Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

I want to point to a column that Smitty e-mailed me this article concerning Catholics who voted for the healthcare bill at Creative Minority Report. I thought this was important enough to mention here:

There is something very wrong with Catholicism in America when Catholics play such a large role in passing anti-life and anti-conscience legislation. Catholic politicians need to be reminded that you don’t leave Christ at the Capitol steps. They need to be reminded that the issue of life is not negotiable. And Catholic voters need to elect politicians who understand that evil exists and fight with all they have against enshrining evil into law. They must remember that the terms public servant and Catholic are not mutually exclusive.

There are a lot of Catholics who either don’t know their religion or don’t want to know them. It’s true we don’t kick them out of the church, we don’t bar them from the services, on occasion they are barred from communion but that is more for their soul’s protection than anything else.

Yes it is very embarrassing and part of it comes from the poor Catholic education that many got in decades past. Yet we are obliged to pray for them and hope that they will come to both confession and conversion.

The fact that they still choose to identify with the church even as they try to avoid obedience suggests they know the value of the faith. Some of it doubtless is greed and self advantage, but to some degree it is the desire inside, the still small voice that knows sin and wants to keep the door open to redemption.

I have said often enough that if people don’t want to be Catholic there are plenty of denominations out there to choose from but in the end I would love to see these and as many others as possible come home. It is not our mission to discard sinners, it is our mission to save them. As Christ said in last week’s Gospel:

But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more.” John 8:7-11

For our own souls sake we need to avoid spiritual pride and pray for them. With prayer and fasting and the aid of the holy spirit all things are possible. After all the idea that God will forgive their sins is a lot less incredible to me than the idea that God is willing to forgive mine.