Archbishop Charles Chaput's Dire Predictions - Part 2 of 2

Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Dire Predictions – Part 2 of 2

In pursuit of the truth- www.cinopsbegone.com – Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Preface: Please review the first Amendment to the Constitution. We need to set up a legal case where the Supreme Court decides that marriage is between a man and woman. Also, that religious liberty and rights overrule the so-called homosexuals’ rights that have been legalized by judicial activists.

“… We cannot dispense with our history out of some superficial concern over offending our non-Christian neighbors. Notwithstanding the chatter of the “new atheists,” there is no risk that Christianity will ever be forced upon people anywhere in the West… The only “confessional states” in the world today are those ruled by Islamist or atheistic dictatorships – regimes that have rejected the Christian West’s belief in individual rights…

“I would argue that the defense of Western ideals is the only protection that we and our neighbors have against a descent into new forms of repression – whether it might be at the hands of extremist Islam or secular technocrats. But indifference to our Christian past contributes to indifference about defending our values and institutions in the present. And this brings me to the second big lie by which we live today --- the lie that there is no unchanging truth.

“Relativism is now the civil religion and public philosophy of the West. Again, the arguments made for this viewpoint can seem persuasive. Given the pluralism of the modern world… In practice, however, we see that without a belief in fixed moral principles and transcendent truths, our political institutions and language become instruments of a new barbarism. In the name of tolerance we come to tolerate the cruelest intolerance, respect for other cultures comes to dictate disparagement of our own. The teaching of “live and let live” justifies the strong living at the expense of the weak.

“This diagnosis helps us to understand one of the foundational injustices in the West today --- the crime of abortion… Let me tell you why I believe abortion is the crucial issue of our age. First, because abortion, too, is living within the truth… The defense of newborn and preborn life has been the central element of Catholic identity since the Apostolic Age. I’ll say that again. From the earliest days of the Church, to be Catholic has meant refusing in any way to participate in the crime of abortion…

“My point in mentioning abortion is this: Its widespread acceptance in the West shows us that without a grounding in God or higher truth, our democratic institutions can easily become weapons against our own dignity… There is no inherently logical or utilitarian reason why society should respect the rights of the human person. There is even less reason for recognizing the rights of those whose lives impose burdens on others, as in the case with the child in the womb, the terminally ill, or the physically or mentally disturbed…

“I suggested earlier that the Church’s religious liberty is under assault today in ways not seen since the Nazi and Communist eras. I believe we are now in the position to better understand why. Writing in the 1960s, Richard Weaver, an American scholar and social philosopher, said, “I am absolutely convinced that relativism must eventually lead to a regime of force.” He was right. There is a kind of “inner logic” that leads relativism to repression. This explains the paradox of how Western societies can preach tolerance and diversity while aggressively undermining Catholic life.

The dogma of tolerance cannot tolerate the Church’s belief that some ideas and behaviors should not be tolerated because they dehumanize us. The dogma that all truths are relative cannot allow the thought that some truths might not be. The Catholic beliefs that most deeply irritate the orthodoxies of the West are those concerning abortion, sexuality and the marriage of man and woman…

George Kubeck Reference to Archbishop’s article on the blog – Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011