Communism and the Western Conscience

Quotes from Communism and the Western Conscience, by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, 1948. Every single one of these quotes should explain something about our political crossroads in 2010:

"A nation always gets the kind of politicians it deserves. When our moral standards are different, our legislation will be different. As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism…The apathy of the electorate to moral leadership is always reflected in the apathy of their politicians."

"If a time ever comes when the religious Jews, Protestants, and Catholics have to suffer under a totalitarian state denying them the right to worship God according to the light of their conscience, it will be because for years they thought it no difference what kind of people represented them in Congress, and because they never opposed the materialistic lie with spiritual truth."

"Many follow Communism not because they are convinced that it is right, but because they have a hidden hate against something or somebody. Those who feel individually impotent to vent their hate upon a person or a class or an institution feel that if they joined Communism they could find a corporate expression for their pent-up animosities and their dammed-up hate."

"Because they [the Communists]became disillusioned with their freedom, which produced chaos in their souls, they are for a Communist dictatorship outside of themselves to organize their chaos. Because they lost the power of self regulation from within, they seek a Communist-imposed regulation from without…[In] Communism they can have a seeming sense of righteousness and justice by hating the wrongs of others without any obligation to better their own individual lives."