One of the oddities of history that many people forget is that the KKK didn't have just one "archenemy," one singular group of people who attracted all their hatred. No. The KKK had three targets in particular for its hatred. Black people, Jewish people, and Catholics.
There's something sort of jarring about the last one for a lot of people. After all. in the past century, the United States faced down Nazi efforts at extermination and enslavement of peoples across the world, much of it based on race, and took apart the Jim Crow laws that continued to legally enforce segregation across the South of our country. We know that the Jews and our black brothers and sisters have faced a real storm of hatred and persecution, and have needed protection.
But Catholics?
Yes, certainly. When I was covering the papal visit to the United States in 2015, I heard Archbishop Chaput recount the story of the building of Philadelphia's cathedral. He told those listening that the then-archbishop, St. John Neumann, had the strongest workman throw a heavy stone as high as he could. Then the archbishop said, "Build the cathedral's windows 10 feet higher than that."
Given the often virulent anti-Catholicism present in America, that cathedral might well have fallen afoul the passions of a mob, and so the church needed to be built to last.
Bishop Barron gives a survey of that history:
I suspect the reason why this comes as a shock to many people when first a Catholic or honest non-Catholic attempts to bring it up is that somewhere deep in the DNA of our country, there is the black legend of the Church as the endless oppressor, as the perpetual establishment, as the one to both create and enforce a status quo from which, it is supposed, the Church can only benefit.
And of course, if the Church is de facto oppressive--Look at the hierarchy! Look at the male-only priesthood! They even call some of their leaders "patriarchs"!--then de jure, we cannot be oppressed.
Now, that's not to deny that Catholics and even ecclesial institutions have been mistaken, committed grievous sins, or even been guilty of criminality. But it is to point out that in the United States, the Church has always existed under the somewhat uneasy scrutiny of the wider culture and country, rather than being monolithically powerful in the ways imagined by far too many Americans.
I can't believe it's almost time for the March for Life--where does the time go?
Yet here we are again (in this 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth), interestingly enough). There's so much to be said, and many people will be saying it. But there's one subject I think has been widely overlooked, and that's the connection between the media's coverage of the annual March for Life in D.C. (as well as their coverage of similar marches and pro-life events across the country) and the way in which the pro-life movement has always taken very seriously President Trump's dismissal of most of the mainstream media's coverage of anything as "fake news."
That is, there isn't coverage of the annual March for Life, as this piece by Terry Mattingly over at the reliably informative and always interesting Get Religion blog indicates. Not serious coverage, at least, and certainly not coverage comparable to that given to the Women's March in 2017, or the coverage given to pro-choice marches and events.
This has been the case for decades, to the point where it's a regular joke amongst pro-lifers and Catholics. We talk about the "ninja march," watch to see just how non-existent the coverage is, and then are confirmed in our belief that the media, when it wants to, can do an impressive job of pretending that tens of thousands of people don't exist; that the country is solidly behind Roe v.Wade as settled law; that there's nothing to see here.
We watch the coverage or the lack of coverage, and we all know that the mainstream media at times offers us fake news.
And it's not just the March for Life. People have been grumbling about media bias or misinformation for at least as long as the media has failed to properly cover subjects in which the average person may have some deep experience.
Catholicism, for instance. Media coverage of Catholicism regularly sucks. And Catholics notice. We often come to distrust or at least trust less those media outlets that regularly get the faith wrong.
Now, some of the errors aren't really their fault. After all, when "fake news" has been handed down in history textbooks and classrooms as the way things are, it's no wonder that it gets reported as fact. And yet supposedly skeptical, objective journalists ought to be able to do better. The resources exist, after all, to discover that what "everyone knows" or "everyone believes" isn't true. For a start:
If the media would fix its coverage of pro-life events, people, and organizations--that is, be as objective about them as they claim to be, and as (I truly believe) they actually aspire to be--then a great deal of trust could be restored in the reading, viewing, and listening public. Get your coverage of Christianity right--not that you must be orthodox, but merely that you have the sort of factual accuracy, insight, and objectivity that journalists such as the excellent John Allen bring to bear--and a great deal more trust could be restored. Cover all religious news with true objectivity and rigor, and you could change the world.
Anyway. All this was spawned by the upcoming March for Life. One other note on pro-life affairs, then, before I conclude.
I've heard it said several times, "Pro-life people care so much about the child in the womb, but can't be bothered to help take care of the child after birth!"
And I'm always amazed that somehow, no one has shown them Mother Teresa's talk from the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C, on February 5, 1994. Among many other things well worth reading, she said:
We are fighting abortion by adoption — by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child — but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said, “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.
Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.
I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning. ...
And it's not just Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity, as Helen Alvare and her coauthors explain:
In the United States there are some 2,300 affiliates of the three largest pregnancy resource center umbrella groups, Heartbeat International, CareNet, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA).
Over 1.9 million American women take advantage of these services each year. Many stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.
Religious groups also provide crucial services to needy mothers and infants. John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, famously pledged to assist any woman from anywhere experiencing a crisis pregnancy, and the current Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, recently renewed Cardinal O’Connor’s pledge.
The Catholic Church–perhaps the single most influential pro-life institution in the United States–makes the largest financial, institutional and personnel commitments to charitable causes of any private source in the United States. These include AIDS ministry, health care, education, housing services, and care for the elderly, disabled, and immigrants. In 2004 alone, 562 Catholic hospitals treated over 85 million patients; Catholic elementary and high schools educated over 2 million students; Catholic colleges educated nearly 800,000 students; Catholic Charities served over eight-and-a-half million different individuals. In 2007, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development awarded nine million dollars in grants to reduce poverty. And in 2009, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network spent nearly five million dollars in services for impoverished immigrants. ...
So as we approach the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, take some time to read up on the history of the debate, the arguments on both sides, and the accounts of those who have taken an active role in the abortion industry only to leave it all behind for pro-life causes.
