The surprise success of the new film Sacré Coeur: Son règne n’a pas de fin (Sacred Heart: His Reign Has No End), released in French cinemas in September, has caused great controversy. It is no surprise that such a devoutly Catholic docudrama has divided opinion in French political society, in which laïcité—strictly enforced state secularism, the lingering legacy of the French Revolution—is seen by many as the very defining principle of the French Republic.
What was more surprising, perhaps, was the opposition to the film expressed by some Catholics. In an open letter published in La Croix, a Catholic daily newspaper, a group of what might be termed neo-liberal Catholics claimed that the success of the film illustrated “the growing normalization of far-right ideas within the Christian community” and that the Sacred Heart of Jesus was “being put at the service of a political agenda whose obsession is the reaffirmation of France’s Christian identity.”
We might wonder why any Catholics, neo-liberal or otherwise, would consider the affirmation or reaffirmation of France’s Christian identity to be an “obsession” or a “political agenda.” Is there something wrong with affirming one’s own Christian identity? Is anything wrong with affirming the Christian identity of France or any other historically Christian nation? Aren’t we called by Our Lord, indeed commanded by Him, to make disciples of all nations? Doesn’t this include our own nations?
The real reason why neo-liberal or so-called “progressive” Catholics are uncomfortable with evangelization is that they have abandoned theology for ideology. They don’t think in terms of affirming the Faith or making disciples because they are obsessed with politics not the saving of souls. This is evident by their description of the success of the film on the Sacred Heart of Jesus as “the growing normalization of far-right ideas within the Christian community.” Those who privilege ideology over theology always see things in terms of Right and Left not right and wrong. This is the root of the problem.
All this talk of Right and Left is, quite frankly, not right but wrong. It dates back, ironically, to the French Revolution itself and to the position in which the revolutionaries were seated in the French National Assembly. To see things in terms of Right and Left, instead of right and wrong, is to abandon a virtue-oriented understanding of society in favor of a political and pragmatic understanding of society. It is to embrace the ultimately faithless philosophy of the superciliously self-named “Enlightenment” and to abandon the indissoluble union of fides et ratio which is the hallmark of Christendom.
To see things in terms of Right and Left, instead of right and wrong, is to abandon a virtue-oriented understanding of society.Tweet ThisCatholics do not belong on the Right with the Nazis and Fascists, nor on the Left with the Marxists and socialists. The National Socialism of the Nazis (“far-right”) and the international socialism of the Marxists (“far-left”) have a shared belief in socialism, a belief in Big Government command economies. The Nazis (“far-right”) and the “rainbow” sexual relativists (“far-left”) have shared philosophical roots in the pride of the Nietzschean will to power. The former collectivizes this will in the state; the latter individualizes it in the quest for “self-empowerment.” Neither view is compatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In brief and in sum, the secular “Left” and the secular “Right” share common philosophical roots in the Enlightenment and its rejection of Christendom. None of this has anything to do with the light of the Gospel.
Christians need to jettison the language of Right and Left, which is oriented horizontally on a worldly and relativist axis. Instead, we need to see reality, including political reality, in terms of right and wrong, which is oriented vertically on a moral axis leading upward to Heaven and downward to Hell. It is saints, not politicians, who make the world a better place; and it is sinners, including politicians, who make it a worse place.
If we reorientate the world, including the politics of the world, in terms of right and wrong, we will be orienting it in the right direction, which is toward God. The way that we do this is to try to become saints ourselves, by the grace of God, and to strive to persuade others to want to become saints. This is the only way to make the world a better place. There is no other way.
Those who put their trust in the political programs of the Right or Left, who put their faith in ideology instead of theology, can only make the world a worse place. And this is especially true of those within the Church. “We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right,” wrote G.K. Chesterton. “What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. We do not want…a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”
I find it very frustrating when writers attempt to equate Nazis and fascists with the right. Nazis and fascists are on the left along with socialists and communists. The left wants to control things so that we have a utopian society. The right wants to give as much individual freedom as possible to all people. The farther right you go, the more anarchy you will release. The far right is might makes right and the strong will prevail. The left is authoritarian. it is for that reason that Nazis and fascists and socialists and communists are all birds of a feather.
Note that the writer in this case (Joseph Pearce) was an actual practicing neo-Nazi in his youth before converting to Catholicism, so he has a good understanding of the Nazi phenomenon (he notes, for example, that Nazis are socialists).
Interesting as the modern Church is struggling to define “right” between the traditionalist definition “to conform the world to God” and the progressive definition “to conform God to the world”.
Alice Through the Looking Glass: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty pontificating in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
The concept of saying what you mean and meaning what say is uncommon within the modern church.