The Motives and Aftermath of Vatican II

    After the Council of Trent was convened in the sixteenth century to address the issues raised by the Protestant Reformation, the Church continued to meet the challenges brought up both from within the Church and from the outside world over the proceeding centuries. Magisterial documents such as the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX, the establishment of Catholic social teaching by Pope Leo XIII, the documents of the First Vatican Council, and the declarations against both Communism and Fascism by Pope Pius XII during WWII and its aftermath answered the problems of their times with authority and clarity. In the same vein, the widespread social and political changes occurring in the early 1960s which heralded the beginnings of a cultural revolution were recognized by the Magisterium of the Church. Like their predecessors, the pope and bishops sought to answer these challenges preemptively, to give Catholics and non-Catholics alike the spiritual foundations necessary to remain faithful to Christ in the midst of fundamental changes to the traditions and worldview of society. To accomplish this, Pope St. John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, an enormous undertaking comprising over twenty-five hundred bishops, priests, theologians and others over a span of four years, from 1962-1965, that would be finished by the succeeding pope, St. Paul VI. The interpretation and implementation of the documents produced by the Council have taken many forms and extremes, often with little knowledge of the Council documents themselves, in the decades since the Council concluded. To properly understand the Second Vatican Council, the motivations which inspired its convention and the effects that resulted from its application, both positive and negative, must be carefully examined.

    Two predominant forces were at work in causing the Council to be called: the pre-conciliar conditions of the Church including multiple strains of theological interpretation, and the issues which arose in the wake of the Second World War and were only just coming to fruition in the early 1960s prior to the cultural revolution of the late 60s and 70s. The first cause involved the converging of Catholic schools of thought which had been in conflict for some time, specifically between the “modernists” whose primary goal was to address and if possible integrate the prevalent ideas of modern society with Catholic doctrine, and the “neo-Scholastics” who held to the traditional Thomistic system advocated by the Church since the Middle Ages and had been explicitly encouraged by papal encyclicals and the First Vatican Council during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the modernists wished to openly consider the ideas popular in their time, such as secularism, Protestantism, relativism, and the propositions of modern science, and to adjust Catholic doctrine to accommodate anything in them which could be deemed useful, as well as a “return” to the use of Scripture and the early Church Fathers as the highest standards, the neo-Scholastics held that the Magisterial doctrine founded on Thomism gave it a central status as a kind of hermeneutical standard in Catholic teaching and that the tradition of the Church, particularly in biblical interpretation and liturgical practice, should be firmly maintained. Violation of these traditions, they believed, would indicate to the Faithful a breach in the integrity of Catholic doctrine by denying that which the Church had officially approved and practiced for centuries. As Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., explained in a 1946 article,

How then can the reader evade the conclusion, namely that, since it is no longer current, the theology of St. Thomas is a false theology? ... Further, how can 'an unchanging truth' maintain itself if the two notions united by the verb to be, are essentially variable or changeable?[1]

The Council Fathers hoped to address the concerns of both strains of thought and to reconcile them while remaining faithful to Catholic Tradition.

    Secondly, the Council Fathers hoped to answer some of the growing issues in society at large. Many of these issues had already been addressed by Church teaching since the days of the early Church, such as the immorality of abortion and fornication, and at the beginning of the Council these were not as generally approved in society, but others, including contraception and divorce, had only become acceptable in general society after the Second World War, and so required a fresh explanation and doctrinal statement to address them. The Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s and 70s, as well as the growth of socialism in Western nations and the concerns of environmentalism, overpopulation and the conditions of a just war, were only hinted at when the Council began, yet the foresight of the Fathers recognized these issues and sought to answer them as well.

