"Since the end of World War II, American society has been suffering decomposition and deconstruction..Consider what we have come to in seven decades:
The distinctiveness of marriage has been abolished (Baird v. Eisenstadt); prayer and Bible reading in schools has been stamped out (Abington, Schemp, et al.); the mother's womb has become the most dangerous place for a baby (Roe v. Wade, et al.); the rights (but not the duties) of fathers and parents of minor girls have been voided (Planned Parenthood v. Danforth); divorce has become easier than marrying; the Ten Commandments have been banned from public view; and now the natural distinction between male and female is being abolished (Goodridge, Lawrence, etc). The Pledge of Allegiance is forbidden; the Boy Scouts are under attack; and Christmas Carols are banned. Pornography is everywhere.
The structure of American society is being demolished brick by brick. Within a few short years, Americans will have reached the 'liberty' desired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the abolition of every particular dependency. This is what Hannah Arendt called 'the atomistic mass,' a precondition for the establishment of totalitarianism." (p. 178).
As I have said so many times before, the retreat from truth is necessary before the reign of Antichrist. There is a preparation. Many are "intellectualizing" themselves into dissent and apostasy from the true Faith. The battlefield is in the mind. The attack is intellectual and psychological. Sin must be justified so that a new religion can turn vices into gods.
What is this but a form of insanity? In the words of the late (great) F.J. Sheed: "..if we see anything - ourself or some other man, or the Universe as a whole or any part of it - without at the same time seeing God holding it there, then we are seeing it all wrong. If we saw a coat hanging on a wall and did not realize that it was held there by a hook, we should not be living in the real world at all, but in some fantastic world of our own in which coats defied the law of gravity and hung on walls by their own power. Similarly if we see things in existence and do not in the same act see that they are held in existence by God, then equally we are living in a fantastic world, not the real world. Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by Him is not a matter of sanctity; but of plain sanity, because God is everywhere and all things are upheld by Him...To overlook God's presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there." (Theology and Sanity, p.6).
To overlook God's presence (and by extension His Commandments) is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity. Sheed is right. When we fail to see things as they actually are, we are in the grip of a kind of insanity. And it is this very insanity which is a precondition for the Reign of Antichrist.
Recall the words of those who work at an abortion killing center to Markai Durham on MTV's "reality show" No Easy Decision as they convinced her that the baby within her womb was somehow not human: "Don’t think of it as ten fingers and ten toes with a forehead and all that stuff. Because if you think of it like that, you’re going to make yourself depressed. …Think of it as what it is: a little ball of cells."
What is this but a kind of insanity? How is it any different from the Nazi doctors who convinced themselves that they were not torturing human beings but that the Jewish People were somehow "subhuman"?
Before Antichrist can emerge onto the world stage, the people must first embrace this kind of insanity. Increasingly, Americans are showing that they are willing to do just that.
