……We’d all quickly get fatigued by a litany of what’s gone strange with America. There’s so much of it: from our consumerism and narcissism; to our sexual dysfunctions and family breakdowns; to our bad schools and moral illiteracy; to what Eric Voegelin called in his autobiographical reflections the “intellectual terrorism of institutions [like] the mass media, university departments, foundations and commercial publishing houses.” Listing problems and then complaining about them achieves little. And more importantly, as Murray would say, it isn’t a Christian response. If Jesus tells us to be leaven in the world, and to make disciples of all nations — and, of course, He does — then we have missionary obligations. And those duties include the renewal of our country’s best ideals.
But we can’t shape the future unless we know the facts of present-day life. And we can’t understand the present unless we know the past it came from. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in Faith and History that “memory is [the] fulcrum of freedom for man in history.” The less we understand the past, “the more do present facts appear in the guise of irrevocable facts of nature.”
I believe that. And it explains some of the hardships American Catholics will now need to face…..
….The people of Israel forgot their God because they weren’t taught. And if American Catholics no longer know their faith, or its obligations of discipleship, or its call to mission — then we leaders, parents, and teachers have no one to blame but ourselves……
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Inside Catholic, Sept. 27, 2010
http://www.insidecatholic.com/feature/life-in-the-late-republic-the-catholic-role-in-america-after-virtue.html
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CHAPUT EXCERPT: Catholics Have a Missionary Obligation . . The Renewal of Our Country’s Best Ideals
……We’d all quickly get fatigued by a litany of what’s gone strange with America. There’s so much of it: from our consumerism and narcissism; to our sexual dysfunctions and family breakdowns; to our bad schools and moral illiteracy; to what Eric Voegelin called in his autobiographical reflections the “intellectual terrorism of institutions [like] the mass media, university departments, foundations and commercial publishing houses.” Listing problems and then complaining about them achieves little. And more importantly, as Murray would say, it isn’t a Christian response. If Jesus tells us to be leaven in the world, and to make disciples of all nations — and, of course, He does — then we have missionary obligations. And those duties include the renewal of our country’s best ideals.
But we can’t shape the future unless we know the facts of present-day life. And we can’t understand the present unless we know the past it came from. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in Faith and History that “memory is [the] fulcrum of freedom for man in history.” The less we understand the past, “the more do present facts appear in the guise of irrevocable facts of nature.”
I believe that. And it explains some of the hardships American Catholics will now need to face…..
….The people of Israel forgot their God because they weren’t taught. And if American Catholics no longer know their faith, or its obligations of discipleship, or its call to mission — then we leaders, parents, and teachers have no one to blame but ourselves……
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Inside Catholic, Sept. 27, 2010
http://www.insidecatholic.com/feature/life-in-the-late-republic-the-catholic-role-in-america-after-virtue.html
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE BELOW