Ride out and meet them in battle!

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ArthurQArch

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“Ride out and meet them in battle” is a quote from Lord of the Rings. It captures my thoughts today after our priest explained why he did not do more promotion for the Stand up for Religious Freedom rally this coming Friday when I asked him about it after Mass. It only recieved two lines worth of mention in the bulletin, while the diocese sent out a pdf flyer with a list of speakers (including our Bishop), parking arrangements, along with a sample bulletin announcement which was much more detailed. Nor did he mention it in the announcements. He said that he would not get too excited about it until after the late June Supreme Court decision.
I felt like I was in that scene of Lord of the Rings where the king saw the enemy coming for miles and miles, but was to scared to ride out and fight. The enemy has been approaching for more than just the last four years, but he has certainly picked up the pace since that time. Am I over-reacting, or have we been that passive in the face of evil?
 
Did you get the diocese papers along with the bulletin? What was your priest’s explanation? To be honest, I haven’t even heard of this but I’ve been too sick to go to Mass for months.

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say. Are you referring to this incident specifically or to the way things are in the world for Catholics today? I clicked on your thread title because I know we are in a battle and right now things seem to be going very poorly for the side of God’s Light.

Would you please clarify? Thanks. (Please excuse my ignorance.)
 
The event is taking place nationwide in response to the HHS mandate, see standupforreligiousfreedom.com/ for more details on that.
But I guess my question is more in general, have we as Catholics become passive in the face of evil - not just in defending rights, but also in protecting our families from evil?
 
To summarize briefly and hopefully still be accurate and not misleading:
  1. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Federal Mandate to require all religious employers to provide contraception services as part of their health plans for their employees.
  2. Religious leaders of many faiths, including many Catholic bishops objected. The President then ordered a small compromise that was determined to not be enough to ensure continued religious freedom under the First Amendment.
  3. Attempts to work it out with the current Administration have stalled.
  4. At least 43 Catholic entities (dioceses, universities, hospitals, etc) have filed a federal law suit in some 12 cities to be exempted from the HHS Mandate.
  5. There is a call for a public gathering this Friday, June 8 at noon in many cities across America. In Sacramento we are meeting in the West Steps of the Capitol.
  6. In Sacramento, Bishop Soto is also calling for a march after this Saturday’s Vigil Mass (June 9) from the Cathedral to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shine.
  7. The purpose of both events is to express our collective concern to maintain religious freedom.
As a Catholic, I feel a much stronger obligation to support my local Bishop than to follow the personal direction of a local priest.

If I have written anything wrong, please correct.
 
I think that Bishops and pastors have different responsibilities toward their flock. The bishop is the teaching authority and so I think that he has a bigger obligation to spread the news. The pastor seems also a man that has quite an insight on today’s world and he yields more to prudence. Prudence is a cardinal virtue and it should not by mistaken with indifference or cowardice, the information was presented in the bulletin and it is also up to the diocese to do homework and it appears that it did it.
Which one is more important, religious freedom or right to life? I think that as Catholics, in our totality, we are still lukewarm about almost anything. I think that people care more about religious freedom not because of religion but because it goes against the grain of the American cultural background. I say that because of what I see in relation to abortion, adoption agencies, defense of marriage, and immigration.
Maybe you would be right if you were to say that we need to start with something, I think that after all anything is better than nothing to get us moved. However, I would still be hesitant to be too critical of the priest because he is not the only one that needs to ignite the fire and because of our track record as Catholics in our totality.:o
 
Cristiano said:
I think that Bishops and pastors have different responsibilities toward their flock. The bishop is the teaching authority and so I think that he has a bigger obligation to spread the news. The pastor seems also a man that has quite an insight on today’s world and he yields more to prudence. Prudence is a cardinal virtue and it should not by mistaken with indifference or cowardice, the information was presented in the bulletin and it is also up to the diocese to do homework and it appears that it did it.
Which one is more important, religious freedom or right to life? I think that as Catholics, in our totality, we are still lukewarm about almost anything. I think that people care more about religious freedom not because of religion but because it goes against the grain of the American cultural background. I say that because of what I see in relation to abortion, adoption agencies, defense of marriage, and immigration.
Maybe you would be right if you were to say that we need to start with something, I think that after all anything is better than nothing to get us moved. However, I would still be hesitant to be too critical of the priest because he is not the only one that needs to ignite the fire and because of our track record as Catholics in our totality.:o
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Do not let the lack of action of others stop you. That’s right. We need everybody. Even one more person can make a difference. It took 40 years to get to the current state of things.

