By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
It’s nothing these days for a child to move through the putative Catholic educational system and then graduate with odium fidei, a hatred of the Catholic faith. If you are militantly pro-redefinition of marriage and pro-abortion you have a hatred of the Catholic faith and that is the position of many young people today, including a large number who claim a Catholic education. Or, at least a college education “in the Jesuit tradition.”
Such is the fashion, after all.
I’ve seen it happen. Expensive Catholic grade school in the right high-priced neighborhood, desirable high school in the right county with the right sports and programs or a boys’ high school in the city which boasts sons of governmental officials as alumni. After that, a college founded as Catholic but long since torn away from the moorings of faith.
I attended the graduation ceremonies at my alma mater, Fordham University in New York, this spring because a relative was to be added to the number educated there. Fordham theologian Elizabeth Johnson — whose book, Quest for the Living God, was censured by the USCCB — led the invocation. No Sign of the Cross before or after. A Jesuit stood to offer up the milquetoast concluding prayer of benediction. Again, no invoking of the Trinity. In both instances I was nearly alone in making this uniquely Catholic sign of faith which customarily calls upon the triune God of our salvation to begin and end our prayers.
The prayers themselves offered nothing distinctly Catholic, and certainly nothing explicit about the name of Jesus Christ, but merely a list of platitudes interchangeable with any commonly acceptable politically correct public palaver. “Be for others” topped the list of the day’s themes.
This is just one sign indicating the moribund state of affairs at many of our once-Catholic institutions which have rejected God and teach our young people to do the same in the name of ushering in some imaginary more superior state of being.
There is nothing greater than the Catholic faith which brings the most perfect gift of God in salvation. Nature abhors a vacuum. The loss of the greatest gift of salvation through Catholic faith is always replaced by some false god, and there are indeed many such.
When individuals reject the faith, eventually nations do as well. There are not lacking many examples of these, either. Ireland is the latest country to choose evil in its shocking vote for abortion. Many of us felt the spiritual earthquake which rocked the world on the day of the vote May 25.
The referendum which rejected the Eighth Amendment to the constitution guaranteeing equal dignity for the life of both mother and child in pregnancy took the breath away from many who thought the Irish would at least manage to stand up for the very obvious right to life of every unborn child.
After the votes were counted the faithless and newly pagan Irish danced publicly around the golden calf in a delirium of imaginary newfound freedom and liberation. They continued to promote the same lies about a woman having control “over her own body” as were peddled during the campaign to reject the 8th. We all know it isn’t the woman who dies when she has an abortion, and thus control over her own body has nothing whatsoever to do with the abortion question.
When evil is desired, reason goes out the window as emotions and any other excuse comes to the fore to bless an evil which must be exorcised only. Ireland has now embraced an evil which may take many years, much prayer, grace, and sacrifice, to exorcise.
The New York Times and other legacy media framed the 8th referendum vote in Ireland as a rejection or a “rebuke” of the Church, when in fact it is a rejection of God. The Church happens rightly to preach the truth as she was created by the Lord rightly to do. The truth always comes from God no matter who teaches it. In rejecting the truth the Irish who voted “yes” to abortion rejected God and committed a grave sin.
A priest in Dublin preaching on Sunday after the referendum rightly instructed Catholics that they “have no business” coming forward for Communion if they voted yes.
Abortion lovers will always take what they want in the end; sex unhinged from love, marriage, and responsibility is what gets them into desperation to begin with. These crave the blessing of illegitimate laws to mask and to avoid facing the evil of murdering the defenseless unborn.
The same Lord who teaches as recorded in Mark 9:37, “Whosoever shall receive one such child as this in my name, receiveth me. And whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me” also teaches in Luke 10:16, “He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.”
Many in Ireland on May 25 both rejected Christ by rejecting the unborn child and despised Christ by despising the truth about the sacredness of every human life from conception until natural death in all its stages and conditions.
Ireland has the youngest population in Europe. Many of them have forgotten their recent birth resulted from the choice of a woman to bring them into the world. The gifts of life and the faith that uphold its sacredness can both be lost. The grace of repentance is always as close as the nearest confessional.
Our baptized Catholic children who pass through the Catholic educational system and who graduate in hatred of the faith cannot be saved unless they repent and are converted. Nations who have also rejected God will make martyrs of the many who, we pray, will persevere, despite the diabolic fashions, in the true faith given by God through Jesus Christ in the Church for the salvation of the world.
Keep the Faith.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
Also: Join our group on pilgrimage to Italia Bella, October 13-21, 2018: Rome, Castel Gandolfo, Assisi, Florence, Tuscany, Venice, and more.
The price is $3,600.00 for nine days. Prices include airfare from your hometown and exclusively 4 or 5 star hotels everywhere. For more info and to sign up visit ProCatholicTours.com, choose “Italia Bella” tour option, then click on the icon for our tour dates of October 13-21.
@MCITLFrAphorism
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress