All I know is that you’ve got to get mad!
Fr. Rick Heilman | Nov 23, 2011 | Comments 0
Before reading on, please watch this classic two minute scene from the movie Network:
WE’VE GOT TO GET MAD!!! WE CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!
This blog post comes on the heals of posting articles related to the most revered “sacred cows” of one of the worst generations of all time: Mine!
Here’s the cows:
3. Cohabitation
4. Secular Assault on Sacred Liturgy, Music and Architecture
7. Abortion
Jeffrey Kuhner of the Washington Times gives a stirring report on the current state of affairs in our beloved America:
“For the past 50 years, every major institution has been captured by the radical secular left. The media, Hollywood, TV, universities, public schools, theater, the arts, literature – they relentlessly promote the false gods of sexual hedonism and radical individualism.
Conservatives have ceded the culture to the enemy. Tens of millions of unborn babies have been slaughtered; illegitimacy rates have soared; divorce has skyrocketed; pornography is rampant; drug use has exploded; sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS have killed millions; birth control is a way of life; sex outside of wedlock has become the norm; countless children have been permanently damaged – their innocence lost forever – because of the proliferation of broken homes; and sodomy and homosexuality are celebrated openly. America has become the new Babylon.” (Jeffrey T. Kuhner, The Washington Times, 1-20-11).
Thomas Jefferson once said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Frankly, I’ve had it! I’m sick and tired of being a part of the most egocentric, self-indulgent generation that ever lived. We may be cleaning up after the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) for 100 years or more.
I was born in 1958, so I have lived through all of these unbridled years. I now emerge shocked and ashamed of my generation; a generation that has done everything it could to dismantle virtually everything a proud culture once held sacred. Worse than this, virtually all of the Boomer’s sacred cows (listed above) remain veiled and powerful, while those of us responsible for souls remain hushed and cowardly.
Pope Leo XIII warns,
“To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. The only ones who win when Christians stay quiet he says, are the enemies of truth. The silence of Catholics is particularly disturbing because frequently a few bold words would have vanquished the false ideas. “Christians are,” Leo continues, “born for combat.” It is part of their nature to follow Christ by espousing unpopular ideas and by defending the truth at great cost to themselves. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae)
“Who doesn’t know we are at war?” writes Dr. Peter Kreeft, “Who doesn’t know the barbarians are at the gates—no, inside the gates, writing the scripts of the TV shows and movies, writing the public school textbooks and judicial decisions? Only the ones in the lunar bubble of academia or the lunar bubble of establishment religious education with the unprofitable prophets who cry, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace, the ones who compose those dreary, drippy little lullabies we endure as ‘contemporary hymns.’”
In the name of the false god “progress,” we have witnessed a full frontal assault on the most foundational elements of our faith and culture. In our weakened state we’ve sat idly by, watching family members and friends being swept away by a tsunami-like force of secular values and morals, persuading them to abandon God in favor of the next form of immediate gratification.
The crisis of faith we have witnessed since the 1960s begs the question: “Was it really a good idea to discard the amazing treasures of our Catholic faith in favor of modern innovations?” Let’s look at some of the data. These 2002 statistics are alarming, and yet these declines have only accelerated in the past decade:
“In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94 percent. A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that three in four Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only one in four now attend. Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers now accept church teaching on contraception. Fifty-three percent believe a Catholic can have an abortion and remain a good Catholic. Sixty-five percent believe that Catholics may divorce and remarry. Seventy-seven percent believe one can be a good Catholic without going to Mass on Sundays. By one New York Times poll, 70 percent of all Catholics in the age group 18 to 44 believe the Eucharist is merely a ‘symbolic reminder’ of Jesus.” (These statistics came from a 2002 article entitled, An Index of Catholicism’s Decline.)
A society increasingly disengaged from the Divine Life of God has no place to go but down. Definitely not “progress,” but a sharp regression away from our greatest potential.
YES … I AM MAD AS HELL!!!
As we look forward to 2012, a year marked by the 50th Anniversary of Vatican II, I plan to do a bit of RECON, exposing the enemy forces disposition and intention (please pray for me too, because this is going to tick off the devil). From here, I will outline what I believe is Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict’s Master Plan for the New Millennium.
It may take 100 years to clean this up, but it begins with you and me. Stay tuned!
UPDATE!
These are the posts thus far in this Church Militant Training Series:
SITREP: What Are Our Current Capabilities?
SITREP (cont.): The Cataclysmic Shift of the 60s and 70s
SITREP (cont.): Dissent and Disposal
SITREP (conclusion): Catholicism’s Decline
RECON: Soft Leadership Begets Soft Faith – The Emergence of Cruise Ship Christianity
RECON (cont.): Abandoned by their leaders, he will more easily seize them
Church Militant Training: Tim Tebow and the Warrior Ethos
Church Militant Training: Vince Lombardi and The Superior Ideal
