A passive, apathetic electorate is like goldust to a generation of politicians who appear to answer to nobody but themselves. An electorate now as far removed from politics are politicians are from their people are unable to resist even those laws which do not go in their favour. The apathy of the modern electorate allows politicians to pass laws which not only lack a popular mandate but which attract a strong measure of public disapproval. Yet, when the major parties build a consensus over new laws, to whom can a mystified electorate turn? Apathy has bred indifference to the political process. Voter turnout is evidence of an electorate who have lost faith in the political process.
Political activism is now seemingly upon 'soft' issues which work in favour of the political elite. Such issues as green politics and global movements protecting the environment pose no threat to the political class. Instead of 'speaking truth to power' activism is working with, not against executive power. Anti-establishment thought and activism is now the remit of the Catholic Church and its allies, something witnessed by the 40 Days for Life vigil outside BPAS in London. The Church and those of goodwill who support it struggle to gain the recognition of rights whch have been encroached upon by the State. Such rights as the right to life, the right to religious freedom and expression and the rights of the elderly and sick for compassionate treatment which recognises the sanctity of human life seem to be unpopular causes in a land which has embraced the culture of death.
Yet, there is no reason why the tide should not turn in favour of the Church, if the imagination of the people can be captured. Rights grounded in natural law have been supplanted by the promotion and extension of new rights which do not promote human dignity and which have great potential, with the backing of a powerful State, to crush those rights grounded in natural law. Rights to abortion, rights to same-sex marriage, rights to IVF treatment and new embryology research sold as medical advancement do not uphold human dignity. They replace the natural rights of the family, the rights of the married, of the unborn. A proposed 'right to suicide' demeans and degrades the right to life. The right to death for the elderly and unborn makes a mockery of the right to life grounded in our nature. So what can be done to recapture the imagination of a public which feels distant from the political class, which is being bombarded by the promotion of rights which do not even pretend to serve the common good? Education and Evangelisation Above all, the political class fear an educated electorate.
The Church must speak with renewed power and vigour on the rights to life, liberty and freedom for all citizens - the least - as well as the greatest - the weak - as well as the strong. Since the 1960s, the stridency of the Church's message of life and the defense of the common good has been weakened severely, hampered perhaps by the explosive force of the sexual revolution of that era. Since then, the Church's concern with social justice and social peace has relegated its role in society to that of a campaigning force to make society 'fairer'. In the process it has joined forces with secular organisations and even Governments in its campaign for a 'fairer world'. Fairtrade is a good example of this. Yet, the Church exists within countries and communities and nations. While the global issues of poverty and injustice are worthy of our concern, the Chruch's main arena in which to proclaim the message of salvation is the nation in which it resides. Many issues affect families and individuals in the United Kingdom on which the Church has maintained an eerie silence.
The Church's Failure
By all accounts, the Catholic Church in England and Wales has failed to communicate its message, not just to a country but to its own faithful. It is hard to say that the Church's voice and distinct message on upholding human dignity has been heard of understood by even the faithful in the pew. How, then, could it possibly be heard or understood by those who are not even Catholic? Further, in England and Wales, the Church has entered into political dialogue with the political parties in an aim to be the 'leaven in the bread' of politics. By all accounts, this strategy has been an unmitigated disaster. Promise made to the Church concerning civil partnerships, gay marriage, adoption by gay parents and other such promises have been confirmed to be worthless. The gay marriage proposal now puts the Catholic Church in direct confrontation with the State. Dialogue will be shown to have not worked in the interests either of the Church or of society. The Church's view is not welcome in the public sphere - if, indeed, it ever was.
A mixture of political naivity and misplaced trust has led the Church to this moment of history in which marriage itself is to be redefined by the Government. It is time, now, for the Catholic Church not to 'get mean' but to 'get real'. Politics is a dirty business and assurances given can be broken within 24 hours. Integrity has left the political process. Another agenda is driving Government which has little interest in honest politics, representation of the people and the service of a nation. The State is on the march and its sole preoccupation is power over the people. The Church must, for the sake of the nation, present the public with the truth. It must stand up with one voice, with other Churches if necessary, and present, in stark terms, the direction in which the United Kingdom is heading.
The Church must warn the people of the coming disaster and openly condemn the State for the moral nihilism which it promotes in nearly every sphere of human activity - a moral nihilism which serves its agenda only too well. It is clear that, on so many issues confronting the citizens, the State is trying to forge a new set of human values - a new consensus - on society. These new values are insidious because they are aimed at man's fear and anxieities. They are aimed at man's moral weakness and moral confusion. To put it mildly, the people of the United Kingdom are being take advantage of by their own government who work not on their behalf by on behalf of themselves and others more powerful than themselves.
