Living a Worthy Life- Fake News

There are two ways of looking at the war: one as a journalist, the other as a theologian. The journalist tells you what happens; the theologian tells not only why it happens, but also what matters. If we look at this war through the eyes of a journalist or a commentator, it will be only a succession of events without any remote causes in the past, or any great purpose in the future.

With these brief words, Bishop Sheen began his 1943 book entitled, PHILOSOPHIES AT WAR. Little did he know that he was describing the events of 2019 or seventy-six years later. Fake News, Trump Russian Scandal, Trump Ukranian Scandal, or just any major television channel is guilty of doing it.  Just when you think that things could not possibly get any worse- they do. No wonder why so many news organizations employ countless amounts of people to bring and package the news so they could direct the news.  Today we are being told what is news, what to believe, and then we act as if we are grateful. 

This war is not merely a political and an economic struggle, but rather a theological one. It is not political and economic, because politics and economics are concerned only with the means of living. And it is not just the means of living that have gone wrong, but the ends of living. Never before in the history of the world have there been so many abundant means of life.

How has life changed since 1943?  Catholics contributed mightily to the war.  Estimates are that Catholics comprised 25% to 35% of the armed forces.  Three-thousand and thirty-six chaplains served in the armed forces as well.  There have been many interesting developments in the Catholic Church since the war.

1. In 1960 there were 17,637 parishes in the US
2. In 1990 that had grown to 19,620 and then by 2010 that had shrunk back to 17,784 parishes
3. From the mid 1940s until late 1990s there was a period of growth
4. Today the call is far too often not for a new parish but to have parishes consolidate. 
5. The states of Ohio and Pennsylvania each lost more than 100 parishes from 1990- 2010.

Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote about cultural warfare about fifty years before Pat Buchanan made his famous speech at the 1992 Republic National Convention on this topic.   This term referred to political discourse surrounding issues that are rooted in tightly held values and are associated with wealth, power, business, life, morals, and life choices. 

Bishop Sheen hinted at this very problem in his first chapter of Philosophies At War where  where he wrote:

Once upon a time there was a Christian culture. It was not a perfect culture, because Christianity was never meant to be perfected in this world. It flowered during the Middle Ages. Chesterton once said that these are called the "Dark Ages" by those who are in the dark about them. The basis of its civilization was that law, education, politics, economics, social service, arts, crafts, labor and capital were all built up in a hierarchical fashion like a pyramid, with God at the peak. Everyone, whether he was a scholar or peasant, lord or serf, sinner or saint, recognized the Lord as the One to Whom he would one day return to render an account of his stewardship. Thus all life was impregnated with morality; economics and politics were branches of ethics; men were one because there was one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. This great civilization went into decline partly through the rebirth of pagan ideas and partly through the moral decline of the individuals. There then began what might be called the Era of Substitutions in which men sought other bases for moral unity than the Church. Among these substitutes were the Bible, Reason, and Individual self-interest,THE THING WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST. Our present non-religious secularist culture grows from these roots. The first substitute, the Bible, had the great advantage of still keeping society together on the basis of the supernatural and the moral inspiration of Christ the Son of God. But it was unable to maintain that unity long, first of all, because, when every man became an infallible interpreter of the Book, there were as many religions as heads; and because once the Book was detached from the Board of Editors which guaranteed its inspiration, and from a Supreme Court which interpreted it, it became rather the basis of discord than of harmony. Men then set about for a new bond of cohesion and they fought it in reason—not reason illumined by faith, but reason divorced from faith. The so-called "Age of Reason" was really an Age of Unbelief for its strongest protagonists were corrosive men like Hume, Kant, Voltaire, who measured the growth of reason by its alienation from God Who Alone could guarantee its deliverances and its conclusions. The sovereignty of reasonable people replaced the sovereignty of God. All principles were rejected except a few self-evident ones which, it was hoped, would preserve the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God.

Clearly it can be seen through this that Bishop Sheen recognized what was happening in the United States.  It took a little more than half of a century, but finally we are receiving the results from these decisions now.  We are being rewarded for leaving the morals of our fathers and adopting the culture of masses. Mass adoption of wrong principals is not the Mass.  Mass conversions greed or obtaining wealth does not make us a better nation. Leaving the Church because the Church is full of hypocrites is nothing more than hypocritical bad logic in and of itself. 

The good news is that God loves us.  The good news is that Jesus trampled death so that we might be brought back to life with him.  Throwing away an eternal reward for a few flashy things in this world is a very short sighted answer to a problem to something that we will all face one day. 

Today is the time and today is the place to face this problem head on, right here, right now.  It is not too late to repent your ways and to go back to real good news- Jesus loved us and died so we may all be with him.  This is the good news, this is the Gospel. The Gospel is not greed, it is not theater, and it is not a singular event, rather it is like a long distance race.  It is not a sprint, you do not need to rush to and you do need to enjoy the important things of life. This is what Bishop Sheen saw and this is what he wrote about.  

Make a difference today by being the difference everyday in the life of other people.