Fortress Catholicism vs. the New Evangelization

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 2:48 am by Mark Shea

Fortress Catholicism vs. the New Evangelization 2014-12-30T02:48:35-07:00 Mark Shea

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I went to hear Fr. Robert Barron last night at Holy Rosary in Edmonds, not far from where I live. He was, as ever, a joy to listen to. Confident. Happy. Full of the best of the intellectual vigor of the Church. Ready to proclaim Jesus Christ, crucified and risen and present in his Holy Church. Unafraid of the challenges our culture flings at it. Happy to have real *arguments* (not just quarrels). Feeling no need to eye anybody darkly if they had some problem with the Church’s teaching but rather to answer them clearly from the depths of the Tradition and fully engage a world that both hates and longs for the gospel. Made me want to walk out into the night whistling and singing. What a fantastically rich Church we have! How amazingly well-equipped to bring the Good News to a world dying for want of it.

Then I come to the Faithful Conservative Catholic[TM] blogosphere and world o’aggregators such as the anonymous bullies and cowards at Pewsitter and what do I find:

Catholic ex-atheist Leah Libresco comes out for gay marriage … more

So: Code red. Circle the wagons. The enemy is within the gates. The mask is off. The Faithful must huddle a little more closely together and shield themselves from the nightmare of Fake Catholics like Leah who are closing in on the Truly True Church with all their questioning and thinking and all that other modernist stuff. More evidence that the whole New Evangelization is another failure of that AmChurch liberal hero John Paul the Overrated. What this Church needs is a good purging, starting with all those converts. What we need to do is tighten the defenses on the Fortress, batten down the hatches, return to 1956 Cleveland Catholicism when everything was perfect and only allow converts in when they have passed a rigorous ideological exam created by the (anonymous) authors of Pewsitter and similar sites dedicated to the Preservation of the Fortress.

Here’s reality: The Church *exists* to evangelize. That means the Church is, in perpetuity, going to be engaged with people who don’t think with the mind of the Church perfectly and are still learning stuff and thinking it through. If you approach your faith as though it is a Fortress to be defended–as though the promise is “The Gates of Heaven shall not prevail against the world”–and your whole job consists of watching everything go to rack and ruin while you labor in vain to restore the Church to some imagined Golden Age then the joy of the gospel is going to elude you and you will become a particularly pitiable antiquarian, but not a Catholic and not a happy person.

It is, in fact, Hell that is the beseiged fortress. That’s what “the gates of hell shall not prevail” is talking about. We have a Savior who answers the deepest longings and questions of the human heart and a tradition that is, in fact, deeply intellectually satisfying. So the proper and right thing for a Catholic to do when it meets with a lithe and hardy mind like Leah Libresco’s–asking real questions out of a real desire to know and understand Jesus Christ as he reveals himself in his Catholic Church–is to give thanks for somebody who really want to know and understand Jesus Christ and then labor together to engage the questions, confident that the Faith really does have satisfying answers.

The dumb and lazy thing to do is what Fortress Catholics like Pewsitters habitually do: order code red on the Impure, batten down the hatches, and tighten the circle of Truly True Catholicism a bit more tightly to keep out yet another of Christ’s little ones, lest the Pharisees be sullied by contact with the Gentiles.

Give me Fr. Barron’s approach every time.

Uncategorized

New Evangelization

Previous Post

January 29, 2013

I love Leah Libresco...

Next Post

January 29, 2013 Prayer Request

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 September 2006 June 2006 July 2005 April 2005 May 2002 April 2002 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz