The evil of modern society is so prevalent that even atheists and progressives can no longer ignore it.
Our economies foster and monetise addiction, and the global agenda of the liberal regimes amounts to a total war on our civilisation, often partnered with the waging of wars abroad.
That we are ruled into chaos by the wicked is a fact which unites an increasing number of people in the formerly free world.
How did Christendom fall so fast - into a state in which it is legal to buy and sell AI-edited babies?
The worship of technology is producing a nightmarish vision of hell on earth - governed by algorithm - whilst the artificial means of the production of human life promise to replace mothers and the family.
Today we consider how a remarkable letter from Leo XIII predicted the rottenness of the modern state we are in - and how his remedy - to restore all in Christ - would prove to be more urgent now than ever before.
THE POISON AND THE REMEDY
Before Pope Leo XIII wrote the nine encyclicals of the Catholic Social Teachings, he released an encyclical letter in 1878.
Echoing the great victories at the siege of Malta, at Lepanto - and that of the first Pope Leo who turned back Attila the Hun from Rome, Inscrutabili speaks of
“On the evils affecting modern society: their causes and remedies”.
Pope Leo XIII does not endorse the reduction of human life to a component in global trade1. He does not recommend the dismantling of industrial civilisation.
Nor does he celebrate the acceptance of mortal sin in the lives of those so given to it that their identities are secured in their disordered sexual behaviour.
Leo XIII reminds us of the duty of the Pope - to condemn the defection from the teachings of the Catholic Church, founded by Christ Himself - and to warn men of the damnation they face here and in eternity in their dedication instead to sin.
In this series I have referred to Etienne Gilson’s excellent book on the Catholic Social Teachings, titled The Church Speaks to the Modern World.
It is a complete guide to the nine encyclicals themselves - and adds at the end the letter which began what is now called the Leonine Corpus.
This letter not only shows how the defection from the Church of Christ is the root of all evil in our modern world.
It speaks of a Catholic Church which was fearless and valiant, which won wars against overwhelming odds, and for which heroic men would face death without fear.
The power of the writings of Pope Leo XIII is tremendous.
He was a lion of the faith, worthy of the name of Pope Leo the Great - whose great piety turned back the tide of the Huns.
In the eleven pages of this letter is a call from the deep which could reawaken the West.
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