“When Will the Catholic Church Come into the 21st Century?”

Crisis Magazine ^ | September 12, 2014 | STUART SQUIRES

[NYer]

Editor’s note: The image above titled “Manifest Destiny” was painted by John Gast in 1872 to illustrate the progress of westward expansion in the US.

[NYer]

Ping!

[Celtic Conservative]

“When will the church come into the 21st century?”

Never. The church is tasked to be in the world, but not of it.

CC

[ConservingFreedom]

When will the 21st century come to the Church?

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Superb essay.

This line stuck out:

Pope Paul VI, in his 1971 encyclical Octogesima Adveniens, said that “the appeal to a utopia is often a convenient excuse for those who wish to escape from concrete tasks in order to take refuge in an imaginary world.”

Does anybody come to mind?

[OpusatFR]

What’s so great about the 21rst century? Thus far, it has shown itself to be an echo of every human ill and wrong doing of the past.

At least the church is a constant reminder that while man’s nature cannot be changed, the church provides an oasis for those who allow God to change them.

[Viennacon]

The better question, what sanem man would want to be in the 21st Century? This is what the Hindu’s called ‘the Kali Yuga’.

[NorthMountain]

Does anybody come to mind?

Just about every "social justice" liberal, marxist, pacifist, and nanny-stater I have ever met.

Also many libertarians.

[cloudmountain]

Since the Enlightenment, western secular culture has assumed that we are progressing slowly toward a perfected humanity. With enough time, willpower, money, technological advancements, and scientific breakthroughs, humanity will be able to claw its way out of its barbaric past that is pockmarked by wars, poverty, disease, and social injustice.

I guess the folks in the "western secular culture" never read any of Abraham Lincoln's quotes. One in particular sums it up:
We can modify human behavior to some extent but we cannot change human nature.

Humanity has always pursued the four "scarce resources." That means that there aren't enough of these "scarce resources" to go around for all.
They are, in alphabetical order: fame, money, power and status.

Western secular culture has "head" trouble: head in the ground, head in the clouds or head up the butt.

Pick one.

[Paulie]

Perfect response.

[Louis Foxwell]

When will the 21st century come into a right relationship with the Creator of all time and space?

[marron]

we should conform our lives to those timeless Truths revealed through the Church in order to enter into a rightly ordered relationship with God, so that, as Augustine famously said, “our restless heart may find rest in Him.”

Excellent.

[Zionist Conspirator]

In recent decades, the dependence of secular law on natural law has been replaced by the idea that there is no independent, objective moral order; moral and immoral are categories that are individually and culturally constructed.

Except when it comes to liberal notions of "social justice," "equality," and "non-discrimination." Apparently these are engraved in a whole new objective, unalterable "natural law" somewhere.

[reefdiver]

How does Islam become a great western religion?

[Jeff Chandler]

Whew! I read the headline and thought our Holy Father was speaking off the cuff again.

[RichInOC]

For one thing, people haven’t changed all that much since the first century. Different clothes, different tech, different toys, they know stuff now they didn’t know then, but human nature is pretty much what it always has been.

Second, so much about modernity is...overrated.

[Ann Archy]

Great art!! Never seen that before!

[Heart-Rest]

" Superb essay. This line stuck out: Pope Paul VI, in his 1971 encyclical Octogesima Adveniens, said that “the appeal to a utopia is often a convenient excuse for those who wish to escape from concrete tasks in order to take refuge in an imaginary world.” Does anybody come to mind?"

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Not sure exactly who you were thinking of, but my own first thought reading your question was "B-O".

(And I agree, this is a great essay.   The author clearly sees these mistaken vision problems existing both outside and inside the Church.)

[piusv]

I vote you “Funniest Catholic Poster”.

[chajin]

This is all just as true for the Orthodox, (non-ELCA) Lutheran, PCA/ARP Presbyterians, Wesleyans, (most) Southern Baptists, Word of Faith...IOW, this is true of all who name the name of Christ, who understand that God doesn’t change because God is already perfect, so God’s will doesn’t change.