Dawkins’ Rage and WYD

Last updated on: August 22, 2011 at 11:23 am by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Dawkins’ Rage and WYD 2011-08-22T11:23:00-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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If I were Richard Dawkins I’d be hopping mad too. This article explains that he is fed up with the power of the Catholic Church and wants to organize a protest. What I love about these atheist-secularist protests is that they are so lame.

The Catholic Church mounts World Youth Day and over a million young people from around the world turn up to be public about their love for the Catholic Church. You know that million represent another ten million who would love to be there. They are young. They are positive. They are smart. They are energetic, and they are joyful. Watch the video of Antonio–a boy “born deaf and near death” for a shining example of what it means to be young, to be Catholic and to be pro-life.

In contrast have a look at your usual atheist-secularist gathering. They’re old. They’re dull. They’re negative. They’re tired and most of all they’re angry. The more they organize their graying, baying crowds of worn out sexually exhausted has beens the better. They make our World Youth Day crowds look like the future. Which they are.

This makes me laugh out loud with joy, for Richard Dawkins in his impotent rage is now raining on his own parade. He is increasingly marginalized as a shrill and incoherent shadow of his former self. Once an eminent scientist his public persona is now of the wild eyed extremist–the sort of irrational atheist who would gladly suppress religion in the name of ‘freedom’, close church schools in the interests of education, and forbid religious education and enforce atheist indoctrination in the name of ‘freedom of thought’.

In the meantime the strength of religion in our society strengthens. The Catholic faith is alive. It is young. In the developing world Catholicism along with other brands of Christianity is vibrant, supernatural, dynamic and socially involved. Every statistic and demographic reveals that rather than dying out, Christianity is on the cusp of a new spiritual crusade.

Call me triumphalist if you like, but Dawkins and his atheist cohorts are no threat. They represent the last gasps of angry old men in a nursing home who feel like life has cheated them, and viewing them in this way will help us with the proper response. We need to treat them like that grumpy old uncle in the nursing home who smells pissy, has egg yolk on his shirt front and does nothing but grouse about the other patients. You smile, take him a Christmas present, remember his birthday and treat him kindly.

In other words, we wish them all the best. If we have faith we have a great gift which gives us everything. Without faith their lives are empty. So we pray for their joyful conversion one day and await with hope the enlightenment in their hearts and minds that only the Holy Spirit can bring.

Viva Christo Rey!

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