Catholics and the Modern Mentality

by Charles Bruehl, D.D.

We are endeavoring to obtain a clear understanding and a sympathetic appreciation of the modern mentality and to take stock of the intellectual tendencies that are operative in our days. The purpose of this mental stock-taking is twofold. An inventory of this kind, if well made, will place us in an advantageous position of defense against the insidious dangers of our Faith that emanate from this source, and at the same time will assist us in discovering the most effective line of approach to the minds and hearts of our contemporaries in order to bring them into the True Fold. For the defense of faith and the methods of controversy do change considerably with the times. Every age has its own dangers for the faith of Catholics and its own characteristic obstacles to the conversion of non-Catholics. Both the pastor of the Fold, whose task it is to keep unspotted the faith of his flock, and the convert-maker, who seeks to make new gains for Christ, must be interested in the intellectual milieu of the times if they wish to be successful in their work.¹

An enormous gulf yawns between modern thought and Catholicism. This fact, though in a measure reassuring to the pastor of souls, is rather disconcerting for him who goes in search of those who have strayed from the truth. The very width of the chasm between the modern and the Catholic mind renders the danger of intellectual perversion of Catholics through modern errors somewhat remote, though, of course, it does not entirely remove this danger. But, on the other hand, it becomes extremely difficult to establish mental contacts with men who are worlds apart from our ways of thinking. The controversialist has a hard row to hoe in our days.

If, in a sense, there is but slight direct danger for the faith of Catholics in the present-day environment, the danger from moral contagion is so much greater, Catholics are likely to become tainted by the loose morals of the day, and such contamination will in due time act unfavorably on their belief. When a Catholic begins to adopt the unchristian ways of living in vogue in our days, his faith is seriously endangered. But in the long run it does not matter whether faith is lost through the assaults of an evil philosophy, or whether it is gradually undermined by immoral practices. The latter peril, however, in our days is an imminent one.

In a recent article Father C. C. Martindale, S.J., has made a startling prediction, which is quite in keeping with the line of argument followed out in the preceding paragraph. "And what I genuinely do think possible," he writes, "is this: for reasons varying in different countries, I think that conditions may arise such as to involve a great landslide of indifferent Catholics, leaving a very fervent remnant, but no more than that. For example, I think that it is so obvious in England that the non-Catholic denominations are ceasing to count religiously and the Church is so manifestly the only religious group whose stock is really rising, and rising rapidly, that soon Catholics may here become a minority sufficiently large and vigorous to be a nuisance; then there ought to be a genuine persecution, to which local irritations or unpopularities do not now amount; and in that hour I should think that whole masses of the half-hearted would slide off. I think this because it has been noticeable that any degree of increased freedom and popularity has weakened us; and if we do first get more power, more worldly well-being in the state, I expect to see, too, a weakening of spiritual vigor, so that in the hour of reaction, of persecution, we would not resist. We would not be tough all through. I think that the frightful — I repeat, the frightful — burden rightly laid on the average citizen by way of Catholic doctrine concerning birth restriction, tends to break down the allegiance of thousands whose shoulders are not exceptionally strong. I know many who argue (illogically, but still): 'In this point I cannot — anyway I do not — observe Catholic rules. Had I not better therefore chuck the whole thing? Would I not be a hypocrite not to do so?' I should not then be in the least surprised to see, in a century, no Catholic country anywhere left, but strong, self conscious, suffering Catholic minorities in every country — larger than they are now, much larger, in nominally non-Catholic countries (England, Denmark, Scandinavia, Germany, of course), and small but far more vigorous than they are now in historically Catholic countries such as France, Austria, some South American areas and so forth. I confess that Italy and Spain provide a problem such as to check even the most rash prognostications! I recognize that what I have said contains an implication that many Catholics are not all that they ought to be. Poor platitude! Who supposes that they are? But why aren't they? I leave aside the mystery of evil will, and ask if there are reasons for weak conviction, weak resolve?"² True, this is a mere prophecy, but it is not as fanciful as it may sound at first reading. There are influences at work, which are sapping the morale of our Catholics and thus paving the way for deplorable leakage. Now, perhaps the greatest menace to faith in our days is the growing sex immorality of the age.

