From Martyrs to Bystanders: The Fall of the Church Militant
What if most Catholics today would have scolded St Peter for being too aggressive at Pentecost? What if the very men and women who honor martyrs for dying for the Faith would now call them intolerant?
We live in an age where “love” has been redefined into permission, and where the courage that once sent saints across oceans has been replaced by the comfort of watching from the shore. Vatican II didn’t create this spirit of compromise–it simply made it fashionable. It baptized apathy. It turned the Church Militant into the Church Mute.
Columbus and Isabella believed souls could be lost forever without baptism. They crossed oceans for that conviction. Most modern Catholics, catechized by relativism, would condemn them for being uncharitable. But what if they were right–and we are the ones asleep?
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I speak as one who must, like St Paul said, work out my salvation with fear and trembling. Because for years, I didn’t. I believed the modern lie that “it’s okay because we’re human,” that somehow God’s mercy erases the need for repentance, confession, and conversion. But the Cross still demands blood–not applause.
The new theology whispers that all paths lead to God, that pagans, atheists, and idolaters are mysteriously within the Body of Christ. Yet if that were true, why did Peter preach as he did–particularly right after Pentecost early in the Acts of the Apostles–why did Stephen die rather than renounce the faith, why did the apostles bleed terrible deaths?
We’ve become spectators of salvation because of the comforts of living in America. But Christ didn’t call bystanders. He called disciples.
The question now isn’t whether the Ferdinand, Isabella, or Columbus I’ve been exploring were too militant–it’s whether we’ve become too neutered to stand where they stood, to endure what they endured, to fight what evils they fought.
Would I have listened?
Would you?
(I apologize for the cover photo here, which YouTube chose for me. There is a way to change it for a short, but it’s not as straightforward as it is for a full video, and I haven’t found the way to do it yet).
