Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who is set to receive official beautification in the Catholic Church this year, was clear-sighted and incisive about the threat that Communism posed to God-given rights.
Sheen observed, “In a democracy man has rights which are God-given; under communism the rights are state-given and therefore they can be state-taken-away.” This, he argued, was the crux of the contrast between the Judeo-Christian view that America’s Founding Fathers took of rights and the view Marxist tyrants take of rights. When the rights are granted by God, government exists to protect them, but cannot take them away. When rights are granted at the arbitrary whim of whoever is in power, they can on almost any pretext be trampled.
It is strange that with Communism being so entirely destructive as it is, having always resulted in massacre and poverty wherever it took root, and being responsible for more deaths than any other ideology in world history, so many Westerners now believe in it. But Sheen had an explanation for that, too. “Since Communists infiltrate their philosophy through lies and myths, it is imperative that people in a democracy be properly informed concerning not only the errors of its ideology, but also the great truths of human nature, history and religion,” he stated.
In his Life of Christ, a brilliant narrative not only examining Gospel events but applying their lessons to the modern world, Sheen wrote, "Communism comes along and picks up the meaningless Cross; Western post-Christian civilization chooses the unscarred Christ." He went on to emphasize that Communism looks for "a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supra-individual goals," but without love, and therefore cruel and authoritarian. On the other hand, the West, instead of staying true to a Christ Who both suffered and triumphed as so many of the Founders did, looked to make Christ "a cheap, feminized, colorless, itinerant preacher" interested only in social justice, not in true justice.
And that is why Communism threatens even Americans' rights now, because so many of our leaders are either Commies themselves or believers only in the cross-less Christ, and therefore incapable of defending anything — especially rights. In the 18th century especially, but to some extent through the "Greatest Generation" of the mid-20th century, Americans were willing to die rather than see their God-given rights attacked. By the year 2020, most Americans were willing to surrender their God-given rights at the mere threat of a virus with 99% survivability. Obviously the Commies have been winning the culture war, and one successful election like 2024 cannot alone reverse the trend and end the danger. Each one of us has a role to play, as Fulton Sheen, a great believer in laymen's action, would have told us.
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Or, in other words, Communists who propagandized Westerners not only lied about their own ideology, but also about the foundational ideas of Western civilization, and we have to combat that entrenched propaganda. The increasing irreligiosity of Americans, the sexual revolution, the ignorance of our history, and the hatred of past heroes were all carefully engineered. We invited the enemy in out of tolerance, and ended up being persecuted by Communism's intellectual intolerance. "Our country is not nearly so overrun by the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded," Sheen mourned. He saw where the West was headed, and did yeoman’s work in educating Americans to love their religion and their country, but one man alone cannot reverse a globally-orchestrated revolution, and there were not enough clerics and patriots to join in Sheen’s work.
The question is whether we are now awake enough to take up where Sheen left off. The good archbishop once said, "As men love God, they will also love their country." And in another place, he argued, "We are independent of dictators because we are dependent on God." The two loves of freedom/country and God are connected, and give us a clue as to how to fight the Commies. But love is not mere words, it is also action. The Founding Fathers created a great nation not only because they believed rights came from God, but because they were willing to sacrifice everything to defend those rights. Can we say the same of ourselves?
If you are interested in hearing Fulton Sheen talk about American history, below is a fascinating broadcast he did on Abraham Lincoln:
