He writes:
Now it is easy enough to remark and lament the moral coarseness of these women, the particularly repulsive way that they combine violence and greed. But I would like to explore a deeper issue that these videos bring to light, namely, the forgetfulness of the dignity of the human being that is on ever clearer display in our Western culture.
He continues:
When God is removed from the picture, human rights rather rapidly evanesce, which can be seen with clarity in both ancient times and modern. For Cicero, Aristotle, and Plato, a cultural elite enjoyed rights, privileges, and dignity, while the vast majority of people were legitimately relegated to inferior status, some even to the condition of slavery. In the totalitarianisms of the last century -- marked in every case by an aggressive dismissal of God -- untold millions of human beings were treated as little more than vermin.
And some more:
In the measure that people still speak of the irreducible dignity of the individual, they are, whether they know it or not, standing upon Biblical foundations. When those foundations are shaken -- as they increasingly are today -- a culture of death will follow just as surely as night follows day.
I would only add, as I have written elsewhere:
Without "the design established by the Creator," there are no human rights. This perspective is written into the founding documents of our country, but has been abandoned in recent decades.
I encourage you to read Fr Barron's article.
