Dear readers,

 

Throughout this year, 2017, we will be seeing new faces on the geo-political horizon. In the foreground, we will have a newly elected president of the United States, whose agenda is bound to have ripple effects throughout much of the world. On the European front, things will also be on the move.

The time may be right for us to return to basics and hold fast to the Christian perspective over the government, society, and the nation’s philosophy of life. Those who set laws, run governments, and make history follow basic ideas and ideals and, unfortunately, also ideologies. However removed these guidelines may seem to be from the truths of the catechism, they may profoundly impact the salvation or damnation of millions of souls. What proofs do I have for stating this?

First, let me call attention to a resounding statement from that eminent pope and statesman Pius XII, made on June 1, 1941 in the thick of World War II: “Of the form given to society, in harmony or not with the divine laws, there depends and filters the good and evil of souls, that is to say, the fact that men, all called to be vivified by the grace of Christ, breathe, in the contingencies of the earthly course of life, the sane and life-giving air of the truth and the moral virtues, or, on the contrary, the morbid and often mortal virus of error and depravity.”

Next, another churchman writes, in Junes 2015, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriages, quoting Heraclitus, who used to say: “It is necessary that the people fight for the law as they do for the walls of the city.” This churchman adds: “As I advanced in age, I discovered the importance of legislation in man’s life. . . . The only two civilizations which have survived for thousands of years are the same that have opposed homosexuality: the Jews and the Christians. Where are today’s Assyrians? Where are today’s Babylonians? . . . Hence my first thought: we are at the end.”

These words, delivered by a retired cardinal of the Church, no doubt sound apocalyptic to us. Are we to cross our arms and bury our heads in the sand? It is high time for us to gather our forces, as the same cardinal exclaims: “Believing families are the true fortresses. And the future is in the hands of God.”

We are no better than our ancestors. If we are men of faith, if we preserve the heritage of our fathers, if we stand firm in our beliefs and our morals, God will not abandon His little remnant. Should we not often utter the words of the liturgy, “Our help is in the name of the Lord”? And like David, facing the modern-day Goliath, it is time to shout our faith: “You are coming to me with swords and armor. But I am coming to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts.”

 

Fr. Jürgen Wegner

Publisher