By Tom Klocek

“A soul that is bursting with its own ego can never be filled with God. … The more empty the soul is of self, the greater the room in it for God.” —Fulton Sheen, The World’s First Love

“So great is human pride that the illusions of power without God do not become apparent short of disaster.” Sheen, A Declaration of Dependence: Trusting God Amidst Totalitarianism, Paganism, and War

Selfishness is all about self. Today we are seeing a decline in the number of people who believe in God or any religion and an increase in the number of those who believe in no religion, also known as the “nones.” In conjunction with this decline, we see a significant increase in suicides over the past two decades (nearly 40%). Feelings on abortion, an act of extreme selfishness, have remained fairly steady, with the majority (61%) saying that abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

So, if so many people don’t believe in God, who do they worship? What religion do they belong to (and, yes, they do belong to a religion — even atheism is a religion with plenty of dogmas)? They belong to the Church of Self. Its sacraments are abortion, the LGBTQ+ lifestyle, gay marriage, and an abundance of personal pleasure regardless of how many others are used and discarded in the process. It is contrary to all belief in a Creator God, the Bible, and, especially, Christianity and the gospels. As Saint Augustine said: “You ought to say plainly that you do not believe in the gospel of Christ. For to believe what you please, is to believe yourselves, and not the gospel” (Contra Faustum).

Society today tells us that love is about ourselves when, in fact, love is about the good of others. Selfishness is the antithesis of love. “Truly, selfishness is the death of love” (Rev. Bede Naegele, Minute Meditations for each Day). This is why there is a decline in faith these days, especially among the youth. They don’t know how to love and therefore they don’t know God. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). Selfishness is more than just love of self; it is obsession with self to the exclusion of others; idolatry of self. Society teaches us to put ourselves first and, for decades, parents have progressively catered to the whims of children rather than setting standards of behavior and boundaries for them, basically teaching them selfishness in the process.

Selfishness is a source of pride. Recall that it was pride that caused one-third of the angels to follow Lucifer/Satan and be driven from God’s presence. And, since misery loves company and Satan hates God, Satan worked on pride with Adam and Eve, causing their downfall with the accompanying result that, without repentance and conversion, we have all lost paradise. To combat pride, we need humility. “Unless humility precede, accompany, and follow up all the good we accomplish, unless we keep our eyes fixed on it, pride will snatch everything right out of our hands” (St. Augustine, Letter 118, 22). C.S. Lewis’s book on the ways of the devil (The Screwtape Letters) notes that pride is a major tool of the demons, twisting even the good that we do to pride.

Part of the problem is language. Many languages have more than one word for love, and each has significant meanings. C.S. Lewis provided this distinction among the four kinds of love: (1) a feeling of affection, (2) friendship, (3) “Eros” — sexual love (but also includes conjugal love with procreation), and “Agape” — the unselfish brotherly love of our neighbor as commanded by Jesus.

Obviously, this business of love is more complex than simply saying “love is love.” And when we don’t get or recognize this truly unselfish love, we look for it everywhere, even in places and ideas that damage us (e.g., gangs, sex, drugs, etc.). Not having people we can truly trust, we trust anyone, including those we communicate with on social media. Not all of those people who “friended” us are truly friends. We don’t really know them. Yet we’ll follow their advice even when we know that they care more about themselves and their ability to influence others than they care about us. In part this has caused an increase in depression and suicides over recent years. Obviously, these people are not very happy. In contrast, the religiously affiliated around the world are happier and more engaged in life (and with others).

Love also translates into respect for others and their views. This is the basis of our freedom of speech. However, when one group threatens another and violence ensues over differing points of view (and even differing interpretations of fact), that is the result of a lack of love for our fellow man and our neighbor, and a violation of God’s commandment to love one another.

Those who are members of the Church of Self always make everything about them. Even when supposedly lamenting a disaster affecting thousands of others, they make the story about them. President Biden is a member of the hierarchy of the Church of Self. Recently he visited the scene of a terrible disaster, the wildfire in Lahaina, Maui. In typical fashion, he made the disaster about him, lamenting the near-loss of his corvette (it wasn’t even slightly damaged) due to a small fire in his kitchen due to a lightning strike, as if it compared to the annihilation of an historic city. He has a history of telling made-up stories to bring attention to himself while belittling disasters, some of which he is responsible for.

Trust is an important aspect of everyone’s life. When we’re young, we trust that our parents will take care of us, feed us, guide us, teach us, and so on. As we get older, we trust in our teachers, friends, neighbors, family members, and even our government. These are people and groups that should be looking out for our well-being. We expect family, friends, and neighbors to love us and help us as we travel on the journey of life. We expect teachers and the government to help us prepare for our lives and provide policies that enable and enhance our lives. When any of these puts itself first, disaster is on its way. This is the problem with statism, greed, perverse business practices, and the using of others to further self or programs that are not in accord with the common good. It’s time to look to the true common good and not today’s version of “social justice.”

“Satan’s primary lie that deceives humanity, keeps it in spiritual infancy and causes more suffering than anything else, is the lie that selfishness is fun and unselfishness is not.” —Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics

“Sin is thus ‘love of oneself even to contempt of God.’ In this proud self-exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.” —CCC 1850