In Nigeria, a Christian is martyred by Jihadists every other hour. Over the last 13 years, 45,644 deaths; 2.543 in 2022 alone. More martyrdoms in that county than in the rest of the world. Meanwhile, 97% of Catholics there attend the Eucharist on Sunday. The highest percent in the world. In the USA the percentage is 17%, down from 20% before the coronavirus. We have a lot to learn from the Nigerians. Let's channel our Lenten practices in prayer for them.
In China 100,000 yearly are killed to harvest healthy organs for the rich and powerful who need transplants. The average age is 28, always healthy, mostly minorities like Uyghurs, Christians, Tibetan Buddhists.
Polls have over 90% of Russians supporting the invasion of the Ukraine. That includes the Patriarch of Moscow and much of the Russian Orthodox clergy.
In some countries, there are 25% more male births due to abortion of females for gender selection. About 140 million more women would be alive today if not for this femicide. This has immeasurable consequences including male violence, abuse of women, human trafficking, and social chaos.
Suicide attempts by teen girls in the USA increased 50% in 2020 (only 5.7% increase for boys.) In that same year, 134 teens in California died from suicide, only 23 minors (including children) died of Covid. In 2021, 57% of teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless, double the number of boys, a 60% increase over the last decade. 30% seriously considered suicide, up 60% in a decade.18% experienced sexual violence in the past year, up 20% in 4 years. 10% were raped.
In 2010 we had 20,000 deaths from overdose; in 2017 there were 75,000. In 2021 it was up to 106,000. The worst afflicted are white, unemployed, non-college men.
Bad News. Very Bad News.
The surge in Evil, in many ways, across our world, is like nothing we have seen in my 75 year lifetime, really since WWII: expansive, totalitarian China; imperialist Russia; Jihadist terror; violence against women in unthinkable forms and immense magnitude; a pandemic of abortions; global warming; energy shortage and hunger in the poor countries. Within the West and the USA: deaths of despair; criminal violence; vicious polarization and hatred; loss of religious practice; devastation of the traditional family; loss of trust in all institutions and much more.
We would have to go back to 1941 to see something comparable: worldwide depression, widespread poverty and unemployment, warfare in the USA between capital and labor; expansive evil empires in Germany, Russia and Japan. In my own family: the Laracys had lost their farm; on the Gallagher side my grandfather Bill suffered a mental breakdown and died of unknown causes in a state institution (my mother speculated about electroshock treatment; I wondered about a successful suicide since he had already attempted one.) At that time, however, coming out of the Great Depression, faith and family structure were strong. There was a depth and unity of purpose, rooted in loyalty to God and Family and Country, that fortified us to defeat the Axis of Evil. That is no longer true of our society!
Our world today resembles the beginning of the Star Wars saga: the Empire is all-powerful and completing the Death-Star; the rebellion is weak and in hiding; the Jedi are dead or out of sight. It resembles the world of Lord of the Rings: The powers of Mordor, terrifyingly formidable, are on the move; the resistance is splintered and weak. Those worlds were blessed to have two Jedi and allies; and the little Hobbits, Aragon, Gandalf, Galadriel, Dwarfs and Elves. All humble, modest, vulnerable! We have something similar in our world! More on that below!
The World of My Lifetime
Born in the afterglow of the victory over Hitler and Japan, I entered a world of unprecedented growth, prosperity and peace. Our urban, ethnic Catholic world was one of confidence, full employment for men, large families, a strong Church, expanding educational and career options, and certainty about our place in America and the world. Not a perfect world! But awareness of social injustice, especially against blacks, was on the rise and culminated with Doctor King in the 1960s. The women in my world (such as my mother) were grateful to God for deliverance from the Great Depression and the War, happy with all their children and hard-working husbands, their faith, their newfound prosperity. The single sorrow was that of women left unmarried by the men who died overseas; but they generously, free of resentment or grievance, channeled their love to family, work and Church.
