Archbishop: 'The More That Gov't Mandates Evil Actions, The More Likely Civil Disobedience Becomes'

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His Grace is right, civil disobedience may become necessary soon if some of the issues he notes continue on their current courses. That’s really quite a scary thought.
 
ServusHumilis said:
His Grace is right, civil disobedience may become necessary soon if some of the issues he notes continue on their current courses. That’s really quite a scary thought.
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The “sleeping giant” must wake up!. God Bless, Memaw
 
I keep wondering how much it will take before the “sleeping giant” does awaken.
 
DaveBj said:
I keep wondering how much it will take before the “sleeping giant” does awaken.
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The sad thing is that a lot of Catholic don’t even know what is going on, don’t know what
the HHS mandate is!!
 
I like Chaput. Civil disobedience should become our option only as a last resort, of course. I think we have to be careful, and learn something from the Zealots of Jesus’ time. Not that I don’t sympathize, but we need to remember that just as the government can’t bring heaven on earth, neither can we; only God. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” truly, but we are also in the world, and not of it. I am not advocating inaction, by any means. But I always remember that many Jews expected and wanted Jesus to set everything right politically. It’s so easy for me to fall into that same desire.
 
Tex,
TexCatholic4JMJ said:
The sad thing is that a lot of Catholic don’t even know what is going on, don’t know what
the HHS mandate is!!
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Sadder still is when you tell them what’s going on and they say it isn’t that bad or outright deny that religious liberty has anything to do with it. They keep the blinders on.

Maybe some of the statisticians are right about the Catholics that use contraceptives. I’ve heard that over 54% of married Catholic couples choose some form of contraception and if that were true then they’d welcome insurance that paid for it all.

Glenda
 
TCEL said:
I like Chaput. Civil disobedience should become our option only as a last resort, of course. I think we have to be careful, and learn something from the Zealots of Jesus’ time. Not that I don’t sympathize, but we need to remember that just as the government can’t bring heaven on earth, neither can we; only God. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” truly, but we are also in the world, and not of it. I am not advocating inaction, by any means. But I always remember that many Jews expected and wanted Jesus to set everything right politically. It’s so easy for me to fall into that same desire.
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Civil disobedience isn’t the same as overthrowing the gov’t and trying to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth (the Zealots project). It is more akin to the early Christians refusing to offer incense to Caesar or to Judas Maccabeus fighting against the unjust laws of his Greek conquerors. We can never do evil even if the gov’t commands us to. When the gov’t begins to command us to break God’s law we must disobey. That isn’t Zealotry, that’s Catholicism.
 
PietroPaolo said:
Civil disobedience isn’t the same as overthrowing the gov’t and trying to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth (the Zealots project). It is more akin to the early Christians refusing to offer incense to Caesar or to Judas Maccabeus fighting against the unjust laws of his Greek conquerors. We can never do evil even if the gov’t commands us to. When the gov’t begins to command us to break God’s law we must disobey. That isn’t Zealotry, that’s Catholicism.
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👍👍
 
PietroPaolo said:
Civil disobedience isn’t the same as overthrowing the gov’t and trying to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth (the Zealots project). It is more akin to the early Christians refusing to offer incense to Caesar or to Judas Maccabeus fighting against the unjust laws of his Greek conquerors. We can never do evil even if the gov’t commands us to. When the gov’t begins to command us to break God’s law we must disobey. That isn’t Zealotry, that’s Catholicism.
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Of course. I’m all for rallying the spiritual troops. I just think it’s important to reiterate and clarify. 🙂
 
I agree with this, but I think the problem is a large percentage of christians would not want to be involved, they seem to care more about mans laws than Gods and fear for their own lives and dont want to risk being arrested.

I know for a fact if a situation arose and our priest instructed parish members to literally fight for something and the ‘enemy’ happened to be local law enforcement or authorities of any kind, many people I know would not obey and side with authorities! This may be sad, but Im sure other parishes would have people like this too.

It seems to me they like attending mass once a week and hearing ‘feel good’ preaching, but if/when it comes time to fight for what they believe in, they arent willing to go that far, mainly I think because they would likely be arrested and loose their jobs, income, etc. so by acting like this, they are telling everyone that they care more about mans laws than Gods laws.

Strange thing is though, people in biblical times, or other times in history were not anything like this…I can think of many incidents where christians were more than willing to fight for their beliefs, I just wonder where our modern society went wrong and people started caring more about secular law over Gods law? Anyone care to guess?
 
mikekle said:
Strange thing is though, people in biblical times, or other times in history were not anything like this…I can think of many incidents where christians were more than willing to fight for their beliefs, I just wonder where our modern society went wrong and people started caring more about secular law over Gods law? Anyone care to guess?
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I think this concern is as old as Adam and Eve. (I have it too.) 🙂 I’m also thinking of Augustine’s City of God, and City of Man. Peer pressure is a powerful thing…
 
mikekle said:
Strange thing is though, people in biblical times, or other times in history were not anything like this…I can think of many incidents where christians were more than willing to fight for their beliefs, I just wonder where our modern society went wrong and people started caring more about secular law over Gods law? Anyone care to guess?
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I think it would be naïve to believe that in the past Christians never betrayed their faith out of fear, that they never compromised. I’m sure many did. Every era has it’s martyrs and Judases, and everything in-between. I am quite certain, however, that many Catholics who don’t seem on fire and ready to fight the man right now, would find courage and stand up to injustice.
 
mikekle said:
I agree with this, but I think the problem is a large percentage of christians would not want to be involved, they seem to care more about mans laws than Gods and fear for their own lives and dont want to risk being arrested.

I know for a fact if a situation arose and our priest instructed parish members to literally fight for something and the ‘enemy’ happened to be local law enforcement or authorities of any kind, many people I know would not obey and side with authorities! This may be sad, but Im sure other parishes would have people like this too.
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When I was much younger, I used to not understand how on earth Hitler gained so much power and how on earth people followed out such evil orders as to torture and massacre their fellow human beings, but now I see … it is very easy … today many people won’t even speak out publicly against homosexual marriage because depending on their job, they may lose their job … and they have children to raise… and it’s not that big a deal… etc.
Contra_Mundum said:
I think it would be naïve to believe that in the past Christians never betrayed their faith out of fear, that they never compromised. I’m sure many did. Every era has it’s martyrs and Judases, and everything in-between. I am quite certain, however, that many Catholics who don’t seem on fire and ready to fight the man right now, would find courage and stand up to injustice.
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I am trying to remember … there was a big issue in the early Church in North Africa. A disagreement about whether to let Christians who had betrayed the faith and bowed down to the Romans (I guess it was about idol worship or agreeing that the emperor was a god) back into the Church at all or whether they should do some very lengthy penance and then be allowed back into communion with the Church. 😊 Anybody know who, when, what I’m talking about? It’s going to drive me bonkers now.
 
Contra_Mundum said:
I think it would be naïve to believe that in the past Christians never betrayed their faith out of fear, that they never compromised. I’m sure many did. Every era has it’s martyrs and Judases, and everything in-between. I am quite certain, however, that many Catholics who don’t seem on fire and ready to fight the man right now, would find courage and stand up to injustice.
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Well yes. In the time of Henry VIII of England, while Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher were being executed, nearly all the rest of the then-Catholic country caved in, giving birth to the Church of England. They preferred betraying the faith to losing their heads.
 
GraceSofia said:
When I was much younger, I used to not understand how on earth Hitler gained so much power and how on earth people followed out such evil orders as to torture and massacre their fellow human beings, but now I see … it is very easy … today many people won’t even speak out publicly against homosexual marriage because depending on their job, they may lose their job … and they have children to raise… and it’s not that big a deal… etc.
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Yes, and those in power today that wish to drive people away from their faith are not stupid by any means, they are very very intelligent and will employ methods that people dont even recognize to sway peoples views…and before that person knows it, they are denying their faith on all kinds of issues, just for their own sake…very dangerous times we live in!

They make people think things like…

‘you dont know any homosexuals, so why fight against it, when it doesnt effect your life one bit’?

‘abortions are only happening to people you dont know in far away cities, so why fight against it and take the chance of ruining your life’?

‘Isnt it mush easier to just deny your faith and beliefs versus being put in prison, loosing your job, income, house, cars, etc’?

‘Its best to just follow the laws no matter what they may be, so my quality of life is not effected in a negative way’
 
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