The Modern Sex Revolt

The modern generation claims as its right a sex freedom that has its parallel only in the darkest and most abandoned days of paganism. Ascetism and all that savors of discipline is laughed out of court. Modesty is branded as hypocrisy. Unbridled passion is euphemistically called self-realization. Men rail against the binding tie of indissoluble marriage. It has become a tacit assumption that even the young must have their sex experiences, which are regarded as indispensable to the full development of personality. Modern devices, by freeing the sex act from its natural consequences, have removed the last curb from irresponsible sexual enjoyment. The propaganda for birth-control has invaded well-nigh every home in the country, and tries to place marriage entirely in the service of mere selfish gratification. This picture is not in the least overdrawn. Catholics as well as non-Catholics deplore the devastating sex laxity of the age. The vast bulk of men in our days live their lives on the plane of mere animal life. They have lost the sense of the supernatural, and are completely immersed in the enjoyment of this world. They seek nothing beyond a momentarily pleasant sensation. They have forgotten that they are children of God and heirs of eternity. Hence, their hunger for two things: wealth and sex gratification. Now, whereas riches even in our days still only go to the few, sex enjoyment by the invention of contraceptive devices has been made accessible to all who have no moral scruples in the matter. And the last moral scruples are fast fading way. In a searching analysis of the religious life of today Mr. Bernard Iddings Bell writes with regard to this subject: "Because he (the college undergraduate) does not understand that the Christian Church involves a life lived for supernatural ends, admittedly different from those of the world at large, he almost always fails to understand the real basis of Christian morals… Whenever morality is discussed nowadays, the argument almost always resolves itself into talk about matters connected with the seventh commandment. While we may deplore this tendency to limit good or bad living to the relationship of the sexes and to regard fornication as vastly worse than pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy — a thoroughly vicious seeing things out of focus — yet we may take sex for an example. It well illustrates the point being made. Here, as it happens, anyone with half an eye can see that natural morality differs from Christ's morality, and that the difference is due to a differing definition of man and his highest good. When people believe as a matter of course that a man is an immortal soul, lodged within a body, they also believe that in matters of sex the interest of souls is more worth conserving than the interest of bodies. There was a time when most people in America thought that way, and when current natural ethics maintained just that. Such was not the case in the world to which Christ came and to which Paul preached. It is not the case in the world at the present moment. Nowadays most people do not believe any such thing about man and his highest destiny, and prevailing natural ethics has changed accordingly. The usual man of the moment may admit that there is a soul, but only in the sense of a higher function of the body. Man may be a superbeast, but he is essentially a beast. So people think. And, because they think it, the impulse toward chastity and monogamy loses force. This is to be expected for the simple reason that chastity is not an animal virtue and never was, while monogamy is not a natural arrangement for the handling of the family, and never has prevailed among the beasts... If man is only a socialized beast, if his highest goods are animal goods, there is not the slightest reason why companionate marriage, so called, or some other form of thinly disguised promiscuity should not prevail. As a matter of fact, it is to some such thing that increasingly our contemporary natural standard, embodied in the changing laws governing matrimony, is approaching."³ In the realm of sex it has become true what Mr. Felix Adler says of the morally debasing effects of the teaching of modern science: "And note that, when men think meanly of themselves, they are apt to act meanly; when men regard themselves as animals, they are apt to behave as such."⁴