And don’t wait on others. The laity needs to get more involved, but don’t get discouraged and think that “we” means all of us.

Peace,
Ed
 
There are two things that really bother me.

The first is the idea of a battle of us vs. them. Who is really them? My concern is that we are creating a escape goat in Obama and his team and that we do not properly target the right enemy with the right actions. I really agree with the article by Peter Kreeft
How to Win the Culture War
especially under the section Who is our enemy?. It seems easy to get a firearm and get into a holy war, that is a reaction that I see in a lot of young people in reaction to the movie For the Greater Glory. I used to be that way, but now I am an older man that has a better grasp of his religion, spent time in the army and knows what firearms can do to bare flesh. I really believe that we are at war and that we should not be comfortable at all.

The second thing is that I am skeptical of hay fires that burn really fast, they do not provide heat to warm up a room in winter time. Unless we are constant and we teach the younger generations how to build a proper fire we will end up freezing in hell. Make sure that we truly are saintly role models and things will work out. To answer to the original question “Am I over-reacting, or have we been that passive in the face of evil?” my answer would be “You are being emotional but you are not over-reacting, we are too passive”.
 
sounds like my priest hasn’t said a word about it and not in our flyers or bulletiens. he probably wont get excited about it either until after the supreme court decesion, if he does at all. But yes i have to wonder are we being to passive in the face of evil i believe so i think we have become content with our lives and are paying no attention to the attitude of indeffernce that surrounds us.
 
Cristiano said:
There are two things that really bother me.

The first is the idea of a battle of us vs. them. Who is really them? My concern is that we are creating a escape goat in Obama and his team and that we do not properly target the right enemy with the right actions. I really agree with the article by Peter Kreeft
How to Win the Culture War
Click to expand...
That is an excellent article by Peter Kreeft. But it too bristles with images of war. He says things like this:

“In fact, every page of the Bible bristles with spears, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one.”
And this:

“The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in scripture, and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is never present in the religious education of any of my “Catholic” students at Boston College. Whenever I speak of it, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world.”
And this:

“But is not God a lover rather than a warrior? No, God is a lover who is a warrior.
…. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely “compassion” (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.”
And, this:
“Night is falling. What Chuck Colson has labeled “a new Dark Ages” is looming.”
But I don’t want to plagiarize his whole article. Peter Kreeft is always on point. I urge everyone to read the entire article.

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/how-to-win.htm
 
JimG said:
That is an excellent article by Peter Kreeft. But it too bristles with images of war. He says things like this:

“In fact, every page of the Bible bristles with spears, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one.”
And this:

“The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in scripture, and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is never present in the religious education of any of my “Catholic” students at Boston College. Whenever I speak of it, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world.”
And this:

“But is not God a lover rather than a warrior? No, God is a lover who is a warrior.
…. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely “compassion” (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.”
And, this:
“Night is falling. What Chuck Colson has labeled “a new Dark Ages” is looming.”
But I don’t want to plagiarize his whole article. Peter Kreeft is always on point. I urge everyone to read the entire article.

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/how-to-win.htm
Click to expand...
My point is that we might end up addressing the wrong “them”. People can easily mistake the carrier of a disease with the source.
 
Or, we might just sit out the war entirely. But we won’t be able to avoid the results.
 
Cristiano said:
There are two things that really bother me.

The first is the idea of a battle of us vs. them. Who is really them? My concern is that we are creating a escape goat in Obama and his team and that we do not properly target the right enemy with the right actions. I really agree with the article by Peter Kreeft
How to Win the Culture War
especially under the section Who is our enemy?. It seems easy to get a firearm and get into a holy war, that is a reaction that I see in a lot of young people in reaction to the movie For the Greater Glory. I used to be that way, but now I am an older man that has a better grasp of his religion, spent time in the army and knows what firearms can do to bare flesh. I really believe that we are at war and that we should not be comfortable at all.

