We Need a Relevant Ministry in 2021, by Fr. Frank Pavone, Alveda King

By Fr. Frank Pavone & Evangelist Alveda King, Catholic Exchange, Sept. 10, 2021

Father Frank Pavone is national director of Priests for Life and the national pastoral director of Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. …

“Once [we] admit the right to kill unproductive persons… then none of us can be sure of his life.” 

So spoke Cardinal Clemens von Galen, of Munster, Germany, in 1941. This Cardinal was called the “Lion of Munster,” because he roared with the voice of the Gospel against the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

Two decades later, in the United States, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say to preachers, on the night before he was assassinated, that while it’s fine to preach about the “New Jerusalem,” the preacher must also preach about ‘the new New York… and the new Memphis, Tennessee.”

Cardinal von Galen knew about what Dr. King would call “a relevant ministry,” one that does not hesitate to name the enemy, talk about the issues of the day, and apply the eternal teachings of Christ to the concrete and changing circumstances of human history. …