The Question for Our Age: “Quo Vadis?”

The Question for Our Age: “Quo Vadis?” | James Kalb | Catholic World Report



Where will the present situation lead if our secular authorities continue on their present course?

Secular liberalism is at odds
with Catholicism. The point seemed obvious to most people until the postwar
period, when the thought took hold that an essentially harmonious relationship
could be established that would draw on the American model. America, it seemed,
was different from Europe with its long tradition of statism and
anti-clericalism. It rejected an established church, but embraced religious
freedom, an active and diverse civil society, and a limited and decentralized
government that did not try to dominate culture and gave the Church the
protection and freedom she needed to thrive.

The attempt to establish a
harmonious relation with the liberal state has been less fruitful than hoped,
and even in America has run into profound difficulties. Our government and
other authoritative institutions have become more centralized and more
concerned with remodeling all aspects of life, including the beliefs and
attitudes of the people. We are becoming more like Europe, and to make matters
worse the outlook of the governing classes on both sides of the Atlantic has
moved in a direction radically opposed to both religion and natural law.
Throughout the Western world, Catholics and Catholic institutions are
increasingly required to conform to anti-Catholic norms, and in much of it you
can be punished as a criminal for public assertion of Catholic moral doctrine.

The intolerance is aimed less at
Catholicism in particular, although the Church is a highly-visible target, than
any form of Christianity that does not reduce without remainder to progressive
politics and private therapy. We are increasingly ruled by practical utopians
who believe themselves comprehensively responsible for human relations, and
their efforts leave no place for an independent and refractory organization
like the Church that proposes a contrary vision that now counts as
intrinsically antisocial and oppressive.

So where will the present
situation lead if—as seems quite possible—our secular authorities continue on
their present course? Will the blood of the martyrs once again be the seed of
the Church, or will multiplying restrictions and disabilities wear down
Catholic life until the Church all but disappears?

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