Birth Control

The most devastating influence in modern sex morality is the clamorously conducted birth-control propaganda. It has completely upset the traditional ideas of sex ethics, and brought about in the minds of many an incredible confusion. In this matter no small portion of the community is able to see straight. Their thinking is all awry. The right use of marriage for its God-intended purpose is ridiculed. It is put down as an irresponsible act, as rank selfishness, as lack of proper self-control. The unnatural use of the marriage act for mere sensual gratification is extolled as a sign of enlightenment, as a noble act of self-restraint, as evidence of vision, as an enrichment of the higher love life, as a manifestation of altruism and social forethought, as a laudable practice that distinguishes man from the brute. As a result of such teaching, the parents of numerous progeny are made the objects of scorn and looked upon with contempt. They are regarded either as hopelessly stupid or lacking in finer moral qualities. The world has never before witnessed such utter distortion of moral values. Says one of the apostles of this shameless practice: "There could be no greater contribution to the morality of the world and to marital happiness than Birth Control," The advocates of the practice look upon themselves as the heralds of a higher morality. They fondly imagine that they are inaugurating for mankind a new era of happiness.⁵

Demanding continence outside of marriage by the moderns is called suppressing sex. And sex is such a beautiful, wonderful fact, so essential to human happiness that interference with it is nothing short of criminal! Divorce and unhappy marriages will not be prevented until we recognize greater sex freedom! What we need is sex enjoyment without procreation, and birth-control makes this feasible! "With an adequate method of birth-control this double arrangement (marriage merely for sex experience and marriage for procreation) might be possible, because it would not be undertaking the impossible task of forbidding to people a free, normal, and decent exercise of their sexual cravings. Permitted that they would be ready to forego children if they were plainly not fitted to produce or to rear them. Such a restraint would be a reasonable, not an intolerable one — nor would it be an infringement on personal liberty comparable to the taboos we take for granted today and violate continually because we can't endure them."⁶ Companionate marriage comes under this category, for it is a device to secure sex gratification to those who do not wish to shoulder the responsibilities of parenthood, and who wish to retain the right to separate at will. It is the worst caricature of marriage that has ever entered into the mind of man. In fact, it is so absurd that it could have arisen only in a brain so obsessed by sex that every other consideration is blotted out.⁷

Moral Contamination

The moral atmosphere in which we live is impregnated with elements of corruption. Catholic life has not proved itself immune from infection, but has suffered from its inevitable contacts with the unwholesome environment. It could hardly be otherwise. The Holy Father laments the decay of true Christian life and the decline of spirituality. In a recent Encyclical he writes: "Even among the faithful, washed in the baptismal blood of the Immaculate Lamb and enriched by grace, the spectacle is not less sad, since many of all classes are ignorant of divine things or poisoned by false doctrines, and live evil lives far from the house of their Divine Father, without the joy of hope in a future beatitude, and deprived of the comfort derived from the ardor of charity, so that it can be said in truth that they live in darkness and in the shadow of death. Moreover, among the faithful there grows a carelessness in matters religious and of ancient tradition whereby Christian life is supported, domestic society is regulated, and the sanctity of marriage defended… Christian modesty has been lamentably forgotten in the mode of living and in the dressing of women. An insatiable longing for the perishable things of the world, anxious seeking for popular favor and contempt of legitimate authority and the word of God have shaken faith itself, or very gravely endangered it."⁸ It is not difficult to recognize in this deplorable phenomenon of Christian degeneration the destructive influence of the time-spirit.

Notes

1 The apologist, the controversialist and the convert-maker must be familiar with the temper of his generation and the mentality of his age, or he will be working in the dark and fail of his purpose. That also is the conviction of Mr. Edward Ingram Watkin, who writes: "Well-nigh a century has now passed since Newman began his lifework in the cause of Christian apologetic. He entered upon this work, not merely to meet the pressure of immediate controversy, but with the deliberate purpose of combating the growing infidelity of his age. He took a general survey of the present condition and future prospects of Christian apologetic. Such a general outlook over the state of affairs, both in one's own camp and in that of the enemy, is surely as necessary for the apologist in his warfare with unbelief, as for the military commander in his material warfare. Unless the apologist possesses this general view of the intellectual conditions and the spiritual needs of his time, and of the main lines on which Christian apologetic should proceed in view of these special conditions and needs, his more detailed work is most likely to miss its aim. Such a survey is, moreover, just as necessary for the least among apologetic writers, as for the great masters of Christian thought" ("Some Thoughts on Catholic Apologetics. A Plea for Interpretation," St. Louis, Mo.).

