It looks that way! All the news is bad. The world is going to hell. That's the bad news!
But we on the road, together, to heaven. That's the good news!
Looking at the world today and reviewing the 75 years of my life, I see: things are getting worse. Not better.
I was born and raised in a three-part world: Our world, we called the "free world", was The West, Europe and USA and allies, prosperous and strong, enjoying the freedoms of markets, speech, religion, assembly, rule of law and democracy. The second world was Communism, flowing from the USSR. The "third world" was the poor countries, undeveloped, suffering great poverty. "Our world" was confident, expansive, innovative, vibrant. Scientific advancement, flourishing churches, large families, immense influence overseas, fiercely competitive with the communist system. There was a deep sense of national unity, having prevailed in WWII, we were united in opposing Communism. Notwithstanding tensions and competition, there was an underlying unity between Republicans and Democrats, Protestants/Catholics/Jews, capital and labor, ethnicities and races. Afro-Americans, after the war, made immense strides that culminated in the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Graduating high school in 1965 at the age of 18, I aspired to become a Maryknoll missionary and help people in the "third world" by bringing them a combination of the Catholic faith and American ingenuity/prosperity.
On the world scene, things are now worse than they have been since the defeat of Hitler, 1945: an expansive, powerful, totalitarian China; aggressive, imperial Russia waging war in the Ukraine; terrorism; global warming; irrational populisms; widespread hunger; crime and gun violence surging in our cities; coronavirus; and an unstable global economy.
But within our own United States the trajectory is even worse: life expectancy declining, polarized politics, epidemics of addiction, deaths of despair, mental illness, pornography, urban crime, broken families, the dissolution of intermediate communities...to name a few.
I hope I am wrong about things getting worse. But if I am right, how are you to navigate a world becoming like a Gotham without Batman? I offer you three Catholic dualities that might help:
1. The World as God's Splendid Creation and the World as Systemic Opposition to God
The World as God's creation in the Splendor of its Truth-Beauty-Goodness is in sharpest contrast to the World, now fallen, opposed to God, corrupt, deceptive, evil. Everything that is, is created by God, and is radiant with Splendor. And so an attitude that is Catholic/catholic will welcome and appreciate anything that is true and good and beautiful. At the very same time, we live in a world distant from and even opposed to God and pulling us away from Christ and his gospel. And so we are always involved in a creative, fascinating two-way drama: receiving and celebrating what is Given; and renouncing the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil that pull us from God.
2. Heaven: Our Destiny and Our Path
You are created for heaven, an eternity of bliss, not for this earth which is temporary and passing. But heaven does not begin at death; it begins here on earth. When you are in the state of grace, in communion with God, even while still a sinner, you are already participating in heaven, even as you are moving towards it. Every genuine prayer, act of thanks and praise, kindness, forgiveness, apology for wrong-doing, confession of sin, and virtuous action is already a little bit of heaven here on earth. You need not worry about others; but to the extent that you are surrendering to God's presence, you will be, by a mysterious and wonderous dispensation, invisibly pulling others along with you. Baptism gets you into heaven (its beginning) and confirmation strengthens you to help others in. You need not focus on changing anyone, but only keep your eyes on Jesus. He will work through you and draw others to himself as you become a transparent icon of his holiness.
3. Benedict Option and A Christian Strategy
Lastly, two political strategies that are deeply Catholic and contrasting but complementary.
The Benedict Option of Rod Dreher recalls the fall of the Roman Empire and the response of St. Benedict. He did not reform that doomed system, but went off quietly to pray with others in monasteries. His movement of retreat spread across that darkening continent and slowly the Benedictine monasteries became the nucleus for a new civilization: medieval Christendom. So, Dreher is very negative about the overall direction of our society and calls us to largely (but of course not absolutely) withdraw from mainstream institutions to focus our attention and energy on our immediate families, faith communities, and the concrete, small institutions that flow into and out of them. We might recall that only two human organizations were created by God: marriage and the family were created in the Garden of Eden and the Church was born at the foot of the cross and on Pentecost. All other institutions are passing. So we do well always strengthen and deepen these two and the cultural web that surrounds and protects them.
"A Christian Strategy" was proposed by Harvard law professor and integralist Adrian Vermule. He recalls the great Old Testament figures (Joseph, Daniel, Judith) who served their people by strategically serving the enslaving empire, Egyptian or Babylonian, by prudently serving those in power to protect their people and at the same time advance what was truly best for the Empire. Vermule advises that we not align ourselves too closely with any political party or partisan ideology but remain free to collaborate with various parties in pursuit of what is true, good and just.
These two are like our respiration: we breath in and then we breath out. And so, the Benedict Option has us withdraw to breath in the grace and strength of God as the Christian Strategy has us engage, wisely, with the broader society in advancing all that is good. The two movements make for a wholesome and catholic, Catholic politics.
Conclusion
What does the future hold for our society and our globe? Are we heading for a catastrophe? Or for steady decline and eventual domination by Communism, Jihadism, populist fascism and the technocratic secularism of Cultural Liberalism?
I do not believe in any inexorable "arc of history." There is no evolutionary or progressive logic by which we moving to some secular utopia, whether socialist, or scientific-technological-enlightenment, or sexually liberated from a repressive past. Nor is our decline inevitable.
Societies rise and fall constantly. The Roman Empire fell. The Pax Americana of 1945-2000 is disintegrating. But history is surprising, serendipitous, ironic, random, tragic and delightful. Above all human history, personal or communal or global, is dramatic. It is the interplay of Freedoms! Every human person is an agent of freedom. As is every community. And this world is the arena in which the conflict between heaven and hell is waged, in every human heart and community.
Life on earth is an absolute binary: we are moving into the Kingdom of God or the Realm of the Deceiver. That is what matters. And the chiaroscoro (the contrast of light/darkness in great Renaissance art) of life is such that the light of Christ shines all the more brightly in the darkness of evil...as in the witness of the martyrs.
And so we return to our question: Is the world going to hell? Yes! Absolutely! Much of this fallen world is entrapped in sin, moving more deeply in that direction, and on the road to perdition.
But we who have been grasped by Jesus Christ are on an entirely different itinerary. Of course we share the weakness and sinfulness common to our race. But that is not the definitive word for us. Rather, we are destined for eternal glory in Jesus, in the Father, in the Holy Spirit and with Mary, Joseph and all the saints and angels. And our path there is already a participation in that Joy.
So, I exhort you: Be not distressed by our politics, news and current events! Courage! Christ is present with us, bringing us always vitality, strength, hope and courage. He is always making all things New! Draw always closer to your faith, your Church, your family and the entire network that supports that! Be not timid in taking your place in the broader world and witnessing to the Truth you have received!
And in all things give thanks in Jesus our Lord!
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