Guardini would have understood all this. To the question “What can be done?” he gave this reply: “First of all, man must accept the full measure of his responsibility; but to be able to do this, he must regain his right relation to the truth of things, to the demands of his own deepest self, and finally to God.” We are disastrously far removed from doing any of that. As a friend of mine, reflecting on recent events, put it, “we’ve been living off the fumes of a Christian culture, and we’re seeing now what happens when even the fumes evaporate. No logos, no ethos, no nothing.”
Guardini, agreeing, would have added this further thought: at the heart of our national crisis something demonic is at work. Not “demonic” in a merely metaphorical sense, but demonic in full, literal truth–the handiwork of evil spirits who “rule man once he has abdicated his responsibilities.”
And then? Then, Guardini held, it is much to be feared that “in the final analysis only violence will be used in an effort to solve the flood of problems which threaten to engulf humanity.”
God grant we turn back before it comes to that.
June 19, 2020 Russell Shaw