Below is an excerpt from The Doctrinal Mission and Apostolate of St. Therese of Lisieux by Benedict Williamson. Published in 1932."Before very long we priests of the older generation must give place to those of the new, to the young priests who are raised to the altar in these days to fill the place in the battle-line which we leave vacant...
The world which they must encounter differs in the most fundamental manner from that which we have faced: we have seen the beginning of the revolt, they must face it in all its fury. Hitherto when men sinned they recognized it as sin, and never for a moment pretended it was virtue.
There have been great sinners in the past but they never posed as great saints. A man highly placed and powerful sinned desperately, defied God and his Church, violated every law human and divine, sinned to the last extremity and gloried in it and in his contempt for every virtue, but he never pretended it was anything but sin. At times such a one after a life of indescribable wickedness would repent as thoroughly as he had sinned, and embrace a life of penitential austerity not less frightening than his sin.
But the neo-Pagan of today indulges lust and sensual passion to the full and calls it virtue. The whole difference between the old and the new lies here."
