In the Midst of Crisis, Be Driven by Faith, Not by Fear, by Peter Kwasniewski

By Peter Kwasniewski, Crisis Magazine, July 19, 2021

Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is a writer and speaker on traditional Catholicism. He is the author of eleven books, most recently The Ecstasy of Love in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Emmaus Academic, 2021). Visit his website at www.peterkwasniewski.com.

In our days, we are seeing an intensification of the spiritual battle as the situation within the Catholic Church continues to deteriorate. Battles have casualties, and some of those casualties are Catholics who have lost their faith or are tempted to leave the Church because of the outrageous corruption, infidelity, and cowardice of its leaders and the seeming lack of any coherent solution amidst anarchy. The common denominator I have seen in those who are suffering shipwreck is that they focus their attention primarily or even exclusively on the Church as a human institution. By doing this, however, we go at the whole thing backward. 

The Church was not first in time, nor is it first in our lives. Christ came first: He sought out the apostles, He attracted the disciples, He redeemed us, He saves us even now, and the point of our whole life is to get to know Him. To be sure, He is the head of the Church, and we are members of that Church; it is the “place” where we meet Him. But it is neither first nor last.  ….