|
State of Things /
Laments |
"Never
has the world been so corrupt as it is now, for never has it been
so cunning, so wise in its own way, and so crafty. It cleverly
makes use of the truth to foster untruth, virtue to justify vice,
and the very maxims of Jesus Christ to endorse its own so that
even those who are wisest in the sight of God are often
deceived." (St. Louis de Montfort)
"Over
how many families has the baneful breath of this age passed,
blighting all that is serious in life, weakening faith, leaving
nothing but languor, weariness, frivolity, if not even worse, in
the place of true and solid joys of our fathers." (Liturgical
Year)
"In
the face of our much praised progress, we behold with sorrow
society lapsing back slowly but surely into a state of
barbarism." (Pope Pius XI, "Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio",
1922)
"For
We are now confronted, as more than once before in the history of
the Church, with a world that in large part has almost fallen back
into paganism." (Pope Pius XI, "Quadragesimo Anno",
1931)
"For
the first time in history we are witnessing a struggle,
cold-blooded in purpose and mapped out to the least detail,
between man and 'all that is called God.'" (Pope Pius XI,
"Divini Redemptoris", 1937)
"The
world is so wicked that there is almost greater need of reparation
than of thanksgiving." (St. Peter Julian Eymard)
"[T]he
intolerable evils of the present day bring them with dread of
further evils in days to come." (Pope Leo XIII, "Praeclara
Gratulationis Publicae", 1894)
"We
have fallen upon times when a violent and well-nigh daily battle
is being fought about matters of highest moment, a battle in which
it is hard not to be sometimes deceived, not to go astray and, for
many, not to lose heart." (Pope Leo XIII, "Sapientiae
Christianae", 1890)
"[F]or
it is one of the most painful and grievous sights to see so many
souls, redeemed by the blood of Christ, snatched from salvation by
the whirlwind of an age of error, precipitated into the abyss of
eternal death." (Pope Leo XIII, "Supremi Apostolatus
Officio", 1883)
"Now
We see His teachings attacked and His reverence outraged, His
Church embattled and His Vicar opposed. So many souls redeemed by
His blood are now lost, the choicest portion of His flock, a
people faithful to Him for nineteen centuries. How can We bear to
look upon His chosen people exposed to a constant and ever-present
danger of apostasy, pushed toward error and vice, material
miseries, and moral degradation?" (Pope Leo XIII, "Custodi
Di Quella Fede", 1892)
"In
this way We daily see the numerous ills which afflict all classes
of men. These poisonous doctrines have utterly corrupted both
public and private life; rationalism, materialism, atheism, have
begotten socialism, communism, nihilism - evil principles which it
was not only fitting should have sprung from such parentage but
were its necessary offspring." (Pope Leo XIII, "Exeunte
Iam Anno", 1888)
"The heart is saddened when it considers what
a flood of wickedness, the result - as We have said - of forgetfulness
and contempt of the divine Majesty, has inundated the world. It is
not too much to say that a great part of the human race seems to
be calling down upon itself the anger of heaven; though indeed the
crop of evils which has grown up here on earth is already ripening
to a just judgment." (Pope Leo XIII, "Mirae
Caritatis", 1902)
"Men
today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as strangers, and
even enemies. The sense of man's personal dignity and of the value
of human life has been lost in the brutal domination begotten of
might and mere superiority in numbers." (Pope Pius XI, "Ubi
Arcano Dei Consilio", 1922)
"The
long-continued and most bitter war waged against the divine
authority of the Church has reached the culmination to which it
was tending, the common danger, namely, of human society, and
especially of the civil power on which the public safety chiefly
reposes. In our own times most particularly this result is
apparent. For popular passions now reject, with more boldness than
formerly, every restraint of authority. So great is the license on
all sides, so frequent are seditions and tumults, that not only is
obedience often refused to those who rule states, but a
sufficiently safe guarantee of security does not seem to have been
left to them." (Pope Leo XIII, "Diuturnum", 1881)
"We
live in the midst of a very materialistic and secular world that
has lost its vision of what is really important; it has lost its
moral compass; it has confused right and wrong with convenience
and inconvenience. We are called to persevere in our faith. And in
so doing to shed a light that others may find their way back to
Jesus who is the way, the truth, the life." (Keleher)
"Verily
