The day before yesterday 71 years ago an event occurred that ended our reluctance to confront the greatest axis of evil in all of human history.
We had stood by watching idly as Japan, Germany and Italy invaded nation after nation. By Dec. 7, 1941, the axis powers had already conquered 13 countries, and still we did nothing until that day when we ourselves were attacked at Pearl Harbor. Had we stood up to this evil earlier, made straight the path of freedom and leveled oppressors earlier, 100 million lives might have been saved. But we acted like confronting evil was none of our business.
Pearl Harbor taught us the foolishness of failing to confront evil before it's too late.
That's what John the Baptist was doing in the desert: confronting the evils of his day, both 1) the personal sins that do so much damage to individual lives and 2) the larger evils tolerated by society as a whole. John condemned especially the ruling class for a) their pursuit of wealth at the expense of the poor and vulnerable, b) the sexual immorality of King Herod, and c) their collaboration with their Roman occupiers — the greatest axis of evil of ancient times, who by then had already conquered 38 countries.
People knew it was suicide to defy the Romans and Herod, their puppet, so they acted like confronting these evils was none of their business. John the Baptist, however, believed that nothing is impossible for God and that God demands that we confront evil, regardless of what it may cost us personally, even our very life. So John did what he could to make straight the path of freedom, level oppressors and call people to conversion before it was too late.
Not much has changed in 2,000 years. We continue to pursue power, possessions, pleasure and prestige at the expense of the poor and vulnerable, and immorality continues to cause tremendous damage to individual lives and to our society as a whole.
Think of the Church's too-feeble opposition to immoral artificial contraception in the 1960s and failure to take seriously the teaching of Pope Paul VI in "Humanae Vitae." Wasn't that sort of like the failure of most Europeans to take seriously Hitler's invasion of the Rhineland in flagrant violation of the Treaty of Versailles? Wasn't our response to the sexual revolution sort of like the feeble response of Austrians to getting swallowed up into Hitler's Greater Germany?
And our resignation to divorce on demand, sort of like the resignation of European leaders to Hitler's demand to acquire the Sudetenland? When our nation legalized abortion, wasn't that sort of like the day Hitler crossed a line by seizing Czechoslovakia, his first invasion of a sovereign state? Well, now here we go again.
Today our government wants to force us to violate our conscience to comply with the contraceptive mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act! How can it be that time after time, most American Catholics still act like confronting these evils is none of our business? As if — to take a line from many of our spineless Catholic politicians — as if it were enough to be personally opposed to these evil acts — as if what we do as a nation has no consequences.
Well, now such appeasement will no longer work, because there is no legal way to avoid paying for the contraceptive mandate — just like after the invasion of Poland there was no way for European leaders to avoid confronting Hitler whom they had been appeasing all those years!
Pearl Harbor should have taught even us Americans the foolishness of failing to confront evil until it's too late. Evil destroys, enslaves, oppresses and exploits, but remember, nothing is impossible for God.
Appeasement is no longer an option. Like John the Baptist, we too are called to do what we can — in our time — to make straight the path of freedom, level oppressors and call people to conversion, before it's too late.
