David Warren is stepping on Catholic toes over at The Catholic Thing, particularly the toes of the dispassionate, lukewarm, flaccid and largely disinterested Catholics who do little or nothing to tell the world about their Catholic faith:
Let me strain the credulity of gentle reader, by blaming everything that happened in Ferguson, Missouri this week on the Catholic Church.
...
In videos from Ferguson, we caught another glimpse this week of what becomes of our world when this faith has departed. True worldliness enters “progressively” in its place, and the rapacity of fallen human nature is asserted.
Yet even in the midst of the post-Christian anarchy, we have glimpses of what will never depart. I am thinking of a young lady at Papa John’s in Ferguson – herself seen within a video posted by the courageous blogger, Vic Maggio.
Small, and unarmed, she is visible through the smashed glass of that store, standing up to huge, brutish, club-wielding thugs who have come to loot it. And, albeit with characteristically obscene gestures, the thugs back down.
I know nothing about this young lady. I will not presume to guess at her religious affiliation. But I will say that, whatever it is, every faithful Catholic will recognize a sister.
And so, returning to my original point – which had to be extended, to be understood – how did the Catholic Church fail Ferguson, Missouri? And 10,000 other towns?
She failed, of course, through her human agents; she is failing today, where she fails, through the same. She fails in every foot of territory that she surrenders. She brilliantly succeeds in every soul she wins over to the Mystical Body of Christ Jesus.
Cut now, to another video – this one actually splashed on CNN – about another former American wilderness. It is rural Lansing County in Michigan. It is an episode narrated by the self-avowed die-hard feminist, Lisa Ling, which tours territory where the Catholic Church, and a Catholic way of life, are flourishing.
And again, every truly faithful Catholic will recognize his sisters and brothers and fathers – and Father – as the interviews proceed. They are not people in doubt about their calling. They are not the kind of people who make excuses, or waste their time demanding “rights”; not people who look to any worldly government to come running to their aid. Instead: people who look to Christ Jesus.
We are that Church – that Church in this world – and there are no excuses. That world is converted through us; through our own example, and Christian acts. The matter is very simple, really. We must stop failing.
Do read Warren's entire piece.
I find something like this to be particularly and personally hard-hitting.
I strayed from my Catholic roots for 40 years. The drift began shortly after my first communion when there seemed no specific impulse for committing to the faith beyond those obligatory and perfunctory occasions marked by someone else's baptism or first communion.
Then the kids came along and while feeling a personal responsibility to in some way introduce and teach the boys about the faith was led by a friend and coworker to the Episcopal Church which ended rather disastrously.
Finally, God gently led me back to my roots and I've been home ever since, thank God. I can't help but ponder however how many lives might I have been able with God's help to impact, influence, or otherwise touchhad I stayed in the Church for that 40 years? Where might my own life be now and how might the lives of my wife and boys and even their significant others have been different?
It's difficult not to have regrets.
The culture has paid a price for the lukewarmness of the faithful who've drifted, strayed and otherwise walked away from the Catholic Church.
How different might things be 40 years from now if those whose faith walk is today decidedly detached and disconnected were to instead re-attach and re-connect and do so with vigor and verve?
The possibilities are endless, the consequences both temporal and eternal.
