Dystopia: already here
Letter from the District Superior, Rev. Robert Brucciani, May 2018
My dear brethren,
The last century produced three notable works of fiction that depict a dystopian future for the world: Lord of the World by Mgr. Robert Hugh Benson (1907), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949). In each book the author made predictions of the future by extrapolating the tendencies of the world at the time of writing. While the picture of society painted by each novel is very different, the similarities with our own world are alarming.
Religion
In Lord of the World, Christianity is replaced by a state religion in which man is worshipped. The tenets of this new religion of man are almost identical to the new religion outlined in the Second Vatican Council's Dignitatits Humanae! (An article will be devoted to this uncanny similarity in a future issue.)
Huxley predicts a state-organised religion which worships a god named "Ford" (probably a reference to the almighty capitalist of his day) with a sensual liturgy bereft of any appeal to reason.
Orwell makes no memorable reference to religion in his description of Oceana, in which England (named “Airstrip One”) finds itself. Atheism reigns.
Morals
In all three novels, there are no objective principles that determine right and wrong behaviour. There is, therefore, no natural law. Mgr. Benson predicts a world governed by the social norms of the day. Both Huxley and Orwell predict a world in which the principles of the natural order and revealed religion are replaced by an order imposed by the state. Mgr. Benson and Orwell preserve the notion of marriage and the family, but Huxley makes even the concepts of marriage, mother, father and childbirth appear repulsive and subversive in the ears of the inhabitants of the Brave New World.
Eugenics and contraception are central to the society of the Brave New World, with abortion and cremation being practised there on an industrial scale. Euthanasia is common to all three dystopias.
Education
In Lord of the World, the population is manipulated by state-sponsored media and many Catholic priests leave the priesthood as a consequence. In Brave New World, children are taught by “hypnopedia”, by which foetuses and young children are subjected to thousands of repetitions of oral propositions until they hold them as self-evident truths. In this world, ten thousand lies can actually be made into one unassailable “truth”. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, children and adults are continuously indoctrinated by ear, eye and activity. The universally present “telescreens” are rarely quiet and the party activities occupy most "free-time". History must always be rewritten to support the changing needs of the party.
There is no new philosophy or theology in any of the predicted futures.
Recreation
There is no recreation mentioned in Lord of the World and no recreation approved of for party members in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Brave New World, free time is spent in mindless games such as “electromagnetic golf”, diversions such as the “feelies” (a development of the “movies”), under the influence of the state-produced drug “soma” and in shameless promiscuity from the earliest age.
The state
In Lord of the World, it is the "establishment" that runs things and laws are made to fit pragmatic expedience. This "establishment" willingly subjects itself to a new world order directed by the incarnation of Satan himself. In Brave New World, there is an invisible one-world government, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, there is a single perpetual conflict between a changing alliance of two totalitarian world powers and a third.
In Lord of the World, perceived enemies of the state are lynched by the mob; in Brave New World they are mercifully exiled to places like Iceland or the Falklands; in Ninety Eighty-Four they are “vaporised” after a lengthy period of interrogation, torture and public humiliation.
Instruments of control
Universal surveillance and extreme enforcement powers are unquestioned in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Submission to the system is almost automatic in Brave New World (owing to the absence of all critical thinking and “hypnopedic conditioning”), and self-policing by fear are features of all three dystopias.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, children are taught to and rewarded for denouncing their own parents. “Thought crime” is something as pernicious as it is arbitrarily used to maintain the climate of fear.
Nothing new
Such are the visions of dystopia. Now, while this might sound alarmist, much of the evil described in these dystopian worlds is actually happening in our own and, in some things like abortion and gender ideology, the dark dystopian predictions of a century ago are even surpassed.
Not surprisingly, there is a common feature of the different societies portrayed and our own, and that is the rejection of God, to Whom we owe adoration, to Whose laws we are subject, and from Whom we learn and receive power and grace.
This wholesale rejection of Jesus Christ, the God-Man, has happened before. In his great work, The City of God, St. Augustine shows how a society that turned away from (or ignored) its Creator and Redeemer fell into the most appalling vices while convinced that it was practising virtue, and thereby ultimately failed. The irony was that the pagans blamed the fall of Rome on that unique thing which could have brought it peace, prosperity and glory: the Catholic religion.
The same may be said of the leaders of the Chosen Race, who had Christ crucified 2,000 years ago. The same may be said of political powers that govern the world in our own day. And, most painfully, the same may be said of those prelates of the Church of Jesus Christ who are attempting to strip the Church of its doctrine in order to accommodate dystopia. Stripping her of doctrine is the same as stripping her of Truth, which is the same thing as stripping her of God.
What it means for us
My dear brethren, dystiopia is upon us. Many of you who work in professions connected with law, education and medicine have already experienced the growing expectation of enthusiastic approval of fundamentally anti-Christian beliefs and practices (homosexuality, sex education in schools, abortion and euthanasia, etc.). This expectation by government, by employers, by schools and by society in general is growing and will most probably continue to grow to the point where it is not possible to live under the radar as a Catholic anymore. The Church is no longer a political force in the world and there are no Catholic champions on the world stage. We will all, sooner or later, be expected to burn incense before the new false gods or face the consequences.
This prospect fills me with dread. I fear for St. Michael's School, I fear for parents who must raise their children in this fallen world, I fear for our faithful who must live and work in an increasingly hostile environment. I fear for the time when I will be accused of hate-speech for preaching Jesus Christ.
We are not the first to live in such times, however. Our glorious martyrs have traced a clear path. We must be attached to nothing and give everything, even our lives. Now is the time to give yourself entirely to God. It has not been so glorious a gift for many a generation. Now is the time for the young men and women to give themselves to a priestly or religious vocation. The need is pressing, the good that may be done is the greatest and the sacrifice to make is the most trifling, for the world holds little for them anymore. Now is the time for parents to make their homes into a domestic church. Now is the time for breadwinners to extract themselves from workplaces where they will soon be expected to renounce Christ, and seek their living in a more wholesome milieu where He may be honoured instead.
In the month of May, let us make ourselves true children of Mary. I encourage you to attend May devotions, such as the May procession at the St. Michael's School on 7 May and to recite the Litany of our Lady of Loreto after your family rosary each day. Members of the Militia Immaculatae: glory in the sunshine of her patronage and undertake an apostolic work to bring souls to Jesus through Mary. A plenary indulgence may be gained by members on 13 May under the usual conditions.
Soon it will be Pentecost and then the feast of Corpus Christi. Both feasts are opportunities to rekindle the fire of Divine Love by preparation of the liturgy. We need more faithful to learn Gregorian Chant and more young men to serve in our sanctuaries. Neither one of them is difficult if we would but apply ourselves to the task.
And then June will arrive in no time at all. Enthrone the Sacred Heart in your homes if you haven't already done so and recite the Litany of the Sacred Heart every day. Put one, true and everlasting order in your home.
The architects of our present dystopia will fail one day. Just as no lie can remain concealed forever, no rebellion against the order that God has created can last. Let us make ourselves His instruments therefore, by which His victory over death and sin, which we celebrated at Easter, is made manifest in the world. Utopia may not be for this world, but striving for it most certainly is.
In Jesu et Maria,
Rev. Robert Brucciani
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