Today’s liberal ideology’s own first principles conceives faith as subject to one’s own strictures and self-authorized speculation which tame, transvalue or exile the first principles of faith. We have lost the sense of God’s objectivity when we, through subjective experience, create for ourselves a religion that suits us. Liberalism therefore itself is as John Henry Newman stated, a "halfway house” on the way to atheism. As a result, many today know little about the Western-civilization's Judeo-Christian based moral traditions. They know not that it stands for all that sublimely uplifts and nurtures life. Or that it is a practical philosophy that wisely acknowledges human limits. It starts with an acceptance of the conditions of reality, but not the outcome. It insists that humans need the grounding of secure, firm, unmovable ground. It understands that without the Church faith turns into a private affair which promotes the likelihood of becoming engulfed in a subjective program of mere self-serving justifications which tends to reject the reality of the community and leads to solipsism.

d), believe in global warming despite the lack of scientific proof and scurry to buy new age books by the basket full. I recently had a discussion with a neo-liberal woman who proposed that Communism never really had a chance to prove itself. My God!!!! At what point does the neo-liberal's existential nihilistic relativism produce a generation that cannot articulate objections to human sacrifice, even if it is the intended victim?

Thanks to neo-liberalism we've become a society directed and overrun by determined elitist advocacy groups that overstate the weaknesses of our society and show very little appreciation for its merits and strengths. Since they never-ever-neve r consider the possibility that they are doing more harm than good, one has to believe that that is their goal.

This erosion of sense can be traced back to the 60's, when we started to see an increasing and steady erosion of knowledge and a concurrent increase in moral relativism. There are many inputs into the cause. Certainly one of the major elements is our public education system. It seems today's monopolistic public education system is not giving students intellectual and moral training to argue for and to justify truth. Quite the opposite, they are getting a systematic undermining of their common sense about what is true and right. Notice the teachers who actually believe it is wrong to indoctrinate children in our own culture and moral traditions. Our children have a right, not just a need, to our moral heritage. Only a nihilist would argue that due to flaws in application we must throw the baby out with the bath water. In many classes today students learn only to "uncover" the allegedly racist, sexist, elitist elements of our culture.

What seems to happening is what the novelist Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of the Vanities) calls the "Great Relearning". "They jettison basic social practices and institutions, abandon common routines, defy common sense, reason, conventional wisdom and sometimes sanity itself.” Neo-liberals, in attempt to make humans virtuous, preach what is false but refuse to even consider facts and logic to the contrary that it may not be right. It is always easier to tear apart social fabric (and quite fun too, if you’re of a certain age usually you usually get laid a lot in the process), than it is to put it back together again. Its results are always a disaster. And the structural damage to societal institutional constructs will handicapped it for decades. This experiment in moral deregulation finds its motto to be "Anything Goes." And as the poet said, when that happens, eventually, inevitably, everything does, until nothing does! That will be the eventual legacy of Neo-Liberalism.

We have institutions and traditions and a constitution that has proven strength and efficacy in preserving the course of a free society capable of governing itself. It is time we start resurrecting them. A morally enlightened society will be a saner, safer, dignified and more humane one, voluntarily, not under the threat of government force. Jefferson said we are lost the day we can feel our government, and borrowing from Spielberg, "They're here"!

A return to the classic principles of liberalism, which are totally absent from today's neo-liberalism, is the antidote. Principles that believe in the premise: we are born into a moral environment, much like the natural one we touch, taste and see. For mankind, this moral environment has its necessities, like the natural's need for clean air and water, safe food and moderate climes. The moral environment equivalents are civility, honesty, consideration, self-discipline and responsibility. This requires a foundational moral code, such as found within Catholicism. Then an educational process to identify, practice and instill, which will then recognize, respect and protect its precious and fragile character. Yes, it is necessary to say better what has already been said, to formulate it in every more accurate way but, to do so without breaking with the tradition of its meaning, interpreting with a specific authority received from Christ the word of God that is found in sacred scripture and tradition.

"The Church must… Be very humble in certain that she remains in the same truth, in the same teaching about faith and morals that she received from Christ... for this essential foundation is shaken or destroyed, the most elementary truths of our faith begin to dissolve at the same time.”—John Paul II

"Progress in faith requires that the subject be enlarged in itself. Alteration of the faith is when it is transformed into something else. There should be no discrepancy between the first and the last.”— Saint Vincent of Lerins

"Personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church." ---Catholic Catechism # 2039

"One must therefore work to connect the errors of moral conscience."--- Catholic Catechism # 1793

"Guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it somehow missed the mark as regards the faith."—Tim6-13 ,20-21

Posted by: Korbin Crisp at September 18, 2023 04:45 AM (4wNWa)

Posted by: sanctumwellness at January 22, 2024 07:41 AM (qPq8R)

Hide Comments | Add Comment