This
is a very good analysis of what is wrong
with the world, and how the anti-life,
anti-family, homosexualist forces are
advancing their agenda. These are hard
times to be an authentic Christian.
Societies are more and more accepting
of liberalism, secularism, relativism.
The persecution of Christians by these
diabolical forces will increase.
Our work of re-evangelization, renewing
the family and defending life become
much more urgent. Our living out our
faith, especially in the face of opposition
and oppression, will become a greater
challenge. But we must stand up for
Jesus, for our authentic faith, and
for our holy Roman Catholic Church.
Now
is the time to understand more and to
live out more intently God's call to
holiness and righteousness, to denial
of self, to embrace of the cross. Only
such a truly Christian lifestyle can
save us, and preserve us from the overwhelming
darkness that has descended upon the
world.
Archbishop
Chaput: "Systematic Discrimination
Against Church Now Seems Inevitable"
SPISSKE,
PODHRADIE, Slovakia, August 25, 2010
(LifeSiteNews.com)
- MUST READ Excerpts from Denver
Archbishop Charles Chaput's address
to the 15th symposium for the Canon
Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday:
Today's
secularizers have learned from the past.
They are more adroit in their bigotry;
more elegant in their public relations;
more intelligent in their work to exclude
the Church and individual believers
from influencing the moral life of society.
Over the next several decades, Christianity
will become a faith that can speak in
the public square less and less freely.
A society where faith is prevented from
vigorous public expression is a society
that has fashioned the state into an
idol. And when the state becomes an
idol, men and women become the sacrificial
offering.
We
face an aggressively secular political
vision and a consumerist economic model
that result - in practice, if not in
explicit intent -- in a new kind of
state-encouraged atheism.
To
put it another way: The
Enlightenment-derived worldview that
gave rise to the great murder ideologies
of the last century remains very much
alive. Its language is softer, its intentions
seem kinder, and its face is friendlier.
But its underlying impulse hasn't changed
-- i.e., the dream of building a society
apart from God; a world where men and
women might live wholly sufficient unto
themselves, satisfying their
needs and desires through their own
ingenuity.
This
vision presumes a frankly "post-Christian"
world ruled by rationality, technology
and good social engineering. Religion
has a place in this worldview, but only
as an individual lifestyle accessory.
People are free to worship and believe
whatever they want, so long as they
keep their beliefs to themselves and
do not presume to intrude their religious
idiosyncrasies on the workings of government,
the economy, or culture.
Now,
at first hearing, this might sound like
a reasonable way to organize a modern
society that includes a wide range of
ethnic, religious and cultural traditions,
different philosophies of life and approaches
to living.
…
how does the rhetoric of enlightened,
secular tolerance square with the actual
experience of faithful Catholics in
Europe and North America in recent years?
In
the United States, a nation that is
still 80 percent Christian with a high
degree of religious practice, government
agencies now increasingly seek to dictate
how Church ministries should operate,
and to force them into practices that
would destroy their Catholic identity.
Efforts have been
made to discourage or criminalize the
expression of certain Catholic beliefs
as "hate speech." Our courts
and legislatures now routinely take
actions that undermine marriage and
family life, and seek to scrub our public
life of Christian symbolism and signs
of influence.
In
Europe, we see similar trends, although
marked by a more open
contempt for Christianity. Church leaders
have been reviled in the media and even
in the courts for simply expressing
Catholic teaching.
The
West is now steadily moving in the direction
of that new "inhuman
humanism." And if the Church
is to respond faithfully, we need to
draw upon the lessons that your Churches
learned under totalitarianism.
A
Catholicism of resistance must be based
on trust in Christ's words: "The
truth will make you free."
Living
within the truth means living according
to Jesus Christ and God's Word in Sacred
Scripture. It means proclaiming the
truth of the Christian Gospel, not only
by our words but by our example. It
means living every day and every moment
from the unshakeable conviction that
God lives, and that his love is the
motive force of human history and the
engine of every authentic human life.
It means believing that the truths of
the Creed are worth suffering and dying
for.
Living
within the truth also means telling
the truth and calling things by their
right names. And that means exposing
the lies by which some men try to force
others to live.
Our
societies in the West are Christian
by birth, and their survival depends
on the endurance of Christian values.
Our core principles and political institutions
are based, in large measure, on the
morality of the Gospel and the Christian
vision of man and government. We are
talking here not only about Christian
theology or religious ideas. We are
talking about the moorings of our societies
-- representative government and the
separation of powers; freedom of religion
and conscience; and most importantly,
the dignity of the human person.
…we
cannot dispense with our history out
of some superficial concern over offending
our non-Christian neighbors. Notwithstanding
the chatter of the "new atheists,"
there is no risk that Christianity will
ever be forced upon people anywhere
in the West.