no one of sound mind can doubt the issue of this contest between
man and the Most High. Man, abusing his liberty, can violate the
right and the majesty of the Creator of the Universe; but the
victory will ever be with God - nay, defeat is at hand at the
moment when man, under the delusion of his triumph, rises up with
most audacity. Of this we are assured in the holy books by God
Himself." (Pope St. Pius X, "E Supremi", 1903)
"Already
the fields cultivated by our Lord are everywhere turning into a
wilderness abounding in ignorance of the Faith, in error and vice,
as though blown upon by some hideous pest. And to add to the
anguish of this thought, so far from putting a check on such
insolent and destructive depravity, or imposing the punishment
deserved, they who can and should correct matters seem in many
cases, by their indifference or open connivance, to increase the
spirit of evil." (Pope Leo XIII, "Magnae Dei Matris",
1892)
"And
if any one of sound mind compare the age in which We live, so
hostile to religion and to the Church of Christ, with those happy
times when the Church was revered as a mother by the nations,
beyond all question he will see that our epoch is rushing wildly
along the straight road to destruction; while in those times which
most abounded in excellent institutions, peaceful life, wealth,
and prosperity the people showed themselves most obedient to the
Church's rule and laws." (Pope Leo XIII, "Inscrutabili
Dei Consilio", 1881)
"Minds
of all, it is true, are affected almost solely by temporal
upheavals, disasters, and calamities. But if we examine things
critically with Christian eyes, as we should, what are all these
compared with the loss of souls? Yet it is not rash by any means
to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now
such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious
obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing
necessary; namely, their eternal salvation." (Pope Pius XI,
"Quadragesimo Anno", 1931)
"Recourse
to God, so infinitely good, is all the more necessary because, far
from abating, the struggle grows fiercer and expands unceasingly.
It is no longer only the Christian faith that they would uproot at
all costs from the hearts of the people; it is any belief which
lifting man above the horizon of this world would supernaturally
bring back his wearied eyes to heaven. Illusion on the subject is
no longer possible. War has been declared against everything
supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands God, and
because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind and heart
of man." (Pope St. Pius X, "Une Fois Encore", 1907)
"If
the soul is one with the body, and if therefore no hope of a happy
eternity remains when the body dies, what reason is there for men
to undertake toil and suffering here in subjecting the appetites
to right reason? The highest good of man will then lie in enjoying
life's pleasures and life's luxuries. And since there is no one
who is drawn to virtue by the impulse of his own nature, every man
will naturally lay hands on all he can that he may live happily on
the spoils of others. Nor is there any power mighty enough to
bridle the passions, for it follows that the power of law is
broken, and that all authority is loosened, if the belief in an
ever-living God, Who commands what is right and forbids what is
wrong is rejected. Hence the bonds of civil society will be
utterly shattered when every man is driven by an unappeasable
covetousness to a perpetual struggle, some striving to keep their
possessions, others to obtain what they desire. This is well-nigh
the bent of our age." (Pope Leo XIII, "Exeunte Iam Anno",
1888)
"For
an unwillingness to attribute the right of ruling to God, as its
Author, is not less than a willingness to blot out the greatest
splendor of political power and to destroy its force. And they who
say that this power depends on the will of the people err in
opinion first of all; then they place authority on too weak and
unstable a foundation. For the popular passions, incited and
goaded on by these opinions, will break out more insolently; and,
with great harm to the common weal, descend headlong by an easy
and smooth road to revolts and to open sedition. In truth, sudden
uprisings and the boldest rebellions immediately followed in
Germany the so-called Reformation, the authors and leaders of
which, by their new doctrines, attacked at the very foundation
religious and civil authority; and this with so fearful an
outburst of civil war and with such slaughter that there was
scarcely any place free from tumult and bloodshed. From this
heresy there arose in the last century a false philosophy - a new
right as it is called, and a popular authority, together with an
unbridled license which many regard as the only true liberty.
