...young Catholics in their 20s/30s. Enthusiastic, committed to their Faith. Active with pro-life groups, have been to World Youth Days, Youth 2000 etc. Talked about campaigning in the 1970s and 80s...they cannot really imagine a time when it was normal to have Parliament voting to ban the promotion of homosexual propaganda in schools (Section 28 of the Education Act 1988). They did not know the name Mary Whitehouse. They could not grasp the idea that a campaigner for morality on TV could possibly be awarded a public honour like the CBE.
As I look back 30 years, it is such a very different Britain: it was still possible to speak openly of male/female marriage as the foundation for any society, and it would have been impossible for anyone in public life to be taken seriously in proposing that two people of the same sex could marry. Supporters of abortion still felt obliged to preface their speeches with some statement to the effect that abortion was in general regrettable before continuing with "but...choices...cases of neccesity...". And it was still normal to expect that anyone who wanted to be active in public life should not cohabit but should marry, or live as a single person. It's very difficult now to convey all of this: today's young Catholics simply cannot really know what it was like to live in a culture where some moral norms, while under steady attack, were still praised in public. And in our praying and campaigning, we had public support: in the 1970s it was still possible to muster 80,000-100,000 people in London to cheer pro-life speeches and to march to Downing Street, and the 1980s saw huge pro-life prayer-vigils, candle-lit processions, packed cathedrals...
But the 1990s brought Blair and a whole new raft of legislation. People "wanted a change", a phrase one heard a lot at that time. . (And I remember naivety about the Blairs being "a Catholic family in Downing Street" Oh dear! ). The 1980s were denounced as an evil era, and "Section 28" became a byword for oppression and horror. The public funding of contraception for teenagers, controversial in the 80s, was now standard. Marriage was presented as a "lifestyle choice". And as a new century opened, new areas of biotechnology rolled in, seeming almost to overwhelm us: IVF, embryo experimentation, endless and repeated pressure to accept euthanasia, ghastly evidence of its active practice in hospitals...the pro-life movement kept abreast and kept going, but the political and financial waves beat against it relentlessly...
Young Catholics today tend to assume that the future will include some active persecution of the Church.They feel alienated from most officialdom, having grown up in a world where Government is associated with "gay rights" and promotion of abortion and so on. They tend to see the Church as confident: this is the John Paul II/Benedict generation, which rather relishes a counter-cultural Church and doesn't expect any favours from the State. They have inherited a tradition of campaigning on pro-life and pro-family issues and tend to think that they will do better than us oldies. They don't expect political victories, but look to a transformation of culture.They have plenty of vigour and look ahead with zest. They are listening when BXVI speaks about the New Evangelisation.Their world-view is formed from their perspective and not from Auntie's. Some day they too will look back and ponder.
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3 comments:
Thanks for this Joanna. Yes, my generation have inherited a tradition of pro-life and other campaigning from your generation - thank you for this great heritage! What I am not so sure about though is whether we will do any better than you - in terms of "achieving the results", I have a feeling that privilege may be reserved for generations yet to come. But we live in hope I suppose!
I think the Catholic Youth and their energy and commitment are such an inspiration to us. Keep up the Blog :-) Enjoying your series on Feasts and Seasons on EWTN. :-)
Let me tell you it how it is...
Nothing has been more powerfully promoted in our British social culture in the last 20 years as the current Homosexual agenda.
In the last 50 years this small zealous minority and their secular allies have infiltrated all facets of government bureaucracy, main stream media, newspaper and magazine outlets, the music industry and the TV, movie industry and… the “churches”. It is from these well entrenched media positions that these agents of social change seek to daily bombard society with the licentious drumbeat promoting the acceptance of lawlessness and licentious decadence. By the sensual aids of music, victim status imagery, double speak vernacular, intimidation, baseless slander, establishing the offensive position of character assassination (putting on the defensive), the discrediting of moral absolutes (which were instilled into the creation by the world’s Creator - Gen.1-2, Rom. 1:18-32) and the abuse of bureaucratic authorities and powers, this deviant agenda is being marketed lock stock and barrel to the British public and brainwashing and desensitizing millions. Their primary target has been the brain washing of our youth.
These believe if they can deceive and brainwash the weak and fertile minds of the youth with the lie of moral relativism that they can over turn the established and unmovable Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. These seek to create a delusional bizzare world of make believe in which they can express their lawlessness and deviant desires in a vain effort to reach a non - catastrophic sexual utopia. Though they may deceive millions by this aggressive godless agenda of seeking to normalize and legitimatize this base and licentious life style of homosexual and heterosexual decadence, in the end they will have to face the realities of their godless imaginations (Rom. 1:32, Rev. 19:11-21, 21:27, 22:11,14-14).
...here comes the Implosion!
When humanity out right rejects Almighty God’s Divine revelation of natural and moral laws - which are absolutely crucial for a healthy social order in a fallen world (Isa.5:16-23, Rom. 5:12-21) – expect the cataclysmic destruction of a society (nation) via disease and violence (Gen. 6, 13:13, 18:20) and a great flogging from the elements of nature (and Nature’s God).
History has given us a very powerful witness to these realities. Babylon, Canaan, Israel, Greece, Rome, the Mayans, Aztecs, Incas etc. all could not survive the exponential weight of decadence upon their society. How much more will we?
Today we here in Britain we live in a narcissistic, godless, pleasure seeking, sexually immoral, licentious gratifying culture, burning with the unrestrained and unbridled desires of man’s fallen passions. Its licentious hand is in every facet of American society, culture and media. The majority of Britons are absolutely numb and dumb to the destructive consequences of these unnatural practices of homosexuality and the unbridled passions of unrestrained heterosexuality.
Almighty God has made known to all, His moral absolutes by writing them upon every ones own heart and conscience (Rom 1:18-32). He has revealed them through out all of His creation and written them in His infallible Word (i.e., the Bible); (Psalm 19:1-7, Rom. 1:18-32). Do not think that you can rewrite and over turn what the ETERNAL God has designed. It is the height of insanity (Isa.24:5-6).
Anne
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