Welcome to 2018! As we start this (extremely cold) New Year, let's make a resolution: Let's resolve to work especially hard in this New Year to end the many, many myths about Catholicism left over from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Now, I'm not saying all criticisms of the Catholic Church and Catholics are invalid--far from it! The truth is the truth. Where sins have been committed, we must acknowledge them, and repent, and resolve never to repeat them. I say as much in How Can You Still Be Catholic? 50 Answers to a Good Question. But there are a great many crimes, sins, and scandals that common knowledge and "everybody" indicts the Church with that simply didn't happen, that have no connection to fact, and that simply are myths and "mythconceptions" that have been floating around for centuries. In the name of truth, honesty, and an end to "fake news" of all kinds, we owe it to ourselves and to the common good to get rid of those myths as yesterday's rubbish. Let's start fresh in this New Year. Let's start with a clean slate, with a mind freed of falsehood and a clearer view of history and the world.
Let's start with this one:
The medievals knew perfectly well that the earth was round. Heck, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) repeated the common consensus bluntly and casually in his Summa Theologiae:
The astronomer and the natural philosopher both conclude that the earth is round, but the astronomer does this through a mathematical middle that is abstracted from matter, whereas the natural philosopher considers a middle lodged in matter.
The myth of the medieval belief in the flat earth arises from a few sources:
The nigh-impregnable modern belief in medieval backwardness, ignorance, and refusal to use reason, and
And more, of course—the workings of memory are rarely simple. But there’s a start to getting rid of some of the old, false baggage of the past, pursuing a truer perspective on one of the world’s most enduring institutions, and allowing us a better understanding of where we come from in order to better decide where we’re going.
If you're looking for a solution/something useful to do, see the end of this piece. But I wanted to try once again to explain why I'm posting about all of this to such a degree. A friend said:
"You should not be easily moved to fear. It is unwarranted."
I'm not Jewish, or black, so yeah, I personally don't have nearly as much to fear. But I am Catholic, and I am an American, and the son of a Coast Guardsman. The Nazis and the KKK are enemies of the US. They are enemies of humanity. They are enemies of the Church. Their ideologies are to be opposed absolutely, especially when they are manifesting in marches and rallies.
We who are white, who are safe and far away from these things, can all too easily assume they are nothing to be afraid of, nothing to worry about. The ideologies were defeated. Sauron was destroyed, after all, and Voldemort died trying to kill a baby, and all that's over and done with. Right?
Tell that to the folks who attend the synagogue in Charlottesville. Tell that to the black people who have to live near or alongside people who put on their klan gear on the weekends. Tell that to the non-whites watching the Vice documentary this past week.
I am not afraid--I am in Massachusetts, deep in the North, deep behind Union lines. But I am furious and afraid on behalf of all those people who shouldn't have to be furious and afraid. Not, I hope, out of moral preening, but because Jim Crow endured because so many of us thought it silly to be afraid, thought Martin Luther King a troublemaker and the Civil Rights movement a whole lot of fuss about nothing. I'm writing all this because of Munich, and Chamberlain, and a very near thing for Britain because they disarmed throughout the 1930s, for all that Churchill never stopped speaking. I'm writing all this because let's try not to leave the Jewish people alone in the face of the Nazis again, or the black folks alone in the face of the Klan again.
"Furthermore, you are not asking people to simply state their opposition to Nazisism. You have affirmatively stated that unless someone supports punching people in the face for speaking words of hate, then that person has lost his mind."
No. If you can find it and repost it, I'll acknowledge I made a mistake. But what I've been saying or trying to say is that unless someone is able to empathize and understand why BLM or Antifa or an ordinary citizen punches people in the face for being public neo-Nazis and KKK, then that person has lost his mind. I cringe every time a conservative tries to equate Antifa or BLM with the neo-Nazis and the KKK because it's ridiculous on its face. Antifa and BLM have never held all of Europe in their thrall, never built concentration camps or ovens, never put stars on the Jews or sent forth death squads, the SS. They've never held the South in their thrall, sending and receiving slave ships on which millions died, never torn apart families, had breeding programs for their slaves, never sent forth night riders to lynch or bomb civil rights leaders. To attempt such a comparison is obscene.
"I am concerned that it strikes such fear in your heart that I will not advocate instigating violence. Hopefully you let go of some of that fear long enough to see that those who are not actively advocating for and justifying violence can still be fiercely opposed to the evils of Nazism and White supremacists."
Of course the right can be fiercely opposed to the evils of Nazism and white supremacists, but act and potential are two different things. This is why I keep saying this should be easy--there're all the intellectual and historical resources in the world for Republicans and Americans of all stripes, especially Catholic Christians, to oppose Nazism and white supremacist ideologies.
I'm seeing a lot of Catholic Christians and Republicans very intently defending the president and attempting to equate BLM and Antifa with neo-Nazis and the KKK.
I'm not seeing the Republicans on Facebook fiercely opposing Nazism and the KKK.
... He [President Trump] is also working to destroy and discredit the American Right, pitting us against one another in vicious internecine arguments. Right now there are otherwise good people who, out of partisan habits or long-borne outrage at biased media, are trying to concoct excuses for why Trump’s Q&A wasn’t so bad and all the criticisms of it are just fake news.
It’s time for that to stop. It’s time to stop looking at the latest Trump statement in relation to how bad you think the alternative is on the Left, or how biased the media is, and instead to compare it to what we should actually expect from a president. In a country where 99 percent of the population is opposed to Nazis, it should be the easiest thing in the world for an American president to unite the country by appealing to our shared values. Only Trump could take one of the most uncontroversial ideas in American politics, the Indiana Jones Rule, and turn it into a wrenching national argument. ...
And I'm really sad about that because this shouldn't even be a thing. This is the easiest challenge in the world, really, because conservatism stands against the sort of easy disregard for the common good that led to the Confederacy and the Civil War; conservatism stands for human rights and against totalitarian governments, as happened throughout the Cold War; Christianity calls us to love our neighbor, whoever they may be, and to know that all are one in Christ Jesus, no matter their race, no matter their skin color.
