Thursday, May 05, 2005

Archbishop Chaput: The Crusades: The truth makes a difference

Anyone who reads George Orwell’s dark novel of the future, “1984,” will remember the following lines:
“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”

Memory is a powerful thing. It helps form who we are, how we think and what we do. By influencing our choices here and now, memory encourages a certain shape to the future — and discourages others. That’s why every new ideology and generation of social engineers seeks to rewrite the past. Whoever controls the memory of a culture also has power over its future.

That’s why today’s European Constitution makes no mention of the continent’s profoundly Christian past. By writing Christian faith out of Europe’s history, secularists hope to wipe it out of Europe’s future....

No comments: