Moral side of things is pushed aside
by Gerard Murphy
Irish TV, radio and newspapers are undergoing a major change, a moral change that has hardly been noticed, much less debated.
Journalists and presenters are less and less likely to report the facts as accurately as possible and to offer fair comment on them.
Rather, selected facts and biased comment are now used as ammunition in an on-going campaign to change society. This is part of a new radical phase in secularism.
Behind it lies a rejection of objective morality, of the notion of good and evil as given. In place of morality we now have institutional or personal agendas.
But the ignoring of the moral dimension is to be found far more widely than in the media. In fact, it is so widespread now that it amounts to a profound social revolution.
Thus, education at college level, and more and more down the line, has lost all sense of what it is about, beyond providing young people with “opinions” and “job skills”.
We eagerly debate change of patronage in schools but carefully avoid any debate about the far more fundamental issue, the religious and moral formation of children.
Media and education, more and more, are about hiding or distorting the truth that challenges today’s agendas and moral confusion.
The courts take it upon themselves to impose on society evil practices under the guise of “human rights”, advancing the demands of individuals against the common good.
The government funds various efforts to remove children from the protection of parents and to indoctrinate them with a mechanical sexual ideology that leads to endless heartbreak for countless adults and children.
How else can we explain the amoral sex-ed programmes in schools? Or the Department of Health providing E124,000 per year for a website like Spunout, while slashing essential services?
Politicians no longer even fake integrity – they laugh at how their lies deceive us and openly admit their aim is to gain and retain power. Even protecting human life is, for them, merely a matter of self-interest.
Sexuality is treated as if it were a mere recreation, cut off from its fundamental meaning of procreation in a loving marriage.
Indeed, our rejection of objective morality, and even of human nature itself, and our mutilated view of sexual intimacy, blind us to the complementarity of male and female and to the intrinsic fertility of love.
Having cut our ties with reality, we can no longer recognise any absurdity, be it “gay marriage”, “gender change” or whatever next comes down the line.
Worship of God, Creator and Saviour, the foundation of all justice, is treated like an optional extra. Or we produce a domesticated god who can be used whenever we want to feel holy or ‘spiritual’.
On issue after issue, in one area of life after another, we are trying to ignore or even deny the moral dimension.
And the Catholic Church is hated because she alone will stand up and say, “this does not lead to true happiness; this is not just ‘unacceptable’, it is wrong, sinful.”
But even in today’s madness we recognise that without some form of morality life in community becomes war-like or, as Cyprus has discovered, oppression by the powerful.
So we concoct a fake morality – ‘autonomy’, rubber human rights, or an ‘equality’ that, for example, can see no difference between a mother and a father.
Is there any way out of this quagmire? There is, if we recognise that the roots of the problem lie in today’s irrational turning away from God and in our self-hating embrace of despair.
Knowing that only in the risen Christ can people find happiness, Catholics need to proclaim that day and night.
And we need to be fearless in upholding what is good, and in naming, exposing and opposing what is evil, even if fashionable.
Journalists and presenters are less and less likely to report the facts as accurately as possible and to offer fair comment on them.
Rather, selected facts and biased comment are now used as ammunition in an on-going campaign to change society. This is part of a new radical phase in secularism.
Behind it lies a rejection of objective morality, of the notion of good and evil as given. In place of morality we now have institutional or personal agendas.
But the ignoring of the moral dimension is to be found far more widely than in the media. In fact, it is so widespread now that it amounts to a profound social revolution.
Thus, education at college level, and more and more down the line, has lost all sense of what it is about, beyond providing young people with “opinions” and “job skills”.
We eagerly debate change of patronage in schools but carefully avoid any debate about the far more fundamental issue, the religious and moral formation of children.
Media and education, more and more, are about hiding or distorting the truth that challenges today’s agendas and moral confusion.
The courts take it upon themselves to impose on society evil practices under the guise of “human rights”, advancing the demands of individuals against the common good.
The government funds various efforts to remove children from the protection of parents and to indoctrinate them with a mechanical sexual ideology that leads to endless heartbreak for countless adults and children.
How else can we explain the amoral sex-ed programmes in schools? Or the Department of Health providing E124,000 per year for a website like Spunout, while slashing essential services?
Politicians no longer even fake integrity – they laugh at how their lies deceive us and openly admit their aim is to gain and retain power. Even protecting human life is, for them, merely a matter of self-interest.
Sexuality is treated as if it were a mere recreation, cut off from its fundamental meaning of procreation in a loving marriage.
Indeed, our rejection of objective morality, and even of human nature itself, and our mutilated view of sexual intimacy, blind us to the complementarity of male and female and to the intrinsic fertility of love.
Having cut our ties with reality, we can no longer recognise any absurdity, be it “gay marriage”, “gender change” or whatever next comes down the line.
Worship of God, Creator and Saviour, the foundation of all justice, is treated like an optional extra. Or we produce a domesticated god who can be used whenever we want to feel holy or ‘spiritual’.
On issue after issue, in one area of life after another, we are trying to ignore or even deny the moral dimension.
And the Catholic Church is hated because she alone will stand up and say, “this does not lead to true happiness; this is not just ‘unacceptable’, it is wrong, sinful.”
But even in today’s madness we recognise that without some form of morality life in community becomes war-like or, as Cyprus has discovered, oppression by the powerful.
So we concoct a fake morality – ‘autonomy’, rubber human rights, or an ‘equality’ that, for example, can see no difference between a mother and a father.
Is there any way out of this quagmire? There is, if we recognise that the roots of the problem lie in today’s irrational turning away from God and in our self-hating embrace of despair.
Knowing that only in the risen Christ can people find happiness, Catholics need to proclaim that day and night.
And we need to be fearless in upholding what is good, and in naming, exposing and opposing what is evil, even if fashionable.
