Fr. Edward Leen, C.S.Sp.

“A European politician, in a pronouncement of fairly recent date, stated that Christianity had failed. It did not seem to him that his assertion needed proof. The actual condition of things in his own country and in other countries appeared to him to be ample justification for what he said. Yet the statement, so far from being indisputable, can be shown, on analysis, to betray a gross confusion of thought.

“Christianity has not failed, for the simple reason that it has scarcely been tried. It certainly has not been tried on any extensive scale. It could be branded with failure, if having been guaranteed by its founder to be able to achieve certain definite results, it had been, when put to the test, found wanting. But if Christianity is but imperfectly or incompletely applied to the task of reducing to order the confused issues of human existence, it cannot be blamed for the relative chaos which results.”

— Fr. Edward Leen, Why the Cross? (Sheed and Ward, 1938)

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