Cardinal Pell: ‘Amazon or No Amazon, the Church Cannot Allow any Confusion’, by Ed Condon
August 10, 2019Daily Reading & Meditation: Monday (August 12)
August 12, 2019
By Casey Chalk, Crisis Magazine, August 9, 2019
The so-called Long Lent just keeps getting longer. The myriad sex abuse scandals have damaged her public witness and weakening the faith of her members. Several high-ranking prelates have been mired in corruption charges, most recently Bisjop Michael J. Bransfield of Charleston-Wheeling.
Catholic public figures whose dogma “lives loudly” within them, in turn, have been derided by senior political elites. 13 percent of American adults are former Catholics, while only two percent are converts to the faith. The Notre Dame fire seems an apt (if bitter) symbol of the state of the Church. And, as Benedict XVI has long warned, things will likely get worse before they get better.
Yet persecution and apathy need not keep us Catholic faithful perennially in the dumps. In years past the Church has faced far worse, and still remained doggedly hopeful and stubbornly joyful. The saint whose feast we celebrate tomorrow, St. Lawrence, well embodies these virtues necessary for a full Christian life. We should take heed his courage—united to a winsome humor and sense of irony—as welcome lessons for our own time of trial. ….
