Archbishop Chaput's recent lecture on Sex, Family and the Liberty of the Church

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Beryllos

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Here’s some excellent reading as we approach the US elections this November. Even if you don’t care for politics, you might find it interesting:
Archbishop Chaput, September 15, 2016, Tocqueville Lecture on Religious Liberty at the University of Notre Dame: Sex, Family and the Liberty of the Church
Summary:
After introductory remarks about the current political season, Archbishop Chaput raises the point that we cannot solve our country’s problems by politics alone:
As Christians, then, our political engagement needs to involve more than just wringing our hands and whining about the ugly choice we face in November. It needs to be more than a search for better candidates and policies, or shrewder slogans. The task of renewing a society is much more long term than a trip every few years to the voting booth. And it requires a different kind of people. It demands that we be different people.
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There follows a lengthy exposition on the moral decline of the last 50 years and how it has led to social/cultural dysfunction, economic decline, and an increasingly controlling and intrusive government.

Ever hopeful, however, he calls upon us to renew the world by cultivating strong families, religious faith, and respect for the truth.

He has much to say about abortion and our failings in that regard as a society:
Abortion has been [quoting Rachel O’Grady] “the beachhead for an entire ethic that is hostile to life, hostile to marriage and, as we see from the HHS contraceptive mandate, increasingly hostile to religion, religious Americans and religious institutions.” Abortion poisons everything. There can never be anything “progressive” in killing an unborn child, or standing aside tolerantly while others do it.
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He concludes on a hopeful note as he calls on the faithful to “radiate the glory of God in an age that no longer knows what it means to be human,” and to bring to our world “the joy of [Pope] Francis… the brilliance of Benedict and the courage, fidelity and humanity of the great John Paul.”
The power of the powerless, Václav Havel once wrote, consists not in clever political strategies but in the simple daily discipline of living within the truth and refusing to lie. Surely there’s no better way to begin that work than here and now.
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He comments on the sexual revolution over the past 50 years indirectly but forcefully, by looking at its results. The following excerpt is truncated—the whole talk is worth reading carefully.

"I’ve been a priest for 46 years. During that time I’ve heard something more than 12,000 personal confessions and done hundreds of spiritual direction sessions. . . . The confessional is more real than any reality show because nobody’s watching. It’s just you, God and the penitents, and the suffering they bring with them.

As a priest, what’s most striking to me about the last five decades is the huge spike in people – both men and women — confessing promiscuity, infidelity, sexual violence and sexual confusion as an ordinary part of life, and the massive role of pornography in wrecking marriages, families and even the vocations of clergy and religious. . . . . Listening to people’s sexual sins in the Sacrament of Penance is hardly new news. But the scope, the novelty, the violence and the compulsiveness of the sins are. And remember that people only come to Confession when they already have some sense of right and wrong; when they already understand, at least dimly, that they need to change their lives and seek God’s mercy.

Here’s why that’s important. The truth about our sexuality is that infidelity, promiscuity, sexual confusion and mass pornography create human wreckage. Multiply that wreckage by tens of millions of persons over five decades. Then compound it with media nonsense about the innocence of casual sex and the “happy” children of friendly divorces. What you get is what we have now: a dysfunctional culture of frustrated and wounded people increasingly incapable of permanent commitments, self-sacrifice and sustained intimacy, and unwilling to face the reality of their own problems."
 
“The future belongs to people who believe in something beyond themselves, and who live and sacrifice accordingly. It belongs to people who think and hope inter-generationally. If you want a portrait of what I mean, consider this: The most common name given to newborn male babies in London for the past four years in a row is Muhammad. This, in the city of Thomas More”.
I wonder how many Catholics including many on this forum would give that a big SO !
 
I wish we had more church leaders like Archbishop Chaput. There is a definate need for the plain honest truth in our world that is sadly lacking.:bighanky:
 
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