Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 75(2) May 2025
Book Review
Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis
by William A. Donohue
Sophia Institute Press
This
is a much needed work. The author notes that our current moral crisis is
due to the rejection of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in favour of
radical secularism. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, there is acceptance
of God, the natural law, and moral absolutes. In the Christian tradition,
there is acceptance of original sin and therefore while there is respect
for customs and institutions, there is no belief in creating paradise on
earth.
In contrast, there is the secularist vision which completely rejects the Christian order. The author names the Enlightenment philosophers who promoted this vision: Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume. The Utilitarian philosophers Bentham and Mill are also named. Above all, there was Karl Marx.
From these founders, there was a whole range of disciples: there was the Frankfurt School. There was the moral collapse of Germany after the First World War that enabled the rise of Adolph Hitler. And there was the dreadful Alfred Kinsey, one of the founders of the sexual revolution. Kinsey is described as a "gay bar hopping homosexual and a child abuser. Oh yes, he also had sex with animals." They may have had different beliefs, but they were united in their hatred of the Catholic Church.
The author mentions that in 1977, a number of French intellectuals signed a petition to throw out all laws on sex between adults and minors. They include Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Foucault "considered laws forbidding man-boy sex to be cruel and he advocated for the abolition of all laws that sanctioned sexual conduct, including rape." He also referred to suicide as "the simplest pleasure" and apparently "delighted in child rape."
The post-modernist rejection of truth has led to the acceptance of what is happening in our world. A post-modernist philosopher cannot accept the thesis that a giraffe is bigger than an ant because it all depends on your point of view. A man can refer to another man as his husband because that is true for him. A man can say that he is really a woman for the same reason. The post-modernist rejection of truth has also led to many dreadful consequences. Harry Hay, one of the founders of the gay rights movement, endorsed sexual relations between adults and minors. These ideas have infiltrated the Catholic Church. The author mentions the case of Father Paul Shanley, a promoter of homosexuality and a serial child rapist who apparently liked to say that "the kid is the seducer."
So, to some extent not a pleasant read. But it is an absolutely vital read.