Living The Worthy Life: In Times Of Trouble God Is The Answer Now and Forever

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen began a 17 week series on the NBC Radio Show, The Catholic Hour, Sunday afternoon on January 3, 1943. This series was entitled, ¨The Crisis in Christendom.” His words written 77 years ago are ringing even more true in this day and age. 

Are we living today with a Crisis in Christendom? Did Bishop Fulton Sheen recognize this almost eighty years ago when many fail to recognize it even today? When we look at Bishop Sheen's second address on January 10, 1943, we can see why so many people never noticed the crisis in the Church. This episode was entitled, “The Things We Are Fighting Against.” 

Some historical context for his speech: the war in Europe was entering its fourth year. Germany was still in control of almost all of Europe. The Jewish People in the Warsaw Ghetto were beginning their armed resistance. Clearly, on the Sunday afternoon of Sheen's broadcast, no one could have known that a little more than two years later, President Roosevelt would be dead and the U.S. would have won the war. The spring of 1945 was far in the future on that cold, wintry, Sunday afternoon, yet Bishop Fulton Sheen once again hit a responsive code with his radio address as he explained that there were three dogmas or philosophies of life that were at struggle here. America was participating in the war, but they were not always participating in the Church.  Church attendance was down from the Depression-era and many people began questioning God's role in their lives, and wondering why He would permit this War to happen.

In 1943, many people did not even know why we were fighting World War II.  Also in that same year, a vast percentage of the nation were in uniform. This was a close as a total war that the United States had ever seen before or since. 

Sheen explained, “The three dogmas  that were in conflict during this war: The anti-Christian totalitarian world view; the non-Christian secularist worldview of Western civilization; and the Christian worldview.”

Today in 2021 the exact same is true.  We have the anti-Christian totalitarian states govern even or without religion.  Most of these countries try or have tried to replace God with a large government.   A government that provides for all people and there is really no need for God.

Bishop Sheen reflected on the first back in his talk,. The anti-Christian totalitarian world view. This anti-Christian, anti-human, anti-democratic, totalitarian ideology exists in four forms widely scattered throughout the world: First, in a historical form, as the revival of the imperial traditions of the ancient Roman Empire, which is Fascism; second, in an anthropological form, as the glorification of the Nordic race, which is Nazism; third, in a theological form, as the identification of Divinity with a dynastic house, which is Japanese Imperialism; and fourth, in an economic form as the proclamation of class struggle on the anti-religious basis of dictatorship of the proletariat, which is Marxian Socialism.”

Sheen explained, “In his Christmas (1942) allocution, the Holy Father condemned these four forms as a “conception which claims for particular nations, or races, or classes. . . ‘the norm from which there is no appeal.’ ” Let me say here, parenthetically, that I make the same distinction between Russia and Marxian Socialism that Stalin makes between Germany and Nazism. Stalin declared he was not fighting Germany, but Nazism. In like manner, we are glad to be allies of Russia, to aid them in the defense of their fatherland, to protect them against barbarian invaders, and to welcome them into the comity of the Western World. But Stalin would reject Nazism as distinct from Germany so we must reject Marxian Socialism as distinct from Russia, Our courageous ally. Not one of these four forms is a State in the political sense of the term; rather each is a philosophy of life working through a unique party that acts as a substitute for the State. All agree in investing primitive ideas of class, race, nation, and blood with a divine significance. How did these pseudo-mysticisms originate? In their European form, they arose in part as a reaction against the excesses and defects of the secularist and materialist culture of the rest of the Western World.¨

The fact that Bishop Fulton Sheen recognized the crisis which the Church was going through during the War and how that same crisis is actually taking place today-is totally remarkable.  Today we are not battling the Nazis but we are battling a war that sucks the oxygen right out of our lungs.  Bishop Sheen correctly called out the reasons why we should stand up and fight.  Today we need to once again stand up and fight against an enemy. 

This time the enemy is the fact that we are trying to do this battle without God's help. We have turned to the politicians or government to help us.  I ask you, brothers and sisters, will your Government save you?  Will belief in your Government get you rewarded in your eternal life?  Hence, is Government the answer or the problem?  What we have learned from Bishop Sheen's comments today on the Crisis in Christendom, is that in troubled times, good times, and at all times we must turn to God.  God is the answer to all of our problems now and forever.