Peter Kreeft is probably the best Catholic theologian, author, and apologist of the past 50 years. A professor at Boston College, he has written dozens of books and given thousands of lectures all across the country. Due to his terrific insights into Christianity and his unique writing style, including the terrific use of analogy, allegory, and wit, he has been called the “Catholic C.S. Lewis.” One of the wisest things he ever said was in his 2019 book Ask Peter Kreeft. In response to the question “I think Muslims are our enemies. What do you think?” Kreeft said:
“George Weigel, [John Paul II’s] official biographer, said that the Catholic Church could win the culture war and get her social morality legalized by simply replacing every “Catholic” politician in Washington with a Muslim or a Mormon.”
Truer words were hardly ever spoken. Just looking at some of the highest profile “Catholic” politicians and officials in America—President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Dick Durbin, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, to name just a few—you realize the truth of Kreeft’s statement. The Catholic Church clearly failed in its mission to properly catechize these people; indeed, all of them hold positions diametrically opposed to major and well-known Church doctrines. They all support a culture of death, whether in the womb or at the end of life, the marriage of homosexuals, the belief that a biological man can become a woman and vice versa, and the belief that God created more than two genders, among other things.
Kreeft compares the beliefs of these “Catholic” officials with the beliefs of an average Muslim: “You would be hard-pressed to find a single Muslim in the world who’s pro-abortion. Or anti-family. Or pro-sexual revolution.”
He then goes on to show how Pope John Paul II at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, was able to prevent support for abortion being a prerequisite for a country to receive U.N. aid by working with Muslim countries against the Christian/Catholic West. Kreeft writes:
“Pope John Paul II fought and won a greater battle working with the Muslims than the Christians won against them in the Battle of Lepanto half a millennium earlier. He did this at the United Nations Cairo conference in the 1990’s by allying the Church with the Muslims in blocking a United States-sponsored regulation that would have required every nation to legalize abortion in order to receive any UN benefits or aid. The regulation would have passed otherwise.”
In order to win the culture war, or at least stem its aggressive advance, Peter Kreeft seems to offer Catholics several choices. First, they could demand that the Catholic Church do a better job of catechizing its members so that when a “Catholic” ran for office people would know that he in fact supports the positions of the Church. Second, they could demand that politicians who do not really believe what the Church teaches not say the are Catholic. Third, they could withdraw their support from “Catholic” politicians and instead elect Muslim (or Mormon) ones who would support social positions in line with Catholic teaching. Fourth, they could do two or more of the above. Let us hope that Catholics will quickly choose option four before our “Catholic” officials do more damage to our Judeo-Christian culture.
Discussion about this post