According to Bernanos, the opposite of a sad People is a Christian People. This sentence is equally meaningful if it is formulated in reverse: the opposite of a Christian People is a sad People.

       And this is exactly what our current Catholicism is experiencing: a Catholicism that is struggling in the midst of a Summa Sadness which, in turn, is the result of the Great Emptiness that is choking and invading it from everywhere. And one of the greatest misfortunes that a Community can suffer, a veritable punishment sent by God which never consists of a beating –for God punishes without blows—, is that the said Community is not even aware of the miserable situation in which it is immersed. Like a cancer already well advanced about which the patient lives in total indifference and ignorance because this deadly disease has not yet shown its face; and when at last it does, it is usually too late.

       The self-proclaimed intelligent people may ask themselves what hate has to do with sadness. At first sight, it would appear that one has nothing to do with the other. However, Hell is pure hatred, despite the fact that those intelligent people usually do not believe in it either, thereby falling, given the shortness of human life, into the most ephemeral error ever known. However, do you really believe that there is any joy in that place?

       Jesus Christ promised His disciples His own Joy, together with the promise that no one would be able to take it away (Jn 16:22). But He said nothing about the possibility that His disciples would be willing to renounce to it voluntarily. And no one –absolutely no one—can be retained within Joy against his own will because, after all, Joy is the first fruit of Love; and Love, in turn, is essentially Freedom: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor 3:17).

       Spain, for example, is a Country that is in the throes of its complete demolition –material, political, social, and, above all, spiritual. And all this is taking place before the most absolute complacency (not mere indifference) on the part of all its citizens and the Christians who are living there. The latter, according to some people’s opinion, which deserves all credit, are just supporting with their attitude the mysterious silence of the Ecclesiastic Hierarchy.     

       In this way, it became possible that what in another time was a Great Nation and a Great Empire has ceased to exist. The demolition of the imposing Monuments of the Valley of the Fallen, to give a current and handy example, with the total indifference of the People and the silence of the Bishops, is but the symbol of the annihilation and the uprooting of the Christian values in a Country that once was Catholic and a bulwark of Christianity.

       It is true that fear, surrendering to blackmail and lies, the abandonment of the Faith, and the renunciation to one’s own dignity are never recognized as what they are. The Lie, for example, never shows itself as such lie but is disguised as Truth. Ignominy itself, which is an expert on histrionics, always appears behind the mask of honesty.

       That is why the current Catholicism in this Country is still occupied in promoting noise, masquerades, showy parades, applauses to the political leaders, and all kind of Farces. After all, it is necessary that many people continue believing in what does not exist; like the typical Western town we seen in the cinema: is has saloons, several hotels, a sheriff’s office and the corresponding jail, a blacksmith, and some barbershop or dental clinic. But all these things are just drop scenes –mere cardboard, propped and sustained by some pieces of wood—, there is nothing behind them.

       Something similar is happening to modern Catholicism: spectacular Youth Gatherings, Grandiose Statements, publicized Ecumenical Dialogues, fervent enthusiasm towards the idols and leaders of the present moment…everything with the only intention of hiding the fact that the Church as an institution is dead. Not the Church founded by Jesus Christ, of course, for, according to the promise of her Founder, the Gates of Hell can do nothing against her; but the one that wanders around the world giving rise to important questions, for example: Which criteria are usually followed in appointing Shepherds with the proper sense of responsibility? When will the real problems afflicting the Christian People be addressed? What is being done to rid the sheep of the danger of the Wolf and to point the way to them? Etc.

       Meanwhile, as we have said above, the true Church will continue her march toward the Father’s House. She will be the Church of the poor (not in the Marxist sense), of the despised and forgotten by the World, of those branded as cursed because of their crime of being faithful to the Gospel…and so on.

       A Church, in addition, in which there will always be some child who, like in the famous tale, will cry out to say: No matter what they say, the king is naked and is not wearing any tunic. Yes, indeed, for it has already been said in some place that from the mouth of the children you will hear the truth.

       In the end, Joy will never be eliminated from the hearts of the true disciples. After all, as Chesterton said, It is their huge secret; hence the World is condemned never to know It. To that end, of course, the disciples of Jesus Christ will have to follow the Way of their Teacher; which is none other than that of the Cross. Which way, when all is said and done, is the only one that leads to Victory. And, along with It, to Love for Jesus Christ: the exclusive source of the only real Joy.