Posted on 06/05/2015 1:08:19 PM PDT by xzins
Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (CNSNews.com) - Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, has delivered a sermon warning that religious liberty is under attack in the United States and that American Christians “are being increasingly subject to a soft despotism.”
A transcript of the archbishop’s sermon--which was delivered at a special mass for Catholic lawyers in Broward County, Fla.--is now linked to a page on the USCCB’s website that is dedicated to the issue of religious liberty.
“While atrocities are committed against peoples and institutions of all the world’s religions, the International Society for Human Rights estimates that 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians and that some 150,000 Christians are killed for the faith every year,” said the archbishop. “So the Age of Martyrs did not conclude with the Peace of Constantine; it is still with us.”
“Even in our Western liberal democracies, discrimination against religion in general and Catholic Christianity in particular is growing--albeit in perhaps more sophisticated and less violent ways,” the archbishop said.
“But even as de Tocqueville pointed out almost 200 years ago, despotism comes in both soft and hard forms,” said the archbishop. “Your patron, St. Thomas More, beheaded for refusing to consent to King Henry VIII’s takeover of the Church, fell victim to a hard despotism. This type of hard despotism is decimating the Christian populations of the Middle East. But, in this country and other liberal democracies, people of faith are being increasingly subject to a soft despotism in which ridicule, ostracism, and denial of employment opportunities of advancement are being used to marginalize us.
“We see this when butchers, and bakers and candlestick makers are being put into the legal dock for refusing to renounce their religious beliefs,” said the archbishop in the sermon that was delivered on April 23 at St. Anthony Church in Fort Lauderdale.
“A new religious intolerance has established itself in our country--and it is being propagated by those who claimed to have been victims of previous instances of intolerance,” said the archbishop. “Christian pastors are stalked and threatened for being ‘Christian’ pastors, social scientists are expelled from universities for having turned up ‘politically incorrect’ facts, charitable organizations and confessional schools are harassed if they take seriously their faith’s moral precepts and required their employees to support their missions.”
The archbishop said that anti-religious forces in the United States are trying to limit freedom of religion to mean merely “freedom to worship.”
“In order to fit new political agendas, religious freedom is being reinterpreted narrowly to mean merely ‘freedom to worship’ but excluding the freedom to serve and/or the freedom to witness,” he said. “The Catholic Church in this country is currently battling in legislatures and in courts against this tendency. And it is not clear that we will prevail. Education, family law, healthcare are just some of the areas in which narrow readings of religious freedom are paving the way for antireligious policies.”
The archbishop called on the lawyers he was addressing not to surrender to this trend—not to “neuter” themselves in the pursuit of money and status.
“In an environment increasingly hostile to faith, you as Catholic professionals will also increasingly experience the soft despotism of this new intolerance,” he said. “May the integrity and courage of St. Thomas More inspire you – and may his prayers strengthen you so that you will not consent to neuter yourselves just for worldly status and wealth.”
King Henry VIII beheaded Thomas More because More refused to take an oath recognizing the king as the supreme head of the church in England.
The Grahams (Baptists) and the Catholics are saying these things. My Methodists are in public on the side of the tyranny.
I am a Catholic.
I am a Baptist.
I am on the side of persecuted Christians.
And in the same breath they support the Welfare State and Open Borders. What the Catholic Church has never understood is that a huge, cradle-to-grave Welfare State with no concept of citizenship always results in despotism.
I appreciate his comments.
However, as a Catholic, I take issue with the Church’s soft position on illegal immigration.
Same here, Trapped Behind Enemy Lines.
Wonderful, poignant speech.
Would have been a whole lot more helpful if delivered in September, 2012.
Well...
SOME are, anyway.
And I don’t consider them “Americans”; they’re liberals.
Mutually exclusive terms.
“...Would have been a whole lot more helpful if delivered in September, 2012....”
Would have been a whole lot more helpful if every Church preached it every Sunday.
But nope.
dictatorships or police states like we have now (and increasingly so!)... do not tend to dissipate into benign, kindly, benevolant do-good governments
ask any German, Russian, Cuban, Chinese, etc etc etc etc and etc
we are in deeeeeep doooooooo doooooooo, and sinking fast
Catholic ping!
I would prefer they base their support for illegal aliens in terms of biblical theology. That way I’d know they had not thoroughly thought through the biblical support for aliens. At least it would be a doctrinal difference. However, almost always it’s presented in political terms, and there is no rational political justification.
The bible says we are to be humane to aliens. It says to remember God’s people have often been strangers and pilgrims. All that is true.
That does not, however, mean a humane nation cannot humanely send them back to their home nation. My exception would be legitimate refugees in fear of death on return to their home country.....Syrian and Iraqi CHRISTIANS, for example.
As a non-Catholic, I take issue with his complaints about "soft despotism" while the USCCB continues to advocate for policies that actively encourage it.
Still waiting to hear from “black Christians” about this. Oh, that’s right...they are too busy going for their 30 pieces of silver from the democrats.
The catholics have had a number of lawsuits go forward based on religious intolerance on the part of the government. I cannot recall any from the reformed.
Shout it, write it, sing it, cite it! I hope the good Archbishop understands that it will take men on his station getting in front and in center, subjecting themselves to "hard despotism", for this message to ring true. The Christian leaders must stand up and boldly declare their beliefs.
You’re right.
God bless you, dearest xzins.
“are being increasingly subject to a soft despotism.””
In other words, they wont walk you to the edge of a pit and shoot you in the neck. They are more refined today. They will cause you to lose your job, your livelihood, your happiness, etc. They will sue you, bankrupt you, expose sealed court records, attack your pizza restaurant or floral shop, etc.
Then you are, in poverty, with family and friends disgusted by you, having lost your worldly means of coping. No, they don’t use a 32 anymore.
Now its a soft tyranny. Doesn’t it feel soft?
I am, however, fascinated that this truthful message by a Catholic Bishop is being framed in terms of a person’s rejection of the Catholic Church.
The problem inevitably is some bugaboo in the minds of people, some chew toy that they just can’t stop gnawing long enough to look at what the message actually is. Our ‘troll’ last night had a similar problem in a different area. He simply couldn’t see past his chew toy...a candidate he wanted to insure was rejected.
The truth here that is said extremely well by this bishop is that we are being subjected to persecution by our government when we allow our faith to invade our lives outside the walls of our church building.
That truth has nothing to do with being Catholic.
But rather than admit the truth of the message, the polarized must insure that the chew toy gets attacked.
Excellent post, DesertRhino.
Soft? It makes me feel very uncomfortable. I’m certain that a Scotus ruling in favor of homosexual, unnatural marriage will open the floodgates of legal persecution with penalties included. That is no longer ‘soft’. It isn’t death, but imprisonment and impoverishment are hard punishments.
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