The final confrontation
JUNE
7, 2014
The following comes from a June 1 posting by Father C. John McCloskey on
the Catholic Thing.
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation
humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society
or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing
the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel
versus the anti-Gospel.
“We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant
future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, and a
total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it
is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert
it. . . .How many times has the renewal of the Church been brought about in
blood! It will not be different this time.”
– Bicentennial talk given in the United States by the future Saint John Paul II, then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Kraków, Poland
– Bicentennial talk given in the United States by the future Saint John Paul II, then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Kraków, Poland
My eyes almost popped out when I first read this. I could not believe it
was authentic, but I have checked it repeatedly and yes, he did say it. And he
said it to us Americans, who were at perhaps the apogee of our greatness, short
of the fall of the Evil Empire.
Well, how seriously should we take this? Very, very seriously. After all,
the speaker was about to become one of the greatest popes in the history of the
Church. In addition, he was a mystic and, yes, a prophet and truth-teller who
suffered under Nazism and communism, as well as in a certain sense also from
Islam. (Recall that he was almost killed by a Muslim assassin, only to be saved
by the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima, according to his own
words.)
Let me be clear: my musings on the words of John Paul are not meant to
encourage you to sell your property, close the bank account, build a bomb
shelter, and await the rapture. That is not the Catholic thing to do. But it’s
hard not to “ponder these things in [our] hearts.” What exactly did the pope see
or have revealed to him? Perhaps the best place to seek the answer is his
writings, although we lack space to comb through them all here.
We can also look around us at the remains of what was once called the
Christian West, noting a host of behaviors and beliefs that seem custom-made to
initiate and accelerate decline. For example, we find in the West depopulation,
legal abortion, open homosexuality and same-sex “marriage,” epidemic levels of
pornography use, declining marriage rates, and rising cohabitation
rates.
Politically, even supposedly tolerant and democratic states like our own
are beginning to deny the religious liberty rights of families, businesses, and
churches. In addition, we observe growing centralization of power in the hands
of those unfavorable to any faith except the idolatry of health, wealth, and
technology. They place their long-term hope in the possibility that science may
one day arrest death. They watched too many Star Trek and Star
Wars movies as children. Unfortunately, they may well go where many men
have gone before – and not simply into outer space.
This, surely, is the Anti-Church that St John Paul foresaw – in any event
it is here, it is growing, and to a great extent it has already demolished
Europe.
What are we to do? First, of course, do not despair. As Catholics we live
this life looking forward to the next. We can’t lose, for as St. Paul put it,
for us death is gain, not something to fear.
How then to confront and combat the Anti-Church? Imitate the lives of the
first Christians! Consider this justly famous description of Christians in the
anonymous Letter to Diognetus, written in 79 A.D.:
“For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country,
nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit
cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which
is marked out by any singularity. . . .They dwell in their own countries, but
simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet
endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their
native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They
marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their
offspring.
“They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh,
but they do not live after the flesh. (2 Corinthians 10:3) They pass their days
on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. (Philippians 3:20) They obey the
prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love
all men, and are persecuted by all. . .they are in lack of all things, and yet
abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are
glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and
bless; (2 Corinthians 4:12) they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor;
they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers.”
If we live as the first Christians did, we too can confront and triumph
over the Church of the evil Global Empires.
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