    The conclusion of the Council, which had been one of the largest in history, included almost a total consensus of the Council Fathers on all of the documents composed, and was the first Council in history to be recorded and reported on in great detail by the popular media. The aftermath of the Council and its application by the Church has been met with varied reactions, often to opposite extremes. As Pope Benedict XVI explained, “No one can deny that in vast areas of the Church the implementation of the Council has been somewhat difficult.”[2] The effects of the Council can be categorized according to two distinct ways of interpreting the Council including, on the one hand, “an interpretation that I would call a ‘hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’… On the other, there is the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given us.”[3]

    The first of these categories, the “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture”, essentially “asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council.”[4] The proponents of this school believe that the Council clung to many ideas and practices which are now obsolete and must be discarded for the full innovation of the Council to be realized. This ideology can be seen as the continuation of the pure modernist school of thought which the Council hoped to answer. As Pope Benedict says, however, this hermeneutic “risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church.”[5] It can be said that the denial of Church dogma by many post-conciliar Catholic theologians and laypeople alike may be attributed to this erroneous hermeneutic which, despite having been condemned repeatedly by the Magisterium since the Council, lingers to this day, as evidenced by the ideas of many modern Catholic scholars, politicians and others which verge on heresy. Similarly, the rise of so-called “traditionalist” Catholicism can be seen as a reaction against this movement; while Traditionalism has led to a growth in the study of Thomistic and other pre-conciliar Catholic writings and practices, most notably the Tridentine or Latin Mass, as well as a general growth in doctrinal orthodoxy and liturgical reverence in its adherents, it has also spawned a sect in the Church which denies the validity of the Second Vatican Council, the popes during and subsequent to the Council and even the saints canonized by those popes. This extreme traditionalism, like the modernism against which it is a reaction, has also been condemned by the Magisterium of the Church, while its positive elements have been endorsed by popes, as in the encouragement of Thomism by Pope St. John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et ratio, and of the “Extraordinary Form” or Latin Mass by Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Summorum pontificum.

    The other category, one less endorsed by the popular media or recognized by the extreme reactions to the Council mentioned in the preceding paragraph, is what Pope Benedict calls “the hermeneutic of reform.” This interpretation of the Council, as expressed by Pope St. John XXIII, is a combination of the desire “to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion” with the Church’s mission “to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us.”[6] Remaining faithful to Catholic doctrine and tradition while working to faithfully apply the teachings of the Council to the issues and needs of the contemporary age, incorporating what is valid in them while rejecting what is erroneous, is, according to this hermeneutic, the true purpose of the Council. It can be said that this way of understanding the Council has guided the documents of the Magisterium and the activity of the popes since the Council and has inspired many new avenues of scholarship and relation with the modern world, evidenced by the proliferation of evangelical activity in Africa and Asia, with the “New Evangelization” heralded by John Paul II, in the boom of Catholic biblical studies by scholars such as Drs. Brant Pitre and Scott Hahn, and the amending of ecumenical bonds with many separated Christian groups, most clearly seen in the Personal Ordinariates and the lifting of the almost millennium-long mutual excommunication of the Great Schism by Pope St. Paul VI and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I in 1964.  

    It has also been said by many scholars since the time of the Council that a distinction needs to be made between the actual doctrinal texts of the Council, which as magisterial documents of an ecumenical council cannot be denied and simply represent what St. John Henry Newman described as 'doctrinal development', retaining continuity with fundamental dogma while also addressing the questions of the time; and the "pastoral strategy"[7] employed by the Church during and after the Council. This pastoral strategy can be summarized as: to make the world like the Church, we must make the Church like the world. Following this strategy, not only were contemporary issues answered, but it was felt that, for the Church to be open to new converts from the modern world, it must become like the modern world, removing or "deemphasizing"[8] those practices which might pose an obstacle to conversion. One clear example of this strategy can be seen in the new liturgical rule of St. Pope Paul VI, also called the Novus Ordo or Ordinary Form, which, alongside the blatant and subtle abuses that have remained commonplace in its practice since its implementation in the years following the Council (often contrary to its own rubrics and the liturgical principles of Vatican II), also reflects the belief that those things which might offend Protestants must be "deemphasized", i.e. abandoned, in order to make the Church more "welcoming" for them while allowing for greater customization, expressiveness and "inculturation" of both the surrounding culture and contemporary ideas.

