"Crushed beneath the grinding hell of Communism, Lithuania's Catholic Christians determined to make the West aware of their plight. On March 19th 1972 they began to publish a journal - The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, documenting governmental abuses against the Church. Examples include a 70 year old woman sentenced to a year in prison for teaching children the Lord's Prayer and the sending of a man to a psychiatric prison for making a Cross." (This Day in Christian History)
This many volume Chronicle was a voice in the silent and oppressive darkness that is communism in all it's forms. The 'socialist spectrum' will always have varying degrees of animosity to the Church, as the Church is the collection of those who believe in an ultimate power and authority that is not the State.
Totalitarianism in all it's flavours - Left or Right of politics - cannot permit an influence, an authority, a power that diminishes, undermines or in any way detracts from the State.
Arguably, the 'father' of this new term was Italian Fascist, Mussolini whose defining statement became the State mantra, “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato” (Everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.)
In his outstanding book 'Live Not By Lies - A Manual for Christian Dissidents', Author Rod Dreher succinctly and in-depth outlines much of the conduct behind this Totalitarian badge and how it is playing out today in the so called progressive West.
The following excerpt:
"It is difficult for people raised in the free world to grasp the breadths and depth of lying required simply to exist under communism. All the lies, and lies about lies, that formed the communist order were built on the basis of this foundational lie: 'the communist state is the sole source of truth.' Orwell said in Nineteen Eighty-Four: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
Under the dictatorship of Big Brother, the Part understands that by changing language - Newspeak is the Party's word for the jargon it imposes on society - it controls the categories in which people think. "freedom" is slavery, "truth" is falsehood, and so forth. Doublethink - "Holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and excepting both of them" - is how people learn to submit their minds to the Party's ideology. If the Party says 2+2=5, then it is so. The goal is to convince the person that all truth exists within the mind, and the rightly ordered mind believes whatever the Party says is true.
In our time, we do not have an all-powerful State forcing this on us. This dictatorship is far more subtle. under 'soft totalitarianism', the media, academia, corporate culture, and others institutions are practicing Newspeak and compelling the rest of us to engage in doublethink everyday - Men have periods. The woman standing in front of your is to be called "he." Diversity and inclusion means excluding those who object to ideological uniformity. Equity means treating persons unequally, regardless of their skills and achievements, to achieve an ideologically correct result.
To update the Orwell line to our own situation: "The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." (pp 14-15)
(See Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Identity - Video)
The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania was a bold and arguably, seminal type in challenging the oppressive totalitarianism the Church was subject to. It was a voice in the oppressive darkness that was heard. A voice we need no less today.
Go to The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania