Father Michael's Column

For the last three weeks I have attempted to give some insights into our contemporary society that has lost much of its Christian underpinnings, and subsequently is prone to strange thinking that leads far too many people to approve of violence as an acceptable means to achieve political change. 

We need to understand the characteristics of the “progressive religions” that have largely replaced “Christendom”, so that we can understand why people are seduced by them, how they influence society today, often with bizarre ideas. We also need to be vigilant to avoid their influence ourselves, while taking appropriate steps to counter them. (Again I recommend two recent books that are a font of information on these topics: From Christendom to Apostolic Mission, and its sequel, The Religion of the Day, both by the University of Mary.  While I can’t hope to compress the complex trends within our society into just a few columns, I can mention a few more characteristics that are important to recognize.

Back in 2005 a team of sociologists wrote a book about their findings regarding the beliefs of teenagers in America. I don’t think these core beliefs are limited anymore to just teenagers, but rather have infected many people in the United States and elsewhere. From our standpoint as Catholics, these beliefs are extremely defective because they leave out any need for Jesus Christ as a savior—in part because there is no recognition of our fallen nature. The chief beliefs are:

1. God exists, created everything, and watches over us.

2. As the Bible and most world religions teach, we should be moral—vaguely defined as “being good, nice, and fair to each other.” 

3. Life’s goal is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

4. God can be called upon when you have problems, otherwise he’s not too important

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Modern “Progressive Religions” however have taken this a step farther, and have eliminated any kind of a supernatural god entirely, and replaced him with “society” or “humanity” or even “the individual”. They still have many of the characteristics of a religion however and notably have “dogmas” that are not to be questioned. The adherents of such religions can be quite sincere, especially among the young who recognize that there is evil (but as they define it), and want to oppose it, battle it, get rid of it. They can be quite fanatic about it. This is when violence can be justified in an effort to destroy what they believe to be intrinsically evil—whether persons or social structures. If the data show that certain progressive ideas are not actually true, it does nothing to alter their viewpoint. It has to be true; it an article of their Progressive faith. This kind of thinking has surfaced again and again in recent history with the rise of socialism, and its belief that if we just get rid of oppressive social structures, a utopia will emerge. They believe that man is intrinsically good (not created good, but fallen), so after the revolution, a perfect society will emerge. 

Another strain in our society is the belief among some that everything can be explained by laws of physics, chemistry, biology and evolution. Of course these sciences don’t address the realities that are outside of their proper field of study, including such things as love, beauty, or meaning. Nor can they offer any reasonable proposals about how life came to be out of non-life, or even how anything came to be out of nothing. The idea that there is a creator is simply dismissed. As a result, many people are living a “practical atheism”, living as though God didn’t exist. For some people, I suspect their life philosophy can be summed up as, “Yes, I believe that God exists. So what?” 

We could go on and on about the defects of “Progressive Religions” in our society, and maybe get discouraged by their growing prevalence. But I want to finish for now by reminding you that the victory in the war against the lies of the enemy has already been won. And it’s important to realize that there is AN ENEMY. As St. Paul correctly stated long ago in his letter to the Ephesians, our battle is not just against flesh and blood, but against the Principalities and Powers above. Our weapons in this battle cannot be those of the enemy: hate, vengeance, anger, fear, or intimidation. If we use those, we lose. Instead we have the armor of God, and our only weapon is the “Sword of the Spirit”, the Word of God. Truth and Witness will win. People are caught up in darkness, they are imprisoned. Note that prisons have gates on them. But the Church is in a battle against evil to rescue those entrapped. Take courage and stand up for the truth. Jesus has told his Church (cf. Mt. 16:18) that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church’s assault! 

In Jesus,
Fr. Michael

P.S. Every two years the priests of the Archdiocese are called together by the Archbishop to meet with him in what’s called a “convocation”. (It’s typically held some distance away so that priests won’t be tempted to return each evening to their parishes.) It’s a time of prayer, meetings, reflection, fraternity and—especially this year with a new archbishop—a time for planning, and sharing a vision for the Archdiocese. Please pray for us. I’ll be leaving shortly after Mass this Sunday and expect to return on Thursday evening.