Catholic and Enjoying It!
…this insightful passage from Belloc:
Next to the social fruit of the Modern Attack on the Catholic Church is the moral fruit; which extends of course over the whole moral nature of man. Those who would point to the modern break-down of sexual morals as the chief effect of the Modern Attack on the Catholic Church are probably in error; for it will not have the most permanent results. Cruelty will be the chief fruit in the moral field of the Modern Attack, just as the revival of slavery will be the chief fruit in the social field.
The proof lies in this: that men are no longer shocked at cruelty but indifferent to it. The abominations of the revolution in Russia, extended to those in Spain, are an example in point. Not only did people on the spot receive the horror with indifference, but distant observers do so. There is no universal cry of indignation, there is no sufficient protest, because there is no longer in force the conception that man as man is something sacred. That same force which ignores human dignity also ignores human suffering.
I think Belloc is on to something. Interestingly, sexual licentiousness seems to be the gateway drug hell uses to lead a civilization on to deeper forms of evil. Screwtape, I suspect, regards lust with distaste because there is always the danger that it could lead back to love. With deeper forms of evil such as pride and anger, there is no danger of that. Curiously, Jesus is never shown being tempted by lust in the Temptation Narratives. The temptations he faces are truly adult and not merely the titillations of our perpetually adolescent culture. Bodily hunger, fame, and the naked appeal to power are what Satan brandishes when he wants to tempt the Son of God, not some cutie in a thong. He’s dealing with a grownup and bypasses lust for deeper forms of attempted corruption.
With us, the Perpetual Pepsi Generation, the strategy is different. Start with the dopey Luv of the 60s and then work us on to the avarice of the Yuppy and the cowardice of brutal Machievellians who, first, defend torture as a necessary evil and then laud it as a positive good. Wisdom 2 demonstrates a similar pattern. Sexual license and “if it feels good do it” worship of sensual pleasure is just the way into evil. Its fruit and flower comes in the turn to a love of cruelty–and that turn is described in disturbingly prophetic language which the gospel writers certainly have in mind as they describe the cruelties inflicted on the Son of God:
For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, “Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts. When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat. For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back. “Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Let none of us fail to share in our revelry, everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot. Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless. “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child* of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”
The moral decay described in this passage is eerily reminiscent of the logic our culture has slowly been following over the past 45 years or so. And I will not be surprised if it ends in a similar denouement of a culture that, having become bored with sex and pleasure, passes on to the deeper thrills of cruelty and the love of raw power exercised against the image of Christ wherever it is found in this world. Smart money is on the Christian who does what he can to ready himself to be a martyr in such a culture.
Deliver us from evil, O Lord!
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