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!
So...
...it's morally correct for those without, to desire the stuff that those with, have.
I see.
!
well, ....yeah, I would like a Lamborghini, and a nice Lear Jet would be appreciated.....is that really wrong???....I'm not envious, I don't covet, I'd just like them.
Then build a bridge TO them.
Here’s a video you might watch. I think you would actually enjoy this guy’s presentations ... he’s a little bit older then you and me, but he has been studying all his life so he knows a thing or two ... Using his videos, I’ve learn much. Still learning
Flying saucers and extraterrestrials??????
an alien savior??????????
yep, just what I want to base my salvation on.....sheesh
The videdo I linked is Missler teaching about how we got our Bible, Old Covenant and New Covenant.
Shirley you’re not so old and senile that you cannot click on a link???
There is nothing about UFOs or alien saviors in the Missler video. But I can see why a catholic would imagine such stuff, given the catholic penchant for magic thinking which serves to keep the mind snapped shut tightly and the Truth may not enter.
Do you suppose it grows more tightly shut with each passing day?
That is what I fear ...
Don't call me Shirley...I clicked on the link, some obscure evangalist who published a lot of futuristic books....one had a flying saucer positioned over the Vatican and was looking for an alien savior....I lost a lot of interest at that point.
I'm working on it....my 1.75 liter vodka bottle is almost 3/4 full of change....and NO PENNIES....they are in a separate Vodka bottle.
Any excuse will do when the dsead soul seeks to remain that way. Don’t dare listen to any teaching, just try to assassinate the messenger. How did you get so sour in so few years?
Yes there is, look through the books that he is pushing .....WEIRD...The Koinonia House seems just a little weird as well.....I don't think that they have any answers at all....trust them if you wish but I'll stick with that stodgy old Catholic church....now 2,016 years old and doing fine.
I am 77 and I have seen this nonsense a zillion times over the years....thousands of various interpretations of what the bible teaches....all of them wrong
Sorry, you are right....the nonsense is not on the video but is indeed on his website.....same difference.
K.
'There is none so blind as he who will not see.'
Here's your dust, old son.
Seems you missed the *whom He foreknew* part.
And those whom He foreknew He PREDESTINED to be conformed to the image of His Son.
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