Posted on 03/22/2009 4:01:27 AM PDT by GonzoII
.- Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput delivered a speech on Saturday reflecting on the significance of the November 2008 election. Warning that media narratives should not obscure truth, he blamed the indifference and complacency of many U.S. Catholics for the countrys failures on abortion, poverty and immigration issues.
He also advised Catholics to master the language of popular culture and to refuse to be afraid, saying fear is the disease of our age.
The archbishops comments were delivered in his keynote address at the Hands-On Conference Celebrating the Year of St. Paul, which was hosted at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
Having been asked to examine what November 2008 and its aftermath can teach Catholics about American culture, the state of American Catholicism and the kind of Pauline discipleship necessary today, Archbishop Chaput said:
November showed us that 40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected. Or to put it more discreetly, the November elections confirmed a trend, rather than created a new moment, in American culture.
Noting that there was no question about President Barack Obamas views on abortion rights, embryonic stem cell research and other problematic issues, he commented:
Some Catholics in both political parties are deeply troubled by these issues. But too many Catholics just dont really care. Thats the truth of it. If they cared, our political environment would be different. If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldnt need to waste each others time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow balanced out or excused by three other good social policies.
Offering a sober evaluation of the state of American Catholicism, he added:
We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because theyre not real. We cant talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what weve allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves and to God by claiming to personally oppose some homicidal evil -- but then allowing it to be legal at the same time.
Commenting on societys attitude towards Catholic beliefs, Archbishop Chaput said, we have to make ourselves stupid to believe some of the things American Catholics are now expected to accept.
Theres nothing more empty-headed in a pluralist democracy than telling citizens to keep quiet about their beliefs. A healthy democracy requires exactly the opposite.
Noting the 2008 presidential campaigns revealing focus upon the candidates narratives, he said the campaign seemed not to involve facts, but rather story-telling.
Of course, theres nothing intrinsically wrong with story-telling -- unless the press and other news media themselves become part of the story-telling syndicate; in other words, peddlers of narratives in which facts are not told because theyre true, but rather become true because theyre told by those who have the power to create an absorbing narrative, the archbishop explained.
In such a state, he warned, real power does not rest with the people but with those who shape the structure of our information. He linked this situation with Pope Benedicts critique of the dictatorship of relativism.
The archbishop also connected this relativistic spirit to St. Pauls appearance at the Aeropagus, recounted in the Book of Acts. At the Areopagus, a prestigious place of debate for Greek philosophers, Nearly anything was tolerated, so long as no one claimed to have an exclusive and binding claim on the truth, the archbishop explained.
He then quoted Acts 17s description of the Areopagite mindset: All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Its worth paying attention to that description. Theres no mention of truth, he commented, noting that when St. Paul preaches the truth hes mocked and despised and his preaching is a failure, at least in the short term.
Pauls failure at the Areopagus is a good lesson for the times we face now in America, the archbishop said. When Catholics start leading their daily lives without a hunger for something higher than their own ambitions or appetites, or with the idea that they can create their own truth and then baptize it with an appeal to personal conscience, they become, in practice, agnostics in their personal lives, and Sophists in their public lives. In fact, people who openly reject God or dismiss Christianity as obsolete are sometimes far more honest and far less discouraging than Catholics who claim to be faithful to the Church but directly reject her guidance by their words and actions.
Noting that Paul mastered the language of the popular urban culture of his time and used every technical resource, tool and environment at his disposal, Archbishop Chaput extensively quoted Pope John Paul IIs 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio, which also discussed St. Paul at the Areopagus.
If Paul felt so fiercely compelled to preach the Gospel -- whether timely [or] untimely -- to a pagan world, then how should we feel today, preaching the Gospel to an apostate world? he asked, answering that the love of Christ must impel Catholics forward.
Catholics in America, at least the many good Catholics who yearn to live their faith honestly and deeply, can easily feel tempted to hopelessness, he concluded. It becomes very burdensome to watch so many persons who call themselves Catholic compromise their faith and submit their hearts and consciences to the Caesars of our day.
But Archbishop Chaput closed by encouraging Christians to remember the words of Jesus:
In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
If I were Pope, I’d have all of them rounded up and excommunicated en masse and in public for the world to watch.
Then personally deliver each and every one to the police.
There was a joke going around Georgetown when Clinton was president, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, that things had gotten so bad that the faculty would probably award Bill Clinton an honorary Doctorate in Theology. It seemed like just a joke then. But only just. Notre Dame has a hit a new low with the plan to award Obama an honorary Law degree. It's so absurd.
But I think there's a chance to stop it. The fact that we can't do everything, is no excuse for not doing what we can.
The head good-guy of the Cardinal Newman Society, Patrick Reilly, is already in Rome waving his arms and blowing whistles.
