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Recently, Pope Benedict XVI said this to a delegation of European bishops who met with him at the Vatican:
“There are so many problems one could list that must be solved, but none of them can be solved unless God is put at the center, if God does not become once again visible to the world, if he does not become the determining factor in our lives and also enters the world in a decisive way through us.
“In this, I believe that the future of the world in this dramatic situation is decided today: whether God – the God of Jesus Christ – exists and is recognized as such, or whether he disappears.”
These words are extraordinary, profound and even radical. They tell us that none of the problems of the world can be solved unless God “enters the world in a decisive way through us.”
The pope then goes on to say that the future of the world will be decided on the basis of whether “the God of Jesus Christ exists and is recognized as such, or whether he disappears.”
These are powerful words for all Catholics, but especially for Knights of Columbus. Through our many works of charity we have made God “visible to the world.” And we will continue to do so – guided by the spiritual and theological richness of the Holy Father’s great encyclical on charity, Deus Caritas Est.
Our charity has a special character because it arises from the reality that God is indeed the “determining factor in our lives.”
Our commitment to helping our neighbor in need is not the result of an ethical position or a political philosophy. It arises from a personal relationship with the one who first gave himself to us as a gift, in a supreme act of charity.
We live in societies that are increasingly secular. One key reason for this fact is that so many of us have gradually adopted secular ways of thinking.
One of the greatest pressures of secularism on the Christian today is to regard Christianity as nothing more than another ethical system or lifestyle choice. Nothing could be more subtly destructive to the Christian way of life.
We might say that the entire structure of secularism is based upon a foundation that rejects even the possibility of a God who both transcends the world he has created and, at the same time, is willing and able to reach down into that world to have a decisive and personal encounter with each person.
As the Holy Father suggests, the God of Jesus Christ seeks a decisive encounter with each person, with each society and with each culture.
The slide toward a secular mentality has been encouraged by the often repeated
admonition to Catholics not to “impose their religious values on others.” Catholics, of course, should have no interest in imposing their “religious values” on anyone, anywhere. We do, however, have an interest in justice, the common good and humane societies that defend and care for the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
What we rightfully should and must do is precisely what the pope has urged us to do: Put God at the center of our lives and, in doing so, permit God to enter the world in a decisive way through us.
This is the great challenge confronting Catholics in our time. We are blessed to have a great pope and a great fraternal brotherhood ready to meet this challenge.
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