A teenager recently asked me, “Why does the Catholic Church have ideas so behind the times?” It was a written question submitted alongside other students’ “Questions for Father.” The question reflected the young person’s doubts and I’m glad that it was asked, because after some reflection and with the help of grace I gave what I believe was an inspired answer.
I began with a review of some late modern history. In 1789, the leaders of the French Revolution took power in France. They rejected faith and wished to entirely replace Catholicism with their own invented “Cult of Reason.” They redefined the number of days in a week from seven to ten to deconsecrate Sunday – the Lord’s Day. They killed or exiled Catholic clergy and converted churches into “Temples of Reason.” They confiscated the convents and monasteries and expelled or martyred the monks and nuns, ending charitable ministries all across France. In their Reign of Terror they executed thousands and then turned on one another. Their revolution ended after ten years with a military coup which gave France a dictator who would crown himself their emperor: Napoleon Bonaparte.
In the early 1930’s, when Hitler rose to power in Germany, he was opposed by Catholics there. In fact, a map of the regional vote shares that the Nazi Party received across Germany looks like the photographic negative of the percentages of Catholic populations in place to place. The dark places of one map were the light places on the other. The Catholic Church proclaims universal human dignity, the preciousness of every human person, but the anti-Catholic Nazis believed in racial supremacy. They claimed the modern science of eugenics proved Germans to be the master race and showed Jews, Slavs, the disabled, and others to be lesser human beings. The Nazis arrested, deported, and murdered millions in concentration camps (including Catholic clergy, religious, and activists) and started a world war which killed millions more. Hitler’s “thousand year Reich” died with him after twelve terrible years.
The 1917 Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution of 1949 were violent, atheistic, communist movements. They heralded divisive class warfare as the path to utopia, denouncing and persecuting religion as the “opiate of the Masses.” The governments of the Soviet Union and Communist China, thoroughly corrupt with unchecked power, trampling human rights and freedom, are responsible for tens of millions of deaths over the past one hundred years.
I concluded my answer to that anonymous student’s question by asking the class to consider: if we had lived in France, or Germany, or Russia, or China during those times of social change would we have gone along with the spirits of the age? What would have prevented us from being swept up by and falling for their seductive errors? Our best protection against them, what would have preserved us, would be our firm conviction in our Catholic Christian Faith. The teachings of the Catholic Church will always seem to be “behind the times” because the world is always finding new ways of going gravely wrong. But timeless truth never changes. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Christ is the King “who is and who was and who is to come,” and our allegiance to him is our salvation.
For the feast of Passover, the 1st century Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, was accustomed to release for the Jews one of his prisoners. So when the crowds assembled on Good Friday, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus called Christ?” Barabbas was a notorious prisoner imprisoned for a rebellion which had taken place in Jerusalem and for murder. The name Barabbas means “son of the father.” So the crowd had a choice: which savior, which son of the father, which king did they prefer? Many Jews expected the Christ, their Messiah, to be a military leader who would forcefully drive out the Romans and rule an earthly kingdom like David’s or Solomon’s. Most of the crowd chose Barabbas over and against the Lord.
Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews? …[So] you are a king?” Jesus’ responses to him mean, ‘Yes, but not like you imagine. If my kingdom were like the other kingdoms you know, my followers would be fighting an armed revolt right now.’ Christ’s Kingdom is in our world but not of this world. Jesus called and sent his twelve apostles to proclaim the Kingdom of God and upon the “Rock” of Peter he built his Church to teach and heal, sanctify and save. The Church continues her work with Christ to this day. She is the seed and the beginning of his kingdom. She is “the reign of Christ already present in mystery.”
It can be easy to get discouraged by the evils and errors of today. As faith declines within our culture, challenging times are ahead for our Church and her mission. But there always remains reason for hope. Even amid the great evils of Good Friday, Jesus was still advancing his saving mission. Always remember: if Jesus could achieve his saving work on that most wicked day then he can surely accomplish his saving work in our day as well.
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November 21, 2021 at 9:31 pm |
Amen