No clear-thinking person can deny that the modern project to disintegrate reason from faith – more generally the head from the heart – has led to a dearth of meaning, a reconstruction of ethics, and widespread unhappiness.

When one’s ultimate end of life is material comfort and security rather that eternal life, one’s aims, ethics, and sacrifices shift accordingly. Life becomes a utilitarian escapade of the strong over the weak; and meaning and ethics are redefined for each stage of life: The preborn are subject to death on demand. Adolescents and young adults are conditioned by the elites through mass media that define what is right and normal for them, for their own profit of power and money. They expected to sell their bodies, either for emotional security in a “relationship” culture that expects fornication until break-up, or for monetary security and fame (or infamy) in a pornography culture that causes massive addiction to lust in young people. Adults, in turn, accept the defilement of the institution of marriage as long as they can have the options of no-fault divorce and prenuptial agreements.

Redefining and normalizing of these personal and social disorders are the just the beginning of the slippery slope that flips reality on its head to obtain false utopian goals of pleasure and security.

Worshipping the God of the universe, in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24), is ordered to the proper alignment of values and the sacrifice of disordered pleasures. This leads to authentic fulfillment. Alternatively, worshipping the gods of comfort and security is ordered to self-centered values and the sacrifice offspring. This leads to self-loathing, isolation, and loneliness.

Happiness is possible only by the truth that sets us free (Jn 8:32); and this necessarily includes freedom from baggage, spiritual and material. The modern project of accumulating things at the expense of caring for one’s soul has had the opposite effect. By observing the percentage smiles in poor nations juxtaposed with the sour faces of emptiness in rich ones, we can appreciate more Jesus’ words from the gospel Luke: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20).

One thing has not changed, nor will it ever change: Everyone seeks happiness. Nevertheless, as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, moving from modernity to post-modernity as some would claim, one thing has become very clear: When you rupture the complementary union of faith and reason, the integrated road that leads to human fulfillment, you end up with neither.