In Ann Barnhardt’s column
of may 11 entitled “He who fears God cannot be coerced by the state. 1”
she speaks with some regard to the coming schism of the Catholic Church, and the movement underground of the original Catholics while the “new” “American Catholics” will conform to the will of the Church of Washington DC.
May God have mercy on my soul; I pray to God she’s wrong.
It would not surprise me. The bishops are united now, but no one has been fined or imprisoned yet. I wouldn’t put it past the liberals, who are fond of redefining words left and right, to redefine religion. Obama already talks of Freedom of Worship instead of Freedom of Religion. If you let gays marry in your church, you’re the approved patriotic church, and allowed to stand. If your church turns away gay couples, and refuses to cover abortion and birth control (abortifacients, really, not your usual condom and b.c. pill) in its health care, then it will be prosecuted under agency law for discrimination.
We see it in China. We saw it in the Soviet Union in the Orthodox Church. We saw it in England when Thomas More (who I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as a result of all that’s building) stood pretty much alone, hung out by the bishops who took Henry’s bargain, in France before Napoleon’s concordant (with the exception of the Vendee Wars, which the Government of France refuses to recognize even today as a counter-revolution caused by the registering of priests into the Revolutionary Church), and in Mexico before the Cristero War knocked back the Mexican Revolution off of the worst indignities against the Church. And it all began over piddly stuff that grew into oppression.
Hell yeah I think the odds are with her instinct with the current trajectory. I wonder what the penalty will be if you’re caught with a Bible or Communion Pyx from an “oppressor” church.
Take it from an Anglican (aka Episcopalian), you do NOT want your church going down that path. My parish has been talking about taking Pope Benedict up on his offer to join an Anglican-rite Ordinariate to escape the baloney going on in the Episcopal church. The ECUSA is why I usually identify myself as Anglican rather than Episcopalian.
When society begins to evangelize the church instead of the other way around, both are in trouble.
Indeed, Mr D.
I look at how many people are willing to completely disregard their faith, and ignore the doctrines of their faith in order to prop up their new Lord, God and Messiah Obama…
And I think that Ms. Barnhardt might not be wrong. Too many people literally worship Obama, and still call themselves Christians. That can’t continue.
Happened to the Jews, too, only after the split (into Orthodox and Reformed), BOTH went into the tank for the secular governments.
It happened to the Latter Day Saints, and now most of the Mormons are happy enough with the stupid edicts that they fought against and died in their hundreds fighting in this country from 1840 on.
The Churches mostly all welcomed the gummint secularizing initiatives. You have to look hard for the occasional church which you know, by just attending a service or two, will be there for you when the government fails you. I’m lucky, I have one such near me, and no, it is NOT a Mosque…