…boldly
confronting one evil can help one to face others.
In
the wake of Cardinal law’s resignation, let us imagine the following
scenario: the Archbishop of Boston is under siege, with media pundits and
others demanding his capitulation; dozens of his priests have been prosecuted
civilly and / or criminally, and some are in prison; factions within the Church
are in an uproar, outraged at his policies, and have joined the
"get-out-of-town" chorus; and avaricious lawyers are pressing huge
lawsuits, whose damages may bankrupt the archdiocese. On the other hand,
faithful Catholics from around the country have rallied to the
archbishop’s defense, monetarily and otherwise, zealously supporting
their standard-bearer against the forces of Darkness.
While
this bears a resemblance to our current crisis, it differs in this respect: the
imagined archbishop was under attack for his wholehearted support of a
vigorous, frontal assault on the abortion industry by local Catholics, among
others, using means that included civil disobedience, resulting in criminal and
civil litigation against the protagonists. While this entailed grave
difficulties, the morale and general climate of the Catholic world were vastly
better than today, for these soldiers of Christ would be living the apostolic
admonition to "Rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s
sufferings" (1 Peter 4:13).
Real
life, of course, proceeded very differently, and it brings to mind the old
expression, "Of all the words of mouth or pen, the saddest of all is
‘what could have been.’" Which is not to suggest that merely
by embracing Rescue would the Church have immunized itself from sexual predator
problems. But, as deviance is nurtured in unorthodox environments, the reverse
is also true. And boldly confronting one evil can help one to face others.
It
may not be a persecution of blood and death, but of craft and subtlety
A
dominant theme of Advent is preparation for the coming – i.e., Second
Coming – of Christ, which the Fathers of the Church taught would be
preceded by, among other things, a great apostasy and the rise of the
Antichrist. In his Advent Sermons on Antichrist from the mid-19th century,
Cardinal John Newman comments on the persecution to be perpetrated by the
Antichrist:
It
may not be a persecution of blood and death, but of craft and subtlety –
not of miracles but of natural wonders and marvels of human skill, human
acquirements in the hands of the devil. Satan may adopt the more alarming
weapons of deceit – he may seduce us in little things, move the Church,
not all at once, but little by little from her true position. He has had much
success in this tactic in the last centuries. He has moved every part of the
Church away from the truth of Christ, from the old faith upon which it was
built. It is Satan’s policy to split us and divide us, to dislodge us
gradually from the rock of strength. When he has divided the whole of
Christendom, the final persecution may come. When we are full of schism and
heresy, what better time for the appearance of the Antichrist? When Christians
have flung themselves into the arms of the world, Christ’s enemy, when
they depend for their protection on the world and have surrendered their
independence, honor and strength to its approval, then will the Antichrist
burst upon them in fury, then will the idolatrous nations open the flood gates
of wickedness and overrun the Church and the world with the hatred and cruelty
that is let loose from the abyss of hell.
If
Newman’s criteria are correct, then we’re eligible. I know that
date setting for the Second Coming is a vain exercise; but so is date
distancing – insisting that we cannot be close to Christ’s return.
The
real point of eschatological considerations is salvific. As Fr. Vincent Miceli,
S.J. said in his book The Antichrist: "…in an age of unbelief in the
transcendent and the total secularization of the sacred, it is a necessary
divine grace to reflect on the supernatural saga of the Antichrist as a
salutary counterpoise to the corrupt tendencies of the times. Rumination on the
Antichrist must perforce lead Christians to realize that they live in a sinful
world, that they are called to be witnesses to Christ in this wicked world,
that reproach and suffering are to be their normal lot, not some strange
happening. Inquiry into the epic of the Antichrist can awaken men’s
hearts and expand their vision to see the divine meaning of history, to
appreciate fully the indispensable place of Christ in mankind’s
salvation."
May
we, pro-lifers included, be truly awakened and our vision expanded to see the
divine meaning of this part of history that is the abortion war.
—
Bill Cotter
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