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RC Abp. Charles Chaput<\/p><\/div>Spisske Podhradie, Slovakia, Aug 25, 2010 \/ 05:48 am (CNA<\/a>)<\/span>.- Addressing the first session of the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver called for Catholics in America and Europe to oppose the rise of a \u201cstate-encouraged atheism\u201d which reduces religion to \u201can individual lifestyle accessory\u201d incapable of influencing the world. The archbishop exhorted Christians to respond to these trends by rediscovering their historic faith as the only sound basis for a just society.<\/p>\n
Recalling the historical experience of the Slovakian Church under Communism, Archbishop Chaput told the assembly of Central European bishops and canon lawyers that Christians are being called today to defend the Church’s own rights, and the rights of all people, against the \u201ccivil religion\u201d of relativism. <\/p>\n
Like Communism, he explained, today’s secularist ideology envisions \u201ca society apart from God\u201d where \u201cmen and women might live wholly sufficient unto themselves,\u201d sharing no higher guiding principle than \u201csatisfying their needs and desires.\u201d<\/p>\n
This seemingly benign vision, he warned, leaves no place for the Church’s work of evangelism, teaching, and activism. <\/p>\n
The Denver archbishop also underscored the difference between \u201cfreedom of worship\u201d and the \u201cfreedom of religion,\u201d noting that the former is a \u201cmuch smaller and more restrictive idea\u201d in which religion has a place \u201cbut only as an individual lifestyle accessory.\u201d On the other hand, \u201cfreedom of religion\u201d includes \u201cthe right to preach, teach, assemble, organize, and to engage society and its issues publicly, both as individuals and joined together as communities of faith.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Citing legislation and court decisions in America and Europe, the archbishop detailed an ongoing shift in western societies, from a non-sectarian public policy of broad religious tolerance, to an overtly anti-religious form of government which attacks religion in the name of tolerance. <\/p>\n
A comprehensive attack on religious freedom, and specifically upon Christianity, the archbishop explained, has already begun. He told the Slovakian audience that this attack promotes an \u201caggressively secular political vision and a consumerist economic model.\u201d Its end goal, he said, is to replace God and the Church with technology and social engineering.<\/p>\n
According to Archbishop Chaput, one example of this increasing official hostility against the Church could be seen in the June 2010 raid on the Palace of the Archbishop of Brussels, in which bishops were detained without due process and tombs belonging to two cardinals were desecrated. <\/p>\n
In light of such events, he warned, \u201cthe Church’s religious liberty is under assault today in ways not seen since the Nazi and Communist eras.\u201d <\/p>\n
The cornerstone of a Catholic and Christian response to these assaults should begin with personally trusting in Christ, he advised. \u201cA Catholicism of resistance,\u201d he added, \u201cmust be based on trust in Christ’s words: ‘The truth will make you free’.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trust in the power of truth gave many Eastern European dissidents their unique \u201cinsight into the nature of totalitarian regimes,\u201d he reminded his listeners, drawing special attention to the words of the Czech leader Vaclav Havel, who maintained the key to resistance was in \u201cliving in the truth.\u201d <\/p>\n
When it comes to how Catholics today should view their \u201cdiscipleship and mission,\u201d the Denver prelate said they should see it precisely as ‘Living in the truth.’<\/p>\n
A truthful way of life, according to Archbishop Chaput, rejects attempts to hide unacceptable realities behind acceptable words: \u201cLiving within the truth also means telling the truth and calling things by their right names.\u201d It also requires Christians to expose falsehoods foisted upon the public, \u201cexposing the lies by which some men try to force others to live.\u201d <\/p>\n
The greatest falsehood of contemporary times, the archbishop argued, is that civilization can exist on a completely autonomous, agnostic basis, \u201cas if God does not matter and as if the Son of God never walked this earth.\u201d <\/p>\n
Forms of humanism which exclude God from public life, he asserted, cannot protect the dignity of human beings. \u201cOur most cherished values, cannot be defended by reason alone, or simply for their own sake.\u201d <\/p>\n
He explained that human dignity and rights must be understood as God-given personal attributes, according to the dictates of Christian revelation. Otherwise, human rights become merely the \u201carbitrary conventions of men and women,\u201d which the state can take away at will.<\/p>\n
In this context, Archbishop Chaput explained, the legality of abortion can be understood as an indicator of secular society’s deepest contradictions. What began as an unassuming philosophy of \u201clive and let live\u201d becomes warped into a license to kill: \u201cThe will to power of the strong is given the force of law to kill the weak.\u201d <\/p>\n
Such contradictions, according to the archbishop, display \u201ca kind of ‘inner logic’ that leads relativism to repression.\u201d \u201cThe dogma of tolerance,\u201d he explained, \u201ccannot tolerate the Church’s belief that some ideas and behaviors should not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archbishop Chaput warned that when societies forbid the public proclamation and active expression of religious truths, they inevitably end up exalting the power of the state. \u201cA society where faith is prevented from vigorous public expression,\u201d he said, \u201cis a society that has fashioned the state into an idol. And when the state becomes an idol, men and women become the sacrificial offering.\u201d <\/p>\n
Drawing his words to a close, Archbishop Chaput told his Slovak listeners, only a \u201cbelieving community of resistance\u201d can present and defend the truth in a world of enforced public nihlism. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are ambassadors of the living God to a world that is on the verge of forgetting him,\u201d the archbishop recalled. \u201cOur work is to make God real; to be the face of his love; to propose once more to the men and women of our day, the dialogue of salvation.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here is a man who understands the problem. Spisske Podhradie, Slovakia, Aug 25, 2010 \/ 05:48 am (CNA).- Addressing the first session of the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver called for Catholics in America and Europe to oppose the rise of a \u201cstate-encouraged atheism\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7552,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7550\/revisions\/7552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}