It is a sad truth that we often use euphemisms in order to conceal the evil behind our actions. During the Wannsee Conference outside Berlin in 1942 when senior Nazis met and decided that the time had come to exterminate all the Jews of Europe they conjured up the phrase ‘The final solution’ to hide the horrors that such a plan envisaged.

Thus when Adolf Hitler referred to ‘lebensraum’ – living space – few imagined, even in Germany, that this meant the enslavement, oppression and murder of millions in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. 

Today, the euphemistic phrase ‘reproductive health’ is used to hide the brutality behind, among other things, the killing of the unborn, while the same euphemism and (hypocrisy) lies behind the phrase ‘dying with dignity’, which in practice means the murder of the elderly, the terminally ill and those deemed too useless, unproductive and a plain nuisance to society. 

Christians too can, unless extremely vigilant, fall into the satanic trap of taking refuge in such language to avoid expounding the Gospel in all its radicalism. Today’s dominant culture has largely distanced itself from many of the teachings of Christ. It is up to Christians to spell out these same teachings even at the cost of unpopularity and loss of consensus.

Unfortunately, political correctness is becoming an increasingly common and shameful practice even among Christians. Much of our Catholic media, even locally, is careful to avoid talking about subjects deemed too controversial, such as gender ideology, and which are causing havoc in the lives and souls of many.

Do Christians have the courage to loudly recall Jesus’ words that the way to salvation can only be narrow while that leading to perdition is wide, and alas “many are those that take it”?