George Weigel has a reflection on Francis Cardinal George of Chicago:
But to deny it is to deny history. Every process of radical secularization has been a martyr-factory. Revolutionary France, Bolshevik Russia, revolutionary Mexico, Republican Spain, Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields, North Korean Juche have all been anti-Christian (particularly anti-Catholic) meat-grinders. Never forget that the Supreme Court justice who authored our modern unconstitutional doctrine of "church-state-separation" began his legal and political career with the enthusiastic defense (on behalf of the KKK) of a man who murdered a Catholic priest in cold blood.
Radical secularism is a bloody process, everywhere and always.
We are getting stirrings of it now, with an increasingly totalitarian twist among mongers of atheism and its eddies-- particularly gay-rights fascism.
We Christians are too accepting of what is happening to our country. Our freedoms will not survive the banishment of our Creator, who is the endower of all of our rights, and without whom no rights or decency can survive.
Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I., the first native Chicagoan to lead what many still regard as the flagship American diocese, is best known, in some circles at least, for proposing the possibility of a very different Catholic future. He sketched it starkly for a group of priests, to illustrate the implications of radical secularization for America: “I will die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die as a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”At first glance, Cardinal George's dire prophesy seems misplaced. It's hard to imagine Catholic martyrs in America.
But to deny it is to deny history. Every process of radical secularization has been a martyr-factory. Revolutionary France, Bolshevik Russia, revolutionary Mexico, Republican Spain, Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields, North Korean Juche have all been anti-Christian (particularly anti-Catholic) meat-grinders. Never forget that the Supreme Court justice who authored our modern unconstitutional doctrine of "church-state-separation" began his legal and political career with the enthusiastic defense (on behalf of the KKK) of a man who murdered a Catholic priest in cold blood.
Radical secularism is a bloody process, everywhere and always.
We are getting stirrings of it now, with an increasingly totalitarian twist among mongers of atheism and its eddies-- particularly gay-rights fascism.
We Christians are too accepting of what is happening to our country. Our freedoms will not survive the banishment of our Creator, who is the endower of all of our rights, and without whom no rights or decency can survive.
'But to deny it is to deny history'
ReplyDeleteYou keep on proving that you're clueless about history.
China, Cambodia and (North) Korea weren't Christian countries, let alone Catholic, so any anti-religious campaigns wouldn't have been significantly anti-Christian, let alone anti-Catholic. Nor would it have provided many, if any, Catholic martyrs.
Russia similarly was Orthodox, not Catholic.
The common feature in the examples you provide of 'radical secularisation' is that they occurred in countries without preceding functioning democracy following violent disruption due to war.
In Republican Spain, the war was the result of conservative and clerical Spaniards not liking democracy taking root and reducing the conservatives' power to keep the general population ignorant and poorly educated.
Nothing similar will ever happen in America, because it has a robust democracy. It managed to survive the Civil War, with its radical upheaval, and even managed to hold elections while the war was being fought.
Countries manage to keep their human rights and freedoms if their public institutions are strong enough - not because there's lip service given to a non-existent deity.
barkmad: "Countries manage to keep their human rights and freedoms if their public institutions are strong enough..."
DeleteAhh, my little Bolshevik, how well you have been indoctrinated. You would have been a Party man and nomenklatura, no doubt. There were no stronger "public institutions" (KGB, anyone?) than in the Soviet Union. I'm sure you would have functioned well in that atheist paradise, given your ideological blindness.
Silly old fart,
DeleteThat's not what I meant, obviously. Public institutions mean the courts, the public media, schools, political parties, even the churches. The KGB (and its predecessors) weren't public - they were very much secret.
Yes, blankfire, the Soviet courts (heh), the media (e.g., Pravda), indoctrination schools, the political party (singular), and the stolen churches where livestock were quartered were public institutions.
DeleteAs are the police and other public safety institutions. The KGB was one of those. It had its little secret informers, like Toots, but it was very much public and, in fact, famous.
Your Dumptyesque excuses just cast your stupidities in greater relief.
Senile old fart,
DeleteYou're not making any sensible point. Public institutions are for the benefit of the public. In the Soviet Union, the institutions weren't for the benefit of the public - they were the benefit of the party and its leaders.
Egnor hasn't managed to make his case that America is going to go the same way that Russia did after the Great War, following centuries of despotism and years of war in which millions were killed in battle, just because cake makers are fined for refusing to sell cakes to potential customers. Because Christians are being prevented from discriminating against people they dislike.
Still peddling that KKK smear, I see. And here I thought it had been so thoroughly debunked in the comments to your earlier post that understanding (or if not that, at least embarrassment) would lead you not to repeat it.
ReplyDelete"Radical secularism is a bloody process, everywhere and always.
ReplyDeleteWe are getting stirrings of it now, with an increasingly totalitarian twist among mongers of atheism and its eddies-- particularly gay-rights fascism."
