Today, so many things that used to be considered evil are now part of the mainstream culture. Let’s take a look at some of these abominations.
Abortion
This horror has been legalized in America since January 22, 1973. In a strange judicial decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, Roe vs. Wade established for the very first time in America that our Constitution guarantees each American the “right to privacy.” Now this right to privacy is invisible in the Constitution, as it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the document, such as the enumerated Right to Life is in the Declaration of Independence. But the Justices found it in there, somehow, and used it as a point of departure to then say that women now have a right to kill their unborn baby. All of this fuzzy leap of logic leaves most intelligent people scratching their heads, since there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution either. To the Catholic Church, it looks like a predetermined outcome was justified with judicial ju-jitsu, so to speak.
Today, with mandatory GPS tracking devices on all new cars sold, NSA snooping on our cell phone calls, and the government taking over the Internet through FCC fiat, is there really any more privacy in America? Of course there isn’t! So now that we no longer have a de facto right to privacy anymore, maybe the Supreme Court could act more like the Supreme Being and do away with this infanticide. We may have already killed off the person, through abortion, who would have discovered a cure for cancer, or who could have saved us from nuclear war in 2050. The devil so hates the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and not of him, that he attacks the fruit of the womb in the womb itself, a place that Jesus Himself sanctified as being holy by living there for nine months.
Even the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” or the “Didache” from the first century, warns against abortion in Chapter Two. (Back then, there were drugs from plants which were used to abort children).
Homosexuality
Same sex attraction has been in the world since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, as referenced in the Old Testament. As Catholics, we are called to love homosexuals and to pray for them, but that doesn’t mean that we have to go along with their agenda. Both Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality, not because of “a lack of hospitality” to the angels, as the current propaganda might have you believe.
The Bible says in Genesis 19:4-5 that the men of the city demanded that the male visitors to Lot’s house come out so that they may “know them.” In a really weird reply, Lot even offered his two daughters to the mob, but the male mob refused them, preferring the men instead. In the New Testament book of Jude 1:7 says that Sodom and Gomorrah engaged in unnatural lust and served as an example to us by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
How many people today “go along to get along” with the radical homosexual agenda by embracing so-called “homosexual marriage?” A Lot (pardon the pun!). It is never a virtue to embrace sin; rather, it’s a vice. Satan has disguised this radical agenda, which mocks God’s very first covenant with mankind, marriage (Adam and Eve), as being a civil rights issue instead of a moral issue. The radical homosexual movement also mocks the covenant with Noah, by using a rainbow flag as their standard. The Bible also says in 2 Peter 3:10 that the world ends in a fire. In my opinion, it’s because nations are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah, and therefore, we will eventually have the exact same punishment.
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
President George W. Bush opened this can of worms when he allowed embryonic stem cell research on stem cell lines from aborted babies that already existed. President Obama has since enlarged the scope of this Dr. Mengele–like research by allowing embryonic stem cell research on existing and newly aborted baby tissue.
For the record, the Church does allow research from adult stem cells. This research has proven to be fruitful. In spite of pleas from Hollywood stars that embryonic stem cell research from aborted children holds the key to cures for disease, to date, this statement has proven to be totally false.
Assisted Suicide
The Hemlock Society has been very powerful in several states promoting their “right-to-die” philosophy. Doctors who once took the Hippocratic Oath to “Do No Harm” now help depressed and terminally ill people to kill themselves. Of course, God says “Thou shalt not kill” (innocent life), but many “modern” Americans could care less about what God has commanded.
God uses the dying process and suffering to prepare us for heaven and to reduce our purgatory time, and thus by thwarting His holy will by suicide, we may just be condemning ourselves to either hell or a very long purgatory. Life is His to give, and it is His to take. In the 2005 case of Terry Schiavo, assisted suicide morphed from giving poison to dying patients to kill them into denying patients food and water. This end-of-life treatment is a classic example of Satan’s temptation to Adam and Eve to “be like gods,” deciding when and how we and others shall die, instead of letting God decide.
Artificial Contraception
Artificial contraception was once considered sinful for all religions, until 1930, when the Anglican Church declared it not be sinful. Since then all Protestant churches have downgraded this former sin to now be considered good. God told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply.” To reemphasize this, he also told Noah and his wife the same thing. So many couples want to limit the number of children they have, not trusting in Almighty God to give them the right number of children at the right time in their lives. Rather, they prefer to trust in chemicals and/or latex instead.