    In the end, it must be admitted that not only is this strategy incorrect, since the truth of Catholic doctrine and the history of the Church with its attendant traditions, devotions and philosophies cannot be denied and to do so leaves Catholic evangelization impoverished and incapable of truly fulfilling the desires of those to whom it is addressed, as can be seen in the virtual absence of evangelization of Muslims in modern times by the Church, but it has also been an abject failure since the time of the Council. Despite the growth inspired by the principles of the Council itself, the orthodoxy, culture and relevance of the Church in society, particularly in the historic Western nations of Christendom, have disintegrated and, with the help of multiple scandals, have left the Church either irrelevant to modern society or as an object of ridicule and scorn. Not only is the Church in modern times attacked from outside, but it is also rotting from within as heresies, abuses, liturgical irregularities and an overarching desire to 'fit in' with the outside world are allowed to run rampant by a hierarchy that seems either unable or unwilling to correct it, often discouraging the faithful to the point of despair and abandonment of the Church established by Christ as the fullness of truth and the means of salvation on Earth.

    The Second Vatican Council, like many Church councils before it (and, despite being primarily pastoral rather than dogmatic, retains the same binding magisterial authority as its predecessors), was convened with the sole purpose of addressing the issues of the time, those raised by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Like its predecessors, the Council was a long and arduous process and led to a great deal of misunderstanding and misappropriation by both Catholics and non-Catholics in its aftermath. As with many other instances of challenging and delicately balanced dispensing of wisdom by the Church across the ages, extremism followed in the Council’s wake, whether its ideas were seen as too traditional or too innovative for the interpreter’s preconceptions. However, if the Council and its documents are understood properly according to the hermeneutic advocated by the Council Fathers and by the Magisterium since its conclusion, and if its pastoral strategy can be modified or outright abandoned in favor of one which recognizes the necessity of tradition for evangelization, its teachings can be applied to great benefit for the Church and the world; these benefits can already be seen today and will continue to grow as the seed is cultivated by those who remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ and the mission to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19 RSVCE) for which he charged all those who believe in him.  

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[1] Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, “Where Is The New Theology Leading Us?”, Catholic Family News Report 309 (1998), 1.

[2] Pope Benedict XVI, Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia (22 December 2005).

[3] Benedict XVI, Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia.

[4] Benedict XVI, Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia

[5] Benedict XVI, Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia

[6] Benedict XVI, Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia.

[7] Matt Fradd and Ralph Martin, “A Church in Crisis w/ Ralph Martin,” at YouTube, www.youtube.com.

[8] Fradd and Martin, “A Church in Crisis.”

The End of Man: Hilaire Belloc's Vision of Christendom

    Europe and the Faith is a work of historical analysis by the Catholic Anglo-Norman scholar Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953). Belloc, a prolific writer of more than 150 books and articles, composed a wide variety of works during his career, from comedic children’s fables to travelogues, but his primary interest was history. As a devout Catholic, he traced and interpreted the role of the Catholic Church in the history of Europe and the corresponding influence of European history on the Catholic Church. While each of his historical works endeavors toward this purpose, most focused on a specific episode of European history. Europe and the Faith, meanwhile, is at once a broader and more penetrating treatment of the role of the Catholic Church in European history more generally, and as such it can be seen as a foundational guide for all of Belloc’s histories.

    Like his Catholic friend and contemporary G.K. Chesterton, Belloc wrote to address the many social and spiritual problems of his day, including political and economic oppression, spiritual confusion, and intercultural strife. Unlike his other contemporary H.G. Wells, Belloc identified the ills of his time as deriving from the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century and the destruction of the unity of Catholic Christendom which resulted from it. Writing in 1920, Europe and the Faith came after the chaos of the First World War and yet prophetically pointed forward to the Second. In this way Belloc addressed the questions and concerns of those for whom WWI was a close memory, who were searching for reasons why such a thing could have happened and what could be done to prevent it in the future.

    The overall theme of Europe and the Faith can be summed up in the last three sentences of the book, which Belloc repeats as both a principle and warning throughout it: “Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish. The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.”[1] While Belloc identifies the roots of European civilization in the unity of the Roman Empire, and recognizes the origins of the Catholic Church as a new Covenant extending from the Hebrew religion and culture of Israel, he also explains that Europe can only be understood as a fusion of the secular universality of Rome and the spiritual universality of the Catholic Church, this fusion having begun when both the Roman Empire and the Church began almost simultaneously in the first century AD.

    In contrast to the wide variety of mystery cults and vague philosophic positions all around them, ancient Romans came to see the Catholic Church as the only source of the stability, courage and self-sacrifice that result from the certainty of faith, “filled, as was no other body of men at that time, with passionate conviction.”[2] This, alongside the great virtue and charity exhibited almost exclusively by Christians they encountered, soon led to the official legitimation of the Church and finally its declaration as the official religion of Rome. Belloc then identifies the source of modern problems as the result of the destruction of this unity by the Reformation and the fragmentation of that holistic integrity of the human person achieved by Christendom, and with a return to this unity as the only remedy for our discontent.

    To explain his overarching premise, Belloc carefully traces the history of this fusion of Rome and the Catholic Church during the centuries of the Roman Empire. He first explains the fact that Rome was not a modern nation-state, nor was it chiefly concerned with racial, cultural or even religious distinctions. Rather, Rome differentiated itself from those outside its borders by its dedication to the ideals of civilization, to living in an orderly and rational society preserved through force of law and the prosperity it engenders. Contrary to most histories taught both in Belloc’s time and today, he clarifies that the so-called fall of the Roman Empire was not so much a disintegration as a slow weakening of the central authority of the Empire and a gradual transformation into the social structures of medieval Europe. He sees a definitive continuity of Roman civilization despite these changes. Rather than the popular image of barbarian hordes invading Rome and conquering it, Belloc shows that “[t]here was no conquest of effete Mediterranean peoples by vigorous barbarians.”[3] The ‘barbarians’ outside the borders of Rome longed to be part of its civilization and this was the primary motivation for their raids, which were always and everywhere put down swiftly by the Roman legions.

    Like Rome itself, conflicts in the Church were primarily internal rather than external, resulting from various heresies. The Arian heresy, for example, “the old court heresy which was offensive to the poorer mass of Europeans”,[4] threatened to fracture the patristic Church, until the enlistment of the pagan Franks of northern France by the Pope. The Franks readily converted to the Roman way, including its civilization and its Catholicism which were by this time indistinguishable, and went on to eradicate the Arian influence from Roman society, just as the Pope fought against the Arianism within the Church itself. As Rome transformed into medieval Europe, this format became the standard for addressing internal European conflicts. Over time, as the Emperor, removed from the life of western Europe by its transmission to the East, lost its traditional role as the unifier of society, the authorities put into power formerly by the Emperor throughout the West came to possess their own kingdoms alongside the descendants of landed Roman aristocrats.  

    The hierarchical nature of society, with lower officials of serfs, knights, lords and kings, holding their superiors accountable to feudal oaths, just as the bishops and popes of the Church held all accountable to Catholic doctrine, brought an impenetrable unity and power to Europe which enabled them to combat the overwhelming assaults of Norse, Germanic, Slavic and Islamic incursions throughout what Belloc calls the ‘Dark Ages’, approx. 600-1000 AD. Although culture largely stagnated during this dark time, when conservation and defense expended all the energies of the West, “the Catholic Faith became between the years 600 and 1000 utterly one with Europe.”[5] By the efforts of the Normans and Pope Gregory the Great, by 1000 AD medieval Christendom became what Belloc identifies as “a civilization which was undoubtedly the highest and the best our race has known, conformable to the instincts of the European, fulfilling his nature, giving him that happiness which is the end of men.”[6] Even more than ancient Rome, Catholic Europe united people to a far greater degree precisely because the unity was primarily spiritual. The Pope was both the secular and spiritual leader of Europe; all issues could be resolved by his authority, and by his guidance absolutism and heresy were prevented.

    The unity of Christendom was dissolved in the Reformation primarily through the rejection of the universal fatherhood of the Pope who, with the clerical authorities in general, were ultimately too slow “to capture the spiritual discontent, and to satisfy the spiritual hunger of which these errors were the manifestation.”[7] Though the reformers initially saw Europe as a united whole and desired to change it as such, relativism and the fragmentation of the human person, of reason from faith, of power from authority, of the spiritual from the material, fused with the sixteenth century worship of absolute government to finally destroy Christendom in the seventeenth century. As Belloc explains, however, this could not have been accomplished without the Defection of Britain, the only Roman province to become Protestant. “[T]he prime product of the Reformation was the isolation of the soul”:[8] from then on, the West has fluctuated from one idol to the next, searching for fulfillment in technological power, advanced knowledge, wealth, absolute government, and sensual pleasure. Without the mediation of the Pope, tyranny, slavery, genocide, and world wars politically reflected the miasma of confusion and despair permeating European society.