This was such an easy one to knock out of the park--but here we are, arguing instead.
So here's my proposed solution.
Dear conservatives and Christians of my acquaintance: I hold that when the Nazis and the KKK try to get on board the conservative end of the spectrum--that is, when the left hasn't had to lift a finger; the Nazis and the KKK are doing the work themselves--then the Republicans need to be leading the counter-demonstrations out of sheer love of country. Nothing to do with trying to "distance" yourselves from the Nazis. Tell the left, "We've got this. We'll do the counter-protests. We'll unite the right and stand between the 'Unite the Right' rally and the synagogue. Don't bother sending in BLM or Antifa. We'll bring the Knights of Columbus, the pro-life movement, and all the churches. We'll be the ones to get rid of the KKK and the Nazis because you've always been wrong about them being conservative or Republican. We know Christianity demands us oppose these groups. Don't worry. We protest Planned Parenthood; we'll protest the Nazis and the KKK." Why? It's an easy win; all of us are bound by conviction to oppose Nazism and the KKK; and the left is doing it wrong, as this piece makes clear.
... “The main thing that [hate groups] seek is attention and publicity to disseminate a message of hate,” Robert Trestan, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Boston office, told NPR’s “All Things Considered” during an interview about today’s planned “free speech” rally on Boston Common, which some are concerned will be a magnet for hate groups. “And so the best-case scenario is they come and they speak at the Common and there is nobody there to listen.” And Moises Velasquez-Manoff, a contributing op-ed writer at the Times, explained earlier this week that according to experts, “Violence directed at white nationalists only fuels their narrative of victimhood — of a hounded, soon-to-be-minority who can’t exercise their rights to free speech without getting pummeled.” “I would want to punch a Nazi in the nose, too,” Maria Stephan, a program director at the United States Institute of Peace, told him. “But there’s a difference between a therapeutic and strategic response.” Progressives would be eagerly echoing and retweeting this sort of logic if the wonks in question were talking about ISIS rather than the National Vanguard. Why should their insights suddenly be ignored?
If this line of thinking is correct, anyone disgusted by organized displays of explicit hatred should adopt a stance along the lines of this: “You know what? Let the Nazis rally. Let them try to promote a dying ideology the entire nation finds execrable. Down the road we are going to set up a big, inclusive show of solidarity that will be ten times larger. And anyone who is scared or intimidated or angry should come there, rather than risk their well-being facing down the dregs of society.” To be sure, this approach may not be as satisfying as punching Nazis, but it may increase the odds that in the future, there will be fewer Nazis to punch in the first place. ...
Let's do it right, peacefully, and far more effectively because if Christianity and conservatism makes plain the neo-Nazis and racists have no home on the right, they have no hope of a political home anywhere.
You want BLM and Antifa to become irrelevant? Publicly oppose racism in an organized fashion so they don't have occasion to riot.
And I sympathize to a degree with why conservatives are reluctant to respond to liberal challenges to condemn the Nazis, the KKK, and racism. I absolutely know how the left can attempt to demonize people or positions; I've seen the same sorts of things at Gonzaga; I agree that the ideological legacy of Communism perdures and must still be extricated from politics.
But conservatism, Christianity, and patriotism calls us to oppose the Nazis and the KKK. A pragmatic concern for ending the spectre of Antifa and BLM violence in this country calls us to publicly, clearly, consistently oppose racism, the white supremacists, and the neo-Nazis wherever they arise so that the left doesn't feel the need; so that it's taken care of.
Using the force of reason and public witness against racism is part of the new evangelization, after all, and a necessary part of developing a culture of life, leading to a civilization of love.
So come on--win big, win easily, and do the right thing, the thing demanded by conservatism and Christianity themselves--stand against the racists so the left doesn't have to, even if (when) segments of the left aren't grateful or gracious, when they wish you weren't there so they could attempt to tar you with the same brush. Do the right thing, as the pro-life movement has been doing for so long, even when it's hard, or thankless, or painful, or misunderstood.
I am not an Alinskyite, nor a Marxist, nor a supporter of the deconstruction and political manipulation of the left.
My writing here on this issue does not arise from leftism. It arises from the same sources (I hope) as Dietrich von Hildebrand's opposition to Nazism, and his shock and dismay that there was any question about whether or not absolute opposition to the Nazis was mandated for Catholics. I hope to be standing in the tradition of Pope Pius XII, who, as I discuss in my book How Can You Still Be Catholic? 50 Answers to a Good Question, taught against Nazism and did his best to save Jewish lives during WWII.
Charlottesville was not a conflict between two political "sides." Nazism and the KKK are not on the political spectrum. They are both embraces of the demonic. They are insanity. They are always resolutely to be opposed, particularly by Catholics.
Further, to fight the Nazis is not an infallible sign of leftism. To fight the Nazis was once considered a patriotic duty in this country. I had thought those days were not over, that though conservatives may deplore the break down of law and order, they could empathize with those who might have found the sight of Nazis on the march and the KKK on the march a sight to inspire such fear and visceral revulsion as to prompt violence. I had thought that such revulsion might be shared by Republicans, as other commenters have expressed and acknowledged. But I'm truly astounded by the reaction from some conservatives and Catholics right now.
Why on earth, first of all, are the people passionately opposing the Nazis and the KKK being called "far left" or "communists"? I give you, once again, Pius XI's condemnation of the founding principles of Nazism.
That's the same pope that issued Divini Redemptoris, the condemnation of atheistic Communism.
Tell me--in what upside down universe is it required for an anti-Nazi to necessarily be a Communist? Tell that to Churchill and his party; tell that to the veterans of WWII.
Why on earth aren't all Trump supporters and Republicans laughing at the Nazis for attempting to "Unite the Right" with their ideology, and ridiculing them for thinking that anyone's interested? Why on earth are you attacking those against the Nazis and the KKK, rather than turning all your rhetorical fire on the enemies of humanity that marched in Charlottesville? This is an easy win for conservatives everywhere--laugh the racists to scorn, because they're not conservative. They're politically homeless.
