Crisis In Christendom, No. 12 of 17 No. 12 of 17

The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the National Council of Catholic Man, presents the Catholic Order. Today's program will consist of music by a unit of the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. A group of the Paulus choristers open the Catholic hour now singing Bruno Oscar Clien's musical setting of the devotional prayer, O Maria Vergopia, Lloyd Worthington and Nathaniel Spenceina are the soloists. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Paulus choristers and then addressed by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen. Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America will now deliver the twelfth in his series of seventeen addresses on the Christy's in Christendom. His discourse today is entitled War as a Judgment of God, Monsignor Sheen. Friends, we commonly speak of this war as a crisis. Our English word crisis is derived from a Greek word, creases, which means judgment, and that is just what this war is, a judgment of God. In the life of every human being, there is a particular and a general judgment. The particular judgment comes at the moment of death. For we are individually responsible for the way we use our liberty. The general judgment comes at the end of time, because we work out our salvation in the context of the social order and the brotherhood of Christ. And therefore we must be judged with the entire world. History, too, life individuals has its particular and its general judgments. A particular judgment comes at various moments in a nation's history, but it works out the full consequences of its decisions and its philosophy of life. The general judgment will be at the end of time when our Lord will come to judge all the nations of the world. We find a reference to both the particular and the general judgments in history in our visit, large warning to the city of Jerusalem. Because it had not known the time of its visitation, he said that a particular judgment would come before that very generation would have passed away. That the enemy would come and feed it flux to the ground, not leaving a stone upon a stone. And that judgment did come to pass actually in the year 70, when Tychus destroyed the Holy City. But out of Iron-Ord also foretold in the same passage, the general judgment of the world in the distant unknown future, when nations which judged him then would then be judged by him as he would come in the clouds of heaven bearing his cross in triumph. By speaking of these two together, he seemed to suggest that particular judgments in history are merely rehearsals for the general judgment when the decisions of free men shall be sealed for all eternity. We are presently living in a moment of a particular judgment on history. In other words, our present world crisis is a judgment of God on our era and our times. Now what do we mean by a judgment of God? We mean a verdict of history. It is the time and the full consequences of our way of life become evident. The judgment of God does not mean that God is outside history as a mighty potentate who occasionally to remind subjects of his power, smites them for his own good pleasures. The judgment of God means that the transcendent God is also inside history by His laws. Far more intimately than an inventor is in his machine or an artist in his paintings. God has implanted certain laws in the universe, by which all things tend to their perfection. Now these laws are of two kinds, generally, natural laws and moral laws. Natural laws are for things. Moral laws are for persons because they are free. To the extent that we obey God's moral law, we are happy and at peace. To the extent that we freely disobey the moral law, we hurt ourselves. And that consequence we call judgment. These judgments are very clear in the natural order. For example, a headache is a judgment on my refusal to eat. A naftrophy of the muscles is a judgment on my refusal to exercise. Ignorance is a judgment on my refusal to study. And oak is a judgment on the acorn. No one who ever drinks wheels a headache, but he gets one. No man who sins wheels frustration and loneliness of soul, but he feels it. In writing a law, we always suffer consequences which we never intended. That is because God so made the world that certain effects follow certain causes. Now when calamity comes upon us, as a consequence of our neglect or defiance of God's will, that is what we call the judgment of God. The world did not will this war, but it will a way of life which produced it. And in that sense a judgment of God sin brings adversity. And adversity is the expression of God's condemnation of evil and the registry of divine judgment. In disobeying God's moral law, we do not destroy it. We only destroy ourselves. For example, I am perfectly free to break the law of gravitation. If I will, I can toss myself from the top of the Empire State Building. But in doing so, I kill myself, but the law of gravitation still stands. God does not interfere with the world when it suffers a judgment. And the more that he interferes with the world when we ruin our health by disobeying the laws of hygiene. God does not need to interfere because he is already in the world by his law. The judgments of God are no more due to God's interference with the laws of nature than thunder is due to his interference. God did not suddenly decide to applaud with a thunderbolt whenever he saw fireworks in the heavens. He just made the universe in such a way that wherever there is lightning, there is thunder. And whenever there is a forgetfulness of the fatherhood of God, there is a forgetfulness of the brotherhood of man and war. Every now and then, as we said, there are particular judgments in history. Each year of history is a field where in certain seeds are planted, and they grow, and they bear fruit, and they die. And the kind of ideas that are planted determines the lot of that stabilization. The religious revolution of the 16th century was a judgment of God on Christian people for not living up to the full meaning of Christian life. The French Revolution was a judgment on the selfish privileges of the monarchy and the denial of political equality. Communism was a judgment on Zaris, Russia, and capitalism. Naxi is a judgment