    After reading Belloc’s masterpiece of history, the true nature of Europe became clearer to me. The essential fusion of Rome and the Catholic Church, the gradual evolution of Rome into medieval Christendom, the growth of Protestantism primarily in European countries which were only lately brought into Christendom, and the supreme importance of the Defection of Britain in the destruction of Christendom and making Protestantism an official international movement were all new concepts to me. These truths are, as he explains, lost on those who study European history without the Catholic worldview which is necessary to truly understand it, since “The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.”[9]

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[1] Hilaire Belloc, Europe and the Faith (London: Black House Publishing, 2012), 245.

[2] Belloc, Europe, 75.

[3] Belloc, Europe, 100.

[4] Belloc, Europe, 135.

[5] Belloc, Europe, 187.

[6] Belloc, Europe, 191-192.

[7] Belloc, Europe, 208.

[8] Belloc, Europe, 238.

[9] Belloc, Europe, 245.

Meditations on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary: Part One

The First Sorrowful Mystery: The Agony in the Garden

The thought of our sins and His coming suffering causes the agonizing Savior to sweat blood. (Luke 22:39-44)

Imagine a time in your life when you did something you regret. Not just a mistake or some unintentional accident. No, remember an instance when you made a wrong decision. It could be a time when you were hasty to judge someone, or when you responded in anger undeserved, or when you gave in to lust or doubt or pride. Call that time to mind; remember where you were, who you were with. Try to remember how you felt.

How many times has this happened and you regretted it not only after, but before and even while doing it? How many times did it seem as if you were telling yourself, "you know better than this; just don't do it!"? But you did it anyways, and then the guilt washed over you and you had to make amends.

All of us go through these difficult situations, these challenges to our conscience, on a daily basis. And very often, when we're about to do something wrong, when we're in the grip of temptation, we feel not only the pressure, the agony of our own body and soul urging us to do what we know to be wrong - we also feel alone. We feel utterly isolated from the world, from ourselves, and even from God. How could God possibly be with us when we are so engulfed by sin? How could He know what it's like?

For we have not a high priest, who can not have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 DRA)

In fact, God knows exactly what we're going through. When Our Lord was tempted in the Garden of Gethsemane before He was arrested and Crucified, He endured precisely what we endure every time we are tempted. He felt the pressure, the drive to sin as we do. Even though he lacked the desire to sin, He still felt it just as we do, as well as the seductions of the Devil, as we often do when we are tempted.

Truly, He felt it even more, since as God, He felt not only His temptations at that moment, but all temptation through time, just as he felt the weight of all sin and death on the Cross. He felt the full weight of evil in one moment. Imagine that: feeling every temptation and every touch of evil that all people have felt throughout history in one single moment. It would overwhelm us; indeed, we fall at much less. Yet, Christ did not sin, and so even before His Crucifixion, His victory was won. He assumed our sin in the fullness of his humanity and overcame it, something we do not and ultimately cannot do, and so He defeated it utterly and finally for us all.

This is the Gospel, the great hope of Christianity which for two thousand years has given to all Christians unmitigated joy and hope and a desire to share it with all the world. It is what has given Christians the strength to endure the greatest trials and even martyrdom for Christ, and what has inspired the greatest accomplishments of art, philosophy, theology and science in history. And, even today, it is what calls us all to a life not of bondage and slavery, but of hope, joy, love and life to the fullest, both now and for eternity.

God bless!

The Pacifistic Atheist

Many Catholics today, particularly apologists, when discussing atheism tend to cite the atrocities committed by 20th century Communist regimes, such as the Soviet Union and China, as evidence that atheism eventually leads to an allowance of evil. Without deference to the higher moral authority of God, it is argued, atheism naturally leads to a dismissal of the dignity of human beings and a subsequent abuse of them. However, many modern atheists argue that those Communist regimes were in fact not truly atheistic because they supposedly worshiped the state. I find this idea very intriguing and quite divergent from older forms of atheism, such as that enforced by the state in Communist nations.