Indeed.
And the liars (such as bachfiend) will still be denying it even as we Christians are being rounded up for the death-camps and even just murdered right out in the open.
You've figured out our plot!
DeleteStep 1: Force religious bakers to make cakes for all members of the community.
Step 2: Death camps for American Christians.
-KW
Interesting thread.
ReplyDeleteIts absolutely true the foundations for organized serious repression of Christ followers or anyone is always in the world. lIkewise north America.
the gay agenda is most malicious but others are there too.
Nations can not be both pro gay and anti gay at the same time. One conclusion must prevail and enforce itself. This is too come.
I say the homosexual movement must be put down into a simple relationship of allowing them their privacy but society rejection.
Anyways.
Conclusions in Christian foundations need to merge with other conclusions amongst like minded people and build a aggressive counter movement to the war against us since WW11.
The same folks behind sympathy for the soviet union , socialism, etc etc are behind all problems facing Christiandom in North america and our civilization.
we beat them with out too much trouble and we can beat the present lot.
We must plan, organize conclusion, and accuse, accuse, accuse.
Christianity built the modern world and nOrth america and we have a social contracts on how to live together.
they are breaking the contracts to get their way on evil or wrong conclusions.
they fired first on fort Sumpter.
And then Jesus came upon his disciples and said, "Brethren, what's this I heareth about me being a human sacrifice for your sins? May I asketh, who in the goddamn hell came up with that Neanderthal bullshit!!!!???
ReplyDeleteBlood sacrifice!!!!???? Are you all fucking insane!!!???
Brethren, thou can take this ridiculous, asinine dying for sins donkey shit and shove it straight up thy ignorant, goat-sacrificing asses!!!!"
-----Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Sane, Rational Thought.
OK, look ...
ReplyDelete1) Modern Europe is just quietly becoming secular. Christians aren't being persecuted, there's simply a recognition that in a country like the UK with sixty million people and 800,000 regular Anglican churchgoers, that Christianity is just ... irrelevant. Of historical interest, sure, but not part of life.
Not one person has been 'persecuted'. A woman who signed a contract saying she'd obey the company dress code was fired for being late and a publicity-hungry Christian activist lawyer tried and failed to convince an industrial tribunal she was sacked for wearing a crucifix.
2) Do you understand *why* the Catholic Church was punished in revolutionary France, or the Orthodox Church was punished in Revolutionary Russia? Because they were instruments of the oppressive former regime, fat landlords and enforcers of the status quo.
At the time of the Paris Commune, Catholic Priests ran up and down the lines of soldiers sent in, assuring them that shooting people wasn't wrong, and pre-absolving them.
These were not innocent, kindly men. And absolutely nothing like that is happening to priests in America these days. Far too *few* priests are in prison. If Tim Dolan, for example, was CEO of a charity instead of a Cardinal, it's pretty clear he'd be in prison by this point for his embezzlement, fraud and lying under oath. That's before we get to his covering up of systematic child rape. It is astonishing that such a man *isn't* persecuted, that he can campaign for Romney, but then say prayers at the Obama inauguration. In a fair world, yes, he would have been dragged from his palace.
It's far worse, for you, I'm afraid. You're just ... silly. Christian extremists have marginalized themselves. You've made it a choice between science and religion, between freedom and God, between tolerance and Christianity.
"gay-rights fascism"
ReplyDeleteClassy.
Let's try to remember how actual fascists treated (a) the Church and (b) homosexuals.
'We Christians are too accepting of what is happening to our country.'
ReplyDeleteNope.
After something under twenty years of trying to figure out what is going wrong in the 'post Christian' UK....it is not; 'too placid Christians' that are the issue.
I'll bet the contemporary issues are identical in the UK & USA.
They, contemporary Christians, they certainly ARE too placid to survive however.
Spiritually placid= spiritually poisoned.
What else would any sensible Christian expect from modern secular society?
To be happy and to prosper?
What gradually dawned on me was that 'society', as observed from the public sphere, is actually 'what elites do to those who are willing to be manipulated'.
That's it. The rest is noise.
War, economics, revolutions and all the rest come a poor third to the machinations of the/a tiny number of decision makers......AND.....those who choose to be manipulated and further choose to pretend not to notice.
Today's Christians are not too weak nor too cowardly, it just appears to be that way to any honest observer.
Fact is that 'they' always were....they always were 'too weak and cowardly' rarely allowing The Holy Spirit to rescue them despite themselves.
Now, Christianity in the West is being removed by the same elites who once used it and tolerated it. So, what will be next...
'At first glance, Cardinal George's dire prophesy seems misplaced. It's hard to imagine Catholic martyrs in America.'
There is nothing whatsoever that is 'inconceivable' over the next 5-15 year timescale. Nothing.
JR