Hierarchies and Heretics

This article is from The Converted Catholic Magazine and was written just after World War II ended in 1945. I never knew about the relationship between ritual and hierarchies of power before. This is what the Roman Catholic Church has and what Hitler and other dictators imitated.

FEW AMERICANS connect the Fascist tyranny with ritual and dogma. Yet it was by means of these that Mussolini, Hitler and their imitators put it over on the peoples of Europe.

Ritual divides people by establishing hierarchies of powers that lord it over the masses, and dogma makes heretics of all who do not conform to regimented beliefs. Side by side with hierarchies and heretics there is created the idea of a cruel God, the opposite from the God and Father of us all as taught by Jesus Christ.

The God that can salve the hurt soul of humanity today is that God and Father of us all, who is supremely concerned with human brotherhood, with the reign of justice and love on earth, not with the forms and rituals and the arbitrary dogmas of the Middle Ages.

Emphasis on the forms of worship as of divine origin and appointment has divided mankind into hostile, hating groups, and prevented combination and cooperation for the common good. The year 1945 should see the end forever of the uniformed hierarchs of the Nazi Fascists and their plan of dividing and regimenting mankind. We hope it will also see the beginning of the Christian religion of universal brotherhood under the loving God and Father of us all.