1In his “Autobiographical Memoir”, German political philosopher Eric Voegelin remarks, “I flatly state that [Karl] Marx was consciously an intellectual swindler for the purpose of maintaining an ideology that would permit him to support violent action against human beings with a show of moral indignation”. Voegelin locates “the Marxian swindle” in “the flat refusal to enter into the etiological argument of Aristotle, i.e., on the problem that man does not exist out of himself but out of the divine ground of all reality . . . . Marx himself . . . had a very good philosophical education. He knew that the problem of etiology in human existence was the central problem of a philosophy of man, and if he wanted to destroy man's humanity by making him a “socialist man” he had to refuse to enter into the etiological problem” (quoted in Ellis Sandoz, The Voegelinian Revolution, London, 1981, p.86).

3Whereas the general rule of Church law is that punishment is required only for an external criminal act, Socialism traditionally concerns itself with attacking an enemy group, be it, for example, Jews, a target of national Socialists, the “middle class”, targeted by the international Socialist, or Catholics and Protestants, targeted by both. It is proposed here, as a working model, that the behaviour of the Socialist/Secularist/Liberal/Humanist/Pluralist can be understood in terms of what some psychologists call being in the state of the “rebellious child”. For example, the Humanist's opposition to the death penalty cannot be understood in terms of opposition to death, as is testified by his support for abortion and the killing of the elderly and the sick, as well as his apparent indifference towards the injustice of murder itself; rather it is the concept of a moral penalty that the Humanist is rebelling against. Witness what this American Spectator article observes as “the bizarre combination of Draconian punishments for minor offenses against political correctness and permissive or weak treatment of serious criminality characteristic of Britain today” (22/5/2006). The point is well illustrated in this posting on The Brussels Journal (12/10/06) – or is it? A common Liberal tactic when presented with outrages such as this ostensible incident of kidnapping and child abuse is to question the truth of the reported story. With an ordinary interlocutor this would be a reasonable point to have raised, but, with a Liberal, one is advised to dig a little deeper. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the girl's story is a complete fabrication: how, nevertheless, would a Liberal characterise the “hypothetical” scenario that she has presented? What, in other words, would be the Liberal's “judgment of morality” (not his determination of the easily mutable law) in the event that, either in this or in a future case, the facts described are borne out by the evidence?

It appears that within the priesthood there are also some who would employ extreme sanctions, not against grave sin, but against Catholic piety itself.

5The Daily Mail has reported that the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster is to ask the Health Secretary for abortion to remain legal, but with a reduced age limit. As reported, such a request would be utterly immoral, though one must always take extreme care when attempting to draw conclusions from newspaper articles about what a person may or may not have actually said (particularly a Christian), or the context in which it was said. What is true, however, is that any attempts to negotiate with Liberals regarding the upper age limit of legal abortion, as well as being immoral, are appallingly misguided, because they fail to appreciate that the root of Liberalism is psychological rather than philosophical. Rather than being a set of beliefs arrived at through an exercise in intellectual honesty, Liberalism is a variable collection of rhetorical slogans that have been arrived at by a historical process of trial and error, guided by the ultimate goal of rebelling against God and His creation. To break down the historically Christian opposition to abortion, for example, Liberals made a rhetorical distinction between embryonic 'blobs of jelly' and 'flesh-and-bone human life'. Knowing that they cannot alter the divinely ordained relationship between sexual intercourse and procreation, Liberals instead destroy the evidence of that link – the unborn child – and work tirelessly to eliminate any reference to the truth of that link in popular discourse. For this reason it is utterly naïve to imagine that Liberalism can be pleaded with to 'at least meet its own ideals'. Liberalism has no ideals – only the twin goals of rebellion and destruction.

8Some readers may find such devotional language unfamiliar and perhaps even jarring. This would not be surprising given the effects of an anti-religious government and Secularism in the mass media, combined with the absence of a traditional Catholic schooling. Once, however, one has considered the true nature of the Faith, it becomes apparent that such language is no less appropriate than the polite expressions we customarily employ amongst ourselves on formal occasions and in written correspondence. Liberals know this, of course, which is why they try to make sure such language stays unfamiliar.

Home	(Please note: CatholicSchool.org.uk is not responsible for the content of sites linked to from this or any other of its pages.)

	I. Introduction; II. The Endless Stream (click link to be directed to a new page);
	III. Conclusion

	I. Introduction – the location of moral responsibility
	In reading the materials on this Web site, particularly those relating to morality, students will notice a strong similarity between the Catholic worldview and that which informs the traditional civil laws of England and Wales, and of Scotland (e.g., regarding the proper location of moral responsibility for sin or crime). This is no coincidence: both these legal systems were developed under the influence of the Church, as the extract on the home page from the Dooms ('Statutes') of Alfred the Great illustrates.
	In the twentieth century, however, although the coercive element of the law remained, its fundamental Christian ethos was partially supplanted by the rise of the anti-theistic and egomaniacal worldview known as Socialism¹. Beginning in Communist Russia and National Socialist Germany, and now firmly entrenched in Britain, the Socialists' demonic ambition is to replace the precept that we must love our neighbours as ourselves, with a legally protected freedom to hate one's neighbour² – even to the point of taking his life³.
	As a consequence, in spite of cynical use of the distracting label, “multiculturalism”, ours is in fact becoming a single-minded, materialist culture in which have already been legalised: the murder of children in utero, (with great efforts being made to extend this to murder of the ill and of the otherwise vulnerable and “undesirable”); the creation of human beings to be used and destroyed as means to someone else's end⁴; and the ruthless application of the principle of caveat emptor* to adolescent and adult victims of sexual manipulation and assault. Hand in hand with these evils goes an endless stream of anti-Catholic agitation and propaganda – often masked by the affectation of pharisaical scandal.
	* 5^th April 2005: The first stage in this process has now been achieved with the passing of the Government's Mental Capacity Bill. See here for the latest developments in this area (31/1/06). Infanticide is also now being openly proposed (27/3/06). Of course the Government understands that the case for infanticide would be undermined by any retreat on the unborn child-killing front (28/4/06); not that anything short of unconditional surrender is acceptable⁵.
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	II. The Endless Stream (click link to be directed to a new page)

	III. Conclusion
	The impact⁶ of such anti-Catholic agitprop extends far beyond the borders of our own country. On the apparent obliviousness of Western foreign policy-makers to the relentless persecution of Catholics and Protestants worldwide, Dr. Paul Marshall, Senior Fellow at the American Center for Religious Freedom, observes: “A refusal to take religion seriously, a disdain for those for whom faith is the central fact of human existence, a blank incomprehension of those who will die rather than forsake the peaceful expression of their beliefs – all these contribute to indifference which turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to the pain and cries of suffering believers. In a world awash with attention to ethnic and racial conflict, it produces a generation that can say “I don't know” or, more chillingly, “I don't care,” to one of the most pervasive problems in contemporary human existence.”⁷
	At the heart of all this wickedness is the failure to remember the greatest of all the Commandments: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind⁸. The learning and practice of the true Catholic Faith is as imperative as ever.
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