How Catholics Can Evangelize Liberals

Approaching Liberals

Liberals who are atheists probably should best be approached as atheists. This section is for liberals who profess some belief in God.

God and government compete to be the primary authority over our lives. They are polar opposites. To the extent that God governs a whole community, its members will have little need for most of the existing government. Police, courts, prisons, welfare, and especially government moral teaching are useless to a deeply faithful community.

On the other side, those who prefer to depend on human government as the primary authority over their lives often see God as an unwelcome competitor or unwanted moral judge. They seek to develop a cycle in which the government entices its people to become dependent on it for food, water, medicine, everything. The people will then reliably vote into power those who promise to keep these benefits coming.

Liberalism is irrational fear of reliance on God. As our national government has gained increasing influence over our lives, it has become increasingly hostile to religion in general and Christianity in particular. We can take two approaches to comforting liberals who are lost in secularism.

Salvation History

Catholics who know their Old Testament can discuss the experience of the ancient Israelites. They crossed the Jordan River into the promised land of Canaan between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and called the land Israel in honor of Jacob, whose name God’s angel Gn 32:28 had changed to Israel. Canaan had been named for Cain the evil son of Adam and Eve; the Canaanites had a pagan religion that continued to tempt the Israelites all of their days as a nation. Soon the Lord had to tell Joshua, 7:11 “Israel has sinned; they have transgressed My covenant which I commanded them.” Still, our patient Father in heaven sent judges to rule and rescue Israel, to lead it back to Torah. Each time the Israelites broke the covenant God delivered them to an oppressor. Then the people would cry out to God, and each time our patient and loving God sent another heroic judge.

God had always taught the Israelite people that He was their true king. But when the Philistines loomed as a major threat, around 1030 BC, the Israelites turned not to Torah but to earthly kings, to government. For a time, it looked good. During David’s reign Israel prospered. Anyone who lived at that time would have said, “Great idea, having a king.” But Solomon followed. He looked good when he built the magnificent Temple on Mt. Moriah, but he also tempted the people into dalliance with the Canaanite deities, ignoring God’s command, Dt 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before Me.” God told Solomon, 1 Kg 11:11 “Since … you have not kept My covenant and My statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you … Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.”

He did. God saw His people Israel break into two kingdoms around 922 BC, the northern Israel of the ten tribes and the southern Judea of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. 1 Kgs 12:20 “There was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.” They fought one another as well as surrounding tribes. God called forth the prophets, starting with Elijah and Elisha, to remind the people of Moses and the covenant. Finally, in 722 BC, Israel was conquered by the Assyrians 2 Kg 17:7 “… because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God.” The ten Israelite tribes, having abandoned the covenant, lost their special identity and were absorbed into the general population.

Today Israel faces the same dilemma. It was instituted in 1948 as the Jewish holy land amid joyful celebrations in the Jewish neighborhoods. People danced the hora in the streets and sang Hatikvah. However, its people soon lost interest in God and became enamored of Socialist government, which is very extensive government. Today it is confronted by a situation that, in human terms, is impossible. If the Palestinians obtain the “right of return” they have sought since 1948 several million Palestinian Muslims will stream into Israel, enough to easily outvote the Jewish population and elect an Arab Prime Minister and Knesset which would immediately change the name of the country to Palestine, adopt the Palestinian flag, and declare Islam the state religion. Palestinian school children are being taught that Israel’s very existence is an offense against Islam while Israeli school children are being taught that the Palestinians have many just claims. And the low Jewish birth rate and the high Palestinian birth rate mean that by 2050 Israel will have more Muslims than Jews, who again would vote to call the country Palestine and institute Islam as the state religion.

Salvation history teaches us, then, that government appears on the surface to be the safer and more reliable alternative, but that in practice it is not so. The Israelite people who were faithful to God’s covenant have survived as a people for four thousand years. When the nation Israel has become secular, God has taken it back.

Catholic Miracles

The liberal mind tends to prefer what can be objectively seen and measured. Catholics evangelizing liberals who are uncomfortable with salvation history may be approachable through scientifically verifiable miracles. Every religious tradition has miracle anecdotes. The Catholic Church alone has experienced numerous miracles which can stand the full rigor of analysis by world class scientists.