Hence we have reached the limit of horrors, to wit, communism,
socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of
men and almost its ruin. And yet too many attempt to enlarge the
scope of these evils, and under the pretext of helping the
multitude, already have fanned no small flames of misery."
(Pope Leo XIII, "Diuturnum", 1881)
"In
the Holy Scriptures we read: 'They that have forsaken the Lord,
shall be consumed.' (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the
words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: 'Without me
you can do nothing' (John xv, 5) and again, 'He that gathereth not
with me, scattereth.' (Luke xi, 23) These words of the Holy Bible
have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being
fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and
Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste
their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile
attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being
successful in saving what little remains from the existing
ruin." (Pope Pius XI, "Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio",
1922)
"Men
in former ages, although they loved the world, and loved it far
too well, did not usually aggravate their sinful attachment to the
things of earth by a contempt of the things of heaven. Even the
right-thinking portion of the pagan world recognized that this
life was not a home but a dwelling-place, not our destination, but
a stage in the journey. But men of our day, albeit they have had
the advantages of Christian instruction, pursue the false goods of
this world in such wise that the thought of their true Fatherland
of enduring happiness is not only set aside, but, to their shame
be it said, banished and entirely erased from their memory,
notwithstanding the warning of St. Paul, 'We have not here a
lasting city, but we seek one which is to come' (Heb. xiii.,
4)." (Pope Leo XIII, "Laetitiae Sanctae", 1893)
"As
to what We have called the goods of the soul, which consist
chiefly in the practice of the true religion and in the unswerving
observance of the Christian precepts, We see them daily losing
esteem among men, either by reason of forgetfulness or disregard,
in such wise that all that is gained for the well-being of the
body seems to be lost for that of the soul. A striking proof of
the lessening and weakening of the Christian faith is seen in the
insults too often done to the Catholic Church, openly and publicly
- insults, indeed, which an age cherishing religion would not have
tolerated. For these reasons, an incredible multitude of men is in
danger of not achieving salvation; and even nations and empires
themselves cannot long remain unharmed, since, when Christian
institutions and morality decline, the main foundation of human
society goes together with them." (Pope Leo XIII, "Sapientiae
Christianae", 1890)
"How
unwearied, how industrious, how fearless are Christ's enemies in
their activities, to the immeasurable loss of souls!" (Pope
St. Pius X, "Haerent Animo", 1908)
"Nor
are you only spectators of the difficulty of the situation, but
your charity, like Ours, is keenly wounded; for it is one of the
most painful and grievous sights to see so many souls, redeemed by
the blood of Christ, snatched from salvation by the whirlwind of
an age of error, precipitated into the abyss of eternal death. Our
need of divine help is as great today as when the great Dominic
introduced the use of the Rosary of Mary as a balm for the wounds
of his contemporaries." (Pope Leo XIII, "Supremi
Apostolatus Officio", 1883)
"Finally,
this is matter of deep grief, that free-thought and evil example
have so evil an influence in enervating the soul, that many are
now almost ashamed of the name of Christian - a shame which is the
sign either of abandon wickedness or the extreme of cowardice;
each detestable and each of the highest injury to man. For what
salvation remains for such men, or on what hope can they rely, if
they cease to glory in the name of Jesus Christ, if they openly
and constantly refuse to mold their lives on the precepts of the
gospel?" (Pope Leo XIII, "Exeunte Iam Anno", 1888)
"What
truly is the point of departure of the enemies of religion for the
sowing of the great and serious errors by which the faith of so
many is shaken? They begin by denying that man has fallen by sin
and been cast down from his former position. Hence they regard as
mere fables original sin and the evils that were its consequence.
Humanity vitiated in its source vitiated in its turn the whole
race of man; and thus was evil introduced amongst men and the
necessity for a Redeemer involved. All this rejected it is easy to
understand that no place is left for Christ, for the Church, for
grace or for anything that is above and beyond nature; in one word
the whole edifice of faith is shaken from top to bottom."