God loves children, and he created sex so that as a result, we could have children. God even says in Psalm 127 that “happy is the man who has a quiver full of sons.” Of course, artificial contraception gives a lot of men and women license to fool around and not to have to suffer “the penalty” (as our current President said) of having a baby. However, artificial contraception is not 100% foolproof, and so abortion has become the backup plan for the failure of artificial contraception. In fact, in every country where artificial contraception became legal, abortion was soon legalized as well.
Summation
There are other numerous issues that the modern world now considers to be good and right, but are not: human cloning, government controlled health care, high taxation, socialism, etc. It seems that the people in control of our media have brainwashed a lot of people into believing that evil is good, and good is evil (Isaiah 5:20). It only takes one battery placed backwards in a flashlight to prevent any light from coming out of the flashlight. Our society today is a lot like that. We now live in the new dark ages, where journalists, scientists, politicians, and professors all lecture us about how evil the Catholic Church is for opposing sodomy and so-called homosexual marriage, while at the same time they are extolling the alleged virtues of abortion and unlimited sex.
As G.K. Chesterton once said,
“Only dead things float with the current; it takes living things to swim against it.”
Tolerance of evil is never a virtue; rather, it’s always a vice. Our modern day 21st century culture now DEMANDS that we tolerate evil and ignore sacred Scripture and Tradition. Only the very strong among Jesus’ children will survive this psychological onslaught of filth, through prayer, the rosary, frequent Holy Communion, and daily Bible reading.
Now is the time, this is the place, to declare ourselves one with Christ.
As Jesus said in Luke 18:8, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?”
68 thoughts on “Cultural Evils: Floating With the Current”
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Thank God I belong to an FSSP parish with strong homilies that helped me realize how far my thinking had strayed from Catholic truth. I am amazed that Catholics are not flocking to my FSSP parish but sadly, just as I was, the beliefs of most Catholics is being formed, not by the Church but by the mass media. Like me, most come home from work and just want to relax for an hour or two, crash in front of the TV and open our minds to the poison. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago we were shocked by what was on TV but we kept on watching because it was funny and entertaining.
So the 15 minutes the priests have to combat the evil infecting our minds, is wasted on the same ‘social’ message that we have heard hundreds of times before and no help in fighting Satan.
Why aren’t Catholics flocking to the FSSP parish, because it is too ‘hard’, the priest expects to much of me, it makes me feel uncomfortable? Oh, yes, unlike most parishes, almost every FSSP parish in the world is growing and growing fast but I see people come once or twice and never return. I ask them why and they give me the reasons above. Yes, it is easier to fit into Satan’s world, relax with a good R rated movie with the funny Gay guy in it, and not let our consciences be bothered. But that isn’t what Christ called us to. He told us that we MUST carry our Cross to be saved.
I had to give up on broadcast television and most new movies. I just wasn’t strong enough to resist the poison.
Giving up poison filled movies, TV shows, the news propaganda, etc, is a small price to pay if we truly love God and family and want to see them happy now and in the future.
I’m not a Catholic, but I am mostly in agreement with this article.
It seems that at an accelerating rate, our culture is abandoning common sense, common decency, and reason, in order to embrace madness and evil.
Pornography should be on the list, too.
Amen to that. Maybe a future column. It’s a subject that easily can have its own article, all by itself…
Very well written, Ray!
Thank you Father!
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Well stated and balm to a weary soul. Bravo!
Thank you Birgit!!
To me, this essay was like an Oasis, a last call in the wilderness of the world. All true, relevant and very well said. Thank you.
Well, THANK YOU Snowblossoms!
No, thank you! I have been just heartbroken and struggling with this blogging and trying to stand up for the Church and Truth and balance this with not attacking the person, while they are attacking the Church and spreading lies etc. etc…praying and ready to cry at times, and then I found your article..it is exactly what I described- for me, and I am sure fr others! God Bless you for your strength and wisdom…and for just having a spine 🙂
YOU MADE MY DAY!!! THANKS!
I can’t remember exactly where, but the old testament even mentions harsh punishment for accidentally injuring a woman in such a way that she loses her child.
On adult stem cells– you give me a chance to mention a delightful counter to the “Catholics hate science” notion, the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute.
http://www.jp2mri.org/
Nobody has to die to provide those, and where not prevented by law there’s some amazing therapies that go off of your own stem cells. (Our FDA classifies most of those as “drugs,” which requires an approval process for each and every case that takes longer than most folks who need it will survive.)
You are correct. Fetal stem cells provide nothing in the way of cures, while adult stem cells have proven to be magnificent. I’m hoping later this year to have some adult stem cells of my own placed in my knees to grow cartilage!