In my home we had America Magazine, NY Times, and Maryknoll Magazine. With these, from my teen years, I followed with interest the two defining dramas of the time: the Cold War with the Soviet Union; and the suffering and development of the poor, so-called "third" world. The nuclear bomb was a cloud over us always; but my positive temperament never registered that as a real threat. No doubt by God's grace, the deterrence policy of MAD (mutual assured destruction: if one struck, both would be destroyed as well) actually worked. So we lived for 75 years in a world of widespread (not perfect) peace and increasing prosperity. Hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty, even in China, by global capitalism and technology. Wars were, for the most part, not global but local and contained. Genocidal outbreaks (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia) were distant from us. The exception for us was the Vietnam War, a trauma that scandalized and polarized us. Coinciding with the Cultural Revolution, that conflict left us as an entirely new society, now deeply divided over the very purpose and nature of life.
In the USA, within a very few years, an entirely new religion-culture-politics surged to reject Christianity and take control of our elite institutions of media, Democratic Party, higher education, law, medicine and entertainment. These Secular Progressives (or Liberals) affirmed: detachment from or resistance to God, break with tradition, rejection of authority other than the self, free sexuality, systemic killing of the unborn and incompetent, deconstruction of gender into a self-project, enhanced power of the State to enforce this ideology, destruction of marriage and family, elimination of smaller communities (Church, extended family, voluntary organizations), global capitalism, boundless confidence in technology, and exaltation of the inflated, isolated Ego. The Culture War between secular progressives and traditional Christians was engaged. It has been waged for half a century. It is getting worse. It is the defining reality of our time.
The Five Kingdoms
Our world, globally, is warfare between five competing kingdoms: Communism, Jihadism, Fascism, Secular Progressivism, and Christianity (and allies like Judaism, and even forms of Islam).
Communism, primarily in China but also North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, is the most virulent, powerful and ominous. China is expanding its reach even into our own American economy, politics and culture. It is like we are back facing Japan/Germany in the 1930s or Soviet Russia 1945-89.
Jihadism is dispersed in non-governmental terrorist groups but also has a state expression in Iran which is allying itself with Russia and China. A mitigating factor, especially in the Middle East, is that the Shiite terrorism of Iran is itself in conflict with Sunni fanaticism (Al Queda, ISIS) as well as the wealthy Sharia-law gulf states (Saudi Arabia, etc.). Additionally we have in the West and globally moderate, peaceful expressions of Islam. So Jihadism is not a united front and so less threatening than the monolithic Chinese communism.
Fascism finds expression in Putin, his invasion and authoritarian grip on Russia. Paradoxically, however, this blends with a Christian traditionalism that upholds the received moral values. He postures as a defender of tradition against the Secular Progressivism of the West. Prior to the invasion, he attracted support from the Right across the West as an unlikely champion of the moral order. While that approval has happily vanished it remains astonishingly that he maintains the backing of his people. The temptation to fascism is always with usj. During the cold war, the USA often collaborated with authoritarian states against the greater threat. The tyrant Saddam Hussein was beneficent to Christian institutions as they did not contest his power. And so there are ways in which traditional Christians can cooperate with fascists, as they can on different issues with Progressives, moderate (not Jihadist) Moslems, and (more rarely) Communists (global warming, health, trade.)
Secular Progressivism is, for us Catholics in the USA, the enemy near at hand. In that sense it is our worst enemy, even as we ally ourselves with them against Fascism, Communism, and Jihadism. The problem is that we as a society, at war with ourselves, lack the unity of purpose to stand strong against the three global threats. With the three aligning themselves (Iran, Russia, China) we face an axis of evil and power that we can only contain and resist with a united front. The tragedy is that we are at war, Culture War, with ourselves.
Christianity Realistically, we have to face even worse news: within our own Church, and the broader Christian world, we are also at war. The powerful liberal or progressive wing of the Church is aligned with Western elites and renounces the Catholic faith as misogynist (no women priests), homophobic, moralistic, authoritarian, ignorant and reactionary. The Trojan Horse has entered our city. We have enemies within our own home!
We find ourselves fighting five wars at the same time: against communism, fascism, jihadism across the globe; against secular progressives in our society; and in defense of our own way of life within the Church. This does not even include combat with global warming, world hunger, and the plight of refugees.
The "World" as Systemically Opposed to God
Our Catholic faith teaches us to receive the "world," created Good-True-Beautiful by God, as a gift, gratefully, and delight-cherish-protect-develop it. But there is the other, negative meaning of "world" as aligned with the flesh and the devil in systemic revolt against God.