The Western Wall

Jews revere the Western Wall of the ancient Temple, actually part of its outer retaining wall, as the most sacred place on earth. That very wall stands as testament to Christ’s power. God had warned, Lev 26:30 “I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars… and will make your sanctuaries desolate … And I will devastate the land … And I will scatter you among the nations.” Twelve centuries later, Jesus left the Temple and was going away when His disciples came to point out to Him the buildings of the Temple. But He answered them, Mt 24:2 “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” Roman centurions destroyed the ancient Temple in 70 AD. Jerusalem was in ruins and the Jews scattered among the nations. Jesus had told the Jews, Jn 2:19 “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus Himself was the new Temple, the Final Sacrifice.

We would have expected the modern Jewish state of Israel to rebuild the Temple. But after more than half a century with Jerusalem its capital, Israel has not attempted to rebuild. On the ancient Temple site is Islam’s oldest shrine, the Dome of the Rock, built in 691 AD over the rock from which Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. Also on the site is the huge Al-Aqsa Mosque. The whole Temple Mount site is increasingly being called by its Arabic name, Haram al-Sharif. The Wall silently reminds us that the Temple will not be rebuilt by man because Jesus, the new Temple, is the Final Sacrifice.

Most rabbis now teach that the Messiah will rebuild the Temple when he comes, reminding us of, Rv 21:10 “…the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed.”

Guadalupe

In Guadalupe, Mexico, Juan Diego, a poor Indian 57 years of age, passing Tepeyac Hill on his way to early Mass, suddenly heard birds singing and someone calling his name. When he climbed the hill he saw the Blessed Virgin Mary, dark-skinned like himself, floating above the ground, radiating magnificent rays of light. During her third appearance she asked him to go to the mountain, gather a large bouquet of roses, and bring them to the bishop. Juan Diego saw the bishop on the morning of December 12, 1531. When he opened his tilma (cloak of coarse cactus fibers), in which he had carried the roses, it bore an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary as described in the Revelation, 12:1 “A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” On the tilma, stars also appeared on Mary’s magnificent robe. Astronomers report that the stars correspond to 46 stars in 14 constellations as they appear in the morning sky each year on December 12.

The tilma, on display today at the Guadalupe Basilica, is in perfect condition after five centuries, although most tilmas deteriorate after about 25 years. Scientific tests show that the image was not printed or painted, and is neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral in origin. Anyone can go to Guadalupe, see the miraculous tilma, and read the reports by world renowned scientists.

Lourdes

The Blessed Virgin Mary also appeared at Lourdes 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France, in 1858, calling for prayer and penance, and identifying herself, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” This was in the Hautes-Pyrenees, in the cave of Massabielle along the River Gave. She told Bernadette to drink from a spring under the rock of Massabielle. At first, Bernadette’s efforts yielded only muddy water, but later that day a spring began to flow from that spot down into the River Gave. Today the complex has three basilicas, one a vast underground church with pews to seat 25,000 people. Although the Blessed Virgin’s message focused on spiritual healing, reports of miraculous healings attract so many pilgrims that the Catholic Church has established a permanent medical bureau and hospital there for analysis of thousands of reported Lourdes healings.
The Church will certify as a miracle only the instantaneous or very rapid disappearance of life-threatening or very serious physical symptoms which have been previously verified by hard evidence such as X-rays, and when there has been no adequate medical treatment, scientific explanation, recovery period, or relapse. When a case is proposed, the local bishop sets it aside for several years to observe that the cured person continues in both good health and moral conduct. If so, the bishop convenes an experienced medical panel to certify that all the requirements have been met.
Anyone may come in and examine to his heart’s content the medical evidence for 65 proven miraculous cases, as well as some 200 more that are beyond all possibility of natural explanation.

Fátima

At Fátima, Portugal, Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Lucia dos Santos, age 10, and to Francisco and Jacinta Marto, aged 9 and 7, six times in 1917. After the children told her that no one believed them, the Blessed Virgin promised to appear on October 13 with a miracle that all might believe she was the true Queen of Heaven. The children told everyone. A crowd of 70,000 people, some openly hostile to the Catholic Church and expecting to jeer, jammed Fátima’s Cova da Iria, then an open field in a rural area, with about 35,000 more circled around the perimeter. The anti-Catholic Portuguese press was there to jeer as well. During that last apparition, as promised, the Blessed Virgin gave her followers a miracle: All that night and much of the morning there had been a torrential downpour of rain. Everything was soaking wet, even the umbrellas that the people carried offered little protection. The Blessed Virgin told the three children to look up at the heavens. As they did, everyone else looked up, too. The rain clouds were gone, the sky was blue and clear, the sun shone brightly, and everything was instantly dry. The sun began to spin and zigzag in the sky, and then it fell swiftly toward the earth. All of the people in and around the Cova da Iria became terrified and fell to their knees in prayer, convinced that they would die within minutes. When all had begun praying, the sun returned to its normal place in the sky. Even the Portuguese newspapers reported the miracles with awe.
Although World War I and the World Series dominated the news that week, newspapers all over Europe and even some in the United States including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune, reported the astonishing events at Fátima.
Anyone can look them up.

