COMMENTARY: Catholics have a spiritual duty to promote truth and orient themselves toward God, not the whims of man.
By Michael O’Shea, EWTN News,
Michael O’Shea is a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute. He is an alumnus of the Budapest Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Hungary Foundation and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium.
In his influential prose work The Captive Mind, a reflection on the mental contortions required to live and work in the Stalinist “people’s republics” of Eastern Europe, Polish Nobel Prize-winner and dissident Czesław Miłosz details the concept of “Ketman,” the act of outwardly supporting the regime while harboring internal opposition.
Practitioners of Ketman could include artists and writers seeking to maintain their craft, professionals seeking to earn a living, and, particularly relevant in Catholic Poland, people of faith seeking truth despite official proscription of religion.
In the United States, where Miłosz spent much of his life in exile, Catholics can increasingly recognize Ketman in their own lives. Churches are vandalized, and pro-life advocates are legally harassed, but most remain silent and hope to “go along to get along.” …
Andrea Mantegna, Crucifixion, 1457-1460. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.