Confrontational Catholicism

Good for Tucker. (Y)

These liberal media people are unbelievable. They have a one-track mind, a one-track agenda---and everything, everything, relates back to that. If a conservative says, "The sky is blue and clouds are white," the liberal leaps in with eyes blazing and foam flying from the mouth, demanding, "Why are you so racist? So, you support suppressing women? Do you want to shoot transgender people?"

None of which has anything whatsoever to do with what the conservative said, but we're not dealing with people who are grounded in reality, here. I remember reading about a meeting years ago between Pope John Paul II and one of our presidents, I don't remember which one. On the Today show the next morning, Bryant Gumbel faced the camera with a solemn face and said, "The president got right to the point with the Pope: abortion rights," and then proceeded to expound, by innuendo, that the progressive president was giving what for to the backwards, stubborn pontiff.

The only problem: transcripts of the meeting prove that abortion was never mentioned during the meeting. The "confrontation" Gumbel was gurgling about existed only in the warped depths of his own liberal imagination.

I was troubled by the term “public Catholics.” The following may be a bit off-topic - I'm not sure, though.

Are the faithful followers of Jesus the Christ more "successful" if they are more clever debaters against those against revealed Truth? Should our seminaries change priest formation curriculum plans to include this skill? I don't think so. I know the Church is sent to "make disciples." And I know how we can tell when the Church is successfully "making disciples": we're doing OK when the world praises OR accuses us of it, when we are living witnesses of a Truth: "This Church is making disciples of Jesus".

Jn 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Jn 13:35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

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All is secondary to this crucial descriptor and characteristic of the perfected members of the Church: we have love (agape), one for the other in the Body of which He is Head. We may be clever or poor debaters, trained or stumbling public speakers, natural or uncomfortable as leaders, quiet or talkative, social or solitary, whatever - but if the unction of supernatural agape love be not within and among us as the Gathered of Jesus in His Spirit - if the agape love with which He has loved us be not in and among us, and be not the very supernatural atmosphere we breathe, longing and yearning for the perfection of that love within us which we owe to one another in Christ .... then WHO ARE WE and what are we trying to DO?

Many among us have little to no concern for what is crucial: namely a vital, growing, maturing Interior Life of Grace. Many are preoccupied with merely outward activities - “Catholic Action” - and public “charitable” works. Many are attracted to and preoccupied with outward spiritual manifestations such as charisms - while neglecting if not ignorant of the truth that God judges by the heart within the person: what ( and WHO) are we working and seeking for, really.

1 Cor 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not (agape) love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
1 Cor 13:2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not (agape) love, I am nothing.
1 Cor 13:3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not (agape) love, I gain nothing.
1 Cor 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
1 Cor 13:5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
1 Cor 13:6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
1 Cor 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Cor 13:8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
1 Cor 13:9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
1 Cor 13:10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
1 Cor 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
1 Cor 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
1 Cor 13:13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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[note ALL uses of the word “love” in this passage are in the Greek, “agape” love or, in Catholic terms, holy supernatural charity.]