(Pope St. Pius X, "Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum", 1904)
"Hence,
by a new species of impiety, unheard of even among the heathen
nations, states have been constituted without any count at all of
God or of the order established by him; it has been given out that
public authority neither derives its principles, nor its majesty,
nor its power of governing from God, but rather from the
multitude, which, thinking itself absolved from all divine
sanction, bows only to such laws as it shall have made at its own
will. The supernatural truths of faith having been assailed and
cast out as though hostile to reason, the very Author and Redeemer
of the human race has been slowly and little by little banished
from the universities, the lyceums and gymnasia - in a word, from
every public institution. In fine, the rewards and punishments of
a future and eternal life having been handed over to oblivion, the
ardent desire of happiness has been limited to the bounds of the
present. Such doctrines as these having been scattered far and
wide, so great a license of thought and action having sprung up on
all sides, it is no matter for surprise that men of the lowest
class, weary of their wretched home or workshop, are eager to
attack the homes and fortunes of the rich; it is no matter for
surprise that already there exists no sense of security either in
public or private life, and that the human race should have
advanced to the very verge of final dissolution." (Pope Leo
XIII, "Quod Apostolici Muneris", 1878)
"We
have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality
divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the
zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits
and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We
are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can
flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its
end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a
purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of
our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and
administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of
God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must
necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish:
and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of
society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal
happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought
after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for
himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are
conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor
security at home. Public life is stained with crime." (Pope
Leo XIII, "Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus", 1900)
"From
day to day it becomes more and more evident how needful it is that
the principles of Christian wisdom should ever be borne in mind,
and that the life, the morals, and the institutions of nations
should be wholly conformed to them. For, when these principles
have been disregarded, evils so vast have accrued that no
right-minded man can face the trials of the time being without
grave anxiety or consider the future without alarm. Progress, not
inconsiderable indeed, has been made towards securing the
well-being of the body and of material things, but the material
world, with the possession of wealth, power, and resources,
although it may well procure comforts and increase the enjoyment
of life, is incapable of satisfying our soul created for higher
and more glorious things. To contemplate God, and to tend to Him,
is the supreme law of the life of man. For we were created in the
divine image and likeness, and are impelled, by our very nature,
to the enjoyment of our Creator. But not by bodily motion or
effort do we make advance toward God, but through acts of the
soul, that is, through knowledge and love." (Pope Leo XIII,
"Sapientiae Christianae", 1890)
"It
is indeed a cause of great sorrow that so many should be deterred
and led astray by error and enmity to God; that so many should be
indifferent to all forms of religion, and should finally become
estranged from faith; that so many Catholics should be such in
name only, and should pay to religion no honor or worship. And
still sadder and more beset with anxieties grows the soul at the
thought of the fruitful source of most manifold evils existing in
the organization of States that allow no place to the Church, and
that oppose her championship of holy virtue. This is truly a
terrible manifestation of the just vengeance of God, Who allows
blindness of soul to darken upon the nations that forsake Him.
These are evils that cry aloud, that cry of themselves with a
daily increasing voice. It is absolutely necessary that the
Catholic voice should also call to God with unwearied instance,
'without ceasing;' that the Faithful should pray not only in their
own homes, but in public, gathered together under the sacred roof;
that they should beseech urgently the all-foreseeing God to
deliver the Church from evil men and to bring back the troubled
nations to good sense and reason, by the light and love of
Christ." (Pope Leo XIII, "Octobri Mense", 1891)
"Now
there are two passions today dominant in the profound lawlessness
of morals - an unlimited desire of riches and an insatiable thirst
for pleasures. It is this which marks with a shameful stigma our
epoch; whilst it goes ceaselessly from progress to progress in the
order of all which touches the well-being and convenience of life,
it seems that in the superior order of honesty and of moral
rectitude a lamentable retrogression leads it back to the
ignominies of ancient paganism. In that measure, in truth, wherein
men lose sight of eternal goods which Heaven reserved for them,
they permit themselves to be more taken in by the deceitful mirage
of the ephemeral goods here below, and once their souls are turned
down towards the earth, an easy descent leads them insensibly to
relax themselves in virtue, to experience repugnance for spiritual
things, and to relish nothing outside the seductions of pleasure.