Power Remains With the People
Yet, power is with the people and even if those people constitute a small number, a minority, where there are people impassioned and inflamed by the truth, there is power. The Catholic Church in England and Wales must do three things and must do them well. Firstly, the Church must pray like She has never prayed before. When the Church prays, especially to Our Lady, battles are won. Secondly, the Church must fulfil its mission to 'teach all nations'. It must teach the Faithful the Catechism and insist upon its being taught well. Dissent from the Magisterium has to be rejected and condemned for the good of souls. Priests and Bishops must educate the Faithful. Catholics must be educated in the Faith in order to form a generation of men and women who understand exactly why the overbearing power of the State must now be openly resisted. Bishops must openly teach the Catholic Faith to the people of Great Britain and not hold back.
The soft, politically correct language of the past must be abandoned. It must be abandoned now because the darkness of our times calls for language to be plain, clear and bold. We must recover a sense of urgency, for this is a war. It is a war that is being engaged by the Government not just on the Church, but on its own people - its own citizens. The only way the political elite's agenda can be defeated is by an educated, fully informed electorate that has awakened from its slumber to reject that same elite who care so little for the nation, that they consider the killing off of its elderly and its pre-born as acceptable. For the sake of the country, the Church must lead its own people and the country back to those moral precepts which have served human happiness in the light of the natural law for millennia - in time - and in eternity.
The Church must rediscover Her voice now, before all human liberty becomes threatened by a State which seeks to gain not just acceptance from society, but docile obedience to tyranny. We must capture the imagination of the British public, for despite the country's abandonment of the Christian faith, all human beings thirst for the truth. It is only the truth which can set our country free. For by no means is the nation yet convinced of the State's propaganda - and it is propaganda - on issues of life, love, death and marriage. It is not too late yet for the Church to attract people to the truth of Her message. For if the Church were to speak the truth to power, the very walls of Parliament would shake. Her message, were it to be spoken loudly and boldly would most certainly cause the State to fear the Church once more, for the wicked flee from the light lest their deeds be exposed and proclaimed.
The media may not be on our side, but if the Church were to speak out the Truth fearlessly for the love of God and the Salvation of Souls, how could any newspaper ignore Her? The State has deliberately - note, deliberately - sown moral confusion among the people to the point that any hesitation to agree with the new morality of the State is dismissed as bigotry and to hold a view contrary to that of the State on morality - to contradict the State - means that men and women are derided as anaetham to the State. The State or God? A Nation is to Decide We will only win this battle for the hearts and minds of men and women through prayer and by truthfully witnessing to the Catholic Faith - the Catholic Truth - through our lives and works. The British people do not yet understand the real danger they are in. The authority of the Church has been weakened by its own scandals and by secularism from within and without.
Let us be quite clear of the danger that is posed by the current times. The danger - the grave danger - is of moral authority passing from the Church and the God Whom She is called to proclaim to the State as the final arbiter of justice and truth, of right and wrong, with recourse to no other authority than itself. History tells us that when the State attempts to acquire those kind of powers - powers that belong to the Church by virtue of the Authority of Christ and His Apostles - then the end of liberty itself is not far away. If current trends continue, then it is a matter of when, not if this takes place.
The time is coming when the British people will be asked to choose, once again in history, between their loyalty to the State and a government that holds it in contempt, or a Church that cherishes human freedom, law and above all, love, goodness, virtue and mercy. The British people do not yet understand quite what is at stake over the coming years. If they did, they would choose the Church because the Church proclaims mercy - the most treasurable and loveable attribute of God Himself.
Unless the Church and the people She is charged with teaching and praying for reject the insidious agenda of the Government now, the boot on a human face will be the fate of the people of the United Kingdom. This is the inexorable road the United Kingdom is upon. We must do everything within our power to warn the nation that the Government no longer has its best interests at heart, because they have no objective morality. Any Government with no objective morality will cut corners in defending its citizens from its awesome and unbridled power. The State has no guiding principle other than the aquisition of more power over the people. There is no greater indication of this than the threat to religious freedom, but there are others.
The dismissal of fears and concerns over 'gay marriage', abortion, human embryology and the range of issues that face the people of the United Kingdom confirm that the State is drunk on its own power and now seeks to usurp even the power of the Church - and of God Himself - to define morality itself. We must do all that we can to educate our people and the people of the United Kingdom now, lest all human freedom is lost forever. I hope that this website serves God, the Church and the United Kingdom in alerting all readers to just what is at stake. For what is at stake is certainly souls, but bodies also.
No comments:
Post a Comment