My key frustration and main point is simply--why isn't every Republican ridiculing the notion that the "Unite the Right" rally had actually attracted anyone on the right? Why aren't y'all just joining the condemnations of the neo-Nazis and the KKK, saying, "Yeah, the lunatic nightmares from the past are rearing their ugly heads again. Boy, if I'd have been there, I might have punched them, as well! Not the best reaction, but perfectly understandable, given the past. Thank God things didn't get worse than they did--Nazis and KKK members on the march have historically gone hand in hand with violence, after all!"
Well, this has been one heck of a week in light of Charlottesville, hasn't it?
I guess I never really expected to see the sorts of pictures and headlines I've been seeing--neo-Nazis marching in a torchlit parade, chanting slogans straight from the 1930s, awaiting the rise of an American fuhrer--not Trump, says one writer for The Stormer in the documentary below, because he's not racist enough; he has a Jewish son-in-law--marching in support of Confederate monuments.
Warning: NSFW; strong language; racism; violence.
And that brings home that there's a reason why any number of black activists call for the removal of these Confederate monuments. They commemorate a very specific political entity that was dedicated to the cause of white supremacy and black enslavement. Nobody has to read anything into history to find that; it's just a blunt statement of fact. The fact that General Lee was a man of noted virtue and excellence as a soldier just makes him all the more a tragic figure. The corruption of the best is the worst, after all.
Nazism is something to be absolutely opposed, as the Catholic philosopher and fervent anti-Nazi Dietrich von Hildebrand argued tirelessly in the 1920s and 1930s, and as was made plain in Pope Pius XI's encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge.
Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds. ...
None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15). ...
The Bishops of the Church of Christ, "ordained in the things that appertain to God (Heb. v, 1) must watch that pernicious errors of this sort, and consequent practices more pernicious still, shall not gain a footing among their flock. ...
Nazism is to be resisted. Period. So, then, is the KKK, which falls under many of the same condemnations as were issued against Nazism. Racism is wrong and forbidden to Catholics. Supremacist movements are similarly wrong and forbidden to Catholics.
On the question of leftist violence at Charlottesville:
You know, there are any number of instances you could usefully point to in order to condemn violence from the left. The attack on the National Geographic building a few years ago, for instance, or the man who shot at members of Congress practicing for a baseball game from earlier this year.
Charlottesville isn't the instance you need to usefully make your point. In Charlottesville, the Nazis showed up. Those still attached to the Confederacy, in many cases with all their ideals of white supremacy and the subjugation of other races, showed up.
Previously, the United States has responded to both those groups with its military. And not just its military, but an all-out, national effort for the defeat of both the Nazis and the Confederacy.
This is not the test case you want, if you really want to rally people against violence from the left.
Now, Pius XI also condemned communism; many on the left hold to Marxist-inspired ideologies, all of which are more or less problematic.
But Nazism is a menace to everyone, just as a rabid dog is a menace to everyone. Something has gone incredibly wrong in the lives and minds of those who subscribe to it, for it always, always ends in the charnel house of the serial killers. That, after all, is the goal of the ideology. The cure? Truth and love, but it takes tremendous courage, and grace.
So when human beings fail in the face of the hungry beast of Nazism and the KKK; when the Nazis and the Communists get punched first before they can get to punching, well, I'm inclined to say that though the reaction was wrong, still it's understandable. I'm not going to say the left was needlessly inciting violence when they were confronted with the actual Nazis and the actual KKK--I'm going to say that the Nazis and the KKK got what they wanted out of the encounter, and that a normal human being may react to an existential threat in wrong, but understandable ways.
The strength of our democracy is best shown by ignoring these demonstrations and arresting Nazis and the KKK when they do break the law, as they will inevitably do, given the nature of their belief systems. At the same time, constant vigilance is demanded, for the Death Eaters and servants of the powers of darkness have not gone away. They do mean the death and/or enslavement of many, many people. We are obliged to respond, as many bishops of the Church have responded.
Racism, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism are absolutely opposed to the truth of the Gospel. Racism is a dangerous evil: a lie sown by Satan, which seduces, and confuses, and ensnares. The Evil One seeks to divide us from one another and from the Lord, by sowing and exploiting prejudice, stereotypes, and fear.
Regrettably, the white supremacists were not the only ones sowing violence in Charlottesville. A small number of the counter-protestors, but not most of them, were violent, anarchist members of the “antifa” movement, who opposed their racist counterparts with violence.
We should all be disgusted by the racism of white supremacists. But hatred, expressed in anarchic violence, is the wrong response to injustice. Hatred begets hatred. Violence begets violence. Christians know that evil cannot overcome evil. Only grace can conquer evil.
This weekend, Archbishop Chaput wrote that “Charlottesville matters. It’s a snapshot of our public unraveling into real hatreds brutally expressed; a collapse of restraint and mutual respect now taking place across the country... If we want a different kind of country in the future, we need to start today with a conversion in our own hearts, and an insistence on the same in others. That may sound simple. But the history of our nation and its tortured attitudes toward race proves exactly the opposite.”
Today, our call is to oppose the evil of racism, and the violence begotten by hatred, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ—with the love of the One who came to redeem every human heart. Jesus Christ can free the captives of racism, and Jesus Christ can heal racism’s victims. Our job is to proclaim the truth, mercy, and freedom of life in Jesus Christ. We should not be naïve about how difficult that job really is.
It should be absolutely clear to us that without a massive spiritual renewal in our country, violence, hatred, and chaos will continue unabated. In fact, each one of us must guard our hearts, to ensure that Satan does not sow within us the lie of racism, or use our disgust for racism to make us hateful, vengeful, or violent.
The only Christian response to the evil that unfolded in Charlottesville is to redouble our prayers for our nation, and to redouble our efforts to build a civilization of love. ...
