People are scared. They look at the economy, and they fear another collapse. They look at the Middle-East, and they fear rising hatred for America will lead to more terrorism. Gazing at our culture, they see that not only are values disappearing, those values are being ridiculed into non-existence. Our own government appears to be opposed to us. Perhaps the title for this column is a misprint. Perhaps it should be Optimism in Ruins. Leave out the “the,” and despair looks like the main theme this week.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We are Catholic. No matter what happens in the world, we are people of hope who preach hope to all people. We show optimism in “the” ruins. In other words, we refuse to despair even if we are surrounded by hopelessness. Our Catholic faith relishes this fight. Our elderly pope looks at the stats which state that practice of our faith is on the decline amongst our members, and he boldly proclaims a Year of Faith to evangelize our own members and the culture at large. Our bishops, who in the past simply published rather fuzzy and benign proclamations, now with courage engage the culture and our government in a fight for religious liberty. Our Catholic people, persecuted more than any other faith around the world, embrace suffering and death in order to believe. Is this the face of despair? Absolutely not!
What are the concrete signs of our optimism? How should we show it?
n The blood of martyrs. Just this past week, the Muslim Brotherhood in another wonderful presentation of their religion of peace, began to crucify people outside the presidential mansion in Egypt. They started with members of their own faith, but the Christians in that country will be next. Islamic radicals are killing Nigerian Catholics; Chinese officials are persecuting Chinese Catholics. On and on it goes. But we must never forget. The Church is nourished by the blood of martyrs. Far from frightening us, this new persecution is serving to show Catholics how to really witness to the faith.
n Engage the culture. The Catholic faith is dying in Europe. When he first began his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI made the statement that perhaps a smaller Church might have to come into existence. People immediately misunderstood him to say that secularism had won, the Church must retreat and give up the good fight. What the Pope was actually saying is that we must once again adopt the measures that won us Europe in the first place: we must be small groups of Christians who by our lives and words witness to Christ.
n Clarify the faith; stick to our principles. In other words, refuse to capitulate to the culture and restate the basics of our faith in words and concepts modern people can understand. We do this in such a way that we do not water down what we believe. This is so important because many of our own Catholics think we should adapt our faith to the values of the culture. If we do that, we will no longer be Catholic. Discussions with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious which represents nearly 60,000 religious sisters, difficulties we’ve had in getting the Administration to recognize Catholic sensibilities in health care, and problems Catholic politicians have in representing their constituencies and living a Catholic life are all examples of attempts the secular world is making to water down what we believe.
These are just three steps we are already taking to make sure that our Catholic faith is heard loud and strong in the world. Christ said he would be always with us; he never said he was going to make it a picnic along the way. Quite the opposite. He asked us to pick up our cross and follow him each day. As we look at the difficulties ahead, know that we have great strength, great faith and great ability to give the world hope. The earth longs for hope; the people need it; and we will be there to provide that hope because Christ lives, Christ loves and Christ saves.