2 "Paradox and Prophesy," in The Commonweal, February 22, 1928 (New York City). Another paragraph in the same article suggests the cause of this predicted decline of faith: "I fear I shall be called Puritan, if not Pharisee — killjoy, Jansenist even; still I repeat what I had to say again and again during the months when it was my duty to preach the Pope's 'message to young men' — until we make to soak into the very fibre of the souls of our young men and girls a strong infusion of poverty, chastity and obedience, we shall have flimsy stuff ... In England, I am told, an Italian writer has lately registered (he said that to return to Italy was like going back into a monastery) that there is an outbreak of self-indulgence unparalleled in extent and intensity. I am not very good at parallels and refrain from making any. There certainly is an amount of self-indulgence that must be bad for human nature, even, and absolute death to Christian ideals" (loc. cit.). What is here said of England is equally true of our own country. But such a social atmosphere, in which our Catholics cannot help living, is patently dangerous. By its persistent action it imperceptibly destroys their moral ideals, and then also attacks their beliefs, since there is a close and intimate connection between faith and morals, and faith rarely survives the ruin of morality.

3 "The Church and the Undergraduate," in The Atlantic Monthly. We have quoted at length from this article because it avoids sensationalism, and is laudably moderate in its presentation of the facts. Let us hear an ardent apostle of the new sex freedom on the subject of traditional marriage: "It seems never to have occurred to the rigid upholders of such church laws that they are promoting more unhappiness, vice, crime, immorality and sin than they ever prevent. Such a rigidly fixed and enslaving marriage code may produce results quite as bad, immoral, and disastrous as irresponsible Free Love, of which it is supposed to be the direct antithesis. Regardless of all dogma, and theory, I feel it my duty to speak the truth as I discover it in the confidential workings of my court. The kinds of cases here described are not exceptional. They are far more common than the public knows. Back of them all lies the Sex Hunger, a normal instinct starved by our superstitions, conventions and dogmas. These many taboos demand obedience in the very teeth of nature and in defiance of the laws of God; and as people free themselves from the shackles of fear and superstition, they are coming more and more into contempt… Marriage, as we have it now, is plain Hell for most persons who get into it. That's flat…And it is Hell for the simple reason that it is despotic, that it is a denial of freedom to individuals who can't live in bondage, because the most sacred instincts in their nature forbid it... Birth control when science has finally perfected adequate, certain, and easy means of contraception, would mean that there would be no unwanted children. Thus there perhaps would be less likelihood of headlong marriages. The impulse toward love would have free and normal satisfaction in a type of marriage easily dissolved; and couples who found, in due time, that they were fitted to remain together indefinitely, and to undertake the joint responsibility of children with a fair chance of carrying that big undertaking through happily and willingly, would deliberately have children. Those who found by experience that they could not pull together that well, but who found the mere sexual bond satisfactory, would not commit the crime of bringing into the world unwanted children who would not on arrival have the benefit of a happy home and of correct rearing. More than that, unfit couples would not commit the even greater crime of bringing into the world children with an inferior physical or mental inheritance. Rather they would satisfy their wish for parenthood by adopting children who have first been given their physical life by fit parents. Such an order of things might make this race over within a very few generations. It might result, if linked with adequate education, in the creation of a race such as this old earth has never seen" (Judge Ben B. Lindsey and Wainwright Evans, "The Revolt of Modern Youth," New York City). The book that sets forth these views has not been universally condemned, but, on the contrary, has been hailed by many as a wonderful event. One writes: "It is all true, shamefully true for our vaunted civilization and debauched democracy, but glorious for all that, since you have diagnosed and given the etiology of our social leprosy and have fearlessly exposed yourself in pointing out the only sane therapy possible. I believe that this book sows the seed for more good and that it will do more than any book of modern times" (Dr. W. E. Robie, Author of "Sex and Life").

