In 1976, our bicentennial year, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then the Polish archbishop of Krakow and soon to be named Pope John Paul II,  visited Philadelphia for the 41st International Eucharistic Congress. These stunning and enigmatic remarks are from Cardinal Wojtyla’s last speech before leaving America: 

 

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but, in a sense, a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.”

 

Each day, and strikingly during our recent election seasons, we see this test of our culture and of Christian civilization as it is threatened by chaos and evil.

 

• Will Americans make the choice to protect life at all stages?

• Will Americans turn increasingly from the Biblical truth of Genesis 5:2 “He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind”?

• Will we choose to recognize that parents are the rightful teachers, nurturing their children’s faith and practices and stewarding their education?

•  Will our citizens insist on respect for the person and property of others as is commanded in our Judeo-Christian ethos…thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal…thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife…thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods?

• Will Americans respect the truth, a respect fundamental to human civilization...thou shalt not bear false witness?

• Will Americans strive to afford each citizen the right to follow his own conscience as intended with the establishment of religious freedom as this nation’s First Freedom?

• Will Americans sacrifice to preserve the Constitution, seen as a providential miracle by those who painstakingly and bravely constructed it with intelligence, passion, goodwill and faith?

• Will we convey the liberties of our Constitutional Republic to ages and millions yet unborn?

 

Con’t:  https://tinyurl.com/5vy2vhwf  https://tinyurl.com/y5966eyb   https://tinyurl.com/4jt2yypu