberately ALIENATING one’s children and BREAKING UP the family…”—Jlll Paton Walsh, “A Presumption of Death,” Chapter 3.
As the opening quote and other articles in the Catechism suggest, the Catholic Church sets the family as a prime source of moral teaching and authority. Accordingly, if the teachings of the Church are to be replaced by government ideology, the family, as a source of authority, must be belittled and shattered, as the Nazis tried to do. Were the Nazis successful? To some extent this must have been so. How else can the horrors of the concentration camps be explained?
If you do a web search for homilies given last Sunday, the 27th (Feast of the Holy Family), you’ll see this issue—parents as a source of moral teaching and authority–addressed by many priests. (See here, for example.) What will happen when (if) an administration hostile to Catholic teaching takes over, when one has to acknowledge same-sex marriage as valid, has to support contraception and abortion, even to accept forced abortions to limit family size, as happened in China? The future is as seen through a clouded crystal ball, but nevertheless I have faith that the teachings of the Church will survive, even if only for a remnant.
We are many. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have cheated so hard last November.
Know your enemy.
Theodore Dalrymple: Political correctness is commie propaganda. E.G., Transgender [or fill-in-the-blank] Propaganda claims straight [or fill-in-the-blank] is hate.
Similarly, they’ve been hammer and tongs going after the Church and Western Civilization for decades.
They can’t exist with Freedom.
The Threat of Authoritarianism in the U.S. is Very Real, and Has Nothing To Do With Trump. Ed Driscoll, “The China virus-driven centralization of economic power and information control in the hands of a few corporate monopolies poses enduring threats to political freedom.”
Michael Walsh: ” . . . And so, in the name of ‘health,’ they mask and muzzle us, restrict our freedom of movement and faith in the open defiance of the Constitution, vilify our culture, proscribe our words and thoughts, erase the canons of our arts and literature, destroy the middle class and their sources of livelihood, and tell us it’s for our own good. Because we’re so incorrigibly bad.
“They’re not just trying to cancel Odysseus, or Shakespeare, or even Trump anymore, they’re trying to cancel you. What are you going to do about it?”
Think. What are you prepared to do?
” I have faith that the teachings of the Church will survive, even if only for a remnant.” Yes, it’s practically a remnant right now what with most Catholics using contraception, getting divorces, and living together without marriage.
Thanks for the timely reminder that the Nazis are on the political Left. Would that more people knew that.
Would that a bishop or bishops have penned this essay. It might just give the faithful pewsitter some small hope. Alas, most are deaf mutes afraid of their own shadows and of Caesar.
And, to the point, the USCCB is a cancer on the Church in America.
Ranger 01, be not too discouraged. I’ve heard the same message on online homilies by Fr. Pavone (head of the “Priests for Life), Fr. Alar (National Shrine of Divine Mercy), an Anglican Ordinariate priest.
I didn’t remember the exact days, so i couldn’t find them for linking. But there are priests in the lower hierarchy (and probably some bishops as well) that are sending the same message.