Hence the general situation which we note: with some the desire to
acquire riches or to increase their patrimony knows no bounds;
others no longer know, as formerly, how to bear the trials which
are the usual result of want or poverty; and at the very hour in
which the rivalries We have pointed out set by the ears the rich
and the proletariat a great number seem to wish to further excite
the hatred of the poor by an unbridled luxury which accompanies
the most revolting corruption." (Pope Benedict XV,
"Sacra Propediem", 1921)
"[P]enance
is of its nature a recognition and a re-establishment of the moral
order in the world which is founded on the eternal law, that is on
the living God. He who makes satisfaction to God for sin,
recognizes thereby the sanctity of the highest principles of
morality, their internal binding power, the need of a sanction
against their violation. Certainly one of the most dangerous
errors of our age is the claim to separate morality from religion,
thus removing all solid basis for any legislation. This
intellectual error might perhaps have passed unnoticed and
appeared less dangerous when it was confined to a few, and belief
in God was still the common heritage of mankind, and was tacitly
presumed even in the case of those who no longer professed it
openly. But today, when atheism is spreading through the masses of
the people, the practical consequences of such an error become
dreadfully tangible, and realities of the saddest kind make their
appearance in the world. In place of moral laws, which disappear
together with the loss of faith in God, brute force is imposed,
trampling on every right. Old time fidelity and honesty of conduct
and mutual intercourse extolled so much even by the orators and
poets of paganism, now give place to speculations in one's own
affairs as in those of others without reference to conscience. In
fact, how can any contract be maintained, and what value can any
treaty have, in which every guarantee of conscience is lacking?
And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience, when all
faith in God and all fear of God has vanished? Take away this
basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy
left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples,
families, the State, civilization itself." (Pope Pius XI,
"Caritate Christi Compulsi", 1932)
"No
new events are these in the career of the Church militant. Jesus
foretold them to His disciples. That she may teach men the truth
and may guide them to eternal salvation, she must enter upon a
daily war; and throughout the course of ages she has fought, even
to martyrdom, rejoicing and glorifying herself in nothing more
than in the occasion of signing her cause with her Founder's
blood, the sure and certain pledge of the victory whereof she
holds the promise. Nevertheless we must not conceal the profound
sadness with which this necessity of constant war afflicts the
righteous. It is indeed a cause of great sorrow that so many
should be deterred and led astray by error and enmity to God; that
so many should be indifferent to all forms of religion, and should
finally become estranged from faith; that so many Catholics should
be such in name only, and should pay to religion no honor or
worship. And still sadder and more beset with anxieties grows the
soul at the thought of the fruitful source of most manifold evils
existing in the organization of States that allow no place to the
Church, and that oppose her championship of holy virtue. This is
truly a terrible manifestation of the just vengeance of God, Who
allows blindness of soul to darken upon the nations that forsake
Him. These are evils that cry aloud, that cry of themselves with a
daily increasing voice." (Pope Leo XIII, "Octobri Mense",
1891)
"As
a result of this filthy medley of errors which creeps in from
every side, and as the result of the unbridled license to think,
speak and write, We see the following: morals deteriorated,
Christ's most holy religion despised, the majesty of divine
worship rejected, the power of this Apostolic See plundered, the
authority of the Church attacked and reduced to base slavery, the
rights of bishops trampled on, the sanctity of marriage infringed,
the rule of every government violently shaken and many other
losses for both the Christian and the civil commonwealth.
