“The disintegration of any civilization, or a crisis in history, bears within it the threat of an interregnum of barbarism. As in the physical order the putrid remains of the unburied dead create a pestilence, so the disintegration of the liberal civilization through which we have just lived, and which was strong only because it was a parasite on Christianity, creates the possibility of chaos. Liberalism left to itself is really only a transition between a culture which was Christian and one which will be anti-Christian.

By barbarism we mean the destruction of moral values, or the repudiation of the funded heritage of culture. The barbarism of the new era will not be like that of the Huns of old; it will be technical, scientific, secular, and propagandized. It will come not from without, but from within, for barbarism is not outside us; it is underneath us. Older civilizations were destroyed by imported barbarism; modern civilization breeds its own.

Hold fast to your God, your Faith, your Church. The time is now five minutes to twelve. We are in the valley of decision. Either the bloom or the blight. A new crime is arising in the world today; be prepared for it. The crime of being a Christian. The crime of believing in God.”

~ Fulton J. Sheen; Seven Pillars of Peace, The Pillar of World Unity; August 5, 1944 [New York. Scribner's sons, 1945. page 110].