Crisis In Christendom, No. 10 of 17 No. 10 of 17

For the land of the day, my Lord, for the land of the day, my Lord, The national broadcasting company into operation with the National Council of Catholic Men presents the Catholic Army. Today's program will consist of music by a unit of the Polish Carresters and an address by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. Opening the Catholic hour, we hear Barry's song of the Good Shepherd, O'Bona Pasta. Worship the favor of the Lord my great faithful husband, O'Bona Pasta on behalf of the Father of the Father. O'Story, we betrayst you today, and to you, my King our ancestral infift. Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, Lord, Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, I am the Lord of all ages. Manse, your potent J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America will now deliver the tenth and his series of seventeen addresses on the crises in Christendom. Is this course today, as entitled, how overcome this evil? I present Mount Sr. Sheen. Friends, in this series, up to this time, we have said that this war is not a conflict of nationalities, but our philosophies of life. The philosophies of life which are intrinsically evil are Nazism, Fascism, Communism and a Nationalism 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 psychological. The first determines the ability to fight. The second, the zeal with which one fights. From a purely physical point of view, our enemies are well-armed, technically perfect. But their great strength lies in a psychological factor. They believe in and absolute. They have a dogma, a creed, a faith and a religion. That's your religion, setters about a race, a emperor, a Caesar or a corpse. They are all the same, the affirmation of another absolute than dog. Call it fanaticism, call it diabolical. The facts of the matter is they are men of faith. The Nazis, for example, have faith in the primitive purity of their race. Faith in the Messianic call to be the masters of the world. And from that faith has come those unpenetred costal fires which in the course of less than ten years has swept them into the fury of 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. And without a faith nothing can be accomplished. It is the faith of the demons which inspires them to the ceaseless energy of the destruction of the kingdom of God as it is the faith of the saints that inspires them onto its building. Whence has come this fanaticism for an absolute? It is the manifestation in a false form of a zeal which men should have had for the true faith. For the last two centuries it has been the thought 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 indifferent to right and wrong and to truth and error. And zeal which men should have had for the true God could not long be kept shield and frozen by indifference and by our so-called broadmindedness. And it finally swept up through the surface and came out as fanaticism for false gods. The young people in these totalitarian countries were dis<|tr|> satisfied with the husks of our secularist culture. They wanted an absolute one that would command conviction, a hardy wine of sacrifice and they found it in a religion which was anti-religion. Their answer to a civilization that had forgotten the Christian religion was to be anti-Christian. They sought to erect a counter-chirque of the city of man which would wall against the city of God until the end of time. That is why the world today is in the peculiar mood of having more energy for the spread of false gods of race and plasmid of power than it has for the spread of the knowledge of the true God in his life and his love. It is this faith of the enemies which explains the zest with which they fight. It explains why Japanese aviators believe that their death is the condition of their God's victory. Why young Nazi soldiers ask when they die that the inscription upon their tombstones reads he died in peace with Hitler? The human heart must have an absolute whose well-terra said if man has no God, he will make a God for himself. The nine men there are to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint and in 50 years they will be making pilgrimages to a tank factory. The nigh of the madod in Connett and in a few generations they will adore a member who is the incarnation of a god. The totalitarian powers have convinced us that man cannot live without a religion or a faith or an absolute. The question therefore no longer is, will we or will we not have an absolute? The only question is which one will we serve? This very enthusiasm for false gods which they have is the explanation of their cruelty. There is nothing temporal that can bear the strain of being deified. It is like placing a marvel bust on the stem of the rose. It distorts a man like beating a cripple with his own crutches. And thou a machine with infinite power and it will kill you. And thou a finite human being with a power of gods and he will slay you. This Lord Acton said, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this Chesterton said, speaking of the horrors of the new religion, God is more good to the gods that mock him than men are good to the gods they made. And therefore a man with an eternal destiny is enlisted in the service of an earthly absolute. He becomes the fiercest and most fanatical soldier. Therein lies the total strength of our enemies. Their cause is a religion. The animal religion of a false god. And our problem is how it comes out absolute. This is one way we will not do it, not by hate. There is a group in our midst who feeling the lack of a crusading spirit and sensing the need of zest in battle, contend that the condition of victory is the hatred of enemies. Hatred is a poor alternative for faith. It inspires men to fight because their enemy is wicked rather than because their cause is righteous. It looks to the poison of their owls rather than 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 inspired more by a love of the country. They live in and by the country they hate. We spend our time setting on the eggs of hate in vain when we expect to hach the dove of peace. This absolute of theirs will not be overcome by force alone either, for no idea can be killed by force. The first idea can be overcome 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 