Many years ago, back in the late eighties and early nineties when I still lived in the Old Country, I enjoyed reading the Daily and Sunday Telegraph on a regular basis. At the time, the Telegraph was edited by Charles Moore, a convert to the Faith, and the newspaper was refreshingly full of stories, articles and commentary from a good, solid Catholic perspective. I consoled myself with the thought that all was not lost in England as long as there was a robust Catholic intelligentsia to inject a little sanity and sagacity into the culture.

O, how the mighty have fallen! The Telegraph today is a pathetic shadow of what it once was. Indeed it’s much worse than a shadow, which implies a degree of similarity. It would be more accurate to describe today’s Telegraph as a pernicious parody of its former self.

Today’s Telegraph is now nothing but a mirror of the meretricious culture of England. This is seen in its cynical treatment of religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, as exemplified by its reporting of the Pope Emeritus’s statement that he felt called by God to resign. What was worse than the Telegraph’s report were the comments attached to the report on the newspaper’s website. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the militant atheists who sneered and jeered and vented their spleen against the Church and its Pope Emeritus were almost demonic in the sheer intensity of their vitriol and hatred.

It’s all very sad. England is sinking in the quicksand of nihilism and the despair that is its consequence. Crime is rampant. Drunkenness and addiction are endemic. Violence is commonplace. Ignorance is omnipresent. My country has embraced the culture of death and is being killed by it. The nation is committing collective suicide.

As I read the venomous vitriol of those who attacked the Pope Emeritus and the Mystical Body of Christ, I felt sorry for those possessed by an ignorant hatred of the Church. They are clearly desperately unhappy and have cut themselves off from the source and wellspring of all happiness. They reminded me of a drowning man sneering defiantly at those in the lifeboat.