Before I sold everything and moved away from California 15 years ago, I had not heard a homily on one of the above topics in 30 years. I know what it is to SUFFER from spiritual starvation! The worst thing that is happening is that the politically correct clergy is silent on Confession and the Holy Eucharist.
Sadly, John, you are correct. Most priests don’t want to touch hot-button issues in their homily, because preaching about the “love of God” is much safer…
This seems to be a serious problem in most forms of Christianity, these days. The wicked do not want to be judged, and called upon to repent. They want to hear that Jesus loves them, and will forgive them, whatever they do. Too many preachers shy away from telling their flock what they need to hear, for fear of losing followers; choosing instead to tell their flock what they want to hear; leaving them to wander down an easy, comfortable road to Hell rather than guiding them toward the harder road to salvation.
Ray,
Your concerns are based upon metaphysical concepts that the world no longer accepts.
I agree with you 100 % about the fact that the world no longer accepts these principles! Sadly, a lot of people will not make it to heaven because of this non-acceptance. HOSEA 4:6: My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.
“Sadly, a lot of people will not make it to heaven because of this non-acceptance.”
There are two diametrically opposed outlooks on life. One is all about enjoying this life and knowing it is the only life we will have. The other is seeing this life as a test on which we are to be judged to see how we spend an eternal afterlife.
Depending on your outlook, you will see this life one way or the other. I see it as the former and make my judgments and decisions accordingly. This article is biased toward the latter outlook. I guess that’s why they call this blog “Catholic Stand”. Very thought provoking.
Sad for you. Atheists killed over 100 million people in the 20th Century because they didn’t think they would have to answer for it in the next life. My article is truthful, and a warning to all of those who don’t care about what God thinks…
Yes. It would have been good for someone like Pol Pot to fear hell. That wouldn’t make it true. It would just make the threat effective.
True. But hell is as real as Mars, Earth, water, fire, etc. The problem is that some people won’t realize it until they’re there, and then it will be too late to escape.
I look at the evidence for the existence of hell. It starts with ancient myths which I don’t take as being very authoritative. The most compelling evidence is the warnings preached by Jesus. I suppose that seals the deal for you because you place an irrational and unprovable authority on anything that Jesus has been reported to say. That is mostly what you are hanging your hat on. Lastly, there are people who claim they have seen or even been to hell. All of this constitutes sufficient evidence for you to believe in hell. Also, you fear the consequences of not believing and choose to err on the safe side like in Pascal’s wager. I understand how all of this causes you to choose to believe hell is real. When I analyse it all, I see it as insufficient proof of the existence of hell. I won’t find out anything when I die because I won’t exist but as a memory to those who knew me.
There are too many near death experiences of real people who have been to hell and back for me to ignore. If you go to youtube and search for the atheist HOWARD STORM, and listen to his story, and see his reactions when discussing the reality of hell, it may surprise you. The former atheist is now a preacher because of his experience, and I don’t thinks that’s an accident….
NDE’s involve the abnormal functioning of the brain that can create all kinds of delusions. Who knows what the brain can do in times of stress?
One thing it can’t do is to listen to conversations in the waiting room, and telling the docs about what is on top to the shelves in the ER….
Yes. Even if just one of those stories could be verified, that would be evidence of something for which science has no explanation. It wouldn’t prove that all claims by believers are true, but it would be something.
And they do happen. One NDE’er told the doctors that there was a penny up on the high shelf, which no once could see from normal height…. Hope you read up on them….
Could anyone verify the theory that the existence of matter and life is accidental?
There are laws of nature on which the whole universe operates. Everything seems fine tuned to bring about intelligent life. Events are guided by these laws. A law can be anything from gravity to “you get out of life what you put into it”. The author of these laws is unknown.
Can you explain to me how inanimate matter, such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, became living matter, such as humans, giraffes, frogs, fish, etc.?
The difference between us is that I admit I can’t explain it and you use your god as the explanation, which is not a satisfactory answer. Better that we admit we don’t know.
That doesn’t explain the existence of matter.
Matter is generated in stars and scattered through the universe when the stars explode. Gravitational forces condense matter into planets, moons, comets, asteroids, etc.
Where did the stars come from, and how does gravity exist? Did they create themselves?
Stars also form due to gravitational (and electromagnetic) forces. You believe that your god is behind the laws and physical constants that guide the universe. Other believe it is their god(s). Why does it have to be a god? Why can’t it just be the way it is and that is that? Who needs a god?
