| | Exactly, Bob. I’m sure the church realizes that people who see themselves as weak and sinful can be ruled much more easily than those with authentic pride and self-esteem. God forbid that people should have some dignity and self-respect!
The Pope also complained that an increasing number of people in the secularized West were “making do without God.”
Making do without God? You mean the same God who commanded Moses to stone a man to death for working on the Sabbath? -- who killed every firstborn child in Egypt and ordered the mass-rape of 32,000 girls after killing their families? -- who struck dead 50,000 innocent people for merely looking into the ark of the covenant and drowned nearly every man, woman and child during the flood of Noah? You mean that God? I’d say it’s a good thing they’re “making do” without God.
The Pope said that hedonism and consumerism had even invaded “the bosom of the Church itself, deeply undermining the Christian faith from within, and undermining the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers.”
Yeah, God forbid that we should enjoy ourselves and improve our standard of living through “hedonism and consumerism.” I guess the Pope would prefer that we wear sackcloth and ashes, live in mud huts and castigate ourselves for thinking secular thoughts. It appears that the Catholic Church is becoming more and more like the anti-secular, anti-Western Muslims.
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Those who trust in themselves and in their own merits are, as it were, blinded by their own ‘I’ and their hearts harden in sin. On the other hand, those who recognize themselves as weak and sinful entrust themselves to God and from him obtain grace and forgiveness.
