A Lesson from the French Revolution
Here is a page from history that may help us understand the attempts to re-engineer language today.
Keith Michael Baker, in his Inventing the French Revolution, writes, “Yet revolutionary actors were indeed particularly conscious of the power of language. They struggled constantly to institute a new social and political order by framing, deploying, and attempting to control radically new discourse of human association… With the Revolution, the sacred center [from kingly crown] was symbolically reconfigured…
When Definitions Replace Reality
Today war is waged against the core of each person and each cell, and the foundation of a natural and biological bond between parent and child. If reality is defined by definitions, and then by mere human contracts, then those in governance have given themselves a god-power to re-engineer life, human identity, and relationships. Children become contractual property; sexual identity a mere license that can be purchased at city hall.
But all this is nothing new O Citizen of the Revolution, O Comrade of the People’s Revolution. See Peace as the Pursuit of Solidarity with the Truth for more on why truth, not power, must be the foundation of a just peace.
St. Thomas Becket, who gave his life resisting a king’s claim to redefine the Church’s authority for his own purposes, pray for us! Read more about his witness at the Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on St. Thomas Becket.
Why Words Matter in Catholic Life
A Catholic view of language begins with the conviction that words should serve truth rather than obscure it. Changes in vocabulary can influence how people understand the human person, marriage, family, freedom, and responsibility. Christians therefore have a duty to speak clearly and charitably, test new claims against reality and the Gospel, and resist language that treats human dignity as something created by power or preference.