I finally read Pentin on Padre Pio

Photo: Inspecting the wound in St. Pio's side?  Not sure.

Pentin quoted Padre Pio on abortion.

"The day that people lose their horror for abortion will be the most terrible day for humanity. Abortion is not only a homicide but also a suicide. Shouldn’t we have the courage to manifest our faith before those who commit two crimes within one act?" St. Pio - NCReg.

That quote from an editorial on an Italian church permitting Italian abortionist, Emma Bonino to speak on immigration.  I May have never read the article if it weren't for a friend pointing it out for me.  I totally agree with St. Pio.  The Popes do too - at least I have confidence they do.  Pope Francis consistently condemns abortion, Pope Benedict and his predecessors did so as well.  The Catholic Church does so consistently.  The fact this woman was allowed to speak is out of my control.  The protest against her speech should be the occasion for reaffirming Catholic teaching and proclaiming the Gospel of life.

Strange, I'm not surprised by the fact she was invited to speak.  Odd speakers have been allowed to speak in churches for decades, and the Gospel is proclaimed and error dispelled.  Popes have met with all sorts of 'Gentiles', and discussed political issues, without giving approbation to wickedness or mass murder.  

St. Pio wasn't the first, nor the last to condemn such a complacency which appears to tolerate an evil such as abortion.  I came across a wonderful quote from Alfred Delp, SJ warning Christians in a similar vein:

"[T]he great question to us is whether we are still capable of being truly shocked or whether it is to remain so that we see thousands of things and know that they should not be and must not be, and that we get hardened to them. How many things have we become used to in the course of the years, of the weeks and months, so that we stand unshocked , unstirred, inwardly unmoved." - Delp

Fr. Delp is a prophet for our times, and yet no one listened.

If we are against abortion, or fear it has become an acceptable, tolerable evil, who is to blame?  Fr. Delp wrote elsewhere:

Woe to an age when the voices of those who cry in the wilderness have fallen silent, outshouted by the noise of the day or outlawed or swallowed up in the intoxication of progress, or growing smothered and fainter for fear and cowardice. The devastation will soon be so terrifying and universal that the word "wilderness" will again strike our hearts and minds. I think we know that." - Delp

I too think we know that.  We have to know it.  It seems as if Fr. Delp and the witnesses of the Nazi atrocities of WWII cry out to us:

"Are we prepared to promote conditions in which the living contact with God can be reestablished? For our lives today have become godless to the point of complete vacuity. God is no longer with us in the conscious sense of the word. He is denied, ignored, excluded from every claim to have a part in our daily life." - Alfred Delp, S.J.

And yet so many reject His Vicar and the teachings of the Church to suit our preferences.   Others, like Pentin, spread rumors and unsubstantiated stories to discredit the Holy Father and the Bishops in communion with him, feeding the flames, the climate of distrust.

What to do?

I often repeat the following from the JPII-Ratzinger CDF - it speaks of a similar complacency regarding moral issues:

There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil-statutes and laws. This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups' concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. - Letter to Bishops

That was promulgated in 1986 - how often has that been ignored - to the point that it is nearly completely ignored today?  Just saying.  So what can be done?

There are many, many evils today which we have become complacent about, anesthetized to.  We have a Pope constantly calling us out of our hiding places, from our tombs, calling those of us who take shelter in our comforts, 'anesthetized' Catholics:

"Christian hypocrites, like these, only interested in their formalities. It was a Sabbath? No, you cannot do miracles on the Sabbath, the grace of God cannot work on Sabbath days. They close the door to the grace of God. We have so many in the Church, we have many! It is another sin. The first, those who have the sin of sloth, are not able to go forward with their apostolic zeal, because they have decided to stand firm in themselves, in their sorrows, their resentments, in all of that. Such as these are not capable of bringing salvation because they close the door to salvation." - P. Francis

That's all I have to say on that.  Thanks for making me think, my friends.  I'm tired.