IN Brisbane on May 11 newly appointed director of young adults for the Archdiocese of New York Pat Langrell asked a Faith on Tap crowd of 150, “Are we really at war?”
The “war” he had prepared a 20-minute presentation on was based on whether young people particularly are at odds, indeed “at war” culturally, continuing to ask “Isn’t this a bit too dramatic?”
“Aren’t the organisers of tonight’s event a bit over zealous in choosing this sort of title?” he said of the “culture wars” theme.
“No one here is dying, we’re all pretty happy, relatively affluent.
Surely we aren’t really at war?”
The 21-year-old instigator of Sydney’s Theology on Tap then quoted a popular American priest who said, “We are at war, not against flesh and bones, but against principalities and powers … (a) spiritual warfare.”
Pat said Pope John Paul II referred to this thinking as the “culture of life” and the “culture of death”.
“Now some of you may say, ‘Where’s the evidence? Where’s the death toll? Give me a body count?'” Pat said.
“In terms of physical deaths we’re looking at fifty million abortions in the US since Roe versus Wade, one hundred thousand-plus every year in Australia …
“There’s also the spiritual body count of many people losing or drifting away from the faith.”
Pat said “the first war that we fight is a lot closer to home than we think”.
“This is the war in our very own hearts, the drama of Christian living, the pulling between who we are and who we ought to be, the tension of Christian discipleship.
“If we don’t win this war then we will not win the larger culture war.”
He said meeting such a struggle involves “saying to God, ‘Thy will be done or my will be done'”.
Pat then asked, “How does culture respond (to the) demand of us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect?
“Our culture, the Australian in particular, is very relaxed and laissez faire in its outlook,” he said.
“It is also immersed in the western culture which is largely based on a free-market economy, a needs/wants-based approach that elevates individual preference and choice, and pits that against any notion of constraint or authority – leaving us free to choose whatever we want and to pursue whatever lifestyle choice we want.
“(This outlook) views religious faith in the same way it views the free market – a marketplace of spiritual and theological candy store – a pick-a-box morality or pick-a-box theology – everyone should be free to choose what to believe.
“You see this all the time in the US with a phenomenon known as Church hopping – heaps of people changing creeds and codes, moving to a different Church … depending upon things as small as the style of music, social atmosphere, pastor’s speaking style etc …”
Pat challenged young people in particular to look beyond these factors and to “win the war” by acting as “saints”.
“We need you, we need a generation of young people, a generation of saints to say ‘yes … fiat … let it be done according to Your word’ as one young lady said over two thousand years ago.
“Look what her ‘yes’ did – it brought God to the world and redeemed humanity.”
Pat explored the Christian “yes”.
“Some people may think that Christianity is all about denying our true self, restricting our freedom and repressing our deep desires – this couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Nothing good in us is restricted. Christ died for us to bring us life to the fullest – to make us children and heirs of eternal life,” he said.
“Nothing good in us is taken away, it is merely perfected and made more beautiful, sanctified, made holy in the image and likeness of God.”
Also encouraging listeners to “trust in the Church” and those in authority Pat said the “alternative to obedience is to turn the conversation into a cacophony of Christians making it all up as they go along …”
With a final focus on “religious conviction”, Pat said people of faith were empowered to “stand up and speak out in defence of human life and dignity”.
“We young people have to be willing to be, in the words of Pope John Paul, a ‘sign of contradiction’ to the culture and modern times – to stand up and call what is wrong …
“As many saints down the ages have remarked in different ways, we are called not to be successful, but to be faithful.”
Dr David Van Gend will be the next guest speaker at Faith on Tap at the Pineapple Hotel, Kangaroo Point, on June 8.
He will speak on “Stem Cells, Cloning and the Meaning of Life”.
For more details phone Allison Atkins on 0400 598 108.
