The War We Are In

Crisis Magazine ^ | 1/14/13 | Christopher Manion

[marshmallow]

These are not the best of times. In fact, some folks say that the Catholic Church in the United States confronts today the greatest challenge in its history. Things were already tough before the November elections, but now they’re in the tank. The good news is that, this year, Catholic bishops were united as never before in defending the Church’s First Amendment right of religious freedom; the bad news is that, if the election results are to be viewed as a referendum on that issue, we lost.

Win or lose, it’s certainly time for some prayerful introspection. The battle over the HHS Contraception Mandate is only a skirmish in a larger war. Princes of the Church are publicly predicting that an age of martyrdom will soon follow the present age of chastisement. The Culture of Life now confronts, close up, the ugly and unveiled face of the Culture of Death. It brings to mind the passage from Ephesians 6 that my father underscored in his Bible long ago:

Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.

The world is engaged in a spiritual conflict as pivotal as Tours in 732, Lepanto in 1571, or Kahlenberg in 1683. The enemy is wearing a different uniform, but he is just as dangerous: and today the world once known as Christendom is woefully unprepared.

What is to be done? Well, the great saints often warned us not to get too comfortable in our spiritual life, lest we fall into a rut. As an old friend of mine used to say....

[Luircin]

The Church (universal church, not just the Roman church) has always thrived under persecution. Why should it be any different now?

[mjp]

he world is engaged in a spiritual conflict as pivotal as Tours in 732, Lepanto in 1571, or Kahlenberg in 1683.

There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is the reality of God, which has become manifest in Christ in the reality of the world.The various dimensions of the competing worldviews are sacred and not secular because they are imprinted in the creative order by God.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The good news is that, this year, Catholic bishops were united as never before in defending the Church’s First Amendment right of religious freedom; the bad news is that, if the election results are to be viewed as a referendum on that issue, we lost.

Because they would NOT unite behind a clear, unequivocal message that you could NOT cast a vote to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama and remain a Catholic in good standing.