The second thing is that I am skeptical of hay fires that burn really fast, they do not provide heat to warm up a room in winter time. Unless we are constant and we teach the younger generations how to build a proper fire we will end up freezing in hell. Make sure that we truly are saintly role models and things will work out. To answer to the original question “Am I over-reacting, or have we been that passive in the face of evil?” my answer would be “You are being emotional but you are not over-reacting, we are too passive”.
Click to expand...
I think you’re missing the point. In the early days of America, twists of hay were constantly added to the pot-bellied stove to keep everyone warm at night.

Where do the young people find these saintly role models? When I was a boy growing up in the 1960s, I was surrounded by them. No, it was not perfect but I saw them living out their faith by example. Neighbors knew each other and helped each other. We did not lock our doors at night. We watched out for each other. Sure, we had a few bad apples but we were never taught to bother those people and showed our respect by saying hello.

But when the radicals came to our neighborhoods - the ravenous wolves, we welcomed the stranger. What needs to be drilled into the heads of every young Catholic today is how we got to this point over a 40 year period.

The devil lies, deceives and packages evil in nice clothes and sophisticated speech. If we don’t know why, we won’t recognize the lies and deceit again - repackaged with new labels like “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” The devil’s current new words to get us to accept sin.

I cannot stress that enough. Because we will be denounced because we tell the truth based on sound doctrine. The poison was gradually dripped into our veins. The previous generation, and this one, are still being poisoned by words like “choice” and “equality,” once again to lull us into a sense of confusion.

As a religious said about the radicals of the late 60’s. “You want to tear down everything and replace it with nothing.”

And where is the voice telling us to act as we should and not be passive? Who will speak up?

Yes, we do not struggle with flesh and blood. But those who rejected the truth and accepted a lie, need to be identified. Not as our enemies but as those whose actions we must reject in truth with charity. And that includes the President and his family, who is due the respect of his office, but was seduced into believing the wrong thing, and the following quote is not exact, “If my daughter makes a mistake and gets pregnant, she doesn’t deserve the burden of a baby.”

It took years of constant repetition to get otherwise smart people to believe that. Just like the “it’s not a baby, it’s just a blob of tissue” lie in the early years of abortion.

If we want to convince people of the truth, we must understand how the Body of Christ was poisoned and left to wither, filled with all sorts of falsehoods. How does the devil devour? How does he win us over to his way of thinking? By making sin beautiful and attractive and sophisticated - and most importantly, by convincing people in certain positions of power and influence to believe the lies and act on them.

To my fellow Catholics, do not let others silence you. They will call you
Bigots
Filled with hate.
Anti this and anti that.

Uphold the truth, even when they say, “There are worse things going on in the world so why focus on this?”

Do not be Indifferent. Pope Benedict spoke about this.

New International Version (©1984)
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

Peace,
Ed
 
I just wanted to add this quote that I just finished reading, I translated the quote from the Italian version, I am not sure if the original was in Italian or English because the author wrote in both languages:

Nobody gets killed for a theorem, while hundreds of thousands have died for God, in whom they believed without being able to prove the existence: They testified to, which is worth more than proving it.

Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882-1982)
 
Cristiano said:
Nobody gets killed for a theorem, while hundreds of thousands have died for God, in whom they believed without being able to prove the existence: They testified to, which is worth more than proving it.

Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882-1982)
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Awesome quote.

I am glad to see the Church in the US begin to resist the efforts of the world to de-Christianize the country. In our home we gave up cable a year ago and limited TV to the weekends in an attempt to preserve our kid’s innocence. I think there is a lot more we need to do. A simple thing that needs to happen is to stand up to the sports games scheduled on Sundays, especially Sunday mornings. Until parents stand up and say “not my kid,” it will only get worse.
 
ArthurQArch said:
The event is taking place nationwide in response to the HHS mandate, see standupforreligiousfreedom.com/ for more details on that.
But I guess my question is more in general, have we as Catholics become passive in the face of evil - not just in defending rights, but also in protecting our families from evil?
Click to expand...
I will be there! Hope to see more New Yorkers! 😃
 
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