Bishop Fulton Sheen: War and Guilt- The Spirit That Makes War

THE SPIRIT THAT MAKES WAR

Address delivered on December 15, 1940

This series of talks is a call to America to return to God ; not by lip-worship, but by prayer, penance, reparation, by rekindling in our consciences the Justice of God, and by elzblazoning before our eyes the Christ of Judgment in order that all of us, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics may, by a rebirth of the moral law, save America and salvage the world. Let us not fool ourselves ! Nothing short of contrition and humiliation before the Lord of the Universe can save us : unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he ratchets in vain that keeps it” (Psalms 126 :1) .

Before one can cure a disease one must diagnose it. This initial broadcast, therefore, is limited to the fundamental evil of the day : The spirit that makes war, the evil spirit that visits disaster upon Europe, the spirit that changes ploughshares into swords, the spirit we must conquer or die.

The three characteristic elates of this spirit are : First, it is irrational ; second, it is violent ; and third, it is atheistic.

We know what it means to be rational ; namely, to think before we act. We do not just suddenly find ourselves, for example, standing in a telephone Barth ; a reason preceded and determined our presence there. As St. John expressed it : “In the beginning was the Word” (John l:l)– first the Word, the Idea, the Thought, Reason ; then the action : (hand the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) .

The irrational is just the contrary. It is the primacy of action over idea : First you act and then you think why you did it. As Goethe put it : "In the beginning was the Deed." Reason exists, according to this philosophy, merely to justify action, or to rationalize an evil. Ideas are, as one jurist in America believes, just "instruments of power” ; that is, one uses an idea to further one’s power, and then when it ceases to be useful, one scraps it and substitutes another. Not justice but opportunism becomes the rule. Russia ruined France in that way by using the "Popular Front” as an ”instrument of power" and almost ruined us by using the "idea" of democracy to overthrow democracy. The idea of democracy was, to Communism, only a contrivance for the seizure of power ; it was not an ideal to be lived, as it is for you and me. Germany in like manner used the idea of Bolshevism as an ”instrument of power” to fool the simple until it was ready to join hands with its natural ally, Russia. The same irrationality was at work in Finland. Russia seized Finland and then justified its action on the ground that other nations might have invaded it. lf that irrationality becomes popular it will not be long until you will find robbers occupying your house on the pretext that they came to protect you from mythical robbers who might rob you next year.

That the modern world is inspired by irrationality is further proved by the fact that practically all revolutions were initiated without ideologies ; and even if a program was elaborated before the Revolution, it was abandoned soon after. First the power is seized, then a program developed. Law thus becomes not a mandate of reason,, but of the willwhatever the dictator decides is right!Because modern politics is irrational, it is unpredictable. If you and I hold certain doctrines our neighbors expect us to live up to them ; they can predict our actions to the extent that we are reasonable. But we can never predict what certain nations will do tomorrow, because unrestrained power is unpredictable. A final consequence of this irrationality is the glorification of myth, which has been defined as a slogan for evoking mass-enthusiasm. Hence we have the myth of "race" in Germany, the myth of ”class” in Russia, and the myth of "nation" in Italy. Because the myth is unreason or socialized emotion, its best expression is in marching armies. Vast armies of boys and girls are sent tramping– going nowhere, never being told where they are going, and soon beginning to care less. They are myths on the march. As this irrationality gets into our American blood it manifests itself in gullibility, and with a naive simplicity we believe everything that is told us about anyone, particularly the worst. We care not so much whether it be true ; we are concerned only with the fact that it bears repeating. Thus do we add our share to myth, and drop our grain of incense before the false god of irrationality, which exalts power over truth, action over the idea, apotheosizes immediacy, glorifies the uncriticized and uncriticizable affirmation, and promotes revolution whose end is chaos.

The second characteristic note of the modern world is violence. And violence, be it noted, follows from irrationality. Reason is the faculty which gives us goals, purposes, ends, and ideals. When a man loses the purpose of living, he becomes mad. A boiler, for example, has a purpose– namely the retention of steam at a given pressure for heat and power. The boiler receives its purpose from a human reason– the mind of an engineer. The moment the boiler loses the purpose imposed upon it by human reason, it explodes. And the moment society loses the purpose given to it by the Eternal Reason of God, it revolts.

Violence follows irrationality. Of course, there has always been violence in the world, but the violence of our day is different from the violence of the past in two respects. Violence in the past was based on an affirmation : Men loved something so much they resorted to force to achieve it. But today violence is grounded not on an affirmation, but on a negation : Men are violent not because they love something, but because they hate something.

Violence in the past ended either with the attainment of a purpose, or exhaustion, or by a return to the past. But today because violence has no ideology, it never ends. It is used to create and maintain a new aristocracy–not the aristocracy of blood, or ideas, or wealth, but the new aristocracy of power. This new elite does not care whom it serves, so long as it maintains itself in its privileged position. The elite in Germany today would be willing to serve Bolshevism tomorrow if that were the condition of retaining their booty, just as the elite in Russia were ready to serve Nazism and Fascism as the price of keeping their loot. Modern violence never ends ; if it stops for a moment it is only to create terror or to attack when the enemy believes he is at peace. Revolution exists for revolution ; violence is permanent– only its tempo changes.

This brings us to the third and final characteristic of the modern world : Atheism. Here we are not concerned with the individual atheist, for it is dubious if atheism ever gets beyond the lips into the heart. Modern atheism is not individual but social, the social enthronement of human pride and power. Not only is it social or organized, it is also not unbelief but belief. It may strike one as odd at first to be told that atheism is belief in God, but such is the fact. Modern atheism does not deny God : It believes in Him ; it believes in the Divinity of Christ, in the Eucharistic Presence, in the Vicar of Christ not as we believe with an illumined faith inspired by grace, but it believes like the demons in hell ! The Devil believes in the Divinity of Christ, in the Eucharist, in the Church, and yet believing he would destroy. Why was it that a few years ago when the Reds pillaged convents in Spain they would ask the sisters as they met them : ”Where is that bread you call God ?” If there be no God, then there is no Eucharist. If there be no Eucharist, then why make the distinction between the living bread of souls and the bread of bodies? It was not because they did not believe in the Eucharist, but because they did, not as we do, to worship, but as the devil does, to destroy. 

So it is with atheism today. You cannot explain either the intensity of organized atheism, with its persecution of religion in Mexico, Spain, Russia, Germany, Poland, Austria, and other countries, nor its violence, on the assumption that religion is only a myth or the opium of the people. Men do not go into a rage over an illusion ; they do not combat phantoms with pitchforks, nor dynamite dreams, nor bomb illusions, nor assassinate fancies, nor throw themselves into frenzies of hate against the man in the moon. The present day violence against religion can be explained only by the reality of that which is persecuted, namely, God Himself. 

A few years ago I encountered a young atheist in the vestibule of a Catholic Church in London who, boasting of her atheism, shouted : "Every night I go out to Hyde Park and talk against God. I urge my listeners to drive the illusion from the earth. I circulate England, Scotland, and Wales with pamphlets denouncing a belief in God." When she drew a deep breath thus giving me my just opportunity to speak I said to her : "Suppose I went across the street here to Soho Square and every night talked against 20-footed ghosts and 10-legged centaurs ; suppose I circulated England, Scotland. and Wales with pamphlets denouncing a belief in 20-footed ghosts and 10-legged centaurs. What would happen to me?" She said : "You would be crazy ; they would lock you up." "Correct," said I "Now, tell me, why don’t they lock you up ? Don’t you put God in exactly the same category of illusion as that in which I put a 20 footed ghost and a 10-legged centaur? Why would I be crazy and not you ?” I had to tell her the answer : "Because if I attacked ghosts or centaurs the reason of men and the tradition of mankind would tell me I was attacking a figment of my imagination– which is a mark of insanity. But when you attack God you are not attacking an illusion but something just as real as the thrust of a sword or an embrace. It is the reality of God which saves you from insanity and it is the reality of God which gives substance and energy to your attacks." And she answered : "I hate you !” To which I answered : "Now you have answered me. Atheism is not a doctrine, it is a cry of wrath.”

Universalize the case and you have the explanation for the vehemence and ferocity of modern atheism. It could not so hate a myth.  lf there were no God, the rage of atheism would be without founda’ zion. They destroy only because there is something to be destroyed. In a word, they believe. Only where the image of God is cap there be the counterfeit ; man car, set himself up as God only because he came from God. Behind every persecution, every human perversion, and every insolence to rid the world of Him, the Divine Original shines forth. Men could not be godless without God ; they could not curse God if they were not first loved by God. The wrath of God under which every atheist stands is the Divine Love, which has become a force opposed to him because he has turned against God. The God whom the atheist hates is the God whom the believer loves ; God is not hate save to him who hates. 

Morality, piety, love of God, are constant re proaches to the atheists immorality and their bur dened consciences. They falsely believe that remorse of conscience, a sense of guilt, and the effects of sin, are the creation of priests and religious ; if they could kill all priests, ministers, and rabbis, and raze all churches and synagogues, they could sin with impunity, do wrong without feeling guilty, and lift themselves up to the insane stage where there is no longer a distinction between good and evil and therefore one where man is God and God is nought. They cannot drive God out of the world, but they seek to banish His representatives. That is why they persecute! But instead of scaling the heavens and making themselves as gods, they only lay waste the earth.

This is the spirit that makes modern war. Polilitical and economic upheavals are only symptoms of the more radical evil, which is born of irrationality because human reason lost its roots when it abandoned the Eternal Reason of God ; born of violence, because purposeless living is madness ; and born of atheism, because uneasy consciences must persecute goodness. 

What are we going to do about it? One thing, admit our guilt– our guilt, all of us, Americans as well as Europeans, for we too have let God slip from our grasp. Then, conscious of guilt, let us get down on our knees once again and with prayer, chastened by penance, ask God whom we have offended to forgive us our sins.

Our unity must be in God or we will fall as other nations that have abandoned God have fallen and will fall. There are too many divisions and classes among us in America now ; too many hates, too few deep loves ; too much tolerance based on expediency and not enough tolerance grounded in charity ; too much tolerance of evil, not enough intolerance for righteousness. 

There can be differences in our national life without animosity, varying lights of conscience without bitterness, provided we have a really good reason for loving one another. And the only good reason for loving everyone, whomsoever he be, is because he is a creature of God, redeemed by the precious blood of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This is important, for unfortunately the basis of unity among many of us is a common hate, and too often a hatred of a person rather than a hatred of wrong. We know whom we hate, but whom do we love? The most frightening symptom of this negative spirit is the number of people who will hiss in a motion picture theatre at the picture of one whom they hate. There is something that crawls on the round that makes a noise like that, and our imitatation of it is the betrayal of the profound misery of our souls. 

We cannot and we must not hate any person whom God made– even though he be our enemy. But in forgetting evil we have substituted a hatred of persons. It is very well for us to sing ”God Bless America," but how can He bless us, if we hate? How can He bless us unless we deserve the blessing? Our greatest enemy is not outside our shores ; it is not even in our saboteurs, secret agents, and Fifth Columnists ; it is in our souls– our forgetfulness of the God of Justice and Love. We are all as sheep going astray!  May we return to the Good Shepherd of our souls who alone can save!