A biography of Blessed Titus Brandsma tells us that, 'in 1935, Blessed Titus Brandsma wrote against anti-Jewish marriage laws, which brought him to the attention of the Nazis. Titus later wrote that no Catholic publication could publish Nazi propaganda and still call itself Catholic; this led to more attention. Continually followed by the Gestapo, the Nazi attention led to his arrest on 19 January 1942. For several weeks he was shuttled from jail to jail, abused, and punished for ministering to other prisoners.
Titus Brandsma was deported to the Dachau concentration camp in April 1942. There he was overworked, underfed, and beaten daily; he asked fellow prisoners to pray for the salvation of the guards. When he could no longer work, he was used for medical experiments. When he was no longer any use for experimentation, he was murdered. He died July, 26, 1942 by injection with a deadly drug that, ten minutes later, took his life at Dachau concentration camp; his executioner was a nurse who had been raised Catholic, but left the Church.'
 |
| The cell of Blessed Titus Brandsma |
It struck me recently that The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma, of which I am a member, has in its patron, the perfect intercessor and model for those using their talent for writing and, insodoing, playing a part in the evangelisation of 21st century Western man and woman.
Many in the US, UK and Europe have been taken aback by President Obama's audacious and unconstitutional attack on the religious liberty of the Catholic Church in the USA. At the time of writing, we do not know where it will all end. However, while we do not know where it will all end, we cannot say that we have never been here before, and our patron happens to be just one heroic testament to that historical fact.
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has made various speeches, notably in Germany and in the United Kingdom, on the dictatorship of relativism and the dangers that become apparent when efforts are made at State and societal levels to 'erase God from the public sphere'. We should not be surprised if His Holiness's words are considered prophetic even within the time of his own Pontificate.
The economic crises affecting the West present Governments with numerous difficulties. How will the State respond to such economic turmoil when already respect for human dignity has been undermined by over forty years of abortion provided by our own legislatures? How will States whose moral foundations, built upon Christianity, have suffered and continue to suffer dramatic erosion, respond to the challenging times in which we now live? We see that in the United States, the Executive branch of Government has initiated an unprecedented attack on a fundamental principle of human freedom - religious liberty. It is tempting for this essay to focus on the USA because it is there that the Church is under greatest attack in the West, but it is clear that the forces of liberalism at work in the US are also at work in the United Kingdom and indeed Europe.
This essay will steer clear of drawing upon conspiracy theories and will also steer clear of examining liberalism at a pan-European governmental level, but will examine the case of one country and one country alone: the United Kingdom. The aim of this essay is to highlight the many areas in which liberalism is the huge threat to human freedom, all genuine human freedom, that the Holy Father has said that it is and why its path must inexorably end in tyranny. It does not intend to be alarmist, this essay only aims to point out why those democratic freedoms cherished by Western civilisation are now at such great risk. It aims to examine those trends and forces already at work in Western government and society and, using these trends, to offer projections of a future which can only be described as belonging to a dystopia.
What's at the End of the Road?
Despite the fact that the novel was a work of fiction, it has inspired many, since its publication, especially those in the Press who recognise in the rise of the State and the history of the 20th century, the inherent danger of the property of the human person passing from the One Whom we, as a country, once believed to be the Source and Origin of all life - Almighty God - to an all-powerful and over-reaching government who usurps His role in human affairs. And, despite the fact that the book was a work of fiction, it is credited, alongside George Orwell's '1984' as being uniquely inspired and even 'prophetic'. The two authors clearly had similar political interests and in one of the letters of Aldous Huxley, the author praised the work of 1984, congratulating Orwell on "how fine and how profoundly important the book is". Huxley wrote:
'Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.'
Quite whose side Huxley was on when he made that comment, the people's or the governments of the World, or whether he was joking, we shall perhaps never know. Of Brave New World, Wikipedia says, 'Set in London of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep learning that combine to change society.'
Now, as I said at the beginning of this essay I will endeavour to steer clear of conspiracy theories, which are many and numerous, to be found all across the far flung reaches of the world wide web. We do not know what the motives of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were in writing their 'prophetic works', whether they were to serve as pure fiction, as a warning to society, or even interesting ideas that governments might like to put into practice. Certainly, there is so much 'doublespeak' about today - particularly about such things as 'gay marriage', two words which fundamentally contradict one another since only distinctly biologically different persons can 'marry' and be 'united' and 'emergency contraception', another two words that fundamentally contradict one another, since you can only contracept before fertilisation of the egg - that it is tempting to think the latter. What we can say, however, is that governments of the world, and ours is most certainly a pioneer in this field, are either lifting ideas from certain concepts from these books or there is a logical and inexorable process underway, in which the government simply must take on ideas from these books, so that society does not collapse totally from within.
