Michael O’Brien, a noted Catholic author, has written a series of novels over the last 30 years, exploring the struggle of good and evil, the power and truth of the Catholic faith, and — in remarkably prescient ways — predicting the current cultural struggle regarding religious freedom and the definition of the human person. I highly recommend reading his works.
In his latest novel, The Sabbatical, a character in the story offers this wisdom: “If we seek to understand our times with any proximate coherence, we should recognize this pattern: Every system of totalitarianism
. . . has these in common: First, the rejection of binding moral absolutes established by a transcendent Being; second, the minimizing of the absolute value of human life; and third, the elevation of the state, malignant and seemingly benign alike, as the final arbiter of good and evil.”
We see all three of these destructive dynamics spreading through Western culture and especially in our own country today.
The influential voices of politics, economy, culture, and entertainment reject any assertion of traditional right and wrong, any proclamation of a moral absolute, particularly in the understanding of the human person.
Because of abortion and euthanasia, many people in our society do not value the dignity of human life.
Witness the violent outrage throughout our country in reaction to the Dobbs decision back in June.
Listen to some of our prominent national leaders, who claim to be Catholic, continue to deliberately misrepresent Church teaching on abortion.
Our government has continued to attack both traditional morality and the rights of religious conscience.
In myriad ways, the federal government has sought to restrict the rights of citizens to practice their religious beliefs in the freedom that our Constitution protects.
Same crises as before
The dire crises we face today are not dissimilar to those which the first followers of Jesus confronted when they opened the door of the Upper Room on Pentecost and began to preach the Gospel.
Roman culture was brutal, violent, and unjust. Infanticide, slavery, torture, debauchery, and greed formed the society, both the oppressors and the oppressed.
The emperor demanded to be worshiped as a god. The state commanded absolute control. Human dignity was a foreign concept.
It was into this world that the Apostles stepped to boldly proclaim the Gospel for the first time, confident in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, which they had received with great power and grace.
The Acts of the Apostles reveals the effective spiritual antidotes to the three themes of totalitarianism mentioned in the O’Brien novel.
In the face of the rejection of moral absolutes, the first Christians fearlessly proclaimed Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, as the meaning of human history and as the Teacher of a new morality, the fulfillment of the Hebrew Decalogue, based on love, truth, and goodness.
The Christian Gospel triggered the development of a whole new philosophy of human dignity and the sacredness of life, the sanctity of monogamous marriage, and the goodness of work.
The early Church radically loved and served the poor, the widowed and orphaned, the unborn and the sick, and those in need of mercy and tenderness.
The whole concept of a hospital was born from the Christian response to human suffering. “See how they love each other!” became the common response to viewing the Christians in charitable action.
Early Christians rejected absolute power claims of the state and refused to worship the emperor.
Jesus Christ alone is God and therefore sovereign. The Lordship of Christ relativizes all human claims to absolute power.
The martyrs were willing to go to their horrific deaths rather than pay obeisance to the false claims of Rome’s overweening sovereignty.
Many political thinkers posit that the fundamental purpose of the First Amendment of our Constitution is to protect the state from Church control. While that is true, so too is the converse. The First Amendment also protects religion and its practice from the obtrusiveness of the state.
Many of the first settlers of North America came to these shores, seeking religious freedom. The memory of persecution drove the need for religious protection in the framing of our Constitution.
The New Testament offers us the blueprint to overcome the evils of our time.
Our role today
In a culture that rejects moral absolutes, we proclaim the risen Christ and His Gospel, seeking to help people see that the Truth of the Lord will set us free from sin and death and for holiness and joy.
In a society that rejects the sanctity of human life, we uphold the beauty of the person, created in the image and likeness of God, from conception to natural death.
In a world in which love is often absent, we seek to generously show the compassion of Christ.
Facing an encroaching government, we boldly live our faith in the public square, assert our constitutional rights and choose to suffer for the sake of the Gospel, if that is required of us.
In our evangelization efforts, we seek to equip more and more Catholics to know Jesus, to grow in their spiritual practice, and to boldly live their faith, and so to transform the world!