Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: Writing in his bulletin at the Parish of St. Michael in New York City, Fr. George Rutler said that “Satan does not want anyone to know him, and yet in the present discontent that afflicts our culture, many anarchists and Marxists invoke him. The desecration of churches and statues of saints is spreading. Twice recently, our own church has been defaced with Satanic symbols: not just the customary obscenities, but invocations of the Prince of Lies.”
He said that “playing the Devil’s game is dangerous. He has concealed weapons, and the chief of them is deceit. At one recent political convention, a Religious sister from a dying community, in secular dress, prayed not to the Lord, but to ‘O Divine Spirit’ in a way that would have been unobjectionable to a Hindu or an Aztec. With concomitant vagueness, she said that an opinion on the killing of unborn life was above her ‘pay grade.’ At the convention that followed, another Religious in full habit, who is a surgeon and former Army colonel, Sr. Deirdre Byrne, made clear that naming the lies of Satan was not above her pay grade as she held her ‘weapon of choice: the rosary.’
“The rosary is the most effective private prayer in defying the Liar,” said Fr. Rutler. “The greatest public prayer is the Holy Eucharist. Four years ago in France, two Islamic terrorists sliced the throat of 85-year-old Fr. Jacques Hamel at the Altar of Sacrifice. His last words were: ‘Va-t’en, Satan!’ (Be gone, Satan!). Christ had said the same in the wilderness and on the way to His crucifixion (Mark 8:33, Matt. 16:23).
“Unlike some Catholics, who shy away from mentioning the name of Christ at public gatherings lest they give offense, the evangelist Franklin Graham prayed, ‘In the mighty name of your Son, my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’ Christ Himself warned: ‘Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels’ (Luke 9:26).”
Q. The rioters looting and burning some of our cities call themselves “Marxists.” What does it mean to be a Marxist? — M.K., Florida.
A. It means to follow the teachings of Karl Marx (1818-1883), who had a violent hatred of God and religion. He said that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world. . . . It is the opiate of the people.” His disciple, V.I. Lenin (1870-1924), was more strident, saying that “every religious idea, every idea of a god, even every flirtation with the idea of god is unutterable vileness of the most dangerous kind, disease of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence, and physical contagions are far less dangerous than the subtle, spiritual idea of a god decked out in the smartest ‘ideological’ costumes.”
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, the late Russian author and labor camp prisoner who wrote eloquently of life under Communism in his three-volume work The Gulag Archipelago, explained the unrelenting Communist hostility to religion this way:
“Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly go about carrying them out.”
The ten steps to bring a country under Communist domination were spelled out by Marx, and his co-author Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), in their Communist Manifesto. Among the ten steps were abolition of private property, a heavy progressive or graduated income tax, centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank, centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state, ownership of factories and instruments of production by the state, gradual abolition of the distinction between towns and counties, and free education for all children in public schools. The Manifesto concluded with this revolutionary battle cry:
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”
You can understand why Black Lives Matter and Antifa call themselves Marxists since they are seeking the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
For more insights into the diabolical mind of Karl Marx, see Paul Kengor’s book The Devil and Karl Marx. The book shows that Marx, whether he was a Satanist or not, was certainly in league with the Devil. His philosophy was dark, destructive, and despairing, which may have caused two of his daughters, along with their husbands, to commit suicide. The ultimate fate of Marx may be indicated by a poem he wrote, which Kengor quoted in his book:
“Thus heaven I forfeited / I know full well. / My soul once true to God / Is chosen for hell.”
Q. Our Catholic Faith informs us that when our current life has ended, our immortal soul remains alive for eternity and, upon our death, we will face a “particular” judgment before the Son of God and then, at a later time, we will be gathered with all souls not currently in Heaven for the “general” judgment, both of which will reveal all the sins of our life. In Isaiah 43:25, God states, “Your sins I remember no more.” This seems to be contradictory and paradoxical as to what we will face in our judgments after death. — M.O., Maryland.
A. When God talks about sins that He will remember no more, He is talking about sins that have been forgiven, sins for which we have expressed contrition and that should no longer trouble our minds. As He told Isaiah earlier, “Though your sins be like scarlet, / they may become white as snow; / Though they be crimson red, / they may become white as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
But even those sins that have been forgiven will be revealed at the General Judgment, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 1040), so that all will “know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death” [cf. Song 8:6].
It is necessary, says the Catechism (n. 1039), for each person’s relationship with God to be laid bare, for “the Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life.” It then gives this commentary from St. Augustine (Sermo 18, 4: PL 38, 130-131; cf. Psalm 50:3):
“All that the wicked do is recorded, and they do not know. When ‘our God comes, he does not keep silence’. . . . He will turns towards those at his left hand:. . . . ‘I placed my poor little ones on earth for you. I as their head was seated in heaven at the right hand of my Father — but on earth my members were suffering, my members on earth were in need. If you gave anything to my members, what you gave would reach their Head. Would that you had known that my little ones were in need when I placed them on earth for you and appointed them your stewards to bring about your good works into my treasury. But you have placed nothing in their hands; therefore you have found nothing in my presence’.”