How the Catholic church sees the threat to Christianity

 America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, wrote: 

Archbishop Gomez: The church must confront ‘woke’ social justice movements that aim to ‘cancel’ Christian beliefs 

The church needs to understand these movements “as pseudo-religions, and even replacements and rivals to traditional Christian beliefs,” he said, because “they claim to offer what religion provides.” 

“With the breakdown of the Judeo-Christian worldview and the rise of secularism, political belief systems based on social justice or personal identity have come to fill the space that Christian belief and practice once occupied,” he said.

“We all know that while there are unique conditions in the United States, similar broad patterns of aggressive secularization have long been at work in Spain and elsewhere in Europe,” he said.

The church needs to understand these movements “as pseudo-religions, and even replacements and rivals to traditional Christian beliefs,” he said.  

The Catholic Church must proclaim Christ “boldly” in the face of new secular movements that promote “social justice,” and “wokeness” as the answer to all of society’s ills.

There is a lot to criticize in that. For example, where has the infallible Catholic church been for the last few centuries when social injustice and unwokness dominated America, Europe and everywhere else the church was present? Social injustice and unwokness is precisely what drives pleas for social justice and wokness. 

What was the church doing all those centuries? It was defending and actively participating in social injustice and unwokness. One example, by protecting pedophile priests. Other examples of what the Catholic church provided includes (i) support for hyper-aggressive anti-democratic American theocracy, (ii) taking away women’s reproductive rights, (iii) imposing overpopulation with attendant social and environmental harm on an already over populated, environmentally damaged planet. That is just some of the poisonous fun the Catholic church has given us over the centuries.

Who or what is the Catholic church to have one shred of moral authority about what the church, secularism or anything else can or cannot provide? It has zero moral authority. 

The infallible Catholic church failed dismally in multiple ways but still retains its sanctimonious arrogance about being the only source of aid, comfort and support to people. Why doesn’t the church pay for all the children it forced into existence against women’s will? Why doesn’t the church pay for social security, Medicare, Medicaid and other needed social programs? Why doesn’t the church pay taxes instead of adding tens of billions per year to a staggering federal debt of ~$31 trillion? Why did the church actively participate in the abuse, harsh oppression and slaughter of millions of indigenous people, including children, in North and South America?[1]

Why? Why? Why? Inconvenient questions about inconvenient truths come fast and easy. But the infallible church has no answers. 

Who is cancelling whom? Christianity is aggressively canceling secularism, not the other way around. The list below indicates where most political, social and commercial power in America lies. The church needs to keep this in mind before it goes off attacking secular society and secular social or environmental justice movements the church itself did not help much or at all with.  

The point is this: Catholic church elites and policy in America today are focused on (i) accumulating power and wealth, (ii) establishing fundamentalist White Christian Sharia law, and (iii) demolishing secularism, democracy and civil liberties that God disapproves of, e.g., abortion, voting rights, same sex marriage, protection of God-disapproved people and groups from discrimination. God-disapproved people and groups non-White people, non-heterosexuals, etc. There is absolutely no serious threat to Christianity in America. Asserting that is a blatant lie. Secularism arose naturally because the Catholic church and Christianity generally failed to serve people’s needs.

Qs: What is the threat(s) to Christianity in America? Is it social or environmental justice movements, or is the assertion a Christian lie? 

Why can’t a secular movement or effort serve people’s needs? Is God and religion the only way to do good? If so, does that necessarily mean that all atheists and agnostics are bad?

Footnote: 

1. The Catholic church actively participated in the abuse, harsh oppression and slaughter of millions of indigenous people under a God-sanctioned dogma called the Discovery Doctrine. That Doctrine freed priests to sexually and physically abuse and sometimes kill natives, including children, and not feel bad about themselves. After all, it was God’s sacred work. 

Where most power in the US is concentrated with

religious people, mostly Christians, Jews and Mormons

The White House

US Senate

House of Representatives

US military

Federal courts, especially including the all-powerful radical Christian Supreme Court

Federal law enforcement

Federal agencies

Rock solid constitutional law that protects freedom of religion

State governorships

State legislatures

State courts

State law enforcement

State laws that protects freedom of religion

County and city legislatures, law enforcement and courts

Public schools

Religious schools

Banks and financial institutions

Churches, synagogues and temples

Religious businesses

Religious charities

Media outlets, especially radical right sources

The entertainment industry

A few examples of openly religious companies 

Chick-fil-A

Forever 21

Tyson Foods

Alaska Airlines

Marriott (Mormon)

Jet Blue (Mormon)

Interstate Batteries

Hobby Lobby
ServiceMaster (Merry Maids, Terminix, American Home Shield, etc.)

Mary Kay

Tom’s of Maine

Timberland (Jewish)

Carl’s Jr.

Anschutz Entertainment Group (sports teams, oil companies, etc.)

eHarmony

Wendy’s