Comments for Real Men Love Jesus at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 10 out of 10 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 21 May 2013 02:38:20 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5594 dear brad and all TCT family, i just wanted to send you a Merry Christmas note- to you and all those God our Loving Father has entrusted your heart with while you journey toward Heaven, for those Jesus Christ True Incarnate God and Man came to redeem, for those whom the Holy Spirit the Paraclete hounds ever so faithfully, for the one soul or the many that you earnestly pray for: may this be the holy year for him or her or them to discover Love and be set truly free. I also want to take a moment to thank each worker at TCT for the wonderful effort put forth here. You are each Real Men (&Women!) Who Love Jesus and I am most grateful for each talent shared! I also pray for a change of heart and a deeper love for Christ for each reader/brother/sister. I am grieved at times by the age-old bickering that goes on between human beings who each want to be "the one who really knows" as so unfortunately evidenced by the lack of Faith & Agape demonstrated in the "which Catholic Church" comments often found here. I mostly find them uncharitable, Pharisaical, and quite telling: the authors remind me of the Jews (even the disciples before the Passion) who did not want Samaritans, prostitutes, tax-collectors, let alone any other gentile included in the plan of Salvation. What a shame! May our stingy love, contrition for our own sins which crucified Him, and gratitude for so great a gift of eternal life grow to a greatness, so as to long for each soul to know Him while trusting that GOD KNOWS exactly how to lead each one of His beloved. Joy (not condemnation)is the net by which souls are captured for the Kingdom. St Paul reminds us, "It's Your kindness that leads to repentance, Lord." May Love permeate our being this year and grow us up into His likeness. Peace of Christ be with you. - debby Wed, 05 Jan 2011 05:28:14 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5585 Well said. My own experience tells me the gospel messge has been mis-used so much that many (most?) Catholics and Christians of various sects find it difficult to answer the question, "What is this 'good news' of Jesus Christ that is so important?" And if church-goers can't answer that coherently, then putting a bumper sticker on our car is not going to make much difference. - Bruce in Kansas Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:34:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5584 A nice column, Brad. My main reservation on evangelization is which "Catholicism" is the candidate joining? There are many. I just brought a couple from a Novus Ordo parish who were educated converts from Protestantism to the Traditional chapel which I attend. It was as easy as having them attend one Mass and go to Confession. The reason as they explained it to me: "Why would we move from one "Protestant" church(?) to another?" Clarity. They knew the N.O. was "tinny" immediately. - Bill Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:30:51 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5583 Brad, A most timely and, I suspect, accurate assessment of what may lie ahead. Pax et bonum, Keith Töpfer - Martial Artist Mon, 03 Jan 2011 07:40:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5582 Well done and thought provoking. I sense we are headed in the right direction. You cite evidence of a vibrancy that is new. And there are more examples. To mention just a few: this endeavor, The Catholic Thing, First Things, the election of Archbishop Dolan to the USCCB,the appointment of outstanding and courageous leaders within the church and an invigorated laity that seems increasingly participatory - much like the "tea party" in the political world. Where these trends will take us is in God's hands but there is much about which we can be encouraged. - Ray Hunkins Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:37:58 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5581 John: In no way did I mean to suggest that the Catholic hierarchy should be marginalized in evangelical activity. I meant only that another Roman dicastery (the Holy Father himself has worried about the effectiveness of bureaucracy) may not be as attuned to the media environment and local sensibilities in various countries in the Americas and Europe as are the Americans and Europeans themselves. - Brad Miner Mon, 03 Jan 2011 05:30:51 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5580 Well done, Brad, with a caveat or two. While Lee Gilbert makes a good point that regeneration of the faith should start at home and in the family, evangelization (if that is the right word) is important, too. Internally and externally, we need to be stronger in living our faith. As long as you used a football analogy, allow me to note that Catholicism is mostly "playing defense" these days. By contrast, Bishop Sheen played mostly offense assertion of the good and lambasting the bad (his condemnation of Communism was classic and scathingly effective, for example). He was indisputably the quarterback of a "team" of believers that would never have used the word "ashamed" in reference to the Gospel. If anything, Catholics were "proud" (in the best sense of the word) of their faith, armed with right on their side. Today, however, the Church is seriously splintered and many of its teachings ignored by the laity. (i.e. 80% of Catholics believe birth control is OK, and majorities favor divorce, abortion, "gay rights," etc.) Few go to confession any more, and the priesthood is in shambles. You write, "Few will doubt the need to put defibrillator paddles to the heart of American Catholicism, but I’m skeptical of the need for Vatican assistance." If this because the Pope's moral authority has been eroded? If the hierarchy of the Church is no longer relevant, who is to lead? Do we let the inmates take over the asylum? In reading Cornwell's "Breaking Faith," I find a constant theme that the Pope and Curia are "not listening" to the people enough. It was published in 2000 when JPII was still alive and highly critical of a centralized Church and the pope's unswerving views on "sexology," as made clear in Humanae Vitae. In the decade since, Rome continues to "lose cred," as they would say on the street. Despite the power of the mass media to effectively distort and misrepresent Catholicism, Benedict needs to be more forceful than ever to spread the Gospel, enunciate what is right and wrong, and stay the course that John Paul II plotted so well, much to Cornwell and other liberals' chagrin. Of course, let us all proclaim the faith. Have our say, then shake the dust off our feet and move on, remembering Paul's warning nearly 2,000 years ago: "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." II Timothy 3:1-5,7 - John Mon, 03 Jan 2011 05:15:12 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5579 ottmar: 'Ways' as in distance, "the length of a course traversed or to be traversed in space, time, range of possibilities, or progress toward a stated or implied objective . . ." -Brad Miner - Brad Miner Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:10:17 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5578 "We’re some ways down a cultural decline" How many ways are there in a "ways"?? - ottmar Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:38:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/real-men-love-jesus.html#comment-5577 "One thing is certain: these efforts are desperately needed." Are they? Absolutely I cannot understand this thrust for evangelization, when we are being *de-evangelized* in our own homes and by our own families. Evangelisation, great, but first stop the rot. This is happening in several ways. First, fathers are not doing the overwhelmingly obvious thing they need to do, get the televsion out of the house. And why is that? Because they are addicted to, cannot live with out televised sports, which they prefer to Jesus Christ. Secondly, virtually every Catholic family now has its share of fallenaways, gays, lesbians, and young people living in fornication. Despite this, all these are welcome at all the family gatherings on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter together with their lovers, who also become "family" over a period of decades, without repentance, conversion or return to the sacaraments. This is killing us, because it is against the faith. See Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons, the essays, "Rebuking Sin" ( on page 412 of the Ignatius Press edition) and "Jewish Zeal, a Pattern to Christians" (on page594) among others. Third, parents are not being educated in how to pass on the faith, now that Catholic schooling has gotten out of reach for so many families. In short, the Catholic family has become the primary vector of de-evangelizing itself and the society as a whole. THIS is the problem that needs to be remedied before all else. - Lee Gilbert Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:52:02 +0100