US Church prepares to confront evil

The US Roman Catholic Church is going to draw flak for being faithful to her dogmas once again. In an opportunistic and self-destructively secular US where punching the Church is fashionable, about 300 US bishops will vote for consensus on key Catholic issues. This is in preparation for the 2008 Presidential elections there. They will also release a document entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. It is expected that they will vigorously condemn abortion, same-sex marriages, human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, racism, torture, genocide, and the killing of unarmed civilians in war or terror. And it will be the repetition of the same mud-singling from all kinds of anti-life, gay and zealot scientific groups. They will demand that the Church soften her stand on these issues without trying to understand why the Catholic Church is resolute about these issues. Incidentally, the underlying issue is not some grand Humanist agenda. It is just that these groups dare not criticize other faiths for fear of violent reprisal. Like the Spanish government is lashing out at the Church, so will US self-declared liberal pundits will tear the Church apart. This is all for their own career advancement. They will see excessive involvement of religion in the State; they will not bother about the Church’s proactive initiatives in condemning US violence. Simply put, they will fail to see that the Roman Catholic Church is the human face of the US in these present times. This author, by the way, is not a Roman Catholic and does not belong to any of the monotheistic religions of the world. The Casper Star Tribune reports Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sees the forthcoming conference as an opportunity for a restructured Church to hear marginal voices, to get crucial feedbacks from women and men of goodwill who are concerned with the loss of humanity from US conscience. In a world where the US shows unabated aggression, where ideologies serve evil ends and good men do nothing, there such conferences are very important; not only for the harassed US citizen but also for the world at large. The significance and symbolic value of this conference lies in proving the freedom that is so valued in Western society. One can criticize institutions of power and survive. The Church is not a frenzied body howling for the blood of those who want to see things differently from her. And that is the very reason why cowards posing as intellectuals attack her. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the US is a symbol of the dynamism of the Church. Not as people keep on harping, something monstrous and medieval is happening there. The post 1964 Vatican Council Church is an internally enlivened Church. But the interests of partisan groups, both secular and religious, lie in showing the Church in a dark light. If this conference fails, then a blood-dimmed tide will be loosened upon a lost world. Via: Casper Star Tribune Image: Life Site