[Catholics Only] "Going Going, Gone"

[ripple the car]

Bring back statues. Visual beauty. Deep, good theology. Preaching on the realities of Purgatory and Hell fire. Bring back Mary. Don't try to hide her. Bring back the Rosary, Chaplets, Crucifixes, incense, and silence.

One of the coolest experiences of my childhood was when my mom and dad took me to the Cloisters.

I thought I was in Heaven. Having been raised Lutheran, and with only a vague idea of God and no personal interest in Christ, I wanted to know who or what inspired such beauty. I wanted to live in the museum, I didn't want to leave.

 

[zippy2006]

Preaching on the realities of Purgatory and Hell fire.

I would only add that Heaven should also be preached on, and that this too is rare. Also: the New Heavens and the New Earth in the resurrection.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I would only add that Heaven should also be preached on, and that this too is rare. Also: the New Heavens and the New Earth in the resurrection.

The 'four last things' seem to be seldom heard of these days.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The Distorter article was mush. But what I got from it was two things. Probable parental bad examples and not enough exposure to real Catholicism.

Of course the Distorter article advocates 'engage and adapt to the cultural currents of the present age.' As if that hasn't been tried ad nauseam.

And so I found this article from The Atlantic, which puts out an occasional great article about religion from a secular point of view. Three Decades Ago, America Lost Its Religion. Why?

The point of this article is that the secularization of this country really took off in 1991. And the causes were the end of the cold war and the rise of the religious right, which totally alienated the left from religion. Not sure whether I buy it in toto or not. But it's interesting.

And it made me think about my own political history. I started out a Democrat, the son and grandson of Democrats of the Farmer-Labor variety in Minnesota politics. It was easy to be a Democrat way back when. One could believe the angels were Democrats. Then the political changes in the Democratic party, the push for them to normalize abortion and homosexuality, and there was no longer room in that party for me. So I joined up with the other guys. Plugged my nose a bit and managed. When Trump came along, lots of us Republicans resisted, but now he essentially owns that party. And I was so gone by September of 2016, no longer a Republican. I've long thought that the Republicans have played us pro-life people into delivering votes for them with little return. Was it an unholy alliance between my faith and a political party?

I think politics is important. Not politics as this poisoned mess we have now, but the old kind, the Hubert Humphrey kind. Or the Jacques Maritain kind. Faith informing politics to do good. It's a different world now and I don't know any more how to do politics that way in the current mess. I'm guessing at the American Solidarity Party, in this politically poisoned world of Trump and AOC. But who knows. They aren't gonna win.

More important than politics, which is no longer working in this swamp world, is living the faith attractively.