Things Worth Dying For by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Post 3

This is the third post on Things Worth Dying by Archbishop Chaput. 

You can find post #1 here. 

Post #2 here.  

  

Here’s how I breakdown chapter six.

(1) Ideology as Religion—Zamyatin’s novel, We—A Noble Idea Turned Poisonous—American Idea Anchored in Pragmatism—French Revolution Anchored in Secular Ideology—Human Reason Over Divine Revelation.

(2) Nazi Ideology in Opposition to Divine Revelation—Scientific Marxism of the Soviet Union—All Have Roots in the French Revolution—Tocqueville on the French Revolution—French Revolution as Anti Christian—Modern Revolutions are Shaped by Christianity—Ideologies Have Consequences.

(3) Supercomputing—Human Endeavor—Tools—Knowledge vs. Wisdom—Scientism as Modern Ideology—Yuval Noah Harari’s Decoupling—A World Ruled by Science.

(4) Rod Sterling’s “The Caterpillar”—Metaphor for Ideologies—Technology Driven Culture—World of Everything Here and Now—The Church and the Faults of the Past—The Church is Not an Ideology—Christianity is Alive Because of Jesus Christ.

The general gist of each of the sections can be articulated as thus:

(1) “The roots of modern revolutionary impulse” can be traced to the French Revolution and its antecedents. 

(2) “Ideas, and the ideologies and the system of thought they breed, have consequences,” and the mass killings from the French Revolution to the present are the horrible consequences.

(3) Scientism is the most current ideology, and equally holding the potential for human catastrophe.

.(4) The Christian faith is not an ideology because its “beating heart” is love, and that love is Jesus Christ.

And so a summing statement of chapter six cold be thus: Since the French Revolution to the present, ideologies have rested on the notion of perfecting human society and has had catastrophic consequences.  All these ideologies fail because they either fail to take the love that stems from God as its operating mode or reject that love outright. 

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My Comment:

I did a search on YouTube for that Night Gallery story the Abp mentions, "The Caterpillar. I couldn't find it. But I did find this man's rating of the ten best Night Gallery stories and he had "The Caterpillar" as the tops by far. Worth watching.

 

If someone finds the actual full episode, please post a link; I would love to see it.

My Comment:

Perhaps it’s not controversial—or perhaps it is, and please discuss if you think it is—that all these modern ideologies stem from the French Revolution, with all of them leading to the mass killings of the centuries past.  It is also interesting that he concludes these panoply of “isms” with the current fad of scientism.  In my opinion all these “isms” are a version of scientism of their particular day.  All of them believed they had a new approach to managing human society that it was based on a scientific principle, either man as being an animal or human being as merely a biological device.  It reduced the soul and therefore the dignity out of man.  Remember the Enlightenment based their notions on experiment and the scientific method.  The metric system came out of the Enlightenment.  Certainly there are technological positives that have come out of that, but stripping God out of humanity and society has led to devastating consequences.  Science has always been at the heart of this.  Think of how much Freudian psychology, despite it being a complete fallacy and unscientific, has altered our notion of man and human sexuality.  They are still trying to alter human sexuality based on pseudo-scientific notions of sexuality.  Today’s modern world view can not only be traced to the French Revolution, but is itself the same world view.

 

By the way, I could never and still can’t understand why they celebrate Bastille Day.  This was the beginning of the French Revolution and its homicidal events, leading to tens of thousands of deaths under the Reign of Terror.  And then factor in the Napoleonic Wars that came afterward, and the deaths are in the millions.  Bastille Day should be a moment of national shame, not celebration.

Frances Replied:

Archbishop Chaput has a great fondness for the movie “Casablanca,” and I think most of us consider it one of the best movies of all time. Remember, however, one of the highlights of that film, the moment when Viktor Laszlo instructs the band to play “La Marseillaise,” one of the most familiar national anthems in history. It’s a wonderful, exhilarating scene — but have all of us read the English translation of the song’s lyrics? They’re quite a surprise.

My Reply to Frances:

Good heavens, I didn't know. Hitler could have written that. You can hear it with English subtitles here:

 

Catherine Replied to My Comment:

I agree with you, Manny, that the modern ideologies stem from the French Revolution. And while their beliefs of enlightenment based on scientific principle are what they tout as driving their ideology, they aren't without their human elements of avarice, manipulation, and egoism. At the beginning of the Revolution, the clergy were forced to sign the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in order to ensure the clergy's fidelity to the French government rather than the Church in Rome. In spite of some of the abuses that existed in the Church in France, the people were still faithful and devout in their Catholic beliefs. The Catholic priest in the villages played a central role in the lives of the people, much to the chagrin of the revolutionaries. So it was their intention to use the clergy, manipulating them to sign the oath and prohibiting them from preaching anything contrary to the tenets of the Revolution. The priests were no longer paid through the Church but rather through the revolutionary government. Those that didn't sign the oath faced severe chastisements such as removal of financial support and, in some cases, the ultimate sacrifice of martyrdom. While most religious orders were suppressed and disbanded, charitable orders were allowed to continue, which meant keeping the schools and hospitals functioning. These were purely selfish reasons as at that time the Church was the primary provider of these services. Of course restrictions were put in place. Schools were not allowed to teach the Faith but instead the glories of the Revolution. The sisters who served in the hospitals were not allowed to wear their habits. Then there was the financial component, where the greed comes in. The seizing of the Church properties wasn't just about trying to eradicate the Church. The French economy was in a terrible state, not only because of the famine in 1788 but their involvement in wars that they couldn't afford. The French Church was seen as this big cash cow that they now controlled and would use to fund the Revolution. It was only through this kind of manipulation and greed that they could attempt to push forth their ideology. To your point, this approach has repeated itself multiple times whether in the context of a revolution or simply a change to our society/culture. Our Christian brothers and sisters are experiencing this today in China, Hong Kong, the Middle East and Africa. Is it coming to the US? I do fear we will begin to see this in the US. That sounds a bit dramatic but doesn't the situation with the Little Sisters of the Poor sound a bit like this approach?

My Reply to Catherine:

Great comment Catherine. There is so much commonality between the French "Enlightenment" and it's progeny. There really is a direct line of thought that goes from the French Revolution to Nietzsche to Communism, Nazism, and all the contemporary ideologies that are running through our world now. And the common denominator is an application of pseudo science on the human condition. Yes, the hostility to religious people is real, especially in the universities. I don't think we have reached a point where they will start guillotining religious people or putting us in gulags, but they certainly have the impulse and historical precedent to do so.