The Global Sinking into Tyranny seems to be unstoppable. We are seeing Latin America besieged by freedom-hating leftists who are replacing democracies with police states. Russia and China are both Communist dictatorships skilled at looting and undermining freedom in the rest of the world. Europe has sunk into what England embodies, as described by Putin, “An Islamic police state”.
Throughout much of the world, Moslem extremists are on the march, subverting huge areas of formerly Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Communist, and Jewish territories. Through it all, The Church appears to do nothing. The latest news releases from Rome are focused on “Repenting”, in this case, for a handful of child abuse cases that happened half a century ago.
What’s going on? Or, to be more precise, “Why isn’t something going on by which free nations may defend themselves?”
We have a vague idea of God’s awesome power. We know how easily he could get rid of the tiny handful of people who cause most of the trouble in the world, even using no more than a few micro-organisms, or suddenly defective mechanical parts. And, we know he doesn’t. The Castro brothers still tyrannize Cuba. Chavez goes on turning Venezuela into his private fiefdom. Zimbabwe is still ruled by the homicidal maniac, Mugabe. Christians, especially Catholics, are on the defensive everywhere.
So, we know that God doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to wipe out those who choose to do evil. Nor has He been. Those who hate Him and His Church today were preceded by those hated Him yesterday. Just as He didn’t get rid of Henry VIII and his Church-hating allies before they all but destroyed The English Church, He is not eliminating the similarly ego-maniacal heads of state who attack His Church today. In earlier times, He did not get rid of Nero or Diocletian before they launched ruthless attacks on His people.
We learn from history that tyranny and evil abound. We know that, except for the brief periods described in Genesis and the Books of The Maccabees, God does not erase evil wherever He finds it. Instead, He seems to expect us to resist it, mostly with requests for Programming Assistance. So, we should pray and pray and pray. Not doing so doesn’t seem to have made things better.
