Forward March, Church Militant!

Below you'll find the opening paragraphs of my article at the new “Catholic Stand” website.

You can read the rest here.

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“The Church must be militant in order to thrive and flourish.”

So said Rod Pead (editor of Christian Order magazine) in a speech he gave thirteen years ago, but which could have been given yesterday. His words ring loud and true. The time has obviously come when Catholics need to be true Catholics. Persecution is practically upon us, and we need to fight for our faith as we have never fought before.

Of course, one reason for our current situation is that the Church hasn’t been militant for decades now. The Church has become sick as we have grown cold and lax in our duty to learn and teach the faith. As Rod Pead said in his 13-year-old speech, we’ve been under the “liberal illusion that we can defend Christ and Catholic truth without conflict and the unpleasantness of raised voices and pointed fingers”.

Sadly, it is in the ranks of our bishops that we see much of this desire to defend the truth without conflict. That attitude filters down to priests, and then down to the laity. And so, we must correct what is wrong in the Church by starting with the bishops.

Does that mean “bishop-bashing”? No; certainly we must show respect for the episcopal office. I’m talking about insisting that our bishops speak the truth boldly and forcefully, without concern for political correctness and “offending” someone. For too many years, we’ve seen bishops teaching wrongly, or failing to stand up for the truth, or simply being “wishy-washy” on Church doctrine when confronted with media pressure.

Read the rest here.
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Check out the new website - lots of good reading!