By Tom Klocek

What happened to us and to the Church? Where is our sense of fearlessly standing up to injustice, relying on the Lord?

We are deeply engaged in spiritual warfare and our leadership is colluding with the enemy. And many of those leaders who are not on the other side seem to be blissfully unaware of the depth of the darkness and danger confronting the Church and the members of the body of Christ.

As St. Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians, “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12)

“The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust.” —Fr. Gabriel Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome

These things have riddled the Church more in recent years with the growth of modernism. We have had the disastrous priest abuse scandals, which still haunt us, especially in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The bishops as a whole waved the white flag during COVID, basically agreeing with the secular leadership (i.e., the leaders of this world) to keep the faithful from Jesus and the sacraments. The bishops have refused to take the politicians to task, perhaps for fear of losing the money stream that they provide, despite the egregious and brazen flouting of respect for the faith (like the 30 “pro-choice” Catholic lawmakers in Congress). “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

We are at the state described by Pope Leo XIII in his 1885 encyclical Immortale Dei: “Where liberty is mistaken as license, the State, troubled as it will be, must grow. The State stands in for God. Some men will try to alter for their purposes the unalienable nature of marriage. The liberty of the Church will be curtailed, for the State will seek, either to forbid the action of the Church altogether, or to keep her in check and bondage to the State.” The lack of integrity and principle among those in government today is giving them license to do whatever they please regardless of the Constitution or matters of faith or any other thing they profess guides them. But then, the Founders told us that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

One of the principles of Christianity is to put others before ourselves. Catholics talk about spiritual and corporal works of mercy. These include things like feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, taking care of widows and orphans, etc., as described in Jesus’s discussion of the judgment of the nations (also referred to as the “sheep and goats” lesson in Matthew 26:31-46). As Christianity in America declines (Pew predicts that less than half the nation will be Christian somewhere between 2050 and 2070), these principles get lost in the process. Historically, Americans have been shown to be the most generous people on earth, helping people in distress everywhere through donations, food, volunteers, and leadership.

Will that continue as we become less Christian? Without Christianity, those principles will certainly lose traction in the political leadership. We see it happening already as many professed Christians in government (large numbers of whom are Catholic) are avid supporters of abortion, gay marriage, destruction of the family, transgenderism, and so on, all while sporting their rosaries and touting their faith. They even claim their faith supports them in these ridiculous programs.

Recently, 30 Catholics in Congress claimed their support of these destructive policies was following Catholic teaching, citing, out of context, one or two sentences from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and writings of Pope St. John Paul II (JPII). At the same time, they totally ignored numerous CCC articles that categorically say they are in the wrong.

For example, Article 2088 notes, “There are various ways of sinning against faith: Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief.” (All you “cafeteria Catholics” take note — this applies to you, too.) And the JPII document they cited (Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici) specifically states: “The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry … on behalf of human rights … is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.” (Emphasis added.)

And where are the bishops? Apparently they are afraid of losing stature or funding or political clout, as their attempts to correct these wayward politicians have been feeble. Those priests and bishops who speak out on these issues get shushed and silenced. Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas, gets a visit from the Vatican because of his outspokenness. Bishop McElroy, who is deep in the ways of the world, gets promoted to Cardinal. The pope still allows the German bishops to pursue their synodal way without rebuke.

Admonishing the sinner is one of the spiritual works of mercy (CCC 2447). Where are the church leaders who follow in the footsteps of such historic figures as Nathan the prophet who challenged the king of Israel, King David (of David and Goliath fame), when he did wrong? “Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight?” (2 Samuel 12:9) St. Catherine of Sienna challenged the pope and shamed him into returning to Rome. And St. Ambrose, at a time when persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor was not a distant memory, when notified of an unspeakable atrocity committed by the Christian emperor (Theodosius), “urged him to repent publicly for his crime” (M. D'Ambrosio, When the Church was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers). Ambrose required the emperor to do public penance before being readmitted to the Blessed Sacrament. Theodosius did several months of public penance outside the church as Ambrose demanded.

St. Augustine learned well from the man who baptized him: “If the sin is private, correct the sinner in private. If it is public and manifest, apply the correction in public so that the sinner may be led to betterment and others may conceive a salutary fear.” (New Testament Sermon No. 33)

And yet, when Archbishop Cordileone, after years of attempting to counsel Nancy Pelosi, tells her not to present herself for communion until she repents of her avid pro-abortion stance, he is criticized by Pope Francis as not being “pastoral.” This serious lack of discipline and adherence to the tenets of the faith, especially by Church leadership, is causing confusion among the laity. We see priests who avidly defend the faith being admonished by their bishops and even removed from their posts. The lack of correcting the wayward politicians causes people to ask what is truly important about Church teaching. The Church laments the low numbers of converts (in the West) but fails to stand firm on its principles, thus showing the world apparent weakness. “When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

Ambrose has been quoted as saying, “Carry me to prison or to death, I will not resist; but I will never betray the church of Christ.” All ordained ministers of the Church make an oath saying they would be willing to die for Christ, yet today it seems they are more inclined to live by the culture of the world. How many today would take the step of martyrdom?

“One cannot do evil that good may result from it.” (CCC 1761, 1789)