Incorruptibles

The Church exhumes and examines the body of each person proposed for sainthood. Part of this process is called “recognition of the body.” In an extraordinary number of cases, the saints’ bodies have remained incorrupt for decades or centuries, free of decomposition or even rigor mortis. It is natural to suppose that Our Lord might delay in those especially close to Him the process of decomposition which He never experienced. Many of the saints’ bodies appear as they were during their most handsome years, not as they did at death. The Blessed Virgin was probably well past 50 when Jesus assumed her body and soul into heaven, yet visionaries always describe her as incomparably beautiful and about 18 to 20 years of age. St. Bernadette’s incorrupt body can be seen by the public in the chapel at the Convent of St. Gildard in Nevers, France. The incorrupt bodies of St. Catherine Labouré, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Clare of Assisi, and St. Vincent Pallotti can also be viewed by the public in their respective shrines. History documents many, many more incorruptibles including St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. John Vianney. Some, such as St. Francis of Assisi, did not remain incorrupt, but the extraordinary number of these incorrupt bodies, attested to by hundreds of physicians including many non-Catholics and unbelievers, none containing any trace of preservative or embalming fluid, is first class evidence of Christ’s power over death.

Anyone can go see the incorrupt bodies and read the sworn testimony concerning them.

The Shroud of Turin

See my article, The Shroud of Calvary, which was published in The Catholic Faith magazine, Jan-Feb 2000 issue.

Evidence for the Church

The Catholic worldview is the polar opposite of the liberal worldview. In the Catholic worldview all depends on God. In the liberal worldview all depends on government. If we can show liberals the extraordinary signs that Jesus personally instituted the Catholic Church as a shepherd for His covenant human family we may yet win their souls for Christ. Topflight scientists are the most authoritative sources of information we have on what is visible and detectable in this world. These events, none explainable by human activity, allow only one conclusion: An intelligent power beyond anything on earth has worked verifiable miracles entirely within the Catholic ambit.

The Constitution of the United States

Most Americans are Christians, and so we should be able to have Christmas displays on public lands. And Christians believe in freedom of religion. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ...” No law means no law. Liberals have persuaded many people that the Constitution calls for the “separation of church and state,” but that does not appear in the Constitution at all. Read the whole document for yourself, it is not there! Moreover, it too is false. If there really were a high wall of separation between church and state, the Church could not touch the state, but the same wall would require that the state could not touch the Church. Christians have just as much right as anyone else to enshrine their policy preferences into law.

We should have more representation of God's presence in our own yards, and we will. But the difference is that each person’s front yard is his own expression, while the town square is the gathering place for us all. For now, the pagans have pushed Christ from the public square. But Christians are waking up now, and starting to push back.

We are getting help from an unexpected source. Muslims have sometimes backed up their demands for religious accommodation by the threat of violence, and many American schools and other institutions have been quietly yielding. For example, New York City has opened the Khalil Gibran International Academy as a public school in Brooklyn. With a very high percentage of Muslim students, we can be certain that, at minimum, accommodations will be made for Muslim prayer five times a day. Of course, they have not started a comparable school of Christian culture and learning. But there is a well-established principle called “equal protection of the laws.” As soon as the Muslims make significant progress on this, expect Christian attorneys to come right behind them demanding equal protection of the laws.

Pascal’s Wager

Liberals, are you very sure you're right in your pagan views? A French philosopher named Blaise Pascal raised an interesting point. Based on pure logic, without considering divine revelation at all, we both can accept this statement as true: Either God exists or He does not. There is no middle ground. So either the Christians are wrong or the pagans are wrong. But Pascal also pointed out that if the Christians are wrong they have lost nothing. But if the pagans are wrong they have lost everything.