Bishop Robert Barron writes:
Friends, there can be no equivocation or nuance when it comes to racism. The Church's teaching is clear: "It is necessary to guard against the rise of new forms of racism or xenophobic behavior which attempt to make our brothers and sisters into scapegoats" (St. John Paul II). We must vehemently oppose the resurgence of an "insane, racist ideology born of neopaganism" (Benedict XVI). The Church stands against and condemns all racist ideologies and warns those who would propagate such horrors to repent. Please join me in praying for the victims of the shocking violence in Charlottesville and for the conversion of its perpetrators.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development:
As we learn more about the horrible events of yesterday, our prayer turns today, on the Lord's Day, to the people of Charlottesville who offered a counter example to the hate marching in the streets. Let us unite ourselves in the spirit of hope offered by the clergy, people of faith, and all people of good will who peacefully defended their city and country.
We stand against the evil of racism, white supremacy and neo-nazism. We stand with our sisters and brothers united in the sacrifice of Jesus, by which love's victory over every form of evil is assured. At Mass, let us offer a special prayer of gratitude for the brave souls who sought to protect us from the violent ideology displayed yesterday. Let us especially remember those who lost their lives. Let us join their witness and stand against every form of oppression.
One final note: I've been amazed that there wasn't simple unanimity in the country condemning the Nazis and KKK members, deriding white supremacist movements, and pointing out that the event that brought all these people together, a "Unite the Right" rally, was badly named because no one from the conservative movement or the Republican Party would ever have anything to do with such a thing. And yet people keep speaking as though there were actually sides represented, as though the left and the right showed up, had a dust up, and now we're all seeking out who to blame.
Let us be clear: when your platform is extermination, enslavement, and the destruction of humanity, you aren't on the left or the right. You've run right off into insanity.
The Nazis and the KKK aren't on the political spectrum. They're enemies of humanity, and to be opposed always and everywhere by right thinking people. It shouldn't be that hard! I've heard some people express serious concern that the left attempts to demonize their enemies, and so this is just the beginning of the left attacking people.
The problem with that argument? These are actual Nazis and actual KKK members. The left doesn't need to do a darn thing to demonize them; these guys have embraced the nightmares of days gone by and sought to become them. They have embraced the demonic. Everyone ought to oppose Nazism and the KKK, and the right should be disgusted by their attempt to claim the label "right-wing." Kudos to National Review for making just such a repudiation:
We categorically repudiate not only the specific acts of violence but also the broader cause in which this violence was deployed. The rally in question was advertised as a project to “Unite the Right.” We flatter ourselves that we have a little something to say about that, and our answer is: No. We do not wish to be united with Jew-haters, bigots, racists, and the morally and intellectually defective specimens on such sad display in Charlottesville, waving their Nazi banners and Confederate flags.
One time, I was getting impatient in an online discussion about the faith. My friend is a determined atheist, you see, with some self-professed Communist leanings, and he was railing against the Church once again.
Or at least, he thought he was railing against the Church.
See, here's the strange thing about being Catholic these days: Everyone outside of the Church is very certain they know exactly what the Catholic faith is and what the Church stands for. They can tell you about it, often at great length, and will do so quite willingly, quite often. But often they're completely, nakedly, incredibly wrong.
As Venerable Fulton Sheen once observed, "There are not 100 people who hate the Catholic Church; But there are millions who hate what they believe the Catholic Church to be."
And my friend was hating away at what he thought the Catholic Church to be. So I called him on it. I didn't dissect his claims, refute his facts, or really answer the challenge at all.
No. I called him "Don Quixote."
So much of the sound and fury against the Church and against the faith really is people tilting at windmills, charging ahead, all sound and fury, full of fire and a sense of righteousness, when they're missing the castle entirely and off in some farmer's field somewhere, trampling the crops as they grow.
I mean, don't get me wrong--there are real sins in the Church's past, and real evils that have needed to be faced, the clergy abuse scandal the easy and obvious example. But there are also a great many imaginary sins in the history books, a great deal of anti-Catholicism masquerading as fact or judicious historical analysis, and thank God, some non-Catholics have called people on it.
We were living in Astoria, Oregon, at the time. Dad was stationed out there at the Coast Guard Air Station, and my sister and I were in the local public schools.
Now, Oregon is a funny place. People there tend to be absolutely liberal or absolutely conservative. It felt as though there really was no moderate middle, only the indifferent. The perfect illustration of this came in the run up to the Iraq war, when protesters took to the streets of Astoria every Friday at 5 p.m. Outside the courthouse, there were the people on the left, protesting against going to war, standing there with their flags and their tie dye and their signs that read "Honk if you support us."
Not four blocks away, on a concrete Island in the middle of the highway, there stood the pro-war protesters, in their plaid, with their flags and their signs that said, "Honk if you support us."
So every Friday at 5, downtown Astoria became bedlam, because everybody was honking and everybody was protesting and nobody was sure who was honking for what side.
This sort of polarization extended to religion, as well. You didn't really have mainline Christians. Everybody was either non-denominational evangelical, or Mormon, or Catholic, or secular liberal, or agnostic, or atheist, or indifferent, or Wiccan, or whatever else was starkly defined in floodlights with vivid colors.
Outstanding among the religious students was one in particular named Art.
He was Protestant, and proud of it; I think he carried his Bible everywhere, and was willing to pull it out at the drop of a hat. I think it was obvious to everyone that Art was going to become a minister someday. He was serious about his religion and serious about his evangelization. He started Bible studies and prayer groups, sang Christian songs at school assemblies with his sister and brought Jason Evert and his then-girlfriend Crystalina (now his wife) to speak at the school on chastity, abstinence, and the importance of waiting till marriage. (It wasn't till years later that I discovered that the Everts were Catholic, graduates from Franciscan University of Steubenville, and great proponents of St. John Paul II's theology of the body.)
Art may well have attracted some amount of ridicule for his witness--it's almost unavoidable these days--but he had one great defense against it all: He really did practice what he preached. I remember him being held in a fairly high regard by the school at large, simply because he was reliably kind, good-natured, hard working, and, while a passionate preacher, was also good to people.
