There is a reason every revolutionary movement of the past two-and-a-half centuries — however different in slogan and costume — has eventually turned its attention to the family. The Jacobins did it. The Bolsheviks did it. The architects of the sexual revolution did it. The promoters of contemporary gender ideology are doing it now. They did not coordinate through the centuries, and most of them would have despised one another. Yet they arrived at the same target by the same logic, because the family is the one institution that forms human beings before the state can reach them. As such, it forms people independently of the state and serves as a rival to it. 19th century French thinker Joseph de Maistre understood this long before the revolutionary project finished revealing itself. His quarrel with the men of 1789 was never merely about kings and parliaments. It was about where authority comes from and how human beings are made.

Originally published in Integrity Magazine. Read original article

Original Tags: Culture, Catholic Social Teaching, Divorce, Family, French Revolution, Sexual Revolution