Afternoon Thoughts-Catholic And Christian Unity From A Different Perspective:
A Simple Plan To Heal The Catholic Community
As you know, the Catholic community has been shaken in recent years by a regrettable wave of debate, discord and division.
This
article suggests a way to bring the Catholic community together, a plan
which any Catholic interested in unity can begin to implement
immediately. The solution is simple, if not always easy. When we're ready to heal and unite our Catholic community we have the choice to...
Shift the focus of Catholic discussions to topics that most Catholics can agree with, and act on, together.
Here are two examples of where we might begin.
Unity Topic #1: Catholic Charities
All Catholics, and non-Catholics too, respect Catholic Charities, the Church's impressive public service wing.This
wide agreement is ripe ground for a healing, and those serious about
unity will grab the opportunity to make Catholic Charities a more
central part of our conversations.The army of Catholic bloggers
leading discussions across the Web can help by refocusing much of their
writing away from unresolvable divisive topics, and towards celebrating
and raising money for Catholic Charities, a very Catholic project that
all Catholics agree on.After all, it's hard to make a case that arguing with our fellow Catholics is more important than feeding hungry kids, right?
Unity Topic #2: The Tobacco Companies
As Catholics we are drawn to moral crusades, it's in our DNA. But
too often we have chosen to target each other for judgement, instead of
uniting and aiming our considerable moral warfare skills at very real
enemies who are far more deserving of our attention.The tobacco
companies kill approximately 100,000 of our fellow Catholics here in the
United States each and every year, plus millions more around the globe.100,000
of our fellow U.S. Catholics killed for profit. Each and every year. By
people who are already very rich. And who plan to get even richer by
selling us more deadly products deliberately designed to be highly
addictive, and...We ever crusading Catholics seem to have little to say about it. We should fix that.Instead
of going to rhetorical war with each other, we have the choice to
invest that same time, energy, passion and talent in to fighting those
who are killing hundreds of our fellow Catholics every day. Every time we rise to speak, put pen to paper, or type our next blog post, we have a choice.Fight each other, or fight the devil.A
great many lives could be saved if 77 million American Catholics came
together as one to confront the tobacco companies. It could be Catholics
that lead the charge, set the example, and celebrate the victory.
None Of Us Need To Surrender
Changing
the focus of Catholic discussion to these kind of uniting topics would
not require any of us to change our beliefs on controversial issues.Each
of us can still follow our conscience in our personal lives on topics
like abortion, contraception, gay marriage, Church leadership issues,
and so on. Nothing changes here. Whether we are traditional or progressive Catholics, none of us have to admit ideological defeat. We
just have to admit that repetitive emotional squabbling with our fellow
Catholics on unresolvable hot button topics is not really persuading
anybody of anything. Nothing is being accomplished by all the adamant
speeches. Nobody is winning.We just have to admit that endlessly
arguing with our fellow Catholics is weakening our ability to address
pressing here and now real world problems, where we could achieve
impressive victories, by working together as one.
A Healing Solution
If
we really want unity and a healing in our Catholic community, we just
need to talk about topics that divide us much less, and talk about
topics that unite us much more.It's the very same common sense
plan any of us would use when our relatives arrive for Thanksgiving
dinner. On such occasions sensible families try to skip the topics
they'll never agree on, because debating those controversial subjects,
yet again, accomplishes little but ruining the dinner.If it's
Catholic unity and a healing that we really want, it seems we can really
have it, any time we're really ready. Nobody is stopping us but us.Whether
we are traditional or progressive Catholics, we can rebuild our unity
by working together to expand our support for Catholic Charities, and by
joining forces in a historic moral crusade against the death for profit
tobacco companies. There's plenty for us to agree on, plenty for
us to work on, plenty of dragons for us to slay together. We could soon
be so busy serving others that we'll find we just no longer have time
for arguing with our fellow Catholics.Let's redirect our considerable moral energy towards fighting those world changing battles that we can only win....If we fight hand in hand together.(Article by Phil Tanny of http://Catholic-Unity.org.)
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