With the increase of secularism in world governments, executive, legislative and judicial, where religion is looked upon with suspicion when brought to the public square, don't we as Catholics need to prepare ourselves to deal with the marginalization, ridicule and outright hostility towards us a Catholics, if we are to be faithful Catholics? Isn't the trend with most governments to curtail religious freedom and keep religion closed behind the iconostasis of the Church's doors and property?
These are the things that government and secularism do not want in the public square and in fact government acting as the anti-Christ want to change in the Catholic Church and will continue to exert influence and power on the Church to do so acting as a false magisterium:
1. Artificial Contraception including unfettered access to abortion even in Catholic hospitals and institutions--the Church must be pro-life and be martyred for it if necessary!
2. Promiscuity and same sex marriage--the Church must uphold the Faith and Morals of the Church which can also be found in natural law in terms of ordered sexuality according to the mind of God and what constitutes disordered sexuality. Marriage between one man and one woman and for a lifetime is ordered by God, man is to be obedient to God's plans and decrees!
3. Tied into the desire to promote disordered forms of sexuality and marriage is the corruption of the Catholic dogma of Holy Orders, the ordination of women--the Church must be unashamed and proclaim the natural law spousal relationship of Christ the Bridegroom to His bride the Church and that Holy Orders is a powerful and dogmatic sign of this in calling only men to this Sacrament.
4. Other perversions of natural law in terms of medical ethics, and manipulation of conception--the Church must base all her teachings on Scripture and Tradition and where these do not speak to modern problems of technology and science, then natural law must be the basis for moral decisions.
I am sure there are more things that the Catholic Church teaches and believes to be revealed by God that will continue to place us as Catholics on a collision course with secularism.
Are our Catholics today well informed and well formed in Catholicism to stand up and be martyred? Or will they go the way of Judas and Peter at the Passion?
4 comments:
It's old news that all of the positions that you cite are commonly held even among those who profess to be Catholic. As for ridicule and even hostility, enough Catholics will already face that sort of thing in their own families, if they don't already: gently point out what the Church actually teaches, and you're the one being "divisive."
The greater majority of American Catholics are not well formed in the Catholic intellectual tradition: they may have "twelve years of Catholic school" or whatever, but that doesn't mean that they actually think with what they've been given. They assume that Catholicism is just "religion" qua "formal ritual," or whatever, and has nothing at all to do with metaphysics. Moreover, it's one thing to believe that God exists, but what do you mean by "God"?
Moreover, misrepresenting (intentionally or unintentionally) what the Church actually teaches on certain issues tends to cut in two basic ways simultaneously: either too strict or too lax. Both acting in concert allowed Humanae Vitae to fall through the cracks, I think. I was dreading it when I first encountered it, but after praying and taking a deep breath, I loved it by the time I'd finished it. I was both never gladder to be wrong, but also really, really angry.
Are our Catholics today well informed and well formed in Catholicism to stand up and be martyred?
There's some need for sobriety here, and it's a note that I hear in Pope Francis's homilies all the time. Martyrdom is serious, be it red or white, and this is not an issue for any kind of bring-it-on bravado or any "yes we can!" that isn't aware of "without Me, you can do nothing." Both of the latter are also ridiculous, given that other people in certain parts of the world get killed for going to Mass, or even at Mass.
Paul Mariani's book on the Church in Shanghai, Church Militant, is sobering and heartbreaking in this regard, even though he ends on a hopeful note. It documents how some people who were seemingly so well catechized and well formed crumbled.
Or will they go the way of Judas and Peter at the Passion?
How many of us actually pray, when someone reminds us of martyrdom, "please Lord, help me not to abandon You"?
"Are our Catholics today well informed and well formed in Catholicism to stand up and be martyred? Or will they go the way of Judas and Peter at the Passion?"
No, Catholics are not well informed in Catholicism.
No, they will not stand up for the Faith.
No, they will not be martyred.
Yes, they will go the way of Judas.
No, they will not go the way of St. Peter and repent and have a conversion of heart.
The majority of "Catholics" today know nothing of the Faith nor do they care. Those few who still attend Mass could walk in one Sunday, the altar and tabernacle could be removed (they would never even notice)' a woman could stand there thank them for coming, read a poem, sing a song, discuss something Oprah said, take their money, and those "Catholics" would think they went to Mass. That is why the new translation was accepted so easily, because they don't care. Ask them and they will tell you that they have always said "and with your spirit". That is how clueless they are. And it's not getting better it's getting worse.
Anonymous of March 24, 7:11 a.m.: If people have amnesia over having said "and also with you" (which I always thought would be better, if we were to go that way, if it were the more idiomatic "same to you, Buddy"), I incline to say, Thanks be to God. I certainly wish that I could forget the silly "and also with you." More seriously, it is absurd to suppose that the congregation I worship with, which is not very small, would attend a service with the woman and poem and songs and discussion of Oprah's latest remarks and collection of offerings that you postulate and think that it was a Mass.
- Ancil Payne
There's a recent article at Catholic World Report on the martyrs of China from Mao to Now: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3025/chinas_modern_martyrs_from_mao_to_now_part_3.aspx
It's a very sobering portrait. It also speaks to how imperative it is for us to remember that the Universal Church and her history is global. I often get the feeling that a lot of us Catholics here in the U.S. are deeply provincial, not only in the way we see the world, but also in our sense of history. American exceptionalism does cast a long shadow.
Chesterton reminds us that the Catholic Church across time and space is a democracy of the dead. Democracy is not "usufruct to the living." The dead have their say, and the saints are more alive in Christ than we are, anyway.
At any rate, William Byrd's song, based on St. Robert Southwell's poem about the martyrdom of St. Edmund Campion, entitled "Why Do I Use My Paper, Ink, and Pen?" seems to be weighing on my mind a lot.
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