Why Do They Hate Catholics So Much? 3 of 3

Why Do They Hate Catholics So Much? – 3 of 3
Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007
“While there may be no systematic pattern of discrimination in employment, it would be a brave (or foolish) person who would talk openly in a job interview about deeply held religious beliefs. In the academy, including institutions which are nominally Catholic, such discrimination is often taken for granted.

This is merely the beginning of a process that is likely to get worse. Looking at the situation through purely human eyes, it is likely that, as the reality of this hostility finally begins to dawn on comfortable Christians, and the price of their faith keeps getting higher, most will simply fall away, abandoning a faith which has become a handicap instead of a support.

In an important sense the real battle now is not between believers and overt secularists but between orthodox and liberal Christians, a reality which is at its starkest in Protestantism but which is also present in the Catholic Church. Because Fundamentalists remind them of what they were, and perhaps ought still to be, liberal Protestant leadership regard their orthodox fellow Christians as the single greatest enemy of the human race. People who boast of their ability to “reach out” toward the despised and rejected have been the most effective soldiers in the war to demonize and marginalize orthodox believers, to the point where the National Council of Churches is a public apologist for religious persecution throughout the world. Liberal Christianity is finally at the point of abandoning any claim about the unique importance of Jesus Christ in the economy of salvation, and this will merely intensify its view of orthodoxy as dangerous.

Especially in view of the nation’s apparent indifference (if not worse) to the scandalous behavior of its president, some orthodox believers are in a state of discouragement, to the point, to the point of urging withdrawal from the public square into a kind of monasticism which will try to keep the faith alive for a better day. But in this atmosphere it is well to recall the Catholic wisdom that not all are called to the monastic life and that the degree to which the monks of the Dark Ages simply huddled in their monasteries has been exaggerated – many of them were missionaries, bishops, even royal officials.

One major argument for believers remaining active in the public sphere is the explanation (excuse?) which Evelyn Waugh gave for his seemingly un-Christian behavior – how much worse it would be if there were no active presence. Those who know the truth have an obligation in justice to, for example, the unborn, which they are not free to abandon.

Those who advocate a strategy of quasi-monastic withdrawal also underestimate the strength of the enemy. Jerry Falwell said all that needs to be said on the subject when he explained that Evangelicals began entering politics because the government would not let them alone. There is no place in the modern world where anyone can hide.
Christians are obligated to continue the public struggle, no matter how much obloquy it continues to bring them down on them, even as they are obligated to storm heaven with prayers. A major need is preparing Christians to live in an environment of hostility, increasing discrimination, possibly even of persecution. But this is perhaps the most severe of the many pastoral tasks presently being neglected.”
George H. Kubeck, Posted in the early mornings on www.cinopsbegone.blogspot.com/