By DEACON MIKE MANNO
(The Wanderer) A couple of years ago, while
we were engaged in some turbulent times in our nation, I remember there was a
priest who called for heroic Catholicism during those difficult times. I
mentioned it in a homily I gave at the time, but have heard very little about
it since.
I’m now given to wonder if
there is any heroic Catholicism. I say that because I am completely dismayed
how we Catholics have reacted to the political and religious “wars” being
fought in our midst. It seems that too many have taken an easy path to
Catholicism, the “go along to get along approach.” We see forcible church
closings, gender indoctrination of our children, a Catholic president who is
championing the cause for abortion, and so it goes on and on.
Recently I’ve had two
encounters with Catholic friends who shrug off the immorality of abortion on
demand, the new transgender culture, and attacks on churches, including the
Little Sisters of the Poor, as nothing to be concerned about. And to cap it
off, they degraded my views as inconsequential and non-Christian (one even told
me, “I used to respect you”) while all the time cheering on the socialists’
victories in Georgia.
Certainly this was not heroic Catholicism, not as I understand it anyway. But
beyond that, it raises the question: What is heroic Catholicism? And what
happens when we do not live as heroic Catholics?
Nearly 90 years ago the National
Socialist (Nazi) Party, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, took control of
Germany. It obtained that control legally, but once in power it began its
diabolical rule, stifling dissent, arresting clerics, harassing Jews, and
replacing the worship of God with the cult of Adolf; and it did so rather
easily as too many Germans were afraid to speak up. This gave rise to Martin
Niemoller’s chilling poem, First they came for the Jews….
At about that same time, a
Lutheran theologian in Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, did speak up. In 1937,
before the outbreak of hostilities, he wrote a book, The Cost of Discipleship, in which he opined that when Christ
calls, He bids you to die with Him. In the first chapter of that book, he
discusses what he calls “cheap grace,” where he describes Christians who, while
believers, are lackadaisical in their faith. He writes:
“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. . . . The sacraments, the
forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut
prices. . . . Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we
suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been
paid, everything can be had for nothing. . . .
“Cheap grace means grace as a
doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a
general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God. And
intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure
remission of sins. . . . In such a church the world finds a cheap covering for
its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered
from sin.
“Cheap grace means the
justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.
“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,
Baptism without Church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution
without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace
without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Then he turns to what he terms
“costly grace.” It is, he writes, “the treasure hidden in the field; for the
sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has….It is the kingly rule
of Christ, for the sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble,
it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and
follows Him.
“Grace is costly because it
compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow Him,” he writes. What
he is talking about here is heroic Christianity. A Christianity that does not
slump and bend to the world, but faces it, even in times of great crisis.
Even though Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran, he was not anti-Catholic. In fact, he
had a great admiration for the Church and had once briefly considered
conversion. He spent much of his time in 1923 in Rome, attended Mass daily, and
even had his own missal. Much of his time writing was done in Catholic
monasteries where he actively engaged the monks in theological discussions.
In one of his monastery books, Ethics, he wrote about abortion: “The
simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that
this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that
is nothing but murder.”
Eric Metaxas, author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,
told Catholic News Agency in 2012, “Bonhoeffer’s relevance to us today is
staggering, and I confess that when I began writing the book I had no idea I
would stumble over so many powerful parallels to our own situation. The story
of Bonhoeffer is a primer on the burning issue of what the limits of the state
are.” What Bonhoeffer faced at the time was that the “state was trying to take
over the German church and only a few brave souls like Bonhoeffer were up to
the battle. We would do well to take our lead from him in our own battle on
that front,” Metaxas said.
Heroic Catholicism is standing
up for your faith, defending it even when unpopular to do so. And now it is
needed more than ever, for as the prophet wrote centuries ago: “Right is repelled, and justice stands far
off. For truth stumbles in the public square, uprightness cannot enter. Honesty
is lacking and the man who turns from evil is despoiled” (Isaiah 59:14-15).
Does that describe today?
Of course we have to pray;
this is not the time to shrink from that. But as the old adage says, pray like
everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on you. Reach back
for that costly grace and get out of your comfort zone, speaking up even when
you voice a minority position.
On April 9, 1945, while the
Reich was collapsing, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was taken by the Black Guards, at the
direct order of Heinrich Himmler, and hung at Flossenburg Concentration Camp as
an enemy of the state.
(You can reach Mike at:
DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 10 CT on Faith On
Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
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