April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
PERSPECTIVE
Rights as Catholics also involve duties
I recognize that this is a serious issue and that fighting it would constitute a noble endeavor, but I must choose my battles wisely. It would be a tragedy to lose our civil rights to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy -- but a far greater tragedy (and a current epidemic) is the neglect, by Catholics, of the corresponding duty to perform them.
Consider the following:
• We are legally entitled to pray and sidewalk counsel outside any abortion clinic in the country, and yet most clinics remain unattended by prayer warriors, despite the fact that former abortion clinic workers have said the mere presence of one person praying outside usually causes some women to choose not to have an abortion.
• Our churches enjoy near-total freedom of operation: Masses can be held whenever, the doors can be open whenever and we can have any sort of event we please. Despite this, many churches have daily Mass times only retirees can make, doors locked almost all the time, no perpetual adoration, no outreach to invite the poor in for prayer, no eucharistic processions through the streets and no door-to-door evangelization.
• Catholics can worship and pray whenever and wherever they please, and although we all know the heartbreaking statistics about how few attend Mass each Sunday, we neglect to consider how sad it is that so few practicing Catholics take advantage of our freedom to attend daily Mass, regular confession, weekly adoration hours and so on.
• We can bear any external sign of the faith wherever we please, yet most Catholics seem to have blending in as their modus operandi. Despite the channel of grace for lost sheep that the sight of a crucifix, pro-life message or Scripture quote can be, most Catholics' appearance, cars and homes are indistinguishable from any secular person's.
• We enjoy a great freedom of association; we can have anyone we please over to our homes and can do whatever we please inside these doors. Despite this, it seems most Catholics' social gatherings remain limited to a "safe" group of friends and family, instead of reaching out to the needy and lonely as our Lord demands (cf Mt 5:46, Lk 14:12-14) - and even at those gatherings, we seem too embarrassed about prayer to do anything more than say grace before meals.
• We don't suffer from child-limitation policies that hundreds of millions in our world today do, yet few married Catholic couples choose the path of fruitfulness.
• Parents still have the right to educate their children however they see fit, yet most Catholic parents send their children to public schools instead of a local Catholic school or home-schooling.
• We do not live under a regime of censorship -- the case for so many Christians throughout history and today -- but most Catholics' reading consists primarily of secular news, the New York Times' bestseller list, magazines or, worse, sitting in front of a television.
There are enormous forces for good active today. The 40 Days for Life campaign of peaceful pro-life prayer, the continued expansion of perpetual adoration, the boom of vocations in some religious orders and the great work with the poor that many inner-city orders are doing come to mind. But let's make an examination of conscience: Let us be sure that, before we complain about our rights being violated, we are fulfilling the duties that correspond to the rights we now have.
This is what we will have to give an account of on Judgment Day, not whether we were born in a society friendly to our good deeds.
(Mr. O'Connor is a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany.)[[In-content Ad]]
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