Worth Revisiting - I Wish

Thank you Allison Gingras and Elizabeth Riordan for your weekly invitation to re-post our favorite articles on Worth Revisiting.

Go here now (and every Wednesday) and let an interesting group of Catholic bloggers nourish you in your Faith journey.

Visit Allison at  Reconciled To You and Elizabeth at Theology Is A Verb during the rest of each week.  They have much to offer.

I decided to share this post: 

Monday Musings - I Wish

(Originally posted August 1, 2016)

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The answers to the problems facing our nation and world will not be solved by any of our political parties or politicians. These issues are spiritual in nature and beyond the ability of mere mortal men and women to rectify. 

Unfortunately, far too many of our  religious leaders have failed to properly guide us or defend God's Truth.

Unless and until they do so and unless we surrender our wills to our Almighty and loving Creator and Lord, evil will roam the face of this earth.

This post is not a political attack, though some will treat it as such. It is simply an attempt by a simple man to stand up and defend the Truth, since too few of those charged with such obligation have been willing to do so.

It pains me to write this piece, but far less than the silence of so many of our Cardinals, Bishops and priests offends our Loving Lord and jeopardizes the salvation of souls.

Do you notice their silence and/or inaction: 

When a Presidential candidate issued an ultimatum that our Churches and all who profess to be Christian must abandon their deeply held religious beliefs on such intrinsic evils as abortion, contraception and the nature of marriage? We must, she commanded, reject God’s law, acquiesce to those promulgated by mere humans and thereby promote a culture of death;

When she and her party insisted we must use taxpayer dollars to provide abortions and to fund Planned Parenthood’s insatiable appetite to kill and sell aborted body parts?

When politicians and government officials (of all political parties) claiming to be Catholic obstinately persist in advocating and supporting public policies contrary to God’s law and Church teaching, even after being advised by their Bishops of their error?

When so many of our Bishops and priests refuse to withhold the Sacred Species from such offending public figures and thereby become facilitators and accomplices to such sacrilege and sin.  
 
When an entire parish is reported to have given a standing ovation to one of their Catholic politician/parishioners professing to be personally opposed to intrinsic evil, but who has consistently supported legislation and public policies contrary to God's Law.

Let there be no doubt: when these things occur, you know there has been a failure of spiritual leadership and catechesis, as well as an absence of zeal for the salvation of souls.

On the other hand, look how quickly certain Cardinals, Bishops and priests publicly criticized the suggestion of Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments - the man charged by Pope Francis to fully implement the authentic reform of the Liturgy intended by Vatican II - that as many parishes as possible return to the long standing and never intended to be abandoned posture of celebrating portions of the Mass facing the Lord and not the people?

Such contrasting responses speaks volumes.

When you read the advice St. Catherine of Siena gave to the Cardinal of Ostia more than 600 hundred years ago, you can imagine what she would advise our Cardinals, Bishops and priests today.

(From In The Image of St.Dominic by Guy Bedouelle, O.P.)

Oh, how we miss her fearless and courageous voice and witness! 

Since she no longer walks this earth, other simple folk must step up to the plate. 

Ask for the courage to defend Truth.

Let there be no mistake: THIS is spiritual combat! Arm  yourself with prayer and fasting.