By Jim J. McCrea
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The world hates Christianity and persecutes it. It particularly hates Catholic Christianity and exercises a vehement form of persecution towards it. The world discussed here is the Biblical concept of that which seeks pleasure, power, and material goods, and which is opposed to the spirit of Christ which is that of charity, humility, and self-sacrifice.
Of all the things that a myriad of other organizations or religions do wrong (or allegedly do wrong), you mainly hear about those in the Catholic Church in the mainstream media. You don't often hear of scandal in Hinduism or Buddhism, or where they have unreasonable rules, but much respect is given to them by the mainstream media. It is mainly the Catholic Church that is presented as unreasonable - whether they report something done wrong in Her name, or simply present a half truth which puts something out of context.
For example, abuse happens in all denominations, but it has been almost exclusively reported as happening in the Catholic Church in recent times. This was done deliberately to give the general public the impression that abuse is a problem particular to Catholic priests. It is a strategy that has worked well, since so many have swallowed that lie (not lying in saying the abuse happened, but lying in giving the impression that it is mainly Catholic priests who are abusers by the emphasis given). The mainstream media does this to discredit the Catholic Church.
The reason why the mainstream media, along with liberal elites in general, wish to discredit the Catholic Church is that only the Catholic Church hits the bull's eye of truth. To accept this requires a deep humility where pride and concupiscence must be mortified. Every other religion gives more or less leeway to man's natural fallen nature. No other religion makes demands on the deepest center of man as Catholicism does. That is why other religions are much more tolerated by the movers and shakers in society. The mainstream media even has much more tolerance for harsh legalistic Islam, than the benign authority of the Catholic Church. This is because (as least unconsciously) there is a sympathy with Islam, in that many elements of Islam (as it is largely practiced) are expressions of unmortified human passion.
It is true that most other religions encourage virtue and have commandments against vice, but there are some concessions to fallen human nature within all religions except Catholicism. For example, Protestantism, may do the right thing in exhorting one to live by the ten commandments and accept Christ as one's Lord and savior. However, Protestantism in its essence concedes to man's proud independent nature. It does this in not recognizing Christ's legitimate authority on earth in human form, in the Pope and in the bishops united to the Pope (the Magisterium).
Hinduism, would be tolerated for a similar reason. In Hinduism, the transcendent moral law does not exist in the same way that it does in Christianity. For in Christianity, we submit to a God who is "totally other" and who is completely independent of the ego. In Hinduism, on the other hand, we attain to a pleasant harmony with "what is" through "enlightenment" and discover that God is our deepest self. This may give generous room to subtle pride and sensuality, leading the believer to think that these are the motions of the divine within. If a person is his own standard, then it is possible to justify anything. If we are "one with the cosmos," then the cosmos may be the ego inflated to infinity. That would appeal to modern secular man, and the world would love rather than hate such a concept. That would appeal to fallen man's desire to be God.
Of course, Evangelical Protestantism is despised by the elites, right behind Catholicism. This is because the world and Christianity have two diametrically opposed goals for human life. For the worldling, the aim of life is to conform all things to one's pleasure and to the padding of one's ego. For the Christian, the goal is to conform oneself to Christ. This Christian way may require that one accept all sorts of things that are unpleasant to the self. For the worldling, the goal of life is to inflate the self, and all other things and people are a means to that (the worldling does do good to others, but this is merely good policy. One does good to others to be at peace with others and to have others do good to oneself in return). For the Christian, on the other hand, the goal is of life is to conform oneself to the "other" - to find salvation in a Savior who is other, who is Christ, rather than being one's own savior and pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps as the worldling does.