4 "The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal" (New York City). When morality weakens, the breakdown first occurs in the sphere of sex, and the first institution to be attacked is marriage. How the moderns look on marriage, appears from the following paragraph: "Those who officiate at marriages get from prospective brides and grooms many odd requests about the ceremony: 'Make it snappy' is not unusual; nor is 'Cut out the forever stuff…' Certain it is that respect for the institution is no longer so unquestioned as before. Open revolt against it is more frequent. As serious as direct attack is indifference, with or without cynicism… But more and more another type of union has come into being. It is the mating of men and women who do not expect to become parents, who do not think of their marriage in terms of obligation to the children, and who demand therefore a greater freedom to divorce and to remarry than society may concede to parents. Though there was a time when marriage for any other purpose but procreation was branded as mere wantonness, such unions are now much more common, especially since women in far greater number than before are self-supporting" (Dr. Henry Neumann, "Modern Youth and Marriage," New York City).

5 It surely sounds ridiculous when Mrs. Margaret Sanger, staunch advocate of birth-control, grandiloquently exclaims: "Upon our shoulders rests the responsibility of creating a new sex morality. The vital difference between a morality thus created and the so-called morality of the past is that the new standard will be based upon knowledge and freedom while the old was founded upon ignorance."

6 The same authors say: "In my judgment this cannot be done while marriage, as we now have it, is the one outlet permitted to the sex impulse. We should provide another type of marriage to meet this need. Whether society could wisely permit still other forms of sex liberty than the Companionate is a matter for the future. Perhaps with this rampant eroticism that is now the bane of society, brought under control by such means as this, some still further development toward a sane sex code and a greater degree of sex freedom outside of procreative marriage would be possible…Of all the forces in the world that have been instrumental in producing the type of marriage most inevitably destined for the divorce court, the Christian Church stands first. It has accomplished this tragic result — with the best intentions doubtless — by attributing to chastity — as to virginity — an exaggerated and fictitious value; by regarding every erotic impulse outside of wedlock as sin, by regarding sex as lust; by accepting the implications of St. Paul's teaching that it is better to marry than to burn; and by making of marriage a magic rite of purification, whereby people may sin with the permission of heaven… And so the Christian Church, thundering down the ages against the sinful lusts of the flesh, has, by suppressing sex outside of procreative marriage, given it an abnormal importance within marriage" (Lindsey and Evans, "The Companionate Marriage," New York City).

7 Commenting on the Companionate Marriage, Miss Kathleen Norris writes: "Thus, say the preachers of Companionate marriage, their (of girls and boys in their teens) first sex impulses, instead of being dangerously thwarted, are satisfied safely and happily, no unloved or unwanted children are born, there are no complications and no responsibilities. 'They are doing it anyway,' said one of the chief exponents of the measure to me, 'youth will be youth. Why make it a matter of shame and sin for them? It's a perfectly natural thing — it's a beautiful thing. Nature is giving them these impulses, cleanly and forcefully — there'd be no world at all, if she didn't. It's only Society — it's only dirty-minded convention and interfering, church-going, psalm-singing Puritanism that makes such a fuss about it.' It is hard to be patient with arguments like this. It is hard to believe that any sensible person can in good faith advance them. The most charitable construction possible seems to be that, if persons think too hard and too long upon one topic, they are apt to run off the track mentally, where that topic is concerned. If any man spends a whole quarter of a century in the unrelieved contemplation of juvenile delinquency, it is not surprising that to him the words youth and sex-abuse seem almost interchangeable… The most pathetic fallacy of the Companionate marriage theory lies in the bland supposition that, the minute sex appetites awaken in the young, they should immediately and precipitately be satisfied" ("A Laywoman Looks at Companionate Marriage," in The Catholic World, June, 1928).

8 Miserentissimus Redemptor, 1928.

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