Posted on 02/14/2016 3:07:53 PM PST by NYer
Last year, in response to a Pew Research poll showing the American Catholic Church in decline, Elizabeth Scalia (now at the editorial helm of Aleteia) posted this challenge on her Patheos blog The Anchoress:
If you're Catholic and have access to a web-page, a radio program, a Facebook page, whatever, take a few minutes, and tell the world why you are remaining a Catholic in an era where doing so seems not only counter-cultural, but also counter-intuitive and even, perhaps, a bit risky?
Thoughtful and moving responses rolled in from all across the Internet, and continue to to do so today.
For my entry, I'm phrasing the question this way:
Why would I stay Catholic even if the whole world turned against the Church and labeled me a fool for remaining a believer?
The short answer: Because the whole world is wrong.
But it's a question that deserves a long answer, so here goes ....
First, I should define my terms. By "the world" I really mean the much narrower "worldly" subset of modern American and European Western Culture. By "wrong" I mean, well... WRONG. Dangerously wrong. Spinning out of control wrong. In the process of destroying itself wrong.
If the title of this article enticed you to click the link, chances are you already have a strong opinion about the Catholic faith. You either love it or you hate it. Either way, you are likely already aware of the "hot button" social issues on which the world and the Church disagree - abortion, contraception, so-called "gay marriage," euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, the "New Atheism," etc., etc., etc. And on every single one of those fronts, and many more besides (the "hot button" issues barely scratch the surface), wherever the world calls something "good" that the Church defines as "evil," I really do believe that the world is 100% wrong and the Church is 100% right.
I say this with confidence because those obvious "hot button" worldly issues are only visible symptoms of a deeper and more dangerous disease infecting the modern (and "post-modern") western psyche.
Western Culture has lost its mind.
In his book Theology and Sanity, the great Catholic apologist Frank Sheed put it this way:
... if we see things in existence and do not in the same act see that they are held in existence by God, then equally we are living in a fantastic world, not the real world. Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by him is not a matter of sanctity, but of plain sanity, because God IS everywhere and all things ARE upheld by Him. What we do about it may be sanctity; but merely seeing it is sanity. To overlook God's presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there...
We murder babies in the womb and play Frankenstein with their cells not because we are evil, but because we are mad. We treat sex like a toy and each other's bodies like objects not because we are devils, but because we have lost all self control. Men marry men and women marry women (or have their genders surgically "reassigned") not because we are wicked, but because we have lost all sense of what it means to be either a man or a woman. Blind to the reality of God everywhere and holding up all things, we fall prey to false gods, first and foremost our own vane and bloated egos. We become our own gods and spin ever further from any kind of moral center, any semblance of a solid ground of reality beneath our feet.
This madness afflicting Western Culture is by no means "modern." It entered the world with the Fall of Adam and Eve. It is the madness of original sin.
And for the sake of our cure from this ancient affliction, the very real God atheists tell us does not exist, the one who created man and woman and the sacrament of marriage, who knits every baby in the womb and counts all the hairs on the heads of old men, who is everywhere and upholds all things, became one of us in a real physical body, in the real person of Jesus Christ, at a real, measurable time in recorded history. He really established one Church (the Catholic Church, from which all other Christian denominations schismed over time), was really crucified, really died, and really rose from the dead to make it possible for you and me and everyone everywhere to defeat sin and death and regain our sanity.
That's reality. And only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth regarding it.
Whatever in the world disagrees with that truth or contradicts it is delusion, plain and simple.
So, the real question is not, Will I remain Catholic or embrace worldly values?
The real question is, Will I remain sane or embrace madness?
I choose sanity. I choose the Catholic Church. Forever.
In response to my choice, the world is welcome to call me a fool. I don't mind. I don't expect rational behavior from madmen. Now that really would be foolish!
http://www.immigration-usa.com/html_colors.html
Font size is a choice.
It’s done purposely for whatever passes for a reason in some people’s minds.
Only that really ISN'T the "reality" at all. Christ's church, His body, His called-out assembly holds to the truths as taught in sacred Scripture - God's wholly inspired word. What touts itself as THE church today (Roman Catholicism) departed from many of the most critical tenets of Christianity centuries ago.
God bless you and yours always.
Did you like the "Celtic blessing"?
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your field.
And, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
I just realized that I had LEFT OUT the "May the rain fall soft upon your field" in that post. Ooops. Not that you have any fields...
Where did you EVER come up with the idea that non-Catholics were damned to hell?
YOU were a CATHOLIC yourself up to a little while ago, so you KNOW darn well that it's not true.
Shame on you.
WFA Football - Home?
Women's Football Alliance?
Wilderness First Aid (WFA)?
Western Finance Association?
Wi-Fi Alliance?
Weight-For-Age?
This site lists about 100 or so, WFA-Acronym finder could you be more specific. My personal favorite is Western Falconry Association. Falcons are amazing.
Thank you so much for confirming what Christians have been saying for a very long time.
That Catholicism is run by men--"human beings"
BTW the Catholic church wasn't started by Jesus. Especially 2000+ yrs ago when Catholicism did not even exist.
Jesus started Christianity by instituting the body of Christ.
Every born again Christian is a member and there are NO politics in Christ's body
Jesus fought against the religion of the day and they had him killed.
Catholicism is mimicking the Pharisees of olden days and God is not pleased.
That political institution run by men (your words) has virtually killed off Jesus and replaced Him with the Catholic Mary.
How could this thread have been posted as Catholic Caucus when the OP says, “That’s reality. And only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth regarding it.”???
Tsk, tsk. ..I’d think you both would have known this from the start. How quickly the complaints of “Catholic bashing” is claimed by those who seem to have no qualms posting provocative threads bashing Christians-not-Catholic over and over here.
Actually, the opening article itself broke the caucus rules. You’d think the old timer posters would have known that.
http://www.catholic.org/ for all your questions or comments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Catholicism
The list is VERY long and most interesting.
Thank you so much for confirming what Christians have been saying for a very long time. That Catholicism is run by men--"human beings" BTW the Catholic church wasn't started by Jesus. Especially 2000+ yrs ago when Catholicism did not even exist.Why would you be joyful for people converting to Catholicism, an institution that you admit is run by men, therefore NOT run by God?
Jesus started Christianity by instituting the body of Christ. Every born again Christian is a member and there are NO politics in Christ's body Jesus fought against the religion of the day and they had him killed.
Catholicism is mimicking the Pharisees of olden days and God is not pleased. That political institution run by men (your words) has virtually killed off Jesus and replaced Him with the Catholic Mary.
Your pope is now in Mexico trying to redeem your belief system because many in Mexico are leaving Catholicism for Christianity.
Your first day on the internet?
Jesus left a MAN as His earthly vicar.
Maybe you have heard of him: SAINT PETER.
Peter was a fisherman and was told by Jesus that He would make Simon bar Jonah a "fisher of men." He called him PETER, as in ROCK, on which He would build His Church. And so, Jesus did.
There is a place in the middle east called PETRA. Same word. The Arabs have no "p" in their alphabet so they called it "Betra."
As I would expect you to...heheheh
Correct, as usual.
Why would you be joyful for people converting to Catholicism, an institution that you admit is run by men, therefore NOT run by God? Your pope is now in Mexico trying to redeem your belief system because many in Mexico are leaving Catholicism for Christianity.Fixed your quote from me, it was too small in your post.
Plus you like colors so much, thought I would emphasize that Catholicism is run by men as stated by you.
The misinterpretation you like has been debunked many many times here at FR and even some respected Catholic scholors agree that it it Jesus that is the Rock that the church is built upon.
Peter was not a pope, popes didn't start for a couple of hundred years and Peter and others were ex post factoed in.
A giant deception by what is laughingly called the OTC
Our blessed and good Lord has blessed me (and you) VERY much.
This is why Christianity is in the state it is in. We ARE evil, devils, and wicked. From the word of Christ Himself...
Devil-Joh_8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Wicked-Joh_3:20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
If people would stop sugarcoating the state of mankind, perhaps they would start seeing that their sinful behavior is evil, devilish and wicked.
The Pope (Latin: papa from Greek: πάππας pappas, a child's word for "father")is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church.
The primacy of the Roman bishop is largely derived from his role as the traditional successor to Saint Peter, to whom Jesus is supposed to have given the keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing", naming him as the "rock" upon which the church would be built.
Perhaps you learned about the Catholic Church from someone who didn't quite know all the facts.
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