This is the world we must recognize, renounce, combat, and endure. This world is under Satan. This is the world we are "in but not of," the world out of which we are called. This is a domain of evil that we cannot eliminate by any intentions, efforts or policy of our own. This is the world that tortured and killed Christ and all his martyrs. This is a hard, durable, aggressive domain that will be with us to the end of time. The is the world which we fight, fiercely, in agonistic combat until our death. This is the world Christ described: "The gates of hell shall not prevail."
There seems to be an ebb and flow of the good and the bad, a rhythm in every life and community, a cycle or rotation between times of good/blessing and those of suffering/evil. The Dark Kingdom waxes and wanes. My parents came of age and entered adulthood during the Depression and into World War II: times of widespread suffering. The crucible of suffering forged the sterling character and deep faith of the "Great Generation." My generation, baby boomers, were born into a time of safety and comfort. Tragically, indulged and coddled, we did not preserve the spiritual/moral legacy of our parents. It may be that our world is entering another dark night of conflict and travail and you will have the opportunity to retrieve the virtue and heroism of our parents.
The World is Going to Hell
This invisible, systemic, spiritual organism, "The World," becomes present and physical in a boundless manner of ways in every single human group (excepting the Holy Family.) As every person, so every community adopts patterns of thought, attitude, belief that oppose God. It can be the teen peer groups gossiping, excluding, and cyber-shaming; the truck drivers sharing their pornography; the wealthy hoarding their money or the privileged their power. Families have habits of anger, jealousy, addiction, arrogance, impatience, contempt which are passed by generation. Religious and renewal communities, in their very zeal and devotion, are prone to arrogance, pride, detachment, clericalism, rigidity and a plague of toxicities. This applies to every rectory, convent, monastery, and religious order or movement. We now know, more than previously, that the Vatican and College of Cardinals have hidden systems of financial and sexual wrongdoing.
This "world" we know is passing away; it is going to hell. We do well to allow it to go to hell. In this life we cannot eliminate it. We renounce, resist...to death. Often we must suffer it. By patience, endurance and forgiveness of our persecutors we fortify ourselves in Love and build God's Kingdom, often in hidden, mysterious ways.
Chiaroscuro
In painting, the strong contrast between light and dark (particularly Caravaggio) is called chiaroscuro. Father Benedict Groeschel, (of happy memory, a founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal) called our attention to the chiaroscuro in human life: when evil prevails the light shines all the stronger. Think Saint Maximillian Kolbe and St.Theresa Benedicta of the Cross in the dark of the concentration camps. This image gives us great encouragement: moving into a darkening world we are confident that our light, that of the Gospel and God's grace, will shine all the more brightly.
Christ, on Calvary, triumphed over "the world." We who live in him are already free of it, victorious over it...even as we need to endure its attacks. Ours is an interior peace, certainty, clarity, and fortitude that is entirely triumphant over the many "worlds" that attack, seduce and deceive us. With our cooperation, the Holy Spirit will inflame our hearts/spirits/intellects/wills with a blazing fire that will enlighten and warm a world grown dark and cold as we:
Enter into intimacy with Jesus and his Father in the Holy Spirit.
Gather our sins, weaknesses, failings and fall into the loving arms of Christ who fell three times for us on the way of the cross and remains on the ground waiting to receive us.
Gather within the Church with others on this road of penance and holiness, encouraging each other in the sacramental life, centered in Eucharist and confession of sins, and constant conversation with the Word of God.
Gratefully embrace our masculinity and femininity, however flawed, as a radiance from heaven. Pray, wait, seek and finally surrender to a vowed "state of life" as married or religious.
Renounce, firmly-confidently-decisively, the lies of the world and the devil in the holy name of Jesus.
Befriend the poor, suffering, lonely, discouraged.
Witness gently, humbly, clearly, always to the Truth; always in Love.
In this way will you perform your specific mission, however small and humble, assigned to you alone, in the great Drama that is enfolding before us...as did in their (albeit fictional) time Obi-Wan, Yoda, Luke, Aragon, Galadriel, Gandalf, Sam and Frodo.
In this way we build, with Christ, slowly and patiently, the Kingdom of God on earth, a Kingdom against which "the gates of hell shall not prevail."
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