The only "confessional states"
in the world today are those ruled by
Islamist or atheist dictatorships --
regimes that have rejected the Christian
West's belief in individual rights and
the balance of powers.
I
would argue that the defense of Western
ideals is the only protection that we
and our neighbors have against a descent
into new forms of repression -- whether
it might be at the hands of extremist
Islam or secularist technocrats.
But
indifference to our Christian past contributes
to indifference about defending our
values and institutions in the present.
And this brings me to the second big
lie by which we live today -- the lie
that there is no unchanging truth.
Relativism
is now the civil religion and public
philosophy of the West.
Again, the arguments made for this viewpoint
can seem persuasive. Given the pluralism
of the modern world, it might seem to
make sense that society should want
to affirm that no one individual or
group has a monopoly on truth; that
what one person considers to be good
and desirable another may not; and that
all cultures and religions should be
respected as equally valid.
In
practice, however, we see that without
a belief in fixed moral principles and
transcendent truths, our political institutions
and language become instruments in the
service of a new barbarism. In the name
of tolerance we come to tolerate the
cruelest intolerance;
respect for other cultures comes to
dictate disparagement of our own; the
teaching of "live and let live"
justifies the strong living at the expense
of the weak.
This
diagnosis helps us understand one of
the foundational injustices in the West
today -- the crime of abortion.
I
realize that the abortion license is
a matter of current law in almost every
nation in the West. In some cases, this
license reflects the will of the majority
and is enforced through legal and democratic
means. And I'm aware that many people,
even in the Church, find it strange
that we Catholics in America still make
the sanctity of unborn life so central
to our public witness.
Let
me tell you why I believe abortion
is the crucial issue of our age.
First,
because abortion, too, is about living
within the truth. The right to life
is the foundation of every other human
right. If that right is not inviolate,
then no right can be guaranteed.
Or
to put it more bluntly: Homicide is
homicide, no matter how small the victim.
Here's
another truth that many persons in the
Church have not yet fully reckoned:
The defense of newborn and preborn life
has been a central element of Catholic
identity since the Apostolic Age.
I'll
say that again: From the earliest days
of the Church, to be Catholic has meant
refusing in any way to participate in
the crime of abortion -- either by seeking
an abortion, performing one, or making
this crime possible through actions
or inactions in the political or judicial
realm. More than that, being Catholic
has meant crying out against all that
offends the sanctity and dignity of
life as it has been revealed by Jesus
Christ.
My
point in mentioning abortion is this:
Its widespread acceptance in the West
shows us that without a grounding in
God or a higher truth, our democratic
institutions can very easily become
weapons against our own human dignity.
Our
most cherished values cannot be defended
by reason alone, or simply for their
own sake. They have no self-sustaining
or "internal" justification.
There
is no inherently logical or utilitarian
reason why society should respect the
rights of the human person. There is
even less reason for recognizing the
rights of those whose lives impose burdens
on others, as is the case with the child
in the womb, the terminally ill, or
the physically or mentally disabled.
If
human rights do not come from God, then
they devolve to the arbitrary conventions
of men and women. The state exists to
defend the rights of man and to promote
his flourishing. The state can never
be the source of those rights. When
the state arrogates to itself that power,
even a democracy can become totalitarian.
What
is legalized abortion but a form of
intimate violence that clothes itself
in democracy? The will to power of the
strong is given the force of law to
kill the weak.
That
is where we are heading in the West
today.
I
suggested earlier that the Church's
religious liberty is under assault today
in ways not seen since the Nazi and
Communist eras. I believe we are now
in the position to better understand
why.
Writing
in the 1960s, Richard Weaver, an American
scholar and social philosopher, said:
"I am absolutely convinced that
relativism must
eventually lead to a regime of force."
He
was right. There is a kind of "inner
logic" that leads relativism to
repression.
This
explains the paradox of how Western
societies can preach tolerance and diversity
while aggressively undermining and penalizing
Catholic life. The dogma of tolerance
cannot tolerate the Church's belief
that some ideas and behaviors should
not be tolerated because they dehumanize
us. The dogma that all truths are relative
cannot allow the thought that some truths
might not be.
The
Catholic beliefs that most deeply irritate
the orthodoxies of the West are those
concerning abortion, sexuality and the
marriage of man and woman.
This is no accident. These Christian
beliefs express the truth about human
fertility, meaning and destiny.
These
truths are subversive in a world that
would have us believe that God is not
necessary and that human life has no
inherent nature or purpose. Thus the
Church must be punished because, despite
all the sins and weaknesses of her people,
she is still the bride of Jesus Christ;
still a source of beauty, meaning and
hope that refuses to die -- and still
the most compelling and dangerous heretic
of the world's new order.
The
full 12-page talk can
be read here.
"For
to me to live is Christ, and to die is
gain." (Phil 1:21)