A Living Network of Hearths

The Christian idea is opposed to the modern world, I agree, to the extent that the modern world is inhuman.

But to the extent that the modern world, in spite of all its defects in quality, involves a real growth of history – no, the Christian conception of culture is not opposed to it. Rather the reverse: it would endeavor to preserve in the modern world and bring back to the order of the spirit all the riches of life the modern world contains. […]

The world at the moment seems to be in the grip of two opposite forms of barbarism. I have not the least idea whether it will escape. In any event it must not be forgotten that if the Christian conception has not been the spiritual dominant of civilization for some centuries past, it has still remained alive, damned up, not abolished. That such a conception may succeed in dominating culture is still a possibility today: whether such a possibility will be realized or not is God’s secret. We must therefore work with our whole hearts to bring such a realization about, no longer, certainly, according to the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire but according to a new ideal, a much less unitary ideal, in which an entirely moral and spiritual activity of the Church shall preside over the temporal order of a multitude of politically and culturally heterogeneous nations, whose religious differences are still not likely soon to disappear. If facts are fated to fall short of such an expectation, if the work of Christendom must henceforth develop in the bosom of what Scripture calls the mystery of iniquity, as that mystery formerly developed in the bosom of the work of Christendom, we may, at any rate, indulge the hope that, in the new world, an authentic Christian culture will arise, “a culture no longer gathered and assembled, as in the Middle Ages, in a homogeneous body of civilization occupying a tiny privileged portion of the inhabited earth, but scattered over the whole surface of the globe – a living network of hearths of the Christian life disseminated among the nations within the great supra-cultural unity of the Church. Instead of a fortress towering amidst the lands, let us think rather of the host of stars strewn across the sky” [Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas].

The foregoing observations make it clearly apparent what a prime, fundamental necessity it is to the life of the world that Catholicism penetrate to the very depths of and vivify culture, and that Catholics form sound cultural, philosophical, historical, social, political, economic, and artistic conceptions, and endeavor to transmit them into the reality of history. […]

That the religion of Christ should penetrate culture to its very depths is not required merely from the point of view of the salvation of souls and in relation to their last end: in this respect a Christian civilization appears as something truly maternal and sanctified, procuring the terrestrial good and the development of the various natural activities by sedulous attention to the imperishable interests and most profound aspirations of the human heart. It ought from the point of view also of the specific ends of civilization itself to be Christian. For human reason, considered without any relation whatever to God, is insufficient by its unaided natural resources to procure the good of men and nations. As a matter of fact, and in the conditions governing life at present, it is not possible for man to expand his nature in a fundamentally and permanently upright manner unless under the sky of grace. Left to himself, he cannot but fail to achieve the difficult harmonies of the virtues, the difficult rational regulations, the pure consonances of justice and friendship without which culture deviates from its most exalted ends. St. Augustine’s words with reference to the state apply equally to civilization: “The state does not derive its felicity from another source than man, for the state is merely a multitude of men living in harmony.” One Name only has been given to men in which they may be saved. However great civilizations may be which ignore that Name, they inevitably decline, in one respect or another, from the complete notion of civilization and culture; order and liberty become equally cruel therein. Even an authentically Christian civilization does not escape many accidental blemishes. Only a Christian civilization can be exempt from essential deviations. […]

Let there be no mistake. It is the most arduous and serious problems, problems most closely affecting the heart land flesh of humanity, which now press for solution on the Christian mind, as though they had long been kept in reserve for a general assault; what the mind has to face and conquer or assimilate is philosophies, scientific or artistic researches, fashions of thought and culture of a rare technical nature and a precious human quality. It will succeed in its task only if it equips itself with the most formed wisdom, the most exacting science, the most perfect and reliable intellectual harness, the most vigorous and comprehensive doctrine and method. So furnished, it will be able to fulfill its mission, which, as I suggested a moment ago, by the very fact of being a Christian mission is in some sort a crucifying mission. Quis scandalizatur, et ego non uror (cf. 2 Cor. 11:29)? Catholic thought must be raised with Christ between Heaven and earth, and it is by living the painful paradox of an absolute fidelity to the eternal closely united to the most sedulous comprehension of the anguish of the time that it is invited to work for the reconciliation of the world and truth.

~Christopher Dawson, excerpt from "Religion and Culture"