How the West Was Won - Homily for the 22nd Sunday in OT (A, 2020)

Today’s homily comes with a warning label: it will be a little more heady than usual. I hope you find it edifying and timely. 

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You, as an American, having come from our mostly Judeo-Christian background, and Greek and Roman ideals of government and thought at that—you think differently and value different things than, say, a person living in Iran or Russia or China. To some degree, you are a product of and part of Western Civilization and are different than Eastern Civilizations. As such, you have been taught and naturally tend to collaborate, to cooperate, to compromise. You are more apt to pluralism and to tolerance and, as a fruit of that, to enjoy a public square that is open to the discussion of varying ideas and even opposite opinions—although, this part of our Western civilization is quickly closing. 

Indeed, in that public square, our Western civilization sometimes encounters ideologies that are totally opposed to that civilization—for example: anarchists who oppose foundational building blocks of civilization that are called laws or Marxists who oppose another societal building block which we call personal liberty. Yes, in the public square, we sometimes encounter ideologies that are impossible to compromise with. 

And we are faced with a very difficult question: what do we do then? This is the question our culture at large is facing, whether it knows it or not. 

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Before the Second World War, in the European Theater, Western Civilization was confronted with Adolf Hitler. (As an aside: in our 21^st century, the name, Hitler, and the label “fascist” are thrown around rather indiscriminately and have, in many ways, become empty caricatures of their very real evils and the novelty of that evil at that time). But in the late 1930s, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, thought he could talk some sense into Hitler. Chamberlain had no idea of what we know today. Indeed, when he had met with Hitler in September, 1938, Chamberlain believed that Hitler could be appeased. He thought that Hitler didn’t really actually believe those bad things he said about Europe. He didn’t really want to conquer the Anglo world. Hitler, like the Marxists and communists, Chamberlain thought, simply wanted economic betterment. And so, he thought their so-called evils could be avoided by negotiation and compromise. This is what Chamberlain did and he came home to England, celebrating the Munich Agreement, literally telling the British people, even, to “go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” One year later, Germany would invade Poland and, a few months after that, Chamberlain’s own Britain. 

This same dynamic is occurring today. 

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In an effort to understand better this dynamic, I sought an objective, outsider’s perspective. I believe I found such an objective look in an interview given by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali is a woman of the East, a Somalian immigrant to the United States, and has had endured the scourge of political Islam. After coming to the US, she has become a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School. During an interview with a Stanford think tank, she made the following observation about us in the West. She notes: 

        

[T]hose to whom freedom came late [like the Polish after the fall of the Soviet Union]—those are the ones who are willing to fight…. For them, it is not some vague story in history, they still know what it was like to be … behind that Iron Curtain. To have no freedom. They know what a totalitarian ideology is. They recognize it and they are willing to fight for the core principles of freedom.… Northern Europeans, to some degree Americans, who have been free for so long, they don’t know what freedom is anymore, they are the ones who are… wringing their hands and thinking… “what is western civilization? Is it white supremicism?” And if our elites… cannot tell the difference between white nationalism and western civilization… then we are in big trouble. 

The interviewer quoted a speech by one of our Presidents during his visit in Poland. That President said: 

The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? … Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?” 

The interviewer then asked Ali: “Is that the fundamental question?” 

“Yes,” she said, whether we have the will to survive, “that is the fundamental question.” 

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The error in our current day, then, is to think that, after WWII, we would never have to go to fight for our civilization again. 

CS Lewis, in his book, “That Hideous Strength,” outlined how, in the years after World War Two, the populace would become duped and even welcoming of such evils and would fail to fight against them. He notes with special and truly incredible foresight the following steps. He notes, first, that there will exist a comfort culture that enjoys a false sense of security; then there is a loss of journalistic inquiry and integrity; this will be accompanied by the use of celebrities as a means of persuasion and to cover for ignorance; there would be a doing away with the police force; and there would arise a tribalism of Left and Right political movements; and then, finally, a loss of the plot itself. Sound familiar? He wrote that nearly eighty years ago. 

The last step, the “loss of the plot”—what does this mean? It means to forget the real sources of evil and how we are all of us—left and right, American citizen and immigrant, black and white, Catholic and Protestant, West and East even—we are all in a raging battle against Satan himself. 

Precisely because we have been conditioned to collaboration and cooperation and tolerance, our Western sensibilities often balk against such a fine point and we wonder whether intolerance is ever a holy—or even approved—action. 

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Indeed, that’s the heart of Peter’s argument with Jesus. Peter, in his rebuke, voiced a very Western thought, that somehow evil could be conquered without the Cross. To this, Jesus responds in what is quite possibly his harshest and most intolerant rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan.” 

Now, Jesus loves Peter. Thoroughly loves him. He gives Peter the keys to the kingdom. But Jesus says what he does to alert Peter about the gravity of the situation. And the gravity is that Peter’s ideology is totally incompatible with Jesus. In other words: there is no compromise, Peter. The Cross is it. If you do not have The Cross as your foundation of life and as your focus and priority and meaning for everything you do—if rather comfort and appeasement is your thing, then you are playing for the other team. And so: “Get behind me, Satan.” 

Paul, in a little softer language says, “I urge you… do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” 

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Such a transformation embraces the Cross of seeking the Truth and the facts and which demands such, and not echo-chamber narratives from your preferred sources of information. 

Such a transformation carries the Cross of calling our leaders—especially our leaders who claim themselves to be Catholic—to condemn without qualification riotous Marxists and Anarchists and those who undermine the dignity of this land’s laws and her people—including the unborn, the elderly, and the poor. 

Such a transformation would not be content with the phrase “systemic racism” and would even question its validity and its usefulness. It would carry the Cross of investigating the motives that drive anger and would remind the culture to seek real solutions to black-on-black crime, drug culture, absentee fathers, and the destruction of the family. 

True transformation is not content with virtue signaling, but with the real carrying of the Cross even unto the point of unpopularity in our Western World. Virtue signaling is simply appeasement to the mob. Carrying the Cross, however, means to stand in such a way as to voice intolerance of evil and therefore face the ugly titles that come with it, even though we love the West and are standing up for her and fighting the evils that threaten to destroy her. 

Yes, to be a Christian means to have somewhere in our souls Jesus’ own words. And while those words are always “love your neighbor” and “do good to your enemies,” sometimes those words are also “Get behind me, Satan.” They shock our Western sensibilities. But nevertheless we are to have them and say them when we are tempted from within and as a society from without. 

That is the Cross. This is the power of God and the wisdom of God and the victory over evil. And the one who claims the victory brooks no compromise. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.