Art played trombone in pep band; I played trumpet. I don't remember how the conversation started one morning in the bandroom before school, but Art and I got to talking about religion. He knew I was Catholic somehow--it was a small town, and people tended to know each other's business, but he may also have simply asked me. I don't remember. He started saying something about how unbiblical Catholic teaching and practices were; I retorted that they were plenty biblical, and that certainly there was Scripture to back them up.
He said, "Oh, really? Show me! Where's Confession in the Bible?"
Now, I had no idea at the time. I'd read children's Bibles growing up, and spent some time trying to plow straight through a King James Version given me by someone on my dad's side of the family for First Communion or something like that, but I'd never really gone in depth into the New Testament. I didn't know what I was talking about ... except that I knew that the Church had a greater legacy of saints and scholarship than most people knew, and I knew that if some of the common Protestant challenges were really as devastating as most Protestants seemed to think, there wouldn't be a Catholic Church left at all, anymore. Further, the Catholic Church I'd grown up in didn't match most people's mutterings and fears.
So I said, "I know it's in there! I don't know where, but let me look it up at home tonight and I'll show you tomorrow!"
Art agreed. So that night, I pulled out the teen study Bible that I'd been given at some point and started flipping around, hoping for something to make this easy, so that I would be right. Thankfully, they had an index. Thankfully, it made it easy.
The next day, I went to talk to Art at band. He saw me coming, pulled out his Bible, and looked at me expectantly. I paused. I'd forgotten quite which way around the citation was.
The first set of numbers led nowhere, some totally irrelevant Scripture. I said, "Try them the other way around!" And we found it:
[Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (Jn 20:21-23)
Art knelt staring at his Bible for a moment. A mutual friend who'd been standing by started saying, "Well, that doesn't prove anything! That doesn't demonstrate any support for Confession!" And Art looked up and said a little sharply, "No, it does. He's right--it's there." And then he looked at me and said, "You're the first Catholic I've met who's ever bothered to defend their faith to me."
And I was left reeling.
"Bothered"? I was the first Catholic who'd ever "bothered" to defend their faith to him?
I was proud, of course, but also a little stunned. Art had been out to make a convert out of me, and I was sure he'd set out to save many Catholic souls from the clutches of Rome before. And I was the first one to ever defend the faith to him? Ever?
That stuck with me. That led me to begin to read, to seek out answers to the questions that the culture and other Christians had for us. Art introduced me to C.S. Lewis' nonfiction writings, thus putting me even further into his debt. I discovered internet apologetics a little bit later and decided to put the faith to the test. What were the best objections people had, and what were the answers?
All of this has culminated, in a certain sense, with my first book, How Can You Still Be Catholic? 50 Answers to a Good Question, to be released by Marian Press on July 21, 2017. In a certain sense, I owe it all to Art. He set me on the path to find answers, and also inadvertently helped me discover that there are answers available to be found. The Catholic Church has immense resources of scholarship and sanctity, of historical truth and fantastic works of fiction, all in the service of Christ, all in some way inspired by the Spirit of Jesus. And much of what I've learned, I've aimed to share in this book.
So there it is: my origin story as a Catholic apologist. Time will tell if I'm any good at it. Heaven knows the faith is better than I am!
What sort of tonedeafness leads someone to put out a story headlined: "The horror of Tuam's missing babies is not diminished by misreported details: Tuam's mothers and the unhappily pregnant today are not unconnected. It is time for Ireland to liberalise its abortion laws"?
Really? "I'm so outraged by how awfully the Catholic Church treated unwed mothers and killed their children through neglect that I'm going to call for us to legalize killing the children in the womb. There. Problem solved."
She's not mad about the missing children of Tuam. She's mad that they couldn't all have been made to disappear.
I can understand the outrage at the way unwed mothers were apparently treated in Ireland decades ago, and understand that our failures to be as holy as we should cause all sorts of hell to break loose. Yes. Fine.
But someone's really going to turn this into an argument for loosening restrictions on killing kids in the womb? Really?
So in all the many, many religious liberty debates swirling around, a certain set of arguments emerge time and again, namely:
Christians claim that their religious texts, particularly the Bible, ban certain acts and behaviors.
Christians don't live up to all the laws in their Bible, including the prohibitions on eating certain foods, wearing clothing of a certain composition, or touching a dead pig's skin.
Christians are arbitrarily cherry-picking doctrines from their religious texts and being inconsistent. This is obviously all an exercise in banning things you don't like and pointing to certain passages to justify your bigotry.
A prime example of this sort of reasoning appeared on The West Wing.
There's a huge gaping problem with the line of argumentation, though: the people using it haven't taken the time to read their Bibles. See, it's not as simple as "The Bible is our holy book and we must do what it says." Why? Because the Bible isn't simply a book. It's the collected works, the omnibus edition of inspired writings, with human authors and a divine author. So you don't just do what the Bible says, because the Bible says a lot of things, just as I don't just walk into a library, grab a book off a shelf, and attempt to use it as a guide to driving through downtown Manhattan. I can go into a library and probably find the appropriate map if I go to the right section and read that map according to the rules of its writing, but a poetry text or an encyclopedia will probably be highly unhelpful. Similarly, I would not ask someone to look to the deeds of the Babylonians or the Egyptians as recounted in the Scriptures as paragons of the sort of religious behavior demanded by the God of the Bible. Just because it's in the Bible doesn't make it normative. Also, there's a key concept guiding our interpretation of the Scriptures called the divine pedagogy, or the divine condescension. Simply, God accomodates his revelation to our weakness. We are like children--we have to go through the grades in school in order. You cannot ask a kindergartener to undertake college level work, not normally. There are especially gifted people, just as some people are saints from childhood (the luckies!). But for the great mass of humanity, training is required before great feats of intellect or of sanctity. So the laws God gives at certain points are accommodated to the weakness of the people, such as Moses' teaching on divorce (Matthew 19:18). Do portions of the Old Testament shock you? God was accomodating the weakness of the people. Keep in mind that certain aspects of modern society would shock the ancients, as well. God is merciful. We are sinful and concupiscent. He tells us the truth, he holds us to the highest standards, and he is infinitely merciful. Why does the law change? Because the covenants change; because the people change. There are elements which are permanent, however, and it's important to discern which are part of what C. S. Lewis called the "tao" or the natural law, and which are part of the disciplinary norms for a given people or age. Similarly, not all the books of the Bible are to be read in the same fashion by a Christian reader. The whole is part of our heritage, yes, but not everything within it is binding upon us. That's not just me or extra-biblical Catholic tradition talking--that's the Scriptures themselves. Read Acts 15 and its account of the Council of Jerusalem. There, a Church council, guided by the Holy Spirit, taught with authority that the Christians were not bound to obey all the tenets of the Mosaic law:
‘It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.'"
So out of all the tenets and prohibitions of the Mosaic Law, including the bans on shellfish, the clothing of threads from several plants, etc, what remains? Do not eat meat sacrificed to idols, do not eat the blood of animals or the meat of strangled animals, and keep the laws regarding marriage. Is this the whole law binding upon Christians? No, for there's more taught by Jesus:
Love God and neighbor (Mark 12:30-31 and crossreferences)
Love one another as Jesus has loved us (John 13:34-35)
Keep the Ten Commandments (Mark 10:17-31)
We also have the sermon on the Mount and a rich repository of other moral teaching from both Jesus and the early Church throughout the rest of the New Testament, but the above covers what remains from the Old Testament's law. There's a great deal of wise counsel in the Wisdom literature, of course, and much more to learn from the rest of the Scriptures. But next time someone tries to complain about controversial Christian teachings when "they just pick and choose what they're going to enforce!" take some time to explain the different genres of Scripture, the way in which later texts interpret earlier texts, the notion of divine condescension, and the Scriptural teaching on which portions of the Jewish Law apply to Christians. For more on all this, see:
A run down of reactions here, with the concluding comment:
Ironically, if the writers of “Cosmos” had handled the Bruno segment a little differently, by also profiling others like Copernicus, Galileo and the above-mentioned Digges with the honesty and complexity their stories demand, they would have found allies instead of antagonism in the Catholic community who simply want their history told fairly, the good along with the bad. That shouldn’t be too much to ask from those who say they’re committed to verifiable truth.
We’re barely seconds into this farrago and we have our first lie. “Everyone” knew the earth was the center of the universe? Wow, who’s going to tell Copernicus? Kepler? Stigliola? Diggs? Maestlin? Rothmann? Brahe? All of them believed in models of the cosmos that were not considered orthodox, and lived at the time of Bruno. All of them escaped the fire, and indeed weren’t even pursued by the Inquisition. Right here we have the major lie at the heart of modern anti-religious scientific propaganda: the war between faith and science. We’re supposed to just assume this ignorant backwards world of the past hates smart people. Tyson himself says it matter-of-factly: “How was [Bruno] spending New Year’s Eve [in 1599]? In prison, of course.” Of course! Because that’s what the Church does to smart people! Bad church! Bad!
Aside from the point that anything that refers to the Bride of the Bridegroom might actually, you know, be referring to traditional Christian theology about Christ and His Church. this is a pretty good overview of the whole affair. Excerpts:
I tend to believe, along with many others, that the evidence of modern forgery is pretty strong, but if it makes the other side happy, I’ll concede that it was written in the 8th or 9th century, in which case, we have a giant nothingburger with a heaping side order of hype and some extra anti-Christian dipping sauce...
Short version: This is potentially an 8th or 9th century text that tells us nothing about early Christian history. The probability of modern forgery has not been conclusively eliminated by testing, and textual issues that suggest forgery have not been convincingly rebutted.
I think the good/evil thing was basically another (apparently ill-translated) way of saying you can't ask of someone what they haven't got. You cannot expect an infant to have the knowledge and experience of an adult. You cannot give meat before milk. People must follow the good insofar as they are aware of it, insofar as they can find it, even if their consciences are not well formed or misdirected. It's the antidote to the great Catholic error of the past, namely, coercing others to give lip-service to the faith (see: Inquisition, Heretics, etc.) even though they don't get it, don't agree with it, and see no reason to accept it as true. We can expel people from the Church, and we can admit them, but it's not right to put a sword to their throat or a gun to their head and demand of them a knowledge and acceptance of the good and the true which they're not in a place to honestly give.
“The Church respects the freedom of individuals to seek the truth and to embrace it according to the dictates of conscience, and in this light she firmly rejects proselytism and the use of unethical means to gain conversions.” – Blessed John Paul II, in Sri Lanka, 1995
“ The word ‘proselytism’ has a negative meaning when it indicates a way of winning followers which does not respect the freedom of those to whom a specific kind of religious propaganda is directed. The Catholic Church in America is critical of proselytism by the sects and, for this reason, rejects methods of this kind in her own evangelizing work. Presenting the Gospel of Christ in its entirety, the work of evangelization must respect the inner sanctuary of every individual’s conscience, where the decisive and absolutely personal dialogue between grace and human freedom unfolds.” — Blessed John Paul, Ecclesia in America, 1999.
“We impose our faith on no one. Such proselytism is contrary to Christianity. Faith can develop only in freedom. But we do appeal to the freedom of men and women to open their hearts to God, to seek him, to hear his voice. ” — Pope Benedict, Munich, 2006.
You want to know what this pope is about? Read what he's said, not what he's reported to have said. For more, see:
...This, remember, is the Pope. As Catholics, we believe that he is the direct successor to St. Peter, given the keys to the kingdom by Jesus Christ while He was here, physically, on Earth amongst us. He’s not infallible when he gives opinions, or interviews — that only occurs on those rare occasions that he speaks on matters of faith and morals ex cathedra or “from the throne” — but his views are still profoundly significant for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
So what are we to say, what to conclude? The Pope is, he reminds us in the interview, a loving, faithful son of the Church. As such, he will not and cannot change fundamental teachings on life, sexuality and morality. What he can do, and has done, is to remind us that the Church is primarily about Jesus, love, understanding, grace and forgiveness. Forgiveness cannot be given unless it’s requested; it takes, as it were, two to play the game.