the defense of financial tutocracy, but rather with a new idea in which money shall be used exclusively as a medium of exchange. When Hitler says that the power of monopolistic capitalism is dead, we must not defend its abuses. We must counter with a new idea of economics based on the moral order. We cannot conquer Hitler's new order by attempting to preserve the old order from which it came. The one and only effective way is to build a new order ourselves, one grounded on the true absolute of God and the principles of justice and morality. Hitler will be overcome this false absolute by an indifference to any absolute, or by saying that we are fighting merely to preserve the status quo. I know of a simple soul who on being asked the meaning of the word status quo, defined it rather correctly as the mess that 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 noxiousness, communism and fascism. No vague sentiments about liberalism. No catch words about freedom of the press. No American sportsmanship clandestined from the football field to a sear of foxhole. No mass production. However great the eight-hour sacrifice of those who make it. No boasting and writing. No complaining or harranging about public officials and no change of legislatures will carry us safely through this crisis unless we are prepared to give up our coat in time of fire and our cargo in case of a sinking ship. The saviour was right when he spoke of the crisis that paced Jerusalem, go not back for your coat. Let it perish. The strength of our enemies is in their absolute. Their weakness is in the water. Their force is their ideology. Our weakness is the lack of it. They are sweeping ahead because they have dogmas and we are falling behind because we have none. The dynamism of a false paganism cannot be overcome by the eerie legion of democracy. The enthusiasm for false gods cannot be drawn by an indifference to the true God. No secularized non-religious 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 dogmas. The effective answer to a false religion is not indifference to our religion. A muster is a positive conviction to pit against the assault of the demon the citadel of our soul will fall. What we need above all things else is the offensive of a great idea. Is there a place for it in American democracy? Certainly there is. Democracy is based on a political and an economic relative, but on a theological absidote. There is no declaration of indifference to the firm that the creator has a doubt man with certain unadultable rights. In other words, God is the absolute in American democracy. If a democracy were rest on this divine foundation, or it will be laid to rest. Trying to preserve freedom and democracy without God, in whom alone these truths are grounded, is like preserving the false teeth of a gloomy 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. Our length begins this coming Wednesday. Let it be a season for Catholics to prove by additional sacrifice to their love of God and their love of country. The Catholics take a resolution to attend Mass every morning during length, receive our divine lord into their hearts and holy communion, and for long the Thanksgiving is possible into a holy hour. May the Jews and Protestants in light manner spend an hour in meditation and prayer for the same intention. And to all who is little bookest to wade in this meditation and prayer, we were gladly send them to you free. But pray we must, for the Shakespeare said, if that the heavens do not quickly send down their visible spirits, to tame these vile offenses. It will come that humanity must for force, pray on its health, life monsters of the deep. Now this is the issue involved in the world, the choice of accidents. No one has stated it among the United Nations quite as clearly as the Nazis have voted. In a book that was published in Berlin recently entitled God in the Race, His Soldiers Creed, we read this statement of Nazi ideology. Each epoch has its symbols. Two epochs and two symbols are now facing each other, the cross and the sword. Today Christianity is under the sign of the cross. Our struggle is not against man. It is against an idea. Please struggle against the cross. That is Nazis. That is one of the clearest expressions that has yet come from many nations in his world war. The Nazis say they are on the side of the sword. They put us on the side of the cross, so be it. May a day come then, when Hitler reaches out his sword, us, that we invert you about the recovery of the absolute. We'll be strong enough to take up naked blades in our bare hands. We'll be putting it funny. Lift the sword high in the air with a hilt above. Can watch that hilt frame against the August be you with heaven's sky? The glorious symbol of the cross of Christ and the pit of our Malachan victory. All are Jesus Christ. Wind I mercy hear us the prayers of sinners. For a fourth we besiege the all of grace and blessing upon our country and new 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 reunite us together forever, O dear Lord, in thy glorious heavenly kingdom. The address you have just heard was entitled How Overcome Lissible and was delivered by a Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America. This was the 10th in Monsignor Sheen's series of seventeen addresses on the crisis in Christendom. A copy of today's talk, as well as of the booklet referred to by a Monsignor Sheen, the Shield of Faith, may be obtained by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men, Washington D.C., or to the station to which you are now listening. The Catholic are closes with the tradition of Him to Jesus' heart all burning. My name is God's Son, let me love this one. The sacred Mother of Jesus, my every heart and heart, the sacred Mother of Jesus, my every heart and heart. The Holy See, the Holy God, and thy God, for thy life, thy every heart. Next Sunday at this time, Monsignor Sheen will deliver another address in this series entitled The Evil Has It's Hour. Your announcer is John Patrick Costello. This program has been presented by the National Broadcasting Company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC Network, in cooperation with the National Council of Catholic Men and came to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.