Word: dogma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Today this sort of thinking seems almost as remote in the church as the sale of indulgences-and this is perhaps the strongest single measure of the council's achievements. The essentials of Catholic dogma stand, of course, as does Rome's claim of universality. What has changed drastically is atmosphere and attitudes. "Before, the church looked like an immense and immovable colossus, the city set on a hill, the stable bulwark against the revolutionary change," says the English Benedictine abbot, Dom Christopher Butler. "Now it has become a people on the march-or at least a people...
...problem, as the revolutionary armies and the party saw it in 1949, was Mao's thinking. "Mao Thought" should not be considered simply a dogma, or a slogan, least of all a coherent doctrine. It should be thought of as a spike, driven by the will of one man into the minds of his people, to nail them to his purpose. But in the next 25 years the spike was driven through the living flesh of people until they bled, or hungered, or died at random, until life became chaos. The spike had to be torn out or half China...
...High and low alike, anyone with an education, anyone suspected of murmuring protest, in the bureaucracy, or the universities, or the army, could be sent down. All universities, except for military research centers, were closed, some for three years, some for five, some for a full ten. And, as dogma drove the spike into the flesh of the country, even the revered ancients of the revolution were pushed to death. Li Ta, one of the original founding fathers of the Communist Party of China in 1921, was "struggled" against until he committed suicide. He Long, a Robin Hood peasant bandit...
Common sense itself revolted. The new dogma had not worked and it could not work. So the aging generals of the Civil War and Liberation had to move in, as they did on the night...
...shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms, by truth when it is attacked by lies, by democratic faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, and in the final act, by determination and faith...