Modern atheism critiques religion, especially as lived in the public sphere and daily life, for one particular sin: fanaticism. They argue that whenever someone believes something is deeply important, when someone holds strong convictions, that this naturally leads to a willingness to fight and even kill to defend or enforce one's beliefs. They cite such events as the Crusades, Inquisition and modern Islamic terrorism to justify this assertion. As I said above, they also cite examples of this in violent atheistic regimes, such as Soviet Communists, saying that because Communists fought and killed for the sake of the State, they thus worshiped that state and so were religious fanatics. Those Communists, however, said that they were enforcing atheism specifically, not just the rule of their State. It was ideological as much as political. Essentially, then, modern atheists are asserting the position that atheistic Communist regimes believed in atheism with such strong conviction that they turned it into a religion; by their willingness to fight to spread and enforce atheism, their atheism became religious and so was no longer truly atheistic.

This is a very curious position. It also seems to be the root of the tendency for modern atheists, as well as more moderate agnostics, to assert essentially passive philosophies such as relativism and multiculturalism. In these systems, value is entirely determined by and thus dependent upon the individual, giving no one the authority to assert their beliefs as universally true for all and so ensuring that no one will have such strong convictions that they would be willing to fight for what they believe in. Indeed, these are considered the only fundamental, universal truths, itself a logical contradiction of their stance yet asserted by modern atheists quite ubiquitously. Tolerance, acceptance, "live and let live" are the only convictions of modern atheists and these are considered immune to the temptation of older atheists, such as Communists, and religious people to fight over their beliefs.

I believe this is not only held by modern atheists and agnostics but truly as a consistent policy by modern society in general, from the government down to individuals and even to international organizations, including religions. I think this is one of the primary reasons why religion has been relegated to people's personal lives, marginalized out of the public square and prevented from having any definable influence over society, most clearly seen in the more secular nations of Europe. Modern people are simply so terrified of a repetition of the Crusades, WWII, the Cold War or the terrorist acts of 9/11 that they consider any amount of conviction to lead ultimately to violent fanaticism and war. This has led to many Christians, including a large percentage of Catholics in the US, to largely disobey the Church's teachings, whether on faith or morals, rarely standing up for the teachings of the Church in their daily lives or when they vote, and why so few attend Mass and even fewer go to confession. It is seen as controversial, provocative, and ultimately fanatical to be religious with conviction.

I think the only way that Catholics today can repair this, particularly in the US, is to show that Christians can stand up for and live the teachings of the Church, to live out our faith in our daily lives, without being violent, judgmental, hateful or ideological in any way. The Holy Father Pope Francis has tried to assert this fact, but it seems to me that modern people's deep-seated fear of fanaticism remains strongly resistant to his urgings, even when saints like Pope John Paul II and Mother Theresa prove that we as Catholics can stand up for and live out our faith without ever resorting to violence or hate of any kind. We must show the world that the love of Christ is peaceful, but also that peace comes first and foremost through truth and the justice it engenders, not through lies and ignoring people's sins and the harm they do to the common good of society.

As Catholics, we also need to make the distinction between right and wrong on principle, not simply on results. Peace is a good but not the highest good; when grave evils are being perpetrated or dangerous falsehoods are being spread, pointing out these evils and lies with clarity and conviction will ultimately bring peace, but it will first bring division, since people do not automatically renounce the wrongs they do simply when they are corrected. The teachings of Catholicism do not permit any violence which is unjust according to the standards of the Gospel, and so whenever a Catholic does commit violence contrary to Church teaching, they cannot be said to represent the Church. However, some worldviews such as atheism which lack a permanent and fundamental affirmation of the value of human life are in principle open to the kind of violence perpetrated by atheistic Communist and Fascist regimes of history. The only way atheists can truly refute the violence of these regimes is to redefine them as religious rather than atheistic, but this is to make the additional claim that religion is intrinsically violent, as explained above, whereas atheism, lacking any strong conviction, is essentially peaceful. The question we must ask ourselves when presented with this dilemma is: what is the price of peace? What are we willing to ignore for the sake of peace? Evils will occur whether people are religious or not, but only if we believe in evil and can clearly distinguish it from the good are we able to recognize evil and fight against it in the right way.

God bless.