What Francis has urged, though, is a new painting. Black and white is vital, but the true picture can only be understood through a whole variety of colors. So this is a Pope of nuance and backstory, of delicacy and empathy of delivery. Truth needs to be sung rather than shouted, and he is telling the world — and particularly those who have left the Church and those who hide behind its rules instead of being liberated by them — that while we cannot compromise on truth, we must not compromise on love.
On the gay issue, for example, we are all so much more than our sexuality, and are all supremely and superbly loved by God who is our creator. Marriage is absolute, but to dislike or even hate someone because they are gay is not only wrong, it is anti-Catholic.
Francis is clearly explaining that no gay person will give any attention to a Church that appears to close doors rather than greet newcomers. They may reject the message, but at least encourage them to hear it.
That is the papal message, and while the details are indeed difficult, the overall plot is simple and clear...
Francis sees the human within the theological, the person within the religious, the living, breathing, confused, confusing man or woman within the moral law.
This will be a more inclusive papacy leading to a more inclusive Church, and the larger the party the more challenging it is to get along with and agree with everyone. But the largest parties are the most fun, and also make the most noise.
On a light note, someone got video of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the release of Pope Francis's interview:
--Yes, we have some huge, very decorated churches. It's a very Biblical approach to worshiping the God of Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus.
The LORD spoke to Moses: Speak to the Israelites: Let them receive contributions for me. From each you shall receive the contribution that their hearts prompt them to give me. These are the contributions you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and bronze; violet, purple, and scarlet yarn; fine linen and goat hair; rams’ skins dyed red, and tahash skins; acacia wood; oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; onyx stones and other gems for mounting on the ephod and the breastpiece. They are to make a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell in their midst. According to all that I show you regarding the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of its furnishings, so you are to make it.--Exodus 25:1-9; cf. Exodus 25:10-40; 26-31; 35-40.
After the king had taken up residence in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent!”--2 Samuel 7:1-2
...when your days have been completed and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, sprung from your loins, and I will establish his kingdom. He it is who shall build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever.--2 Samuel 7:12-13
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites went forth from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv (the second month), he began to build the house of the LORD.
The house which King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide, and thirty high. The porch in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits from side to side along the width of the house, and ten cubits deep in front of the house. Windows with closed lattices were made for the house, and adjoining the wall of the house he built a substructure around its walls that enclosed the nave and the inner sanctuary, and he made side chambers all around. The lowest story was five cubits wide, the middle one six cubits wide, the third seven cubits wide, because he put recesses along the outside of the house to avoid fastening anything into the walls of the house. The house was built of stone dressed at the quarry, so that no hammer or ax, no iron tool, was to be heard in the house during its construction. The entrance to the middle story was on the south side of the house; stairs led up to the middle story and from the middle story to the third. When he had finished building the house, it was roofed in with rafters and boards of cedar. He built the substructure five cubits high all along the outside of the house, to which it was joined by cedar beams.
The word of the LORD came to Solomon: As to this house you are building—if you walk in my statutes, carry out my ordinances, and observe all my commands, walking in them, I will fulfill toward you my word which I spoke to David your father. I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites and will not forsake my people Israel.
When Solomon finished building the house, 15its inside walls were lined with cedar paneling: he covered the interior with wood from floor to ceiling, and he covered its floor with fir planking. At the rear of the house a space of twenty cubits was set off by cedar panels from the floor to the ceiling, enclosing the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies. The house was forty cubits long, that is, the nave, the part in front. The cedar in the interior of the house was carved in the form of gourds and open flowers; all was of cedar, and no stone was to be seen.
In the innermost part of the house he set up the inner sanctuary to house the ark of the LORD’s covenant. In front of the inner sanctuary (it was twenty cubits long, twenty wide, and twenty high, and he covered it with pure gold), he made an altar of cedar. Solomon covered the interior of the house with pure gold, and he drew golden chains across in front of the inner sanctuary, and covered it with gold. He covered the whole house with gold, until the whole house was done, and the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he covered with gold. In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim, each ten cubits high, made of pine. Each wing of a cherub was five cubits so that the span from wing tip to wing tip was ten cubits. The second cherub was also ten cubits: the two cherubim were identical in size and shape; the first cherub was ten cubits high, and so was the second. He placed the cherubim in the inmost part of the house; the wings of the cherubim were spread wide, so that one wing of the first touched the side wall and the wing of the second touched the other wall; the wings pointing to the middle of the room touched each other. He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
The walls of the house on all sides of both the inner and the outer rooms had carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. The floor of the house of both the inner and the outer rooms was overlaid with gold. At the entrance of the inner sanctuary, doors of pine were made; the doorframes had five-sided posts. The two doors were of pine, with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. The doors were overlaid with gold, and the cherubim and the palm trees were also covered with beaten gold. He did the same at the entrance to the nave, where the doorposts were of pine and were four-sided. The two doors were of fir wood, each door consisting of two panels hinged together; and he carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and plated them with gold. He walled off the inner court with three courses of hewn stones and ne course of cedar beams.
The foundations of the LORD’s house were laid in the month of Ziv in the fourth year, and it was finished, in all particulars, exactly according to plan, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, in the eleventh year. Thus Solomon built it in seven years.--1 Kings 6
After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.--Matthew 2:9-11
Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one [of] his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”--John 12:
Further, when a culture is lavishing wealth on its churches, it tends to also be supporting religious orders and lay run charities, as well. In other words, a culture that loves God also tends to love its neighbor.
I agree we are challenged to respond to the suffering of our brethren the world over, especially those of us in the US and the truly wealthy countries, but this thing is simple anti-Catholicism. I think it would be far more appropriate to take that photo of the
starving human being and set it next to shots of grocery stores,
restaurants, and things, and then keep the caption.
!
