Dystopia: Introduction

Dystopia: Introduction
Excerpt:
A biography of Blessed Titus Brandsma tells us that, 'in 1935, Blessed Titus Brandsma wrote against anti-Jewish marriage laws, which brought him to the attention of the Nazis. Titus later wrote that no Catholic publication could publish Nazi propaganda and still call itself Catholic; this led to more attention. Continually followed by the Gestapo, the Nazi attention led to his arrest on 19 January 1942. For several weeks he was shuttled from jail to jail, abused, and punished for ministering to other prisoners. 

Titus Brandsma was deported to the Dachau concentration camp in April 1942. There he was overworked, underfed, and beaten daily; he asked fellow prisoners to pray for the salvation of the guards. When he could no longer work, he was used for medical experiments. When he was no longer any use for experimentation, he was murdered. He died July, 26, 1942 by injection with a deadly drug that, ten minutes later, took his life at Dachau concentration camp; his executioner was a nurse who had been raised Catholic, but left the Church.'

The cell of Blessed Titus Brandsma

It struck me recently that The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma, of which I am a member, has in its patron, the perfect intercessor and model for those using their talent for writing and, insodoing, playing a part in the evangelisation of 21st century Western man and woman.

Many in the US, UK and Europe have been taken aback by President Obama's audacious and unconstitutional attack on the religious liberty of the Catholic Church in the USA. At the time of writing, we do not know where it will all end. However, while we do not know where it will all end, we cannot say that we have never been here before, and our patron happens to be just one heroic testament to that historical fact.

His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has made various speeches, notably in Germany and in the United Kingdom, on the dictatorship of relativism and the dangers that become apparent when efforts are made at State and societal levels to 'erase God from the public sphere'. We should not be surprised if His Holiness's words are considered prophetic even within the time of his own Pontificate.

The economic crises affecting the West present Governments with numerous difficulties. How will the State respond to such economic turmoil when already respect for human dignity has been undermined by over forty years of abortion provided by our own legislatures? How will States whose moral foundations, built upon Christianity, have suffered and continue to suffer dramatic erosion, respond to the challenging times in which we now live? We see that in the United States, the Executive branch of Government has initiated an unprecedented attack on a fundamental principle of human freedom - religious liberty. It is tempting for this essay to focus on the USA because it is there that the Church is under greatest attack in the West, but it is clear that the forces of liberalism at work in the US are also at work in the United Kingdom and indeed Europe.

This essay will steer clear of drawing upon conspiracy theories and will also steer clear of examining liberalism at a pan-European governmental level, but will examine the case of one country and one country alone: the United Kingdom. The aim of this essay is to highlight the many areas in which liberalism is the huge threat to human freedom, all genuine human freedom, that the Holy Father has said that it is and why its path must inexorably end in tyranny. It does not intend to be alarmist, this essay only aims to point out why those democratic freedoms cherished by Western civilisation are now at such great risk. It aims to examine those trends and forces already at work in Western government and society and, using these trends, to offer projections of a future which can only be described as belonging to a dystopia.

What's at the End of the Road?

In 1932, a young man... by the name of Aldous Huxley, who looks in this picture remarkably like our Blessed hero and patron, wrote a book that became recognised as one of the greatest and most important of the 20th century. That book was called 'Brave New World'.

Despite the fact that the novel was a work of fiction, it has inspired many, since its publication, especially those in the Press who recognise in the rise of the State and the history of the 20th century, the inherent danger of the property of the human person passing from the One Whom we, as a country, once believed to be the Source and Origin of all life - Almighty God - to an all-powerful and over-reaching government who usurps His role in human affairs. And, despite the fact that the book was a work of fiction, it is credited, alongside George Orwell's '1984' as being uniquely inspired and even 'prophetic'.