Jan 5 Mon
Should the Church move with the world or move the world instead?
There are some neo-liberal or so-called “progressive” Catholics who are uncomfortable with evangelization. The reason is that they have abandoned theology for ideology. They don’t think in terms of affirming the Faith or making disciples because they are obsessed with politics, not the saving of souls. Those who favor ideology over theology always see things in terms of Right and Left, not right and wrong. This is the root of the problem.
All this talk of Right and Left is, quite frankly, not right but wrong. To see things in terms of Right and Left, instead of right and wrong, is to abandon a virtue-oriented understanding of society in favor of a political and pragmatic understanding of society. It is to embrace a faithless “Enlightenment” and to abandon the indissoluble union of faith and reason, which is the hallmark of Christendom.
To see things in terms of Right and Left, instead of right and wrong, is to abandon a virtue-oriented understanding of society.
Catholics do not belong on the Right with the Nazis and Fascists, nor on the Left with the Marxists and socialists. The National Socialism of the Nazis (“far-right”) and the international socialism of the Marxists (“far-left”) have a shared belief in socialism, a belief in Big Government command economies.
The Nazis (“far-right”) and the “rainbow” sexual relativists (“far-left”) have shared philosophical roots in the will to power. The former collectivizes this will in the state; the latter individualizes it in the quest for “self-empowerment.” Neither view is compatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In brief and in sum, the secular “Left” and the secular “Right” share common philosophical roots in the Enlightenment and its rejection of Christendom. None of this has anything to do with the light of the Gospel.
Christians need to jettison the language of Right and Left, which is oriented horizontally on a worldly and relativist axis. Instead, we need to see reality, including political reality, in terms of right and wrong, which is oriented vertically on a moral axis leading upward to Heaven and downward to Hell. It is saints, not politicians, who make the world a better place; and it is sinners, including politicians, who make it a worse place.
If we reorient the world, including the politics of the world, in terms of right and wrong, we will be orienting it in the right direction, which is toward God. The way that we do this is to try to become saints ourselves, by the grace of God, and to strive to persuade others to want to become saints. This is the only way to make the world a better place. There is no other way.
“We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right,” wrote G. K. Chesterton. “What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. We do not want… a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world.”
Excerpts from Joseph Pearce