The age of bearing false witness
At catholicculture.org, Phil Lawler named the “defining sin of our era”. The Commandment “most conspicuously disregarded in our society today”, Lawler suggested, is “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
It isn’t just everyday lies which come under this commandment; it also applies when a society’s leaders “proclaim a falsehood, and then ask – or demand – that ordinary people do the same”. Politicians perpetrate obvious falsehoods. And it happens in the Church too: many bishops, when confronted with allegations about clerical abuse, accused the complainants of calumny. “In doing so, they bore false witness against honest, faithful Catholics who were asking for justice,” Lawler wrote.
Lawler cited Solzhenitsyn’s essay “Live Not By Lies”, which “argued that if ordinary Russians simply refused to accept the lies of the communist ideology, the corrupt regime could not survive. We now know that he was right.”
Lawler concluded: “Truth is a powerful weapon; light is a strong disinfectant. A culture that bears false witness cannot indefinitely withstand the power of simple honesty.”
The UK: still one foot in the Reformation?
The Pew Forum reported on their recent survey of Catholics and Protestants. “In both Western Europe and the United States”, the disagreements of the Reformation “have diminished to a degree that might have shocked Christians in past centuries”. Across Europe and the US, both Catholics and Protestants believe their similarities outweigh their differences. The only exception Pew found was UK Catholics, who believe that Catholicism and Protestantism are more different than similar.
The researchers found low levels of practice and of traditional belief among both Catholic and Protestant communities. However, “pockets of religiosity” survive amid secularisation. “For instance, the Netherlands has a relatively high level of disaffiliation, with about half of Dutch adults (48 per cent) describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’ religiously.
Yet Dutch Protestants also stand out for some of Europe’s highest reported levels of church attendance, with 43 per cent saying they go to church at least once a week.”
Religions of karma and of grace
At ncregister.com, Bishop Robert Barron reflected on a claim made by the philosopher Stephen Davis that there are “two basic approaches” to religion. One approach is karma: “we are punished or rewarded according to our moral activities”. The other is grace: “all people are sinners and hence deserving of punishment, but … God, out of sheer generosity, gives them what they don’t deserve.”
It’s true that this gift isn’t given to everyone – but as many Christian thinkers have pointed out, “no one deserves anything”. Moreover, “The whole point of receiving the divine life is to give it away in turn.”
✣Meanwhile…
✣ It may not quite measure up to the religious conflicts of the past. But differences between Catholics and Mormons came to the surface last week when a Catholic parish fell foul of Utah’s Mormon-inspired laws on alcohol. St John the Baptist church in the town of Draper was fined $600 by the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, after volunteers at a parish event consumed some of the alcohol as well as serving it, the Catholic News Agency reported.
✣ Among the musicians who are performing during Pope Francis’s visit to Colombia is Sister Maria Valentina, a nun who moonlights as a rapper. The great thing about rap is its memorability, she told AFP; “and when it has the depth of a truth, like Christ, then it’s even more striking”. Her ambition, she says, is “to be a good religious”. The music comes second. “More than wanting people to fall in love with my voice, I want them to fall in love with Jesus.”
✣ The earliest known Latin commentary on the Gospels has been published in English. The commentary, by Italian bishop Fortunatianus of Aquileia, was widely thought to have been lost or destroyed, but was discovered by a researcher at Cologne Cathedral in 2012.
✣The week in quotations
I think it would be good for them to make a critical study on the Koran, as we did with our scriptures Pope Francis on the Muslim world in a new book-length interview Vatican Insider
Some of the greatest Christians I know are people who don’t actually have a faith system Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago Face to Faith podcast
Listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Joint message on the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
✣Statistic of the week
78 Percentage of Italians who are Catholic (but only 25 per cent go to weekly Mass) Source: Pew
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