ArchBishop Charles Chaput sees a bad moon on the rise (initial post)
This post begins a new series (our end of summer series) here at the Institute. 
This series raises the question of Christian, and more specifically Catholic, persecution in the West.
The ArchAngel Institute has sounded this concern from our launch — and lived it as well. See the posts gathered under “the whirlwinds” and “refuse, resist and/or rebel”, posts such as this one, as examples of us warning of a coming persecution. (Actually here now for some, as is developed in this post.)
That said, we cannot raise the alarm as eloquently, academically or authoritatively as Charles Chaput, Catholic Archbishop of Denver Colorado. The heroic Archbishop addressed the first session of the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia in August, 2010, prophetically issuing a spiritual call to arms through a speech entitled Living within the truth: Religious liberty and Catholic mission in the new order of the world (here).
According this his diocesan website, the Archbishop“called upon Catholics in America and in Europe to resist the world’s intolerance of Christianity.” Starting with this post the ArchAngel Institute present this speech broken down into byte-sized excerpts with comments from one who claims to be undergoing persecution in America for his adherence to the Catholic Magisterium in the face of repeated questions about the same from the Indiana authorities.
And so it begins …
August 24, 2010 (Spisske Podhradie, Slovakia)
Living within the truth: Religious liberty and Catholic mission in the new order of the world
Charles Chaput, Catholic Archbishop of Denver Colorado, addressed the first session of the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday. He called upon Catholics in America and in Europe, to resist the world’s intolerance of Christianity.
Tertullian once famously said that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. History has proven that to be true. And Slovakia is the perfect place for us to revisit his words today. Here, and throughout central and eastern Europe, Catholics suffered through 50 years of Nazi and Soviet murder regimes. So they know the real cost of Christian witness from bitter experience — and also, unfortunately, the cost of cowardice, collaboration and self-delusion in the face of evil.
I want to begin by suggesting that many Catholics in the United States and Western Europe today simply don’t understand those costs. Nor do they seem to care. As a result, many are indifferent to the process in our countries that social scientists like to call “secularization” – but which, in practice, involves repudiating the Christian roots and soul of our civilization.
I, Bryan J. Brown, executive director of the ArchAngel Institute am not indifferent to the process of secularization in the social sciences.
On the contrary — I have been subjected to it, up close and personal.
My defense of the Christian root and soul of our civilization has cost me two careers and more, the first due to the culture of death suing me through the abortion industry, the second the same targeting me through the Democrat Party (in Kansas) and Indiana Board of Law Examiners.
The story of that second shot is directly onpoint with the good Archbishop’s speech. I could be Exhibit A, in fact.
The Hoosier portion of that story starts here: http://www.archangelinstitute.org/psycho-justice-in-post-modern-america-post-a/
to be continued
