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<\/a>With stern words Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois warned Catholic politcians last Friday that any collaboration with “assaults against the faith” would one day face the judgment of God. Orthodox bishops should take notice.<\/p>\nThe report states:<\/p>\n
\nWhen asked specifically about recent actions of Democratic Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius Kathleen Sebelius and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Bishop Jenky replied \u201cI am utterly scandalized.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lord once said \u2018if you deny me at the end, I will deny you,\u2019 this from our most merciful, good Savior. And so if it is a choice between Jesus Christ and political power or getting favorable editorials in leftist papers, well, that\u2019s simply not a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Some leaders in the Catholic Church compromised with secular politicians for many decades, just as Orthodox leaders have done. The difference is that the Catholic Church remained clear about the moral precepts protecting innocent life while in some (fortunately rare) cases Orthodox leadership muddied the tradition to curry favor with the politicians. The cost has been incalculable. Today resistance is the only option says Bp. Jenky:<\/p>\n
Determined secularists see the Catholic Church as the largest institutional block to a completely secularized society and not for the first, and probably not for the last time, we\u2019re under assault,\u201d he said drawing parallels with the anti-Catholic \u201cKulturkampf\u201d in late 19th century Germany or the anti-clerical laws in France in the early 20th century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He’s right. If the Catholic Church can be silenced, then the largest impediment to the secular advance is removed. Christians of other communions will also be silenced under the rubric of tolerance, open-mindedness, and more recently public health (Obamacare). When the voice is silenced, then the precepts the Christian moral tradition can be erased from the historical memory. Western Christendom will slip into unimaginable darkness, worse than the catastrophe from which East Christendom is emerging.<\/p>\n
The Manhattan Declaration<\/a> anticipated conflicts of the type we see today between the Obama Administration and the Catholic Church. It warned all Christians that a time was coming when the denial of God at the heart of secular ideologies would force the Christian into a choice: either abandon the Christian faith or resist the ideology. <\/p>\n
That time has come. All Christians who know that Christ has indeed risen from the dead and that death has been overthrown, become brothers against the ideas that exalt death as a tool of social progress. The Catholic is my brother, as is the Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, Pentecostal, Methodist, Jew, and anyone else who chooses life over barbarism. <\/p>\n
Note too that some Orthodox bishops signed the Manhattan Declaration. They understand what the Christian religion gives the culture, and what a culture without Christianity would be like. <\/p>\n
God bless and protect the Catholic Church. God bless and protect us. <\/p>\n
Related articles:
\nSenators Sarbanes and Snowe Betray the Moral Heritage of the Orthodox Christian Faith<\/a>
\nA patriarch who \u2018generally speaking, respects human life\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n