You see, whether it is intended or not is perhaps not for us to know. Irrespective, the outcome of the moral anarchy precipitated by liberalism and liberal attitudes towards sex and sexuality gears itself towards the State acquiring more and more power over the human person as time goes by. All I will do is to present readers with the facts so that they may decide for themselves whether we, as citizens of the United Kingdom are becoming more and more an asset of the State to be used and disposed of as the State wishes until we are considered by the State to be found to be useless, or whether the State simply has to take on more and more competences in order to clear up the mess of our selfishness, our moral relativism, our sins and our abandonment of Almighty God, in favour of idols which displease Him and for which the Catholic Church, at any rate, is about to pay a very, very heavy price - Her freedom - and with it - yours - that is, if you follow your conscience and your conscience is informed by the Catholic Faith or Christian morality. Still, as the Manic Street Preachers once sang, 'If you tolerate this, then your children will be next'.
Anatomy of a Modern Dystopia
A passive, apathetic electorate is like goldust to a generation of politicians who appear to answer to nobody but themselves. An electorate now as far removed from politics are politicians are from their people are unable to resist even those laws which do not go in their favour.
The apathy of the modern electorate allows politicians to pass laws which not only lack a popular mandate but which attract a strong measure of public disapproval. Yet, when the major parties build a consensus over new laws, to whom can a mystified electorate turn?
Apathy has bred indifference to the political process. Voter turnout is evidence of an electorate who have lost faith in the political process. Political activism is now seemingly upon 'soft' issues which work in favour of the political elite. Such issues as green politics and global movements protecting the environment pose no threat to the political class. Instead of 'speaking truth to power' activism is working with, not against executive power.
Anti-establishment thought and activism is now the remit of the Catholic Church and its allies, something witnessed by the 40 Days for Life vigil outside BPAS in London. The Church and those of goodwill who support it struggle to gain the recognition of rights whch have been encroached upon by the State.
Such rights as the right to life, the right to religious freedom and expression and the rights of the elderly and sick for compassionate treatment which recognises the sanctity of human life seem to be unpopular causes in a land which has embraced the culture of death. Yet, there is no reason why the tide should not turn in favour of the Church, if the imagination of the people can be captured.
Rights grounded in natural law have been supplanted by the promotion and extension of new rights which do not promote human dignity and which have great potential, with the backing of a powerful State, to crush those rights grounded in natural law.
Rights to abortion, rights to same-sex marriage, rights to IVF treatment and new embryology research sold as medical advancement do not uphold human dignity. They replace the natural rights of the family, the rights of the married, of the unborn. A proposed 'right to suicide' demeans and degrades the right to life. The right to death for the elderly and unborn makes a mockery of the right to life grounded in our nature.
So what can be done to recapture the imagination of a public which feels distant from the political class, which is being bombarded by the promotion of rights which do not even pretend to serve the common good?
Education and Evangelisation
Above all, the political class fear an educated electorate. The Church must speak with renewed power and vigour on the rights to life, liberty and freedom for all citizens - the least - as well as the greatest - the weak - as well as the strong.
Since the 1960s, the stridency of the Church's message of life and the defense of the common good has been weakened severely, hampered perhaps by the explosive force of the sexual revolution of that era. Since then, the Church's concern with social justice and social peace has relegated its role in society to that of a campaigning force to make society 'fairer'. In the process it has joined forces with secular organisations and even Governments in its campaign for a 'fairer world'. Fairtrade is a good example of this.
Yet, the Church exists within countries and communities and nations. While the global issues of poverty and injustice are worthy of our concern, the Chruch's main arena in which to proclaim the message of salvation is the nation in which it resides. Many issues affect families and individuals in the United Kingdom on which the Church has maintained an eerie silence.
The Church's Failure
By all accounts, the Catholic Church in England and Wales has failed to communicate its message, not just to a country but to its own faithful. It is hard to say that the Church's voice and distinct message on upholding human dignity has been heard of understood by even the faithful in the pew. How, then, could it possibly be heard or understood by those who are not even Catholic?
Further, in England and Wales, the Church has entered into political dialogue with the political parties in an aim to be the 'leaven in the bread' of politics. By all accounts, this strategy has been an unmitigated disaster. Promise made to the Church concerning civil partnerships, gay marriage, adoption by gay parents and other such promises have been confirmed to be worthless.
The gay marriage proposal now puts the Catholic Church in direct confrontation with the State. Dialogue will be shown to have not worked in the interests either of the Church or of society. The Church's view is not welcome in the public sphere - if, indeed, it ever was. A mixture of political naivity and misplaced trust has led the Church to this moment of history in which marriage itself is to be redefined by the Government.
It is time, now, for the Catholic Church not to 'get mean' but to 'get real'. Politics is a dirty business and assurances given can be broken within 24 hours. Integrity has left the political process. Another agenda is driving Government which has little interest in honest politics, representation of the people and the service of a nation. The State is on the march and its sole preoccupation is power over the people.
The Church must, for the sake of the nation, present the public with the truth. It must stand up with one voice, with other Churches if necessary, and present, in stark terms, the direction in which the United Kingdom is heading. The Church must warn the people of the coming disaster and openly condemn the State for the moral nihilism which it promotes in nearly every sphere of human activity - a moral nihilism which serves its agenda only too well.
It is clear that, on so many issues confronting the citizens, the State is trying to forge a new set of human values - a new consensus - on society. These new values are insidious because they are aimed at man's fear and anxieities. They are aimed at man's moral weakness and moral confusion. To put it mildly, the people of the United Kingdom are being take advantage of by their own government who work not on their behalf by on behalf of themselves and others more powerful than themselves.
Power Remains With the People
Yet, power is with the people and even if those people constitute a small number, a minority, where there are people impassioned and inflamed by the truth, there is power. The Catholic Church in England and Wales must do three things and must do them well.
Firstly, the Church must pray like She has never prayed before. When the Church prays, especially to Our Lady, battles are won. Secondly, the Church must fulfil its mission to 'teach all nations'. It must teach the Faithful the Catechism and insist upon its being taught well. Dissent from the Magisterium has to be rejected and condemned for the good of souls. Priests and Bishops must educate the Faithful. Catholics must be educated in the Faith in order to form a generation of men and women who understand exactly why the overbearing power of the State must now be openly resisted.
Bishops must openly teach the Catholic Faith to the people of Great Britain and not hold back. The soft, politically correct language of the past must be abandoned. It must be abandoned now because the darkness of our times calls for language to be plain, clear and bold. We must recover a sense of urgency, for this is a war. It is a war that is being engaged by the Government not just on the Church, but on its own people - its own citizens. The only way the political elite's agenda can be defeated is by an educated, fully informed electorate that has awakened from its slumber to reject that same elite who care so little for the nation, that they consider the killing off of its elderly and its pre-born as acceptable. For the sake of the country, the Church must lead its own people and the country back to those moral precepts which have served human happiness in the light of the natural law for millennia - in time - and in eternity.
The Church must rediscover Her voice now, before all human liberty becomes threatened by a State which seeks to gain not just acceptance from society, but docile obedience to tyranny. We must capture the imagination of the British public, for despite the country's abandonment of the Christian faith, all human beings thirst for the truth. It is only the truth which can set our country free.
For by no means is the nation yet convinced of the State's propaganda - and it is propaganda - on issues of life, love, death and marriage. It is not too late yet for the Church to attract people to the truth of Her message. For if the Church were to speak the truth to power, the very walls of Parliament would shake. Her message, were it to be spoken loudly and boldly would most certainly cause the State to fear the Church once more, for the wicked flee from the light lest their deeds be exposed and proclaimed.
The media may not be on our side, but if the Church were to speak out the Truth fearlessly for the love of God and the Salvation of Souls, how could any newspaper ignore Her? The State has deliberately - note, deliberately - sown moral confusion among the people to the point that any hesitation to agree with the new morality of the State is dismissed as bigotry and to hold a view contrary to that of the State on morality - to contradict the State - means that men and women are derided as anaetham to the State.
The State or God? A Nation is to Decide
We will only win this battle for the hearts and minds of men and women through prayer and by truthfully witnessing to the Catholic Faith - the Catholic Truth - through our lives and works. The British people do not yet understand the real danger they are in. The authority of the Church has been weakened by its own scandals and by secularism from within and without.
The time is coming when the British people will be asked to choose, once again in history, between their loyalty to the State and a government that holds it in contempt, or a Church that cherishes human freedom, law and above all, love, goodness, virtue and mercy. The British people do not yet understand quite what is at stake over the coming years. If they did, they would choose the Church because the Church proclaims mercy - the most treasurable and loveable attribute of God Himself.
Will we, once more, not learn the lessons of recent history and forget so foolishly that with the State there is law, but there can be no mercy? Will we, once again, allow all power to pass to the State over human affairs? Will we, once more, allow the State to define good and evil, justice and injustice, with recourse to no known natural law or the Divine law? Orwell predicted the future thus: "If you want to imagine the future, then imagine a boot crushing a human face forever."
Unless the Church and the people She is charged with teaching and praying for reject the insidious agenda of the Government now, the boot on a human face will be the fate of the people of the United Kingdom. This is the inexorable road the United Kingdom is upon. We must do everything within our power to warn the nation that the Government no longer has its best interests at heart, because they have no objective morality. Any Government with no objective morality will cut corners in defending its citizens from its awesome and unbridled power.
The State has no guiding principle other than the aquisition of more power over the people. There is no greater indication of this than the threat to religious freedom, but there are others. The dismissal of fears and concerns over 'gay marriage', abortion, human embryology and the range of issues that face the people of the United Kingdom confirm that the State is drunk on its own power and now seeks to usurp even the power of the Church - and of God Himself - to define morality itself.
We must do all that we can to educate our people and the people of the United Kingdom now, lest all human freedom is lost forever. I hope that this website serves God, the Church and the United Kingdom in alerting all readers to just what is at stake. For what is at stake is certainly souls, but bodies also.
