Editor’s Note: From time to time, we have quoted from William Kilpatrick, former college professor, author of several books, including Christianity, Islam, and Atheism, and frequent contributor to Catholic publications. You should visit his site turningpointproject.com if you are seeking information about the threat to our Church and our country from the forces of Islam. Kilpatrick argues that a major problem facing us is “stealth jihad,” which is “a long-term campaign to spread Islamic law and culture by influencing and eventually co-opting key social institutions.”
He says that “stealth jihadists have also been at work for decades in the U.S., burrowing into government, schools, the media, and even churches. After decades of multicultural conditioning about the benefits of diversity, many Catholics, along with other Americans, are incapable of recognizing or responding to the cultural jihad now underway in this country. Cultural jihadists, in the meantime, are relying on Americans to remain ignorant of their goals and methods. They understand full well that submission to political correctness inexorably leads to submission to Islam.”
Kilpatrick says the goal of his project “is to produce accessible books and articles that will give Catholics the information they need to recognize the threat and resist it.” He says that “militant Islam’s forward momentum can be halted and reversed, but only if enough people wake up in time. The aim of the project is to wake up Catholics — particularly the Catholic leadership — about the threat from Islam. The Catholic Church is a sleeping giant in regard to Islam. If it can be awakened, it would be a powerful force in the resistance to Islamization.”
Unfortunately, however, says Kilpatrick, “Catholic leaders are either asleep to the dangers posed by militant Islam or else they are serving as unwitting enablers of the Islamists’ radical agenda. For example, Catholic middle school and high school students are taught that Islam is a religion of peace with which Catholics share much in common. In addition, Catholic universities, some of them lavishly funded by Saudi money, act as propagandists for Islam. And through interfaith dialogue, Catholic bishops are unwittingly providing legitimacy and ‘cover’ for some of the most radical Muslim groups in America — organizations with close ties to terrorists overseas.”
Kilpatrick concedes that “it will be an uphill battle to change the minds of the many Catholics who have been led to believe that Islam is a religion of peace from which we have nothing to fear. But it’s a necessary fight. Contrary to misleading claims, jihadists are not a tiny minority. Moreover, they are increasing, they have wide support, and they are well-funded. If you agree that Catholics deserve to hear the full story about Islam, please lend your support. The stakes are high and the time is short.”
Q. According to something I saw on the Internet, Popes Siricius, Innocent I, Zosimus, Martin V, Eugene IV, Paul III, and Pius V all infallibly declared that the existence of Limbo of the Children is a dogma of the Church. Is that true? — G.P., via e-mail.
A. No, it is not true. Limbo has never been an infallible doctrine of the Church, although the idea has long been used in Catholic teaching to account for the fate of babies who die without being baptized. The best summary of the development of this teaching can be found in the 2007 document The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized.
In that document, the International Theological Commission said that Limbo was not a doctrine, but a possible hypothesis which can be “understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to Original Sin and without baptism and who therefore neither merit the Beatific Vision nor yet are they subjected to any punishment because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council” (Preface).
Limbo is not mentioned either in the documents of Vatican II or in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. What the Catechism does say is this:
“As regards children who have died without baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God, who desires that all should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say, ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them’ (Mark 10:14; cf. 1 Tim. 2:4), allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism” (n. 1261).
In its final comments (n. 102), the International Theological Commission said that “our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us (cf. John 16:12). We live by faith and hope in the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ, and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy (cf. 1 Thess. 5:18).”
Q. I am concerned about Church leaders who publicly support Democrat Party positions. I believe that the Democrat Party is quickly becoming essentially the current-day manifestation of Communist ideology as defined by Pope Pius XI in his 1937 encyclical Divini Redemptoris. So Catholic leaders who support the Democrat Party give cause for Catholic voters to support the party, a party that stands against Catholic teaching. — D.M., via e-mail.
A. It is true that that many Democrat positions contradict Catholic teaching on such matters as abortion and same-sex “marriage,” and that Pope Pius XI warned Catholics about the deceitful tactics of the Communists and their effort to get Catholics to collaborate with them “in the realm of so-called humanitarianism and charity.” However, it might be more prudent to connect Democrat Party policies with socialism rather than Communism, especially since some of its presidential candidates are so enamored of socialism.
One could point out, for example, that socialism is Communism’s evil twin in that it considers the individual to be nothing more than a spoke in the wheel of the state and would bring about the same results as Communism, only by evolution instead of revolution. Remember that the former Soviet Union was also known as the USSR, which meant the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In any case, Pope St. John XXIII expressed Catholic teaching on socialism in his 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra:
“Nor may Catholics, in any way, give approbation to the teachings of socialists who seemingly profess more moderate views [than Communists]. From their basic outlook it follows that, inasmuch as the order of social life is confined to time, it is directed solely to temporal welfare; that since the social relationships of men pertain merely to the production of goods, human liberty is excessively restricted and the true concept of social authority is overlooked” (n. 34).
He was echoed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (cf. nn. 1883, 1885):
“Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiatives. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. . . . The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order.”
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