This still does not address the existence of matter. It simply tells us what you believe caused matter to gather into the form of stars. You claim that gravitational forces (electromagnetic) existed without matter, it seems. Have you ever looked at a physics book? Do you realize that energy is simply matter at a high velocity of speed? A simply look into physics might be helpful.
One moment, nothing existed. In less than a second atoms were forming and all matter was on its way to becoming what it is today. That is more amazing than anything religion can come up with.
So, the universe was not created it simply popped into existence? But now you are assuming that time existed before matter. That’s not amazing, that’s a theory that cannot be substantiated, especially if one does not know what “time” itself is.
“So, the universe was not created it simply popped into existence?”
Essentially. Has something to do with the Higgs Boson. Are you really that concerned that it wasn’t created by your god? Or anyone else’s god?
Energy is NOT simply matter moving at high velocity. If you’re going to offer physics examples, please take care to get them right.
But the stars are made of matter. Are you saying that matter creates itself? Or do you think that somehow stars are not material?
At the big bang atoms began to form which became hydrogen then helium. Stars condensed and started to manufacture all of the other elements on the periodic table. I assume that this is the matter you are referring to. The Stars became denser and denser until some exploded and sent these elements such as carbon, oxygen, iron, etc. out into space. Attractive forces pulled the elements together to form planets, etc. Before the atoms formed, there was nothing that we would call matter. It wasn’t all squeezed together before the Big Bang. It hadn’t formed yet.
This is funny. The Big Bang theory was put forward by a Catholic Priest.
http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/cosmic/p_lemaitre.html
That’s right. Fr. Georges Lemaître.
By “the world”, do you mean a few “progressive” elitists who consider themselves to be enlightened and somehow more “in tune” with reality than the rest of humanity?
By the “world”, I mean as in “the world, the devil and the flesh”, that is, what religious people like to see as what they battle in this life. I see that kind of thinking as a false dichotomy.
I think you may have us mixed up with some line of Christian thought related to Gnosticism, dualistic in nature and rejecting the good of the world. That kind of thinking is a false dichotomy. Those who maintain it ignore the incarnation of Christ and the beauty of creation (the world). So, it seems you are in ideological disagreement with the wrong folks here.
Perhaps I mean the modern, progressive, secular world that religious people seem to be in direct opposition of as in “don’t conform to the ways of this world”. That is where I see a cultural divide that is hard to bridge with my believer friends and family.
Christians are definitely in the world, but are not supposed to be of the world, that is, taken in with all of the carnal allurements of it, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Christians are supposed to be wayfarers here, akin to lunar astronauts who visited the moon, but would never ever live there.
That goes back to the belief in an eternal afterlife that makes this life nothing more than a wisp of vapor that quickly dissipates. Not a good way of looking at this life.
Go through a graveyard sometime, and look at the dates on the tombstones. Then tell me that life is long in this world.
Obviously it depends on whether you believe the number of days that you live beyond the grave is zero or infinity. Compared to zero, this life is very long. Compared to infinity, this life is very short.
Like the modern, progressive, secular world that created nuclear weapons, put hundreds of millions to death in the 20th Century and still claims that there is really no right or wrong, only how you FEEL about things?
Yes. That is the world we are talking about.
That is the world YOU are talking about.
Yes. That world does not place much value on metaphysical considerations. That is your world not mine.
Now you’re telling me what my world is. I see you guess at things a lot. You don’t seem to know much about physics and you really don’t seem to know much about essence, existence, time, space, matter or logic.
Well. We seem to have gone off on a tangent and gotten into the origins of the universe. I suppose that in your worldview, it is your god who is behind all this. I don’t see it that way. Maybe there is a kind of unexplainable first cause of some sort but that doesn’t mean any religion has identified and described it with any accuracy.
Nor has any secular humanist discovered the origins of the universe, which you demanded as “proof” of Christian thoughts about hell, God and so forth. So while I support your freedom to believe anything you will or wish I also see that you don’t really understand my world view any more than I understand yours.
“Nor has any secular humanist discovered the origins of the universe”
Most of the research on the Higgs Boson has been conducted by secular scientists. That is as close as we have come to unlocking the secrets of the origins of the universe. A stark contrast to opening the Bible to Chapter 1 of Genesis.
As if “The Bible to Chapter 1 of Genesis.” is as far as Christians have gone. Now that’s funny.
Don’t laugh. There are those who can’t reconcile things like evolution with their faith.
Psalms 53:1 “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
The psalmist obviously believed in his god and strongly felt that anyone who does not believe in any god (but particularly his god) is a fool. That is totally understandable. I happen to believe that he was wrong.