"God wanted the world to be a valley of tears"
[Found at Durendal]
…Catholic civilisation, in its
development in time and its extension in space… I will say that since
its imperfections were born solely from its linkage with freedom, true
human progress consists in subjugating the human element, the one that
corrupts, to that which purifies – the divine.
Society
has followed another course. It has brought an end to the rule of faith
by proclaiming the independence of reason and the will of man. It has
converted evil, which was relative, exceptional, and contingent, into a
universal and necessary absolute. This period of rapid decline in
Europe began with the restoration of pagan literature, which then
successively produced the restoration of pagan philosophy, pagan
religion, and pagan politics. Today the world is in the eve of the last
of these restorations, the restoration of pagan socialism.
History
is already at the stage of forming its judgment about these two great
civilizations, one in which the reason and will of man conforms to the
divine element, and the other, which sets aside the divine element and
proclaims the independence and sovereignty of the human element. The
golden age of Catholic civilisation, that is, the age in which the
reason and will of man conformed more perfectly to the divine, or, to
the Catholic element (which is the same as the divine), was, without a
doubt, the fourteenth century. So the iron age of philosophical
civilisation, that is, the age in which the reason and will of man
arrived at the high point of its independence and sovereignty is,
without a doubt, the nineteenth century.
…If
Catholic civilisation had followed a path of continuous progress, the
earth would have become a paradise for man. But God wanted the world to
be a valley of tears… And God places this great valley between two
great paradises, so that man might live between a great hope and a
great memory…
-- The Marquis de Valdegamas
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