Imagine: Is This How John Thought It Would Turn Out?

I think we have seen enough people commenting on Laudato Si today.  I’m not going to touch that one.  There would seem to be a lot of different interpretations around from various people I’d tend to consider faithful Catholics.  I’ll have to hunker down and read it soon.  I, myself, wasn’t too worried, but others seemed to be in a near panic about its release.  From what little I’ve read, “Be good Catholics!” has seemingly been the message.

Instead, I am going to focus on the terrible shooting in South Carolina and what’s been coming out of the liberals mouths ever since: “Guns! It’s all the fault of the guns!”  Sorry, Mr. President and all your loyal followers, this is your fault that this has happened over and over again!  When you teach the nation’s children on a daily basis that belief in God is wrong, killing children in the womb is right, and morality is whatever you want to make of it, this is what you get.  There is no belief that life is sacred.  I’m not really sure how any of you liberals can honestly look America in the eye and call this shooting evil.  I can, but can you?  You’ve said time and again that murder is a choice and reality is what you want it to be, not what it actually is.  What did you expect?  I’m sure this young man had a reality all his own.  You rubber stamped his right to his reality so his wishes and whims superseded everyone else’s.  What?  That’s not what you meant?

Archbishop Wuerl spoke to the AFL-CIO the other day (http://saltandlighttv.org/blog/general/cardinal-wuerl-the-catholic-ideal-of-solidarity-and-the-new-evangelization).  The speech didn’t get a lot of play, but it was, once again, actually pretty good.  I’m not yet used to “bold Catholicism” coming out of his mouth, but it is so refreshing!  Somebody always has to chime in with, “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” but frankly, I don’t care what the man did or didn’t do yesterday, he’s been kind of awesome as of late.  Keep it up Cardinal!  To the rest of us, give credit where credit is due.  One part of the speech, in particular, hit me when I heard about the shooting in South Carolina:

A number of years ago I was invited to speak at the Catholic Center at Harvard University. The designated theme was “The Role of Faith in a Pluralistic Society.” At the conclusion of my presentation, a skeptical professor who self-identified as an atheist and who taught in the law school was the first to present a question. He asked, “What do you people think you bring to our society?”

The reference to “you people” was to the front row of the audience that was made up of representatives of a variety of religious traditions, all of whom were in their appropriate identifiable robes.

Since he was a lawyer, I asked if he would mind if I answered his question with a question of my own. When he nodded in agreement, I asked: “What do you think the world would be like if it were not for the voices of all of those religious traditions represented in the hall? What would it be like if we did not hear voices in the midst of the community saying, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness?

What would our culture be like had we not heard religious imperatives such as love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others as you would have them do to you?

How much more harsh would our land be if we did not grow up hearing, blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers?

What would the world be like had we never been reminded that someday we will have to answer to God for our actions?”

To his credit, the man who asked the question smiled broadly and said, “It would be a mess!”

Well, America, welcome to the mess that’s been created by vilifying the unborn, the elderly, Christianity in general, Catholicism in particular, and ignoring morality. You reap what you sow, and you’ve sowed it well. Guns are not the evil that killed these people. The lack of respect for God, the devaluing of human life, and the blatant disregard of the consequences of our actions led to this tragedy. Give yourselves a pat on the back for this one, liberals. You wanted to “Imagine” it like John Lennon, and you’re seeing what it will be like if Christianity doesn’t fight back with everything they’ve got.

Cardinal Wuerl goes on to say:

Recent popes have spoken about certain social and cultural challenges in our world today, including relativism, which denies the existence of objective truth and the natural moral order; secularism, which treats religion as a solely private matter and thus dismisses appreciation of God and the importance of religious faith, values and institutions in the public square; materialism, which can all too easily focus attention on personal gain at the expense of the common good and the needs of others, and individualism which can center on the self and lose sight of our dependence on others as well as the responsibilities that we bear towards each other.

There also persist in our culture various ideologies and mentalities which view all of social life through the lens of economic class, ethnic, racial or sexual identity, ideology or political party preference. Here, we see the separation of people into competing interests.

Pope Francis with his clear words and inviting ways offers a powerful counterpoint to these forces. He speaks often in opposition to a “globalization of indifference” and a “throwaway culture” in our world today, “according to which everything is disposable. A culture that always leaves people out of the equation” – the unborn, young people, the elderly, the sick, those who are deemed to be of no use (Interview, Radio of the Archdiocese of Rio, July 27, 2013).

Can anyone look around the world we’ve seen lately and deny that we live in a throwaway culture?  We literally throw human beings away on a daily basis! Society no longer says there is an objective truth a la Dolezal and Jenner. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (#cardinalcordileone) knows all too well that natural moral order went out the window a long time ago for those railing against him.  Now we have 9 dead because society convinced a kid that none of the people he shot had intrinsic value.  Heck, he might not have thought them people at all because objective truth went bye-bye.  There was no thought about the consequences of his actions, let alone about God or life. People are going to have to stop blaming everything other than the what is actually causing this to happen. Plain and simple – society has made these kids this way. The liberals pushed for moral relativism, and the Catholic Church let them roll right over them for the sake of political correctness.  Basically, a few good men did nothing.  Edmund Burke was right about that one.

I’m hoping the new generation of a few good men will do something or we will just keep living in a dystopian novel of insanity and violence.  The Catholic Church has got to lead the way on this one.  Not only do they need to rally each other, they need to rally all of Christianity.  The laity must urge our cardinals and bishops to lead this fight as much as we possibly can because I hate to imagine the insanity that awaits our future grandchildren if we fail.