I grow tired of having to defend my faith but that is what the Lord has called us to do…spread His word.
I think many Catholics are silent because the Church is always attacked and most people I know, me included, do not like to argue and defend. This coupled with the fact that we have a generation (possibly 2) that have not been catechized well. Many people are lazy too and just go to church and think that is all they need to do
Honestly, I think that it’s more that the average Catholics simply don’t think they know enough about their faith to defend it. We Catholics actually hear more actual scripture passages during our Mass than many Protestant groups hear during their services. What’s the difference? We’re told which book of the Bible a reading comes from, but if we want to find out what the chapters/verses are, we have to look at our Missallettes, or liturgy training materials, etc. And, it’s much harder to memorize entire passages than singular verses taken out of context. When I read the Bible personally, I read passages and don’t even really look at what the chapter or verse is. Our focus is on the overriding message of scripture, especially the Gospel. Unfortunately, when we’re hammered by specific chapters and verses from Protestant groups or pseudo-Christian groups (such as JW’s and Mormons), we don’t know often know how to defend it. Honestly, I think most Catholics don’t share our beliefs because we’re afraid of looking like we don’t know what we’re talking about.
Another reason why Catholics don’t generally defend our faith (especially in the US) is simple - much of America’s history has been viruntly anti-Catholic. This is the reason why Venerable Fr. Michael J. McGivney created the Knights of Columbus. Catholic men had a very hard time gaining jobs in any but the most hazardous occupations, where they were poorly paid and would leave their families destitute if they were injured or died on the job. They felt forced to leave the Catholic Church so that they could provide for their families. And, fraternal organizations which could have helped them banned Catholics (and the Church explicitly banned membership in the Freemasons in Vatican I). As such, Catholics had no place to go. So, Fr. McGivney created the Knights of Columbus to be a Catholic fraternal organization. And, the K of C created one of the first life insurance programs in the world (today, it’s the highest-rated life insurance in the US).
And this wasn’t the only Catholic response to discrimination. American Catholic schools were started in the archdiocese of New York because the public schools were virulently Protestant. Catholic children were refusing to go to school because their teachers were telling them, in front of their peers, that the Catholic Church was evil. As such, they were taunted by their peers, and their entire educational experience was simply awful.
Kennedy himself faced severe anti-Catholic sentiments. And in order to placate them, he had to convince Americans that he was an American who simply happened to be Catholic. This, of course, has led to the plethora of Catholic politicians who split their political views from the Catholic worldview.
As such, we’ve been kinda trained by generations of anti-Catholic prejudice to keep our mouths shut to survive in this country. That’s no longer the best thing for us to do, but after being such ingrained into our consciences for generations, it’s been quite difficult for us to change that. Thankfully, it’s changing - but slowly. And our priests are getting better at helping us defend our faith - our new priests, from the St. JPII and Benedict XVI generation, see themselves less as chaplains and more as missionary leaders.