One of the highest phases of this process of being conformed to Christ, as it appears in the writings of the saints and the true Catholic sages, is in the acceptance of humiliations. This is the hardest thing for human nature to bear, and it is that which the worldling strives to avoid at all costs. However, the humiliations that God sends us in His providence get to the deepest root of our pride and effect a radical purification of our soul. This radical purification is necessary because only when one has become absolutely pure, can one enter heaven (see Rev 21:27). Because of this, purification is the work of a life-time. It is the highest wisdom to "turn the other cheek" and accept humiliations (see Matt 5:38-42), for that is the shortest route to perfection and to heaven (fight only when some principle or positive value is a stake, never when it is just your ego at stake. Be glad to have an opportunity to have the ego killed). Such purification is even the route to true happiness and peace in this life, for it is precisely the impurity of sin that makes people unhappy and destroys peace.
It is the cross, and it is particularly the cross of humiliation that the world despises. Many Catholics experience that their worldly acquaintances find the idea of mortification and self-denial baffling and irrational. To the fervent Catholic, such a thing is a means to make the old man of sin die and Christ rise within them. To the worldling, on the other hand, mortification and self-denial contradict the "evident" purpose of life which is to make all things conform to one's own pleasure.
Most worldlings are not consciously aware of the metaphysical roots of their antipathy to Christianity and to Catholic Christianity in particular. It is the values of Christianity that are registered mainly on the subconscious level of the worldling that provoke such a negative reaction. Often this reaction can be seen in human interactions in day to day life. Much communication takes place on the subconscious level. We often "click" with some people and not with others - and usually we don't know why. At every moment we are broadcasting our perspective of reality and personal values with dozens or even hundreds of elements of communication per minute. And we communicate with others in our social environment with dozens or hundreds of elements per minute - and most of this takes place below the threshold of our conscious understanding. There is a whole series of expressions, body language elements, comments, tones of voice by which information is exchanged between people. Most of this is transferred from the subconscious of one person to the subconscious of another.
What we are mainly aware of on the conscious level is whether we are comfortable or uncomfortable with the person we are interacting with. It is these elements of communication that determine whether we are of the same party as the other person. Often a Christian will click with a Christian, a worldling will click with a worldling, but a Christian will not click with a worldling, precisely because of their affiliation. When we are with some people the words flow with great ease and pleasure, and we feel validated. With others, we feel that there is a wall and we experience a loss of energy and self-esteem.
Why is this? What is it precisely that makes some people click together and others not? There are obvious differences between people that may account for this. For example, highly educated and intelligent people will often click with people like themselves, and low-brow people will often get along together. But a low-brow and a high-brow person may have little in common. We often see people congregate according to the social class to which they belong. Conceptual thinkers (who discuss ideas) communicate well with conceptual thinkers, concrete thinkers (who discuss things and events) communicate well with concrete thinkers, but a conceptual thinker may not communicate well with a concrete thinker. Each grouping has its own subconsciously communicated language in the form of expressions, body language, comments, tones of voice etc. A person from one grouping may have little in common with a person of another grouping simply because this language is different. It would be like someone who mainly speaks English trying to communicate with someone who mainly speaks French.
However, there is a more fundamental divide between people. There is a more fundamental reason why some groupings of people click and others do not. It is their basic ethical stance towards reality. Whether people get along or not may largely depend on whether they have a Christian or an worldly stance towards life. Although people sometimes talk about whether they are Christian or anti-Christian, that is mostly communicated on the subconscious level as discussed.
What is it that is being communicated that makes the difference between the two groupings of people? What does each type of person broadcast and accept or reject on mainly the subconscious level? Even when the Christian is not talking about Christ and Christianity in particular, they communicate on topics of the good and the true. They communicate the *objectively important* or what is important in itself, and communicate their reverence towards things other and higher than themselves. Even when Christ is not being discussed explicitly, He is being communicated implicitly because Christ is the supreme good and true to which all goodness and truth point. Christ is the "other" and the "higher" to whom the true Christian is reverent, and this reverence is reflected in the Christian's attitude to being in general. They do this both in explicit topics of conversation and on the subconscious level.
The worldling on the other hand communicates elements pertaining to the satisfaction of *self.* In other words, their communications pertain to the *subjectively satisfying.* In subtle ways (for the explicit support of selfishness, even for most worldlings, is shameful), the person of the world communicates his love of the fulfillment of pride and concupiscence. While the Christian looks up to things in reverence, the worldling tends to look down on things in haughtiness. While Christian conversation tends to lift things up, worldly conversation tends to tear things down.
Even a marked difference in humor can be seen between the two groups. The worldling engages in mocking "humor" which deflates things - and often traditional values. It is another way of making themselves "God." The Christian engages in the true humor of the incongruous, or their laughter may be an overflow of joy (there is no true joy with the worldling). The true humor of the incongruous is a reflection of the divine because it is a manifestation of a *suprageometric* order which transcends that order normally proper to this world. The joy of honest laughter is a foretaste of heaven.
As a result of this, the true Christian and the die-hard worldling may have little in common. Often when someone converts to Christianity, he finds that he can no longer relate to his former friends and he loses them. This is a strong temptation to go back because he is often made to feel that something is wrong with him. For a while, he may be in a no-man's land (as a test) until he feels comfortable with his new state. Then providence allows him to fit in to a whole new set of people and situations that are far superior to what he had before.
As mentioned near the beginning of this article, the mainstream media persecutes Christianity, and particularly Catholic Christianity. This is because those in positions of authority in the mainstream media who determine editorial policy, are mainly of the world (statistics show that those who work in positions of authority in the mainstream media have a far lower level of Church attendance than the general population). Christians are also persecuted by worldlings on a personal level. Even when the Christian does not explicitly discuss Christ and Christianity, they are constantly broadcasting the values of Christ in their expressions, body language, comments, tones of voice, without even realizing it. The worldling picks this up on the subconscious level and may react to it with hatred. This may explain why a person who is united to Christ might find that someone of the world takes a disliking to him when he first meets him. The reaction is that of hatred because the true Christian is a reminder to the worldling that he does not have the stance towards reality that he ought. His mediocrity and selfishness is shown up. As Christ said:
"If you find that the world hates you, know it has hated me before you. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own; the reason it hates you is that you do not belong to the world. But I choose you out of the world" (John 15:18-19)
But the good news is, this broadcasting of one's state, on the subconscious level of being a Christian, is a form of evangelization in itself. Without realizing it, the true Christian may powerfully draw people to Christ, simply *by being.* If others are of good will and are open, they will be attracted to this. Instinctively the conversation may turn to Christ and Christianity in particular (we should never force a discussion of Christ when that is not appropriate. Protestant fundamentalists often make that mistake). When the discussion of Christ is appropriate, and when the discussion of the fullness of Christianity which exists in the Catholic Church is appropriate, the true Catholic has a duty to evangelize explicitly. For the light of Catholic Christianity is like a fire which first warms others and then makes those others catch fire themselves. But as Catholics, we must always be ready to do our duty to back our actions in life with an explicit explanation of what we have within us. As St. Peter says:
"Venerate the Lord, that is, Christ in your hearts. Should anyone ask you the reason for this hope of yours, be ever ready to reply... (1 Peter 3:15)
** Endnote 1 - The Christian or the worldling does not exist in a pristine purity on this earth. For the Christian, in this life, always has something of the world. We are all sinners. And even the most die-hard worldling always reflects a glimmer of Christ and has something of the good and the true. People in this world exist in a spectrum of gray, from the very light to the very dark. Those whose attitude is predominantly Christian may not get along with those whose attitude is predominantly worldly. Many people are a mix of the two attitudes, and hence are closer together. As a result of this, on a practical level, many Christians get along with many people of the world. However, it has to be pointed out that this spectrum is not a pure continuum. A person is either in the state of grace or he is not . There are varying degrees of venial sin that can be mixed with the state of sanctifying grace, and there are varying degrees of corruption and natural goodness within the state of mortal sin.
** Endnote 2 - Along with the subconscious natural elements of communication of expressions, body language, comments, tones of voice etc. the Christian in the state of grace radiates supernaturally. This is due to the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. This supernatural radiation works in conjunction with the natural subconscious elements discussed. As a result, the true Christian transmits a "full package" of communications of Christ.