I'm thinking we should ask Bishop D'Arcy of th Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend to lay an interdict of the whole Notre Dame Campus. No Masses, no sacraments of any kind can be celebrated there until the invitation is rescinded.
What do you think, seriously? Is that a plan?
But seriously, see mine at #43 on a related thread.
Is that a plan?
I mean, on the same thread. (Need coffee.)
A canon laywer is needed to start discussing penalties. Stripping Notre Dame of its “Catholic” status if the administration and faculty go through with this. It’s a direct VIOLATION of Church policy to grant any honor or provide a speaking forum for someone involved in promoting the genocide of the culture of death. Obama has been quite merciless in signing immoral executive orders in these areas. It’s an abomination that ANY Catholic college would consider this.
I'm no canonist, but as far as I understand things, I reckon the Ordinary, D'Arcy, has the canonical authority.
I'm going to write a letter to D'Arcy.
I’ll contact an archbishop right away.
Denver *is* a metropolitan see. Hence "Archbishop Chaput."
While I understand others' admiration for the man, transferring him would force him to take at least a year or two getting used to his new see. And as ordinary of an even larger archdiocese, he'd have even less time on his hands than he does now.
And so he'd make fewer speeches like these.
Several more Denver priests influenced and formed by their archbishop will become bishops themselves. His effect will be felt in other ways, especially with Archbishop of Denver emeritus Cardinal Stafford being at the Vatican.
Also, as a Denverite, I don't want us to lose Archbishop Chaput for many years.
What people don't seem to want to accept is that the apostate have excommunicated themselves. There doesn't need to be a formal bull to make it true. It just is. Historically, excommunication has been abused mostly for political purposes (see Italy for the last thousand years) and the hierarchy does not want to continue in that way.
The EXOMMUNICATE THEM crowd is really more interested in schadenfreude, IMO, and that's not pastoral at all. There - you deserve it! isn't very Christian. Besides the obstinately sinful would wear it as a badge of honor.
I think what Chaput is saying in many ways is that the deviation from tradition and true teaching has not done us any good and we need to get back to it. He's right, and in places where the bishops have either never been appeasers or are now of the late JPII crops, things are being put aright. It's just going to take some time.
Denver *is* a metropolitan see. Hence "Archbishop Chaput."
True, but he needs a red hat, which is a wider reach. We're under Cardinal George in Chicago even if StL has its own see. THAT sort of metropolitan.
I don't see Chaput staying in Denver forever. Unless I miss my guess, he's going to end up cleaning up one of the megadisasters in a bigger city.
The problem are the hundreds of faithful, pro-life students who worked hard to achieve their degree and were looking forward to their big day.
One might ask why the ND administration didn’t care to take them into consideration.
“What people don’t seem to want to accept is that the apostate have excommunicated themselves.”
I don’t think many people know that this is true because the term/concept of latae sententae or whatever it’s called is only known by a fraction of the US Church. Why would they if the bishops don’t confirm it or even teach it?
As far as shadunfruedwhatever goes, I think that the bishops need to publicly confirm that these pro-baby butchery Catholic pols have excommunicated themselves by their odious actions. You know, using public discipline to teach what the Church believes concerning being into baby butchery.
Freegards
OK, I see.
At the same time, being a cardinal takes a lot of work too. There's often a tradeoff between prominence and competence. Not every good prelate should be "promoted" to a higher level, just like not every good parish pastor should be made a bishop.
As for the talk of excommunication on this thread, please recall what Archbishop Chaput himself said:
"We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because theyre not real. We cant talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what weve allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves and to God by claiming to personally oppose some homicidal evil -- but then allowing it to be legal at the same time."
Are those who talk about excommunications overstating Catholic influence? In an ecclesiastical conflict between Pelosi, Kennedy and Biden vs. the Archbishop of Washington, won't the "Catholic" pols win?
Lots of work may need to be done to rebuild the Church to the point where excommunication won't do more harm than good. Rather than bring them to penitence, excommunication could stiffen the resolve of pro-abortion Catholics (who are probably obedient to the fake Catholicism they and many of their voters were taught).
The basic sin here may not even be support for abortion, as bad as that is. The relevant sins may be pride and presumption.
Maybe you need to convert!
Thank goodness, Bernardin’s bishops are retiring. Only a few left, and Pope Benedict is replacing them with HIS kind of bishop!
God bless Pope Benedict!
**Its time to speak out against Notre Flame providing a forum and an honorary degree for Obama.**
FReep these links then!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2210995/posts?page=28#28
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2210995/posts?page=87#87
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2210995/posts?page=101#101
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2210995/posts?page=102#102
What was the percentage of evangelicals and Southern black Baptists and other protestant denomination folk who voted for Obama?
An extensive review of the 2008 Presidential Election results, broken down by religious affiliation, can be viewed on my profile page.
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