Dr. Peter Kreeft, a highly respected professor of Catholic philosophy, has written and said over and over again that what made 1960s special there was that at that time there was a gigantic COLLAPSE in the Catholic Church’s resistance in the West (USA and Europe, etc.) to the decadent sexual and social mores.
These decadent sexual values were strong in parts of society in the 1920s (the Roaring 20s), in the “Restoration” period in English history (among the upper class), and in ancient Rome, during the Renaissance (just check out all the lewd and crude sexual references in the plays and poems of Shakespeare, someone supposed to have been a Catholic of some sort), and at other times.
What the 1960s and 1970s different was that the Catholic resistance collapsed. The new sexual and social mores became prevalent among most CATHOLICS for the first time. Therefore, no one forced these new sexual and social mores on Catholics. Catholic, in large numbers, simply opted to go in that direction and no one stopped them. And, no today, we have the mess we are in.
Therefore, blaming outsiders (outside the Catholic Church) doesn’t seem apropos. No radical feminists ever had the power to force radical feminism onto any Catholic family or university. We Catholics are not victims of powerful, nefarious forces outside our control. We don’t need to fight a Culture War against external enemies.
That’s the only think that will do any good. Rush Limbaugh-type trashing of Liberals and Feminists feels good, for a moment, and then goes on to accomplish NOTHING.
The Catholic Church is the Chose Nation of today. It is the job of the Catholic People to steer clear of non-Catholic ideologies and practices regarding sexuality and marriage.
YET, for the last 40 or so years, we’ve gone adopted wholesale the mores of the dominant pagan culture. Now we suffer.
For some, the solution is to ATTACK and ATTACK and vilify these outsiders who promote “free love” and divorce and so on.
But Liberals and Feminists are FORCING nothing on us. They don’t force Catholics to divorce, fornicate, and abort at the same rates as atheists and the general population of Americans.
So, I wish we could be logical, and regain our senses, and do what needs to be done, rather than wasting all this energy in imitating the self proclaimed radio “doctor of democracy.”
Dear Bartalome Casas,
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response.
By way of reply may I just say, dear friend, that I would wholeheartedly concur with what you have said above. You make some very insightful remarks, which I think need to be heard today.
Mr. Kreeft is quite correct, It admits of no doubt that there has been, since the 1960’s, a monumental failure on the part of contemporary Catholics to counteract the destructive impact of the sexual revolution, including radical fanatical femenism. This is a sad indictment upon the modern Church, which has not only shamefully permitted this to happen, but, alas, has also trimed its sails and even taken its cue from the prevailing decadent culture. If evidence is needed to support that assertion, then you only have to read many of the threads on these boards. There is also a refusal to hear what the Church has said respecting various issues, prior to the 1960’s, as if
this Sacred Tradtion is no longer relevant. Undeniably, multitudes of contemporary Catholics have adopted a hand in hand with the world type of religious practice, which refuses the call to sanctity and separation from the godless world, calling that “prissy Puritanism” (not that the Protestant Puritan saints could not teach us a thing or two about living a devout life).
Having said that, I do not think that we should underestimate the iniquitous external enemies of our most holy religion, my dear friend, such as radical aberrant femenism. Catholics today need to wake up and be perpetually vigilant against the godless central assault of post-Christian secularism. Many Catholics are lily-livered and fret overmuch about damaging the Church’s credibility by being to austere and world-denying. Some are even doubtful about ‘imposing’ the Christian moral code on the public in general. This is tragic to say the very least. Western civilisation has by and large established its judicial system and its code of law on the the basis of Judaeo-Christian formulations, and let us never be ashamed to declare that from the housetops.
We must needs get our own house in order, to be sure, but we must also refute and expose the errors/evils of the anti-Christian movements which are inimical to our most holy faith. We have an obligation to denounce the prevailing wicked pagan culture, which promotes “free love” and the normalization of homosexual deviant acts; which seeks to blur the distinction between the sexes; which supports co-habitation of the unmarried; which support abortion etc. It would be deriliction of Christian duty to hold our peace.
Catholics need to remind themselves that the post-Christian agenda is for the destruction of morality, or at least the relativization of morality - tantamount to much the same thing in the final analysis.
Certainly there were problems prior to the 1960’s, but I think it is incontrovertible that the sexual and moral revoution had a seismic impact, never witnessed hitherto. Along came the that “whole generation with a new explanation”; along came that decade of decadence, the unhappy effects of which are still being felt today. There
is a culture war to be fought and we must be on the Lord’s side.
God bless and thankyou for your contribution, my dear friend.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
.
