Fr. José Juan Sánchez Jácome / ACN.- We have come to accept that the problem of our society is not only technical, political, and economic, but above all spiritual. We remain trapped, conditioned, and impacted by the immediate effects of this issue, which is reflected in the battering, tension, and polarization that give no respite in our society.
Because of its drama, as well as its power of seduction and provocation, we have remained at the level of these phenomena, without properly stepping back to gain a broader perspective on what is happening. Referring to this problem as a spiritual crisis is not a recent view. Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn already believed that the core of the crisis that created communism was not political, but spiritual.
In his Harvard commencement address in 1978, he proclaimed: “We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to discover that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life”.
God, the Church, and the Christian tradition have been openly combated in order to uproot spiritual life from society and eliminate every trace of the divine. These attempts have been fruitless, though tragic, which is why the attack on God is now being waged indirectly, through the family.
The problem is spiritual and anthropological in nature. Using the language of the Church’s social doctrine, we could say that the great social question today is anthropological. In this spiritual crisis, an attack against God and even against human reason can be perceived.
This process accelerated especially in the last century. That is why Chesterton said: “In the twentieth century, man has not lost faith; he has lost reason.” Secularism and certain ideological trends believed that the separation of the Church and distancing from faith would generate better conditions for building a project of life and society based on the firmness of reason. However, conditions of life gradually emerged that moved even further away from rational foundations.
Postmodernity became a current of thought that sought to break with modernity, which had placed excessive trust in reason. By its very nature, postmodernity implies a disillusionment with the power of reason, which did not bring peace, well-being, and progress as promised, but rather wars, poverty, injustices, and threats of destruction. We clearly see that when God is expelled from society, man is more exposed to being instrumentalized, and any decision can be justified to the detriment of life, morality, and the common good.
The healthy and unavoidable relationship between reason and faith, as developed by theology and the Magisterium of the Church, has been discredited, and reason has entered a process of decomposition and lack of foundation, especially in the case of gender ideology.
That is why the true drama we are living is not properly speaking the loss of faith, but the loss of reason. Moreover, when God is marginalized and faith is lost, reason is practically lost as well.
There are many errors being spread. And there are no longer philosophers who cry out against irrational declarations, however grave their consequences may be foreseen. Just as some philosophers first dared to predict and then declare the death of God, voices are now heard declaring that philosophy itself has died.
The extreme of this situation is evident in so many current proposals and trends, although these positions already appeared in antiquity. The Roman poet Decimus Junius Juvenal, in the first century, in a verse from his Satires (VI, 223), puts the following words in the mouth of an imperious woman to speak of an arbitrary will: Hoc volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. “I will it, I command it. Let my will suffice as reason.” Thus we enter the realm of despotic will.
In short, there are troubling signs of this problem: the polarization we are experiencing, the signs of social decomposition, unprecedented violence, rampant corruption, ideological impositions applied to various aspects such as sexuality and the gift of life, and the attack the family is facing.
We are trying to react, as well as to defend and promote the family, but outside the Churches, it seems that very few are grasping this problem and decisively supporting the family. A few years ago, Pope Francis said that there is a world war against marriage, and therefore against the family.
It can be said that this war is also global insofar as gender ideology has been infiltrating the entire world. It began filtering into international organizations, government structures, and later into laws. The promoters of gender ideology feel that they have been winning the political and legislative battle, so now their purpose is focused on decisively influencing culture and educational programs.
In this ideological war, which unfortunately counts on the support of governments, powerful financial sectors, and international organizations, no one is immune, because the temptation to deny reality and accommodate things to our criterion—or rather, to our convenience—reaches us all.
Roberto de Mattei said that “Gender theory represents the final intellectual stage of this dissociation between intelligence and reality, which turns into a pathological hatred of one’s own human nature.” For his part, Benedict XVI referred to this ideology as follows:
“Gender ideology is the final rebellion of the creature against its condition as creature. With atheism, modern man sought to deny the existence of an external instance that tells him something about the truth of himself, about good and evil. With materialism, modern man attempted to deny his own demands and his own freedom, which arise from his spiritual condition. Now, with gender ideology, modern man seeks to free himself even from the demands of his own body: he considers himself an autonomous being who constructs himself; a pure will that creates itself and becomes a god unto himself.”
This world war is being waged in homes, schools, workplaces, government, culture, the media, social networks, universities, and the streets, where gender ideology is imposed in an intolerant, irrational, and dictatorial manner.
There is a frontal attack on marriage, the family, and the sacred value of life. In other times, there was dialogue despite all the passions and tensions these issues generate. However, now that reason is being lost, we have entered a dangerous stage of impositions, disqualifications, and even persecutions against those who think differently.
This is what emerges in this neo-Marxist and totalitarian ideology that seeks to impose a new world order. It attacks the anthropological, biological, ethical, and theological foundations of humanity; it is an insult to common sense and a direct assault on the image of God in the human person.
Speaking of common sense, José Alberto Ferrari said: “The more one wishes to live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the more politically incorrect one becomes, right? Expressing a small truth of the natural order or plain common sense is sometimes enough to be labeled as the most rancid fanaticism. For our fidelity, gallows await us; we must know that… it is almost a truism by now.”
We are becoming aware that the problem is spiritual in nature, even liturgical, as Benedict XVI maintained. Strategies and social and political activism are not enough; above all, we must be rooted in the life of faith to face this spiritual battle, for ultimately it is fought against the prince of this world.
We must keep in mind, so as not to be discouraged in this struggle, that, as the Bible says, the prince of this world has already been condemned (Jn 16:11). This same perception is held beyond the ecclesiastical sphere, as confirmed by the reflection of producers Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, who refer directly to the spiritual battle:
“Little by little we are realizing something that the fallen angels have always known: that the problems we see and suffer in the world around us are not the product of a cultural battle, but rather of a spiritual battle.”
I hold on to the words that Fr. Leonardo Castellani offers us to join this spiritual battle: “My friends, while there is still something to save, with calm, with peace, with prudence, with reflection, with firmness, with a plea for divine light, we must do what we can to save it. When there is nothing left to save, still and always, the soul must be saved.”
Not everything is lost; there is always something to save, and when times are violent and corrupt, we must preserve the peace of soul and conscience, living the perennial values that no decree, no ideology, and no law can revoke.
We must save at all costs the place that God occupies in our life, so that we never lack reasons to continue fighting for the kingdom that begins to germinate, even if for now we only see destruction and decomposition along our path.