“The days of acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past.”
So spoke Princeton Professor Robert P. George during his address at last week’s National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. The thesis is especially remarkable coming from George—one of America’s foremost defenders of marriage and the family, and a thinker noted for his hopefulness about the power of reason to prevail in the public square.
George is not talking about restrictions on worship. The cultural clime is not about to make it more difficult to get to Mass (at least, not directly). What he means is that the whole Gospel—in particular, the Christian teaching on marriage and the family—is no longer acceptable in public. “The Gospel of Life,” once considered tolerably retrograde, is now considered bigoted, even hateful.
The signs of a shift are numerous. Think of the lawsuits filed by Christian institutions, notably the Little Sisters of the Poor, in response to the mandates of the Affordable Care Act. Think of Mozilla’s former CEO or the two television hosts at HGTV—all three of whom apparently lost their jobs only because of previous opposition to same-sex marriage. It has recently been reported that the U.N.’s Committee Against Torture is currently trying to frame the Church’s teaching on abortion as a human rights abuse. The suggestion is that Christian sanctions against abortion are forms of torture. And one hears more and more about individuals being pressured to suppress their Christian opinions, under pain of financial and professional setback.
George is warning that Christians are increasingly liable to encounter dilemmas where previously there were none. Those who espouse the Gospel are thereby more likely to jeopardize their professional ambitions, risk familial discord, and lose friends. It is George’s suggestion that they ought to be ready to accept these losses. Otherwise, Christians are at risk of finding themselves ashamed of the Gospel.
Not that George reduces the Gospel to the Church’s teaching on sexuality. The doctrines of the Triune God, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the rest of the articles of the Creeds—these doctrines are absolutely central to the Gospel, but it does not therefore follow that the Church’s sexual doctrine is an unnecessary accretion. The claim of the Church is that “the Gospel of Life” is entailed in the revelation of God in Christ. It is this part of the “seamless garment” that has become intolerable to the mandarins of our society.
The solution that George proposes is for Christians to think of the present time as Good Friday: Will we stand with Jesus, or will we flee? The point is not that we should cultivate a martyrdom complex—no more than the Blessed Mother did at the foot of the cross. The point, I take it, is that Christians should recall why they got into Christianity in the first place. Are comfort and social acceptance all we really want from the absolute goodness of God in Christ? “Billy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” “I want to be comfortable!” “What do you want to be, Sally?” “Socially acceptable!”
It would also be a mistake to interpret George’s remarks as an invitation to bunker down and hole up. In the keynote address, Sean Cardinal O’Malley emphasized the centrifugal force of the Church. The Cardinal called for the Church to move from “maintenance” mode to “missionary” mode, propelled by the joy of the Resurrection. Ultimately, the focus of the Cardinal’s speech is the same as that of George’s more somber words. What’s the point of taking up one’s cross, anyway? It is Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life. This is the Gospel—woe to us if we do not preach the Gospel!
“St Peter Preaching in the Presence of St Mark”, Fra Angelico, 1433, oil on panel, 39 x 56 cm, Museo di San Marco, Florence
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
