I have been waiting for the video of the closing “liturgy” of the L.A. Three Days of Darkness … Religious Ed Congress.
In looking for it, I found a video of a talk by my friend the nearly ubiquitous John L. Allen, Jr. (who alas still writes for the National catholic Fishwrap).
Allen gives a REALLY good talk about the world-wide war being waged on Christians.
While you listen, remember that even though this isn’t the topic of Mr. Allen’s talk, more people are being killed world-wide by abortion.
Do listen to this. (When he gets to the very end, about where he grew up, you can start to tune out. Furthermore, I think he comes to a false conclusion at the end about “tribalism”. While he has a point of unity, he overlooks the fact that some people really do get some doctrinal points wrong. There is no excuse for saying, for example, that abortion is okay or that contraception is okay or that homosexual acts are okay or that woman can be ordained or that bishops don’t have jurisdiction or that Christ didn’t physically rise from the dead, etc. Some people are just wrong, when it comes to certain things. That doesn’t mean we still can’t have common goals, but we also cannot overlook the differences. The last half hour or so is Q&A.)
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Allen says that the defense of religious freedom will be the premier issue in the future.
UPDATE 2050 GMT:
BTW… Mr. Allen refers to Card. Koch. Read something about Card. Koch HERE and HERE.
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The good–A reminder that we need to pray and cry out against the persecution of Christians abroad. This alone makes the video a must see.
Fr. Z said: “I think he comes to a false conclusion at the end about “tribalism”.”
An understatement that brings us to the bad–His “Myth #5: Anti-Christian Persecution is a Right Wing (or Left Wing) Issue” quite frankly, sucks. Here he gives us two people, Dorothy Stang and Bishop Dingxiang and describes their martyrdom. Both are important and worthwhile stories that tell us that yeah, gunning people down in cold blood or denying people medical treatment until they die are bad things and one doesn’t have to be a Catholic or Christian to see that. In other words, while I consider it good that I learned about these two martyrs, it doesn’t do anything for his Myth 5 premise–it’s an unenlightening truism. So what’s his point? Well, he tips his hand in a few places. Notably in his reference to “tribalism” that Fr. Z noted and also when he was characterizing the debates on the new translation as a disproportionate expenditure of time and energy. What he fails to grok is that Christian civilizations is in a two-front war. One is the the direct assault on Christians in Islamic countries. The other is here at home and is what I would call an anesthetic assault which is the subtle weakening of sound theology and doctrine but bares its fangs whenever someone calls for clarity. Allen’s continued presence at a journalistic organ dedicated to pumping out this anesthetic fog is case in point.
“anesthetic fog ”
Good one.
Thanks for this. I downloaded it and cut it with iMovies so I and my fellow teachers can use the part on the persecution of Christians in class. I got it down to about 35 minutes of usable material. I liked the joke about the farmer and the lawyer – I might use that myself.
Is this the REC congress or the “wreck” congress?
I don’t agree with everything Mr. Allen writes, but I know that his book on Opus Dei was thought to be a respectable representation of the Prelature as reported to me by a priest in Opus Dei. He said it had its flaws but was overall a decent read.
John Allen = EJ Dionne