Sacramental Contradiction

Mike Liccione discusses the "dottiness" of both the far right and the far left, saying:

Most Catholics, most Christians for that matter, have values and attitudes that do not cohere with the faith they profess. Of course they are unwilling to admit as much; if they were, they'd be motivated to change. Having emerged from the immigrant ghetto and joined the "mainstream" over the last fifty or sixty years, American Catholics are as guilty of incoherence as anybody, and more than many. For many of us, worldly values and attitudes are now prejudices taken for granted. We judge the Church by the values of our "set" in the world, not vice-versa. Usually, such values and attitudes have never been exposed to informed, objective examination themselves. That's easy to explain, but impossible to justify. People don't like examining and critically evaluating their prejudices. That would mean thinking, as opposed to quite a number of more entertaining activities; worse, it would mean admitting that what we like being may not be what we ought to be. That is why the discipline of Lent is so vital. By denying ourselves things we like, and using the space created thereby to love more sacrificially, we get out of our comfort zones and admit that we need repentance—not just for a season and ritually, but every day of the year.

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