Culture, Again

By Robert Royal

Evangelize the culture. Be not afraid. Those two phrases might be fairly taken to sum up the entire papacy of John Paul the Great. He knew what he was talking about. As does Benedict XVI, who has pointed to the bloody secularist regimes in the twentieth century and suggested that it would be a good thing for all of us, even unbelievers, to start acting “as if God existed.” For a lot of Catholics, all this may sound like something optional and a little uncomfortable in modern pluralistic societies, where evangelizing or making converts or just criticizing bad behavior can appear arrogant or offensive or worse. But it’s becoming quite clear that there are only two alternatives. Either we and those with whom we can make alliances will evangelize the culture, or the culture will evangelize us. (Full story at The Catholic Thing)