You can see how secularism has influenced the marginalization of religion in France, first Catholicism and now Islam. Both are marginalized out of the fear of religion and its public influence.
France and Europe have been decades ahead of the United States in terms of secularization. However, the USA is catching up very fast and the legalization of same sex marriage in New York is but one giant sign of that. Religion beware! Public expressions of it are forbidden for a society that is religion-phobic.
When you look at the liberal Protestant and Jewish branches of religion, you see already have they have acquiesced to the "fascism of secularism" by shunting religion and religious ethics and morals to the private sphere and away from the political and visible realm. These liberal religions pat secularism on the head and imitate it wrongly thinking this will enable them to dialogue with the fascists when in fact it makes them impotent in the face of their power to dictate, censor and bully.
Like the Church that had to put up for decades with Communism and Nazism and fascism, so too will the Church of today have to put up and fight tooth and nail with spiritual weapons the dictatorship of secular fascism that is sweeping our country and even those who call themselves Catholics. The Church will win though, although it may take time, as testified by the collapse of communism and Nazism. BE NOT AFRAID! But there will be martyrs in this fight, bloody and unbloody!
Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.
11 comments:
This is interesting for many reasons. First, it highlights the need for the state and governments to control its citizens at the most fundamental level, even what they believe about the universe. The French have missed the point about the abuse of power in the name of God and blamed religion or Catholic, etc. In reality to failure of Christianity and Catholicism in Europe has been that the states used it as validation of their authority, that it flowed from God, to the rulers. Communists would have loved the current rupture with tradition had it happened in the 19th century. Unfortunately they had to reject God and religion because it was used to validate the other side, even though that was equally wrong.
So the French, and Europe, including the UK which is not and never will be European, must control Religion otherwise someone might deduce that the government is NOT the supreme source of authority and power.
Secondly I liked it because it did not have a control for the video and Pin was forced to endure the entire PBS show. Shadenfreude.
Truth itself seems to be the most significant martyr. The answer is not to keep voting for those who are succeeding in keeping God out of the Publich Square. Get real and have the courage to discuss not only the effect but also the cause.
Blogster. Are you going to keep rapidly introducing new threads to avoid any complete honest discussion of the issues already raised?
Anon: re: "Blogster". Go for it. There are lengthy threads dedicated to exhaustive discussions of topics. There are also cross references to other threads. It seems to me that the succession of thread topics often follow topic as a way to introduce alternative view points on the same topics. this may be limitation of the blog style. It does not seem to be an evasive tactic.
rcg
RCG. Thanks, I sure hope your analysis is correct. Valid questions are raised that can best be answered by Frajm. Silence can be not only confusing but harmful.
Sure seems like evasion though.
Anon, the threads stay active. You can search back through and post more, although most people don't read them after they get to the second page. That is one advantage of a forum..however, if this were a forum we'd spend all our time dealing with nut cases, college sophomore theologians, and petulant pissy protestants asking questions like, "Eww, why do ya'll worship Mary" and "why do ya'll pray to Saints instead of Jesus." No thanks...
I have never known Fr. to be evasive. In fact, he often has the opposite problem...LOL!
You're a sharp guy. Become more observing.
Anon, Why don't you spell it out for me and others who may not be as perceptive as you. *cough*
Maybe you could start your own blog and call it "Humility is for Suckers."
So, Anon, is this your contribution to the Blog...to crawl around behind people nipping at their heels like some kind of demented chihuaha? Perhaps you might try posting some kind of intelligent opinion or an argument for whatever your stance is vis a vis some of the opinions posted here.
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