The American Church is exceptional, but not in a good way. There is a reason God gave us an American pope in this hour. We are desperately sick and need a physician we cannot lie to ourselves about and say, “Europeans just don’t understand how awesome we are!”
The Cult will lie anyway, of course. It’s all they do. But for those with ears to hear, the Holy Father is speaking the healing words of the gospel that can empower us to live it and not bring the Name of Christ into further shame and scandal, but into glory.
“15. Christians too, on a number of occasions, have succumbed to attitudes shaped by secular ideologies or political and economic approaches that lead to gross generalizations and mistaken conclusions. The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world. The poor cannot be neglected if we are to remain within the great current of the Church’s life that has its source in the Gospel and bears fruit in every time and place.”
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3 Responses
MAGA Catholics need to read Matthew 25. And take it seriously.
I need to read this document. Thanks Mark
Wow. I read about 75%, and needed to take a break. I will resume when I start feeling the love of comfort seeping back into my heart again. I forwarded it to my son that is discerning a vocation to the priesthood. I hope he has already read it.
My oldest friend from high school is Muslim. We catch up from time to time and spent about 4 hours chatting yesterday. We were both Republicans back in the day, and mostly likeminded but now she is full on MAGA. In the course of our conversation, she got her jabs in and I delivered mine, but we didn’t want to ruin an old friendship, so we circled each other carefully. At one point, she said, “of course Trump has been a lifelong pervert! Of course he did most of those things! But I don’t care!–That’s what men in positions of power have always done!–He’s standing up to all of the idiot liberals, the they/thems and the people who are destroying Western Civilization.” She had no problem agreeing that Trump probably never sought the presidency at the beginning, has been blackmailed by Putin and Israel and is greedy for self enrichment–or that people who grasp at political power are mostly sociopaths. –He’s her man because he’s pushing back ruthlessly and yes “shamelessly”. She also believes that Trump will deliver the Iranian people who will fight to the death until they are free.
As a child refugee from Iran in the late ’70s, she has a peculiar hatred for what she calls “all of the people who want to come here, to live the good life on the taxpayer’s back.” I told her that it is the rich, and the 1% offshoring their money that is gutting out and impoverishing the middle class here. She had no argument with this, and agreed that it’s true. She says she’s done with the U.S., and will return to Kuwait where the government takes care of the people, and where on a teacher’s salary she can live in the lap of luxury with servants and a country club membership. She told me that the diplomats that live there are horrified at the prospect of going back to the grind of their difficult lives in the West.
My friend stated the most interesting thing the most emphatically: “The rich will not enter heaven! It will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to enter heaven! Yes, this includes Trump!”
She says that her Catholic education and the Quran informs her of this reality.
It was an exhausting, but fascinating conversation.