BE PROUD OF BEING CATHOLIC

(Excerpts of an article written by Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland Jewish businessman – not Catholic) Submitted by Dee Lynd

Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church?

Do you know – the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars.   Your graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, all at a cost to you.  To the rest of the Americans it’s free.

The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students.  The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people – not just Catholics – in the United States today.

The Church clothes and feeds and houses the indigent at a cost to the Church of 2.3 billion dollars a year.

But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country.  They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.  Let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and remember.  For example, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact in a study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8% of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior; 17% of laywomen have been sexually harassed.  Meanwhile, 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia.  10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia.  This is not a Catholic problem.

A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.

The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds.  The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not necessarily the fault of the Church.  You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests that have probably been totally weeded out by now.

Walk with your shoulders high and your head higher.  Be a proud member of the most important non governmental agency in the United States.  Then remember what Jeremiah said:  “Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls”  Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions.  Be proud that you’re a Catholic.

Reprinted excerpts with permission of the Buckeye Bulletin – courtesy of Brookside Council #3297, Cleveland Diocese.

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WE NEED MORE DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH

Books, articles, films, TV and radio programs attacking the Catholic Church, or some aspect of the Church. have become a cottage industry. In a country where freedom is prized above all other rights, where ethnic groups like Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans and Asians are treated with respect and criticism is not tolerated, there still remains one group of people, who adhere to a particular religion, regarding whom it is still socially respectable to attack, criticize unfairly, and to demonize. And who is that? It is Catholics and Catholic

Coming out of World War II the Catholic Church, with Pope Pius XII at its head, was admired, respected---and also feared, by politicians because of the power of the Catholic vote.  Around the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), and the appearance of Rolf Hochuth's play The Deputy in 1964, there was a shift.  This was also the tine of the sexual revolution in the West, that is, the popular and cultural rejection of Christian moral teaching regarding the Sixth Commandment. Many Protestants had already accepted contraception, abortion and divorce; during the turbulent 60s many Catholics began to move in the same direction, especially because of the confusion in the Church over the morality of contraception.  The final rejection of artificial birth control by Pope Paul VI in 1968, as contained in Humanae Vitae, resulted in much dissent and division inside the Church because of the widespread refusal to accept his teaching on the part of theologians and cler­ics, plus the lack of enforcement of the doctrine on the part of the bishops.

What St. John in his Gospel calls "the world" is under the control of the devil; it hates the Church because the Church teaches the truth about God, man and the created world.  The secular, self-centered world hates the Church because she insists on the objectivity of truth; in the Catholic view, truth is objective  -  it is something we discover in reality; it is not under man's control  -  man does not create truth.

The practical consequence of the Catholic view is that the Ten Commandments, and especially the First and the Sixth, are binding on all.  Man remains free to keep them or to violate them. Those who keep them will go to heaven when they die, and those who violate there will go to hell when they die.  Let's face it: The hostile world does not want to hear this message. It hates it, dis­torts it and rejects it.

So those who defend the truth are attacked by the secular world.  Jesus predicted that his followers would be persecuted: "Blessed are those who we are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ' (Matt. 5:10). The Catholic Church proclaims the whole truth about man. The "world" does not want to hear it so its leaders  -  atheists, materialists, and bedonists  -  persecute the Church and those who stand up for the truth like Pope Pius X11, John Paul II and many others.

Many Catholics these days seem to have the (false) idea that it is somehow impolite to defend the Church and to refute those who slander and calumniate the Church. When I was in college everyone had to take a three-hour course on apologetics  -  the science that aims to explain and defend Catholic doctrine and morals. With books like DaVinci Code and films like "Luther." in addition to the books attacking Pius XII, we need to resurrect apologetics. We need more articulate Catholics like Cardinal Newman, G.K Chesterton and Hilaire BelIoc to refute the lies and distortions, which are being spread about Catholics and the Catholic Church. We need more defenders of the faith like Dr. William Donohue of the Catholic League and Karl Keating of Catholic Answers.

                                           -   Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor (Homiletic & Pastoral Review)