A friend writes,
Robert, what happened in NY is the end of the nation, isn’t it? I am forecasting that the tax system as well as business will collapse under a new avenue for people to abuse marriage laws. How are you staying chipper in the midst of what we now witness?
( I’m open to being reassured that all will be well. )
Even when we know of things such as the fall of Rome, historians still dispute the actual year of the fall (many will attach it to the death of the last Roman emperor in the West, who was completely powerless).
I hesitate to say that any one thing marks the fall, because for one, it comes off too shrill. Secondly, people will see that the nation is still muddling along despite these bad decisions.
It’s a bit like bundling the straw of bad decisions on a camel’s back (that is, the nation’s back). We really don’t know when or which bad decision will break the back and cause a collapse. We may be in collapse now, or we may be re-invigorated through a dictatorship (which often happens when a culture loses the capacity for self-rule).
I’m certain that the following attacks on the family are fatal
1) Contraception (with abortion being the last resort for failed contraception). This changed the meaning of sex, and later, with abortion, the meaning of the human person.
2) Divorce, especially no-fault divorce, in which marriage is no longer life-long.
3) Same-sex “marriage” removes procreation from the purpose of marriage.
I’m a little less certain of this, but on the political side we’ve become too individualistic and libertarian. There needs to be a balance between individualism and communitarianism (and that balance rests on the family, which is the basic unit of civilization). It may seem like a paradox, but as the family and other social institutions collapse, that rugged individualism we admire turns into dependence on the state. We are becoming dependent on government to ensure our welfare, which occurred most recently in the passage of a massive healthcare bill. Our bloated welfare state is turning into the bread and circuses of Rome.
From my reading of history, Rome fell to the barbarians for two basic reasons.
1) De-population.
2) Loss of virtue – Romans became pleasure-seeking.
The seed of hope rests in the fact that America is a deeply religious nation. I admit that the walls of Protestantism are crumbling. But there is hope that Catholicism can re-vitalize Christianity in the nation. Catholicism has the intellectual firepower to defeat secular humanism. And when people turn back toward God, they will regain the capacity for self-governing because they have become virtuous again.
BTW, my capacity to remain chipper does not correspond at all to the current news. The source of happiness remains with God, and so what peace and solace I find is more related to an effective prayer life. I’m always seeking to improve this, even though I stumble a bit here and there (I’m currently in a stumbling period).
I hope that you find something useful in all that.
There’s another thing. Catholicism has a robust theology on suffering. As the nation feels the strain of its bad decisions, it would be useful for individual Catholics to be prepared to assist Christ in transforming that suffering-to-come into grace.
