The State Without God

Winston Churchill once said “Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.” Many of the problems we now face as a nation are traceable to the French Revolution of 1789. We haven’t learned. The French revolutionaries were atheists who believed that rights come from the state, and that man could use his reason alone to determine morality. Catholic teaching is that our rights come from God.

The revolutionaries set wage and price controls, causing goods and food to become scarce; they printed money, which caused the currency to devalue. They expropriated land from the aristocrats and the Church, and redistributed it, to the National Assembly (themselves). They held a festival for the “Goddess of Reason” in Notre Dame. They outlawed monastic life. When the Carmelite Nuns of Compiègne refused to comply, they were guillotined by “The Committee of Public Safety.”

Karl Marx (1818-1883) developed the ideas of the French Revolution into a complete philosophy. These include: There is no God, or Heaven, only life on earth. We must destroy capitalism and inequality by creating a classless “Workers’ Paradise.” There is no God-given morality: Authority comes from the community. Abolish private property. Abolish the Family so that parents cannot bequeath possessions to their children and thereby increase inequality. Educate children in state-run institutions.

Lenin (1870-1924) put Marx’s philosophy into practice. Since Lenin believed the ends justify the means, lies were permitted. His model went like this: Tell the people what they want to hear. After you get them on your side, and yourself into power, seize businesses and the wealth of the rich, and then use the military, police and spies to achieve your goals. Lenin told the peasants he would give them “peace, bread and land.” The peasants wanted the “free” land, to be taken from the owners, or kulaks. After the Bolshevik coup, the land was soon collectivized, and the government requisitioned more grain than the peasants could produce. Starvation began. The Communists killed, en masse, their political enemies. There was no peace, bread or land. The Communist party and the State were one. The Communists set about destroying the family by allowing easy divorce, abortion, and homosexual acts. “Stray” children roamed the streets. Crime increased. Communists confiscated church property (especially objects containing gold), destroyed churches, and murdered priests, monks and sisters.

Though Lenin preached a classless society, one of his homes was the stolen mansion of an aristocrat/nobleman. He had a car collection, one of which was a Rolls Royce. Before his death, 27 doctors attended to him.

Hitler (1889-1945) and the Nazis also believed that rights came from the state. Hitler told his confidant Hermann Rausching that “the whole of National Socialism is based on Marxism.” (The Keys of His Blood, M. Martin, p. 239)  The Nazis outlawed home education.

Other Communist/Marxist takeovers, with similar results, occurred in Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and elsewhere. Hugo Chavez (1954-2013) followed the Lenin playbook of wealth redistribution and became president in 1998. He nationalized industries, suppressed the press and rewrote electoral laws. By 2010 Caracas had the highest murder rate in the world. Then “other people’s money” ran out. Now, due to price controls and inflation, shelves are empty, many are hungry, crime is rampant, and an estimated 25% of the population has emigrated. The new “rich” are those connected with the party/government. Nicolas Maduro, who lost the 2024 presidential election, refuses to leave office.

Many Americans seem to have been converted to the materialistic view that security and pleasure are the main reason for human existence, that there is no eternal Truth, and that our rights come from the State. We have, in the words of Malcolm Muggeridge, “lost our sense of a moral order in the universe, without which no order whatsoever – economic, social, political – is attainable.” The State has commandeered education, redefined marriage and personhood, and devalued the dollar as it increases deficit spending: Using gold as the measure, it now takes over a dollar to equal the value of one cent in 1914, which implies a currency devaluation of over 4% a year!

We are repeating the mistakes of the French Revolution! Catholic individuals and families must live up to the teachings of Christ and His Church. This requires heroic faith, virtue, prayer, and a willingness to follow the example of the Holy Martyrs of Compiègne. Let us also heed the words of Bp. Sheen: “Given a freedom which is independent of God, (and) independent of moral law… America could vote itself out of democracy tomorrow… Woe to us if the believing element in our country does not allow its belief in God and morality to seep down into its action in the polling booths.”

Please continue to support this apostolate through your prayers, by telling others, and if possible, a financial contribution. We need volunteers, especially those with filming, editing, and digitizing media skills. We have the equipment, but we need people! We would like more involvement by young Catholics.

Holy Martyrs of Compiègne, pray for us.