The liberal news blog Crooks and Liars gets its claws into Pope Benedict’s recent statement blaming the 70′s for pedophilia. Any conservative Catholics feel like going into the lion’s den on this one? I sure don’t.
I find the commentariat there hostile, yet illuminating. Is it a good reason why the “new evangelization” is focusing on inactive Catholics? Who knows? That’s not how I remember John Paul II’s call to “cast into the deep.” The deep includes people who are much more than faithful Catholic skeptics like me. These people are hostile to the Church, and hostile because of the perception of institutional immorality.
These folks are still covered under the mandate of the Great Commission. Anybody interested in going Matthew 28:16-20 on them?
1 January 2011 at 9:54 am
Some years ago my wife and I were sent by our pastor to an Alpha Conference. Although we were impressed by the sincerity and genuine charity of the C of E clergy who founded Alpha, we were totally turned off by the attitude of the “Alpha for Catholics” presenter.
His attitude was one of contempt for Alpha or any sort of “heart trip” evangelization. Alpha was presented as one of many tools to get’em in RCIA, get ‘em learning the Catechism, get’em listening to and obeying whatever the Pope and Bishop said.
I expect the top down approach to evangelization we’ll get will be similar in approach to that. It’ll work fine for those who want certainty and discipline I suppose. Those types are most likely outside the sphere of “fallen away Catholics.” We’ll see how it goes.