The fact that a variety of philosophical principles of Idealism have broken into the Church, even at the highest levels, has endangered its subsistence, making it totter dangerously, even threatening its downfall: a collapse that would have already occurred were it not for the unbreakable promise of its Divine Founder: the Gates of Hell can never overpower it (Mt 16:18).

            For, once the principles of Idealism are more or less consciously admitted, it is only a matter of time before its logical consequences appear. That is how modern man has come to the point in which he does not feel the need to come out of himself to follow someone else – and even less to surrender himself to the other to the point of renouncing his own life.

            According to this scheme of things, man is a self-sufficient being who has no need to search for a Paradise outside of this world, but only in the one in which he lives, since there is no other. Moreover, love is merely a physiological phenomenon in which there is little difference between its presence in human beings and in animals. That is why it no longer makes sense for man to come out of himself and search for another, as the fundamental law of love dictates. Man realizes himself, inside himself, without needing external elements which would alienate himself. On the other hand, the person as such disappears, diluted in the social reality which is the only consistent entity; and without the personal reality, love (which can only exist between persons) becomes impossible. The adage know yourself of the Oracle of Delphi has been left behind and amply surpassed. We do not need to turn to an effort of self-knowledge as a reference point. Why would we, once man has discovered that he and only he makes himself?

The principles of Idealism and its philosophies –with its adhering by-products like Marxism— are far from having disappeared from the modern world. The truth is that they saturate the atmosphere in which man exists today; including, of course, the Christian. Therefore, it is not surprising that, even within the Church, the emphasis has shifted from God to man, nor that anthropology has occupied areas that formerly belonged to Theology.

In the tremendous effort of today's Church to recover a de-Christianized world, many Shepherds have convinced themselves of the need to use the only categories that man is willing to accept today: his own, the purely human ones, which are usually far from the supernatural ones. That is how many men of the Church began the task of concealing the authentic content of Revelation, without hesitating to use purely natural categories and concepts, and ended up forgetting its true meaning. It seems incredible that simple dictates of common sense can so easily be forgotten. For example, that it is not reasonable to adopt the policy of concealing or hiding merchandise if your objective is to increase sales.

(To be continued)