Yes, to some extent. I’m not married or dating, but I do fear the prospect of raising children in the Catholic faith in this age. Evil is called good and celebrated, while good is called evil and punished. This is nothing new, of course, but the internet and pervasive media exposure have had an amplifying effect. However, I think this fear is misplaced, even if it is natural.
We only have to look at the last 200 years to find plenty of far more distressing times. In that time span, Europe was reeling from Napoleon’s conquest and subsequent collapse, with a great deal of fear about the future. The system devised in the 1600s to prevent war in Europe proved unable to stop Napoleon’s march across it. After his defeat, the Russian Tsar Alexander I stood in Paris as the victor and announced that a new order of international affairs would begin, striking a silent fear into the hearts of Europeans, even as they applauded the Tsar for his defeat of Napoleon. What would the future hold for Europe with the existing order shattered?
In the US, the War of 1812 threatened to break apart the republic before it ever got settled. One could easily forgive an American for thinking that this new American Experiment was about to be over. While Europe’s old structure had been demolished by Napoleon, the United States had barely a chance to create its own before war threatened to rip it away.
Europe was racked with instability in 1848 with France, Germany, the Italian states, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, Ireland, and the Austrian Empire all experiencing revolutions. If one did not buy into the optimism of the revolutionary spirit–and there was no evidence to suggest that things would improve–the future would likely have been fraught with peril. How could Europe heal itself with virtually every state being turned over?
As time moved on through to the mid 1800s, the United States again faced an existential threat, this time from civil war. A northerner would likely have seen the nation teetering on the brink of destruction. Could the Union hold, or would secession be a fatal wound? A southerner would be left wondering what would come next in case of either defeat or victory. Could the Confederacy exist on its own without the northern manufacturing base? Or if defeated, how would it be treated by the victors? The assasination of Lincoln seemed to confirm the worst fears of many that this was indeed a fatal blow.
At the same time as the US civil war, Taiping Rebellion in China led to death on an absolutely catastrophic scale. Estimates range from 20-30 million dead in the14 years it raged, with some estimates going over 100 million. It was a true total war, with all facets of society involved and affected, and astonishing acts of repression from the Qing dynasty in the aftermath.
The 1870s saw the reunifcation of Germany under Bismarck. France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war had many French actually advocating a return to the monarchy. Political resistance then was not just within the system; it also included a complete rejection of it. It would be akin to the losing party in the US advocating the states become British colonies again. Once more, the status quo looked like it was about to collapse.
WWI speaks for itself. In addition to the deaths of 16 million, it also resulted in the deaths of 4 empires. If there was ever a time to question the direction of humanity, this was it. WWII, the Cold War, the continual threat of nuclear destruction, the rise of violent Islamism, the fall of the Soviet Union, global terrorism, the Arab Spring, and the rise of ISIS need little explanation.
There’s plenty more that could go in here, and it still leaves out the previous 1800 years of history that Christians had to live through. As a Catholic, charting a course through all this uncertainty in addition to the domestic change that accompanied it may be impossible to do without fear. Yet, plenty of Catholics held on to their faith through extreme circumstances. Plenty of Catholics raised their children in the faith. Our problems today always seem worse than they are because we see them in the present as they happen, not as another addition to a long series of events, many of which were worse, yet survivable.
I believe that God will give us the grace necessary to handle whatever is thrown at us. Fear is not realistic. It assumes that God will give us tasks and trials we can’t endure or overcome, which is not true.
what makes you think that it’s changing? I need something to hold onto, haha.
