The profound crisis shaking the Church. Cardinal Sarah’s new book

Our age presents the bleak spectacle of a world that claims to be building a city of men without God, or even in opposition to Him. Europe, in particular, seems to have severed its ties with its Christian heritage. It lives like a prodigal son who thoughtlessly squanders the spiritual treasure received from his forefathers. This, in the words of John Paul II, is a veritable ‘silent apostasy’: that of a sated man who lives as if God did not exist (Ecclesia in Europa, no. 9). An anthropology without God and without Christ seeks today to dominate minds. In it, man is falsely elevated to the absolute centre of reality, usurping the place of the Creator. Thus, it is forgotten that it is not man who makes God, but God who makes man. From this culpable amnesia spring man’s abandonment to himself, philosophical nihilism, moral relativism, cynical pragmatism and a conception of freedom abandoned to every desire.

Truth, stripped of its divine foundation, becomes suspect, and the public conscience slips into a religious indifference that is as barren as it is dangerous. The rejection of truth – that is, of God – opens the door to a multitude of confusions. Opinions clash, ideologies proliferate, contradictions multiply, each reflecting the disordered desires and particular interests of those who espouse them. By severing the link with the divine source, man destroys himself spiritually and ends up reduced to a machine or an animal. Man’s idolatry inevitably leads to his own decline. By setting himself against God, he loses the dignity which the Creator had bestowed upon him. The principles of modern anthropocentrism, deeply rooted in the very foundations of contemporary civilisation, taint all its manifestations. It would be futile to seek to reform institutions or remedy a society whose very foundations are corrupt. It is not, first and foremost, the structures, nor merely the customs, that need to be corrected, but the souls, the minds and the consciences.

Salvation will come from an inner change, from a radical conversion, from a renewal of fundamental principles. In this battle, the Church cannot remain silent. Its primary mission is to call the world to conversion. Only a return to Jesus Christ can restore our true humanity. As the psalmist teaches: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Ps 127:1).

The modern edifice built without God is destined to collapse. This world, which has sought to emancipate itself from the Creator, cannot survive unless it returns to Him. Spiritual death befalls those who turn away from God; life is reborn only through a humble and sincere return. The principles that have corrupted modernity stand in direct opposition to those of the Christian order. One cannot remedy disorder without pointing to the true order. Many Catholics, clear-sighted and troubled, feel with sorrow the profound crisis shaking the Church: the loss of a sense of sin, the weakening of priestly and marital commitment, indifference towards doctrine, the neglect of the liturgical treasure, and contempt for the tradition that has produced so many saints.

Added to this internal crisis is the external aggression of hostile ideologies: atheistic communism, Nazism, gender ideology and transhumanism. The West is going through a cultural dark age unprecedented in human history.

God has now been excluded from the public consciousness, relegated to the realm of private opinion, with no real impact on social life. Moral liberalism and religious indifference are undermining the very foundations of society. And yet, God continues to intervene. His love is stronger than sin. He brings about a new order, superior to the old order destroyed by human pride. This is why He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Every act of Christ possesses infinite value, capable not only of securing forgiveness, but also of more than fully making amends for the disorder brought about by sin. And this divine act is at the same time fully human, offered on behalf of all humanity.