SEVEN PILLARS OF PEACE
The wisdom of Archbishop Sheen is still winning the day. The things he wrote and said on the radio in 1944 are coming true.
The reflections contained in this work are a collection of Sheen's Catholic Hour radio addresses from 1944 that were heard by millions of listeners each week. These reflections are a series of short essays that addressed the many concerns of the listeners of his day during the war.
Sheen answers questions about the following topics:
THE PILLAR OF GOOD WILL
THE PILLAR OF MORALITY
THE PILLAR OF PROPERTY
THE PILLAR OF PERSONALITY
THE PILLAR OF FAMILY
THE PILLAR OF FREEDOM
THE PILLAR OF WORLD UNITY
His were some of the most clearly delineated investigations into the underlying causes of the war combined with an entirely sound and hopeful program for winning both the war and the even more important peace are found in them. These powerful reflections can be most heartily recommended for their wise counsel, sane and penetrating analysis, and logical conclusions.
Sheen addresses the vexation felt by a great mass of people who were frankly dissatisfied with the ephemeral and superficial commentaries about the war. Like a master surgeon, Sheen applied the sharp scalpel of his crystal-clear logic to lay open the sources of the world's infection.
In his book titled 'Seven Pillars of Peace', Sheen presents the principles upon which he believes the foundations for a just and lasting peace must be built after the hostilities of war are ended.
Sheen is firm in his conviction that real peace cannot be declared, it must be made. It is with peace-making and the fundamental conditions on which peace must be based that this book is concerned. In its seven forceful and readable chapters, it challenges the theory of many planners today who posture that military allies are necessarily political allies; it affirms that a common hatred can make nations allies, but only a common love can make them neighbors; it denies the primacy of action over reason, in the sense that the will of the state is that which makes a state right; and it contends that utility does not establish justice, but it is justice which makes utility.
With the same lucid and persuasive reasoning that has made him outstanding both as a writer and as a lecturer, Sheen continues to challenge people of goodwill to unite for the preservation of personal rights, freedom of conscience, human justice, and civilization itself - all of which are in danger in the present conflict. Here, one will recognize the urgency of Sheen's subject matter, and will find pillars of peace and promise in his far-sighted principles.
