When I was a mere child, Albert Einstein stepped forward in defense of Judeo-Christian common sense, to declare that pundits were abusing his theory of relativity by applying it to the realm of morality, which he cautioned was both inappropriate and dangerous to the public health.
Sad to say, Dr. Einstein’s warning went largely unheeded, if not openly ridiculed, by those who had a sub rosa agenda to promote: i.e., de-Christianization of Europe and the States, through a double-edged doctrine of pluralism. Double-edged it is because this doctrine, once it gets firm hold of the Christian imagination, cuts to the heart’s core that deposit of Christian dogma which Catholicism holds forth as being the “truth and nothing but the truth.”
At the outset of our 21-st century, a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church described Europe as “mission territory,” deserving of an urgent and new evangelization by devout clergy and laity, alike. This thread of the forum, in referencing the booklet, Absolute Relativism, tacitly admits to the daunting problems of evangelizing any ambient milieu that has lost its moral compass through its outright rejection of the Christian faith, substituting as it often does Relativity for the Gospel Truth that sets men and women free.
It does not help matters, let us be honest, that the Church herself has been undergoing perhaps the greatest crisis in her history, during these past forty-five years; indeed, she has been brought to her knees (the most noble of all positions, even so) over the issue of corruption within the ranks of her reverend clergy. Multitudes of Catholic laity, such as Rod Dreher, have responded in abject despair by voting with their feet, leaving the pale of Catholicism for whereabouts known and unknown.
As far as Europe and Protestantism are concerned, however, this kind of crisis is not a new phenomenon. It has been going on ever since the time of Charles Darwin and Karl Marx, whose influence to this day threatens to overturn the Christian work of millennia. In this respect, then, it might prove helpful to remember certain observations of Soren Kierkegaard, who, even though a Protestant and an existentialist, recognized not only the invaluable synergism that exists between clergy and laity who are devoted to the cause of Christ Jesus our Lord, in their corporate mission to evangelize, but also the vocation that all Christian souls share in witnessing to the Christian faith in time of great peril:
“If the Church is ‘free’ from the state, it’s all good. I can immediately fit in this situation. But if the Church is to be emancipated, then I must ask: By what means, in what way? A religious movement must be served religiously—otherwise it is a sham! Consequently, the emancipation must come about through martyrdom—bloody or bloodless. The price of purchase is the spiritual attitude. But those who wish to emancipate the Church by secular and worldly means (i.e. no martyrdom), they’ve introduced a conception of tolerance entirely consonant with that of the entire world, where tolerance equals indifference, and that is the most terrible offence against Christianity. … The doctrine of the established Church, its organization, are both very good indeed. Oh, but then our lives: believe me, they are indeed wretched.” [from Alexander Dru’s edition of Journals]
I dare say that Raymond Cardinal Burke has been hinting that Catholics, confronted as we are by an ambient milieu that is often hostile to the cause of Christ, for reasons that are both varied and complex, could do no better than to become far better Christians than we have been accustomed to being, through the majestic mercy and unmerited grace of God Thrice-Holy, and that in so doing, we will tread far along the path of the Good Samaritan, whose behavior in a crisis situation our Good Lord recommends to us all, as a model.
Thus the Prayer Warrior is right on target when he counsels us to practice what Jesus Christ Himself enjoins upon us all, as a categorical necessity for effective evangelization in modern times. Which leads an aged gentleman to ask for the prayers of a veteran in the combat, that I may, by the grace of God, do just that, according to His holy will.
But that’s probably the coward in me looking for excuses:sad_yes:
