Today, we hear many people who want to take out religion out of the public square. They want to go against tradition. However, are we better off without religion? We’re better economically and materially, but the human person has gotten weaker. As Dawson said, “As civilization becomes materially richer and more powerful, it becomes spiritually or religiously weaker and poorer.” The secularist might say, “So what if the person is spiritually weaker?” The answer is that the spiritual aspect of man is the most important aspect. Man is a being who wants to “be somebody greater than himself”. This “being somebody” concerns the interior life of man. It is something religious, something which is integral for the human person.

Man is fundamentally a religious being. He is a worshipper. Today, it seems that he worships freedom and progress. It is normal to see that the western world put great emphasis on freedom. The last century was one of the worst, if not, the worst century in history. Man has suffered from one concentration camp to another, from one totalitarian to another, from one war to another. However, when man was finally free from these things at the end of the century, how did he use his freedom? When he can finally go to a church, did he go? When he can finally start a good family, did he make one? The fact is this: when man was free from the disobedience of the fifth commandment, he started to disobey the rest. Communism worshipped the state and the “free man” worshipped himself and his ability to do anything he pleases. Either way it breaks the first commandment; he worshipped a wrong god.