Venerable brothers, We are compelled to weep and share in your
lament that this is the case." (Pope Pius IX, "Qui
Pluribus", 1846)
"There
are even yet Catholics in every part of the world; but their
number has visibly decreased. Heresy is now in possession of whole
countries, that were once faithful to the Church. In others, where
heresy has not triumphed, religious indifference has left the
majority of men with nothing of Catholicity but the name, seeing
that they neglect even their most essential obligations without
remorse. Among many of those who fulfill the precepts of the
Church, truths are diminished. The old honesty of faith has been
superceded by loose ideas and half-formed convictions. A man is
popular in proportion to the concessions he makes in favor of the
principles condemned by the Church. The sentiments and actions of
the saints, the conduct and teaching of the Church, are taxed with
exaggeration, and decried as being unsuited to the period. The
search after comforts has become a serious study; the thirst for
earthly goods is a noble passion; independence is an idol to which
everything must be sacrificed; submission is a humiliation which
must be got rid of, or, where that cannot be, it must not be
publicly acknowledged. Finally, there is sensualism, which, like
an impure atmosphere, so impregnates every class of society, that
one would suppose there was a league formed to abolish the cross
of Christ from the minds of men. What miseries must not follow
from this systematic setting aside of the conditions imposed by
God upon His creatures? If the Gospel be the word of infinite
Truth, how can men oppose it without drawing down upon themselves
the severest chastisements?" (Gueranger)
"Would
that we could announce the end of such terrible calamities
besetting the Church! Never will there be grief enough over the
corruption of morals so extensively increasing and promoted by
irreligious and obscene writings, theatrical spectacles and
meretricious houses established almost everywhere; by other
depraved arts and monstrous portents of every error disseminated
in all directions; by the abominable impurities of all vices and
crimes growing constantly and the deadly virus of unbelief and
indifferentism spread far and wide; by contempt for ecclesiastical
authority, sacred things, and laws and by the outrageous
plundering of Church possessions; by the bitter and constant abuse
of consecrated Church officials, of the students of religious
communities, of virgins dedicated to God; by the diabolical hatred
of Christ, his Church, teaching, and of this Apostolic See. These
and almost innumerable other evils perpetrated by the embittered
enemies of the Catholic Church and faith, we are daily compelled
to lament." (Pope Pius IX, "Quanto Conficiamur Moerore",
1863)
"But
it is yet more to be lamented, Venerable Brethren, that among the
faithful themselves, washed in Baptism with the blood [of Christ],
and enriched with grace, there are found so many men of every
class, who laboring under an incredible ignorance of Divine things
and infected with false doctrines, far from their Father's home,
lead a life involved in vices, a life which is not brightened by
the light of true faith, nor gladdened by the hope of future
beatitude, nor refreshed and cherished by the fire of charity; so
that they truly seem to sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death. Moreover, among the faithful there is a greatly increasing
carelessness of ecclesiastical discipline, and of those ancient
institutions on which all Christian life rests, by which domestic
society is governed, and the sanctity of marriage is safeguarded;
the education of children is altogether neglected, or else it is
depraved by too indulgent blandishments, and the Church is even
robbed of the power of giving the young a Christian education;
there is a sad forgetfulness of Christian modesty especially in
the life and the dress of women; there is an unbridled cupidity of
transitory things, a want of moderation in civic affairs, an
unbounded ambition of popular favor, a depreciation of legitimate
authority, and lastly a contempt for the word of God, whereby
faith itself is injured, or is brought into proximate peril. But
all these evils as it were culminate in the cowardice and the
sloth of those who, after the manner of the sleeping and fleeing
disciples, wavering in their faith, miserably forsake Christ when
He is oppressed by anguish or surrounded by the satellites of
Satan, and in the perfidy of those others who following the
example of the traitor Judas, either partake of the holy table
rashly and sacrilegiously, or go over to the camp of the
enemy. And thus, even against our will, the thought rises in the mind
that now those days draw near of which Our Lord prophesied: 'And
because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow
cold' (Matth. xxiv, 12)." (Pope Pius XI, "Miserentissimus Redemptor",
1928)
"But
when We behold so much impiety, so much trampling under foot of
the most holy institutions, such great destruction of immortal
souls, and lastly such great contempt of the Divine Majesty, We
cannot refrain, Venerable Brethren, from pouring out the most
bitter sorrow by which We are oppressed, and from lifting up Our
voice with all the strength of the apostolic heart, in defense of
the outraged rights of God, and of the holy desires of the human
soul in its absolute need of God; and We do this the more readily
because these hostile hosts, raging with diabolical spirit, are
not content with declamation, but are striving with all their
strength to give effect to their nefarious plans as speedily as
possible. Woe to the race of men if God, being treated with such
contempt by the natures He has made, should leave an open course
to these floods of devastation, and should use them as scourges to
punish the world withal!" (Pope Pius XI, "Caritate
Christi Compulsi", 1932)
"If
We look into the kind of life men lead everywhere, it would be
impossible to avoid the conclusion that public and private morals
differ much from the precepts of the Gospel. Too sadly, alas, do
the words of the Apostle St. John apply to our age, 'all that is
in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the
concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life.' For in truth,
most men, with little care whence they come or whither they go,
place all their thoughts and care upon the weak and fleeting goods
of this life; contrary to nature and right reason they willingly
give themselves up to those ways of which their reason tells them
they should be the masters. It is a short step from the desire of
luxury to the striving after the means to obtain it. Hence arises
an unbridled greed for money, which blinds those whom it has led
captive, and in the fulfillment of its passion hurries them madly
along, often without regard for justice or injustice, and not
seldom accompanied by a disgraceful contempt for the poverty of
their neighbor. Thus many who live in the lap of luxury call
themselves brethren of the multitude whom in their heart of hearts
they despise; and in the same way with minds puffed up by pride,
they take no thought to obey any law, or fear any power. They call
self-love liberty, and think themselves 'born free like a wild
ass's colt. Snares and temptation to sin abound; We know that
impious or immoral dramas are exhibited on the stage; that books
and journals are written to jeer at virtue and ennoble crime; that
the very arts, which were intended to give pleasure and proper
recreation, have been made to minister to impurity. Nor can We
look to the future without fear, for new seeds of evil are sown,
and as it were poured into the heart of the rising
generation." (Pope Leo XIII, "Exeunte Iam Anno",
1888)
"...and
this may be called the most perilous of all these evils - the
enemies of all order, whether they be called Communists or by some
other name, exaggerating the very grave straits of the economic
crisis, in this great perturbation of morals, with extreme
audacity, direct all their efforts to one end, seeking to cast
away every bridle from their necks, and breaking the bonds of all
law both human and divine, wage an atrocious war against all
religion and against God Himself; in this it is their purpose to
uproot utterly all knowledge and sense of religion from the minds
of men, even from the tenderest age, for they know well that if
once the Divine law and knowledge were blotted out from the minds
of men there would now be nothing that they could not arrogate to
themselves. And thus we now see with our own eyes - what we have
not read of as happening anywhere before - impious men, agitated
by unspeakable fury, shamelessly lifting up a banner against God
and against all religion throughout the whole world. It is true,
indeed, that wicked men were never wanting, nor men who denied the
existence of God; but these last were very few in number, and,
being alone and singular, they either feared to express their evil
mind openly, or thought it inopportune to do so. The Psalmist,
inspired by the Divine Spirit, seems to hint this in those words:
'The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God' (Ps. xiii. 1,
lii. 1); as though he showed us such an impious man, as one
solitary in a multitude, denying that God his Maker exists, but
shutting up this sin in his innermost mind. But in this age of
ours, this most pernicious error is now propagated far and wide
amid the multitude, it is insinuated even in the popular schools,
and shows itself openly in the theaters; and in order that it may
be spread abroad as far as possible, its advocates seek aid from
the latest inventions, from what are called cinematographic
scenes, from gramophonic and radiophonic concerts and discourses;
and possessed of printing offices of their own, they print books
in all languages, and, taking a triumphant course, they publicly
display the monuments and documents of their impiety. Nor is this
enough; for dispersed among political, economical and military
parties, and closely associated with them, through their heralds,
by means of committees, by pictures and leaflets, and all other
possible means, they labor diligently in the evil work of
spreading their opinions among all classes and societies, and in
the public ways; and to carry this further, supported by the
authority and work of their universities, they succeed at last by
forceful industry in binding fast those who have incautiously
allowed themselves to be aggregated to their body. When We
consider all this careful labor devoted to the advantage of an
unlawful cause, that most sad complaint of Christ our Lord
spontaneously rises in our mind and on our lips: 'The children of
this world are wiser in their generation than the children of
light' (Luke xvi. 8)." (Pope Pius XI, "Caritate Christi
Compulsi", 1932)
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