on Versailles. And this war is a judgment on the way the world's thoughts and lived, married and unmarried, both and sold. It is a judgment on the world's banks, its schools, its factories, its homes, its legislatures, its international order, its hearts and its souls, and above all, the humanist illusion that man could build a peaceful world without God. This war is to time what hell is to eternity, the registering of the conflict of the human will against the divine. And it was forged in exactly the same way as the cross. As the cross was made by a horizontal bar of man crossing the vertical bar of God, so this war is the result of the contradiction of the divine will by a perverse and wicked human will. What do you may ask? What are the purposes of divine judgments in history? Why do we suffer the consequences of our acts? There are judgments in history in order that there might be guarantees of the permanence of the laws of God. You think men would so universally respect the laws of health? If the violation of those laws did not entail such painful consequences? Where would moral development be if fire burned today and froze tomorrow? And if the refusal to sleep strengthened us today and weakened us tomorrow? And if the moral law of God had consequences in the morning, this it seems as the idea that needs to be emphasized more in our national life. It is positively pathetic and tragic that so many can think of no other way to justify our cause than by emphasizing the wickedness and the cruelty of the Nazis and the Japanese. Do we become angels by calling them devils? Does the crow become white by calling a leopard spotted? Must we in America be so impoverished intellectually and morally that we cannot produce a drama, or write a speech, or even produce comic movies? Unless we have Nazis under every table, but teach jacks hiding behind every camera and stop a tears in every beauty parter. These writers do not understand the psychology of the American people. Neither are they implying the American people of why we are at war. They do not know the American people. We are the most idealistic people on the face of the earth. There is nothing that appeals to Americans more than terror play. We are traditionally for the underdog. And the last world war we did not receive a single square mile of territory. And that was because we wanted none. In this war we have already assured friends that we will get out of her colonies when this war is over. And in the Atlantic Charter we have assured the small nations of Europe of their integrity and their territory. We have made America the arsenal of the world. Carrying little, whether we were thanked for it. When this war is over, we will make America the pantry of the world as we hope to make it the hope of the world. It is the moral law therefore that we are out to preserve. For right is right, if nobody is right. And wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong. May we realize then that we are fighting nuts for freedom from something but freedom for something. Namely the right to develop personalities which are made to the image and the likeness of God. We are fighting not for the right of religious worship. For religion is not a right anymore than patriotism is a right. They both are duties. Pays patriotism is a duty to country and religion is a duty to God. We are fighting not for any particular form of government but for the right of all peoples to choose their own which will exercise power with responsibility because that power comes from God. We are fighting not for the purpose but for something deeper. Namely the moral and religious foundations which make democracy possible. And to all of our interested in preserving this moral purpose of war. We will gladly send free to you a little booklet of prayers for wartime entitled The Shield of Faith. But may we also ask that the Jews and the Protestants and Catholics in this country take cognizance that there is a lord of hostility. And the gods of nations and the king of kings who alone can ensure victory. May I therefore beg you to spend the holy hour of day in prayer and meditation for our country's cause and your own inner peace. May God be merciful to us as he was to the centurion. Many of us like that centurion thought little of God. He thought little of God until the day that he went to the war on Calvary's Hill, engaging up at those three crosses, silhouetted against the darkened sky. That hardened sergeant of the Roman army saw something he never saw before. The difference between right and wrong and the need of dying to make the world wrong-right. And in the ecstasy of that great vision, he cried out in an after perfect faith, indeed this is the son of God. God grants it we who thought little of the need of faith during a false peace. May life that centurion find it on the battlefields of the war. As we champion the cause of justice and cry out in the joy of our regeneration, have thy way, O Lord. It is best for us. God loves you. O Lord Jesus Christ, who in thy mercy hear us the prayers of sinners. For for we beseech the all-braised and blessing upon our country and its citizens. We pray in particular for the Presidents, for our Congress, for our Congress, for all our soldiers, for all who defend, 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 all together forever, O dear, forever, O dear Lord, in thy glorious heavenly kingdom. May the kingdom be changed. The address you have just heard was entitled War as a Judgment of God, and was delivered by Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America. This was the twelfth in Monsignor Sheen series of seventeen addresses on the crises in Christendom. A copy of today's talk, as well as the booklet referred to by 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 Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light. The Catholic Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light. The Catholic Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light. The Catholic Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light. The Catholic Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light. The Catholic Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light. The Catholic Hour closes with Cognom humans, beloved him, lead kindly light.