July 2010
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Homily Text: Maybe I’m getting too sensitive. Maybe it’s encroaching old age. Maybe I’ve been a priest too long. But it is simply amazing how in the popular culture these days—in these days of political correctness it seems to be open season on Catholics—and even on all Christians.
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And we see this most clearly in the media. Does it not seem that an inordinate percentage of bad guys in the movies are portrayed as professed believers and usually Christian? Almost from the moment we see someone going to church in a film—or wearing a cross—or being a priest or minister—you can bet that he or she will be some horrible evil monster around which the crime plot revolves. It is so commonplace, so constant, so regular, it is amazing. It is also kind of disgusting.
Now, I guess you could simply call it a literary device for dramatic effect: the irony of seeing someone who is supposed to do good things—doing bad things. Certainly irony creates interest.
But the problem is that when irony is used constantly, it no longer is irony—but an accusation. “These Christians are hypocrites! They’re evil! They’re bad!”
Now my point today is not about hypocrisy—it is not about how some Christians and Catholics and priests—can be outwardly good and inwardly evil. That’s a given. We belong to the Church of saints and sinners. There are in fact six confessionals in this Church. Obviously no one who goes to St. Odilo Church is a saint. We are all sinners striving (sometimes with great difficulty) to be saints.
No, my point today is that we Christians—Catholics in particular—must never hang our heads in shame—as if our faith has meant nothing to the world, but embarrassment. Hollywood and New York producers and writers may not get it, but we should never forget that our faith, our religion, and our good deeds have created all that is good in our modern society. Anything we actually value in this modern world is an offspring of our Church’s teaching.
For example, take something as mundane and commonplace as farming. St. Benedict and his monks cleared the wild forests for planting and turned swords into plowshares by their development of good agricultural methods.
How about the importance of education and university? We take all this for granted. But the notion of wide spread education and the idea of a university did not exist until the Church developed them.
And art? Who but the Church—its monks and artisans—taught people how to draw and build.
The Church revived art and architecture, brought back classical art and even invented new art.