ROME — The redoubtable Archbishop Charles Chaput said last week President Joe Biden’s aggressive abortion advocacy mimics the devil’s temptations of Jesus in the desert.
Secularization is not inevitable but people choose it because it’s “the easy and materially rewarding path,” Archbishop Chaput told ACI Prensa, and it has been “a temptation since the devil offered to give the world to Jesus.”
“It’s especially tempting for leaders like bishops and priests in the Church, and politicians in the secular order,” continued the former leader of the Philadelphia archdiocese.
“Catholic political leaders ignore or betray the faith all the time to please their constituencies and stay in power,” he said. “Here in our own country we saw it just recently in the annual State of the Union speech, where a ‘Catholic’ President Biden promised to support full access to abortion at any time.”
Secularization becomes a dangerous temptation when we are enticed “to make peace with worldly behaviors and beliefs that directly contradict the teachings of Jesus and his Church,” he said.
Asked what he thinks about recent proposals from the German bishops to bring the Church up-to-date in its teaching so that today’s world will find it convincing, Chaput said the mission of the Church is not to mirror the world but to challenge it, often as a sign of contradiction.
“The Church has always given convincing answers,” he said. “They’re convincing because they’re true; not always easy or welcome, but life-giving and true. That’s what explains the success of Christianity through time.”
“Getting back to fundamentals is what will renew the Church — not answers that are convenient for the times but violate Catholic belief,” he said.
The archbishop also responded to a recent controversial article by San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy in which he proposed that everyone be welcome to receive communion and that those who actively engage in gay sex should not be distinguished from those who merely experience same-sex attraction.
“Cardinal McElroy clearly and courageously wrote about his convictions. Unfortunately many of his convictions are wrong and contrary to the faith of the Church,” Chaput stated. “I’m surprised — and what’s worse, many good people are confused and scandalized — that he hasn’t been publicly corrected by the Holy See.”
“Receiving holy Communion demands that we first be in communion with Jesus, his Church, and Catholic teaching,” he said. “It’s a lie to receive holy Communion if we reject or ignore the teachings of Jesus and his Church. The first role of our conscience is to keep us honest.”
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