Kreeft Captures Crowd at Franciscan University

Dr. Peter Kreeft stood before an audience so large it threatened to cause Franciscan University’s Christ the King Chapel to burst at the seams.

Kreeft’s November 17 lecture, “How to Win the Culture War: A Christian Battle Plan for a Society in Crisis,” drew hundreds of Franciscan students, faculty, and guests to hear the Boston College philosophy professor—who has published over 63 books—speak on the fate of the Church.

Kreeft used a seven-letter acronym, PHONEYS, to highlight society’s biggest problems—Politicization, Happy talk, Organizationalism, Neoworship, Egalitarianism, Yuppiedom, and Spirituality. With deadpan humor and a collection of “Kreeft-isms,” he explained the challenges they present to the Church.
Beginning with politicization, Kreeft described the tendency Americans have to confuse politics for religion. He drew awareness to the trend of defining oneself by politics instead of religion, saying, “We have persuaded many of them to judge their faith by the standard of ‘political correctness’ rather than vice versa.”

Kreeft’s principle of happy talk raised the ante on the average ignorance-is-bliss mentality. He pointed out that Catholics must first return to being Catholic, and correct their own practices before projecting to non-Catholics. “Catholics abort, contracept, sodomize, fornicate, divorce, and sexually abuse,” he said, “at almost exactly the same rate as non-Catholics. Amid this devastation, keep them happy talking. Keep them saying ‘Peace, Peace,’ when there is no peace." He wants Catholics to take responsibility for their behavior, make a conscious effort to change it, and to acknowledge that blame can't be placed entirely on the secular world.

Kreeft also stated that Catholics suffer from organizationalism, causing them to regard everything—including the Church—as business ventures. This is especially bad, he noted, because people have lost sight of the role of the Church, and instead focused on the goals of business. “They must worship success, not sanctity," he said, "and fear failure, not sin."

Describing society's misguided translation of egalitarianism, Kreeft pointed out that “sexism” has persuaded men and women to perceive each other as equal, when they should instead be considered beautifully inferior to each other. He believes in the importance of regarding men and women as separate and unequal, and in acknowledging the positive impact of the differences that define each. According to Kreeft, society's deterioration of egalitarianism fosters “the difference between the beauty of black and the beauty of white reduced to a boring grey.”

Regarding his final topic—yuppiedom—Kreeft described a generation that prides itself on not being prideful, saying, “Let them feel superior about not feeling superior, judgmental about not being judgmental.”

During the question-and-answer portion of the evening, Kreeft told of the time he took a Muslim student to Mass; the student later asked Kreeft questions about what he had seen. A discussion about the Eucharist—a concept the Catholic educator assumed his Muslim pupil wouldn’t comprehend—became an eye-opening situation when the student’s repeated question, "Do you really believe that the wafer is the body of your God?" led Kreeft to say, “Yes, I really believe that I am consuming the body of Christ. Do you find that impossible to understand?”

Kreeft was left in awe by the Muslim’s response: His struggle was not in comprehending that Catholics thought they were ingesting God. An understanding of how they didn’t fall to their knees, unable to return to their feet after receiving communion, however, eluded him.
Ending his lecture with a short phrase that holds the potential to defeat the culture war, Kreeft said, “Simply put, be real. Don’t be a PHONEY. Be a saint.”

Politics or Jesus this Christmas?

Atlanta (Roswell) GA (December 12, 2011) - This Friday (December 16th), just in time for Christmas, Catholics Come Home® begins airing a massive, national prime-time network television evangelization initiative airing December 16, 2011 through January 8, 2012.

“With the Presidential Primaries starting and the U.S. Presidential Election just months away, Americans are looking for someone to help answer their most critical needs. Over 38,000 families, coast to coast, are so certain that Jesus delivers our true hope and real change that they are investing nearly $4,000,000 into this inviting, albeit countercultural, grassroots message” says Tom Peterson, President and Founder of Catholics Come Home, Inc.

Presidential political ads will soon need to share the national spotlight with these bilingual evangelization ads, blanketing the prime-time network airwaves and highlighting the benefits of Jesus and His Church. The Hollywood-quality ads will reach 250 million television viewers in over 10,000 U.S. cities in every TV market throughout the United States, airing over 400 times during the Christmas and New Year’s seasons. The Catholics Come Home® commercials air on major networks including: CBS, NBC, Univision, TBS, USA, TNT, CNN, Fox News, etc… during shows like 60 Minutes, NCIS, Bones, NBC Nightly News , the Today Show, Jay Leno, O’Reilly, major College Football Bowl Games, and highly rated sitcoms. Viewers will be directed to their local parish, or can learn more at CatholicsComeHome.org or CatolicosRegresen.org .

Catholics Come Home® hopes to inspire as many as one million souls to come home to local parishes. This evangelization goal is based on statistical census results from Catholics Come Home® local media initiatives that have aired in 30 past partner dioceses, ranging from Chicago to Seattle and Boston to Phoenix. Where these ads have aired, Mass attendance has increased an average of 10%. In the first dozen dioceses, the ads helped lead over 300,000 people home to the Church, just since Lent 2008.


According to a recent CARA Catholic Poll (CCP), only 33% of U.S. Catholics attend weekly Mass. That means 42.7 million, or two-thirds of U.S. Catholics are not going to Mass. The number of Americans identifying themselves as non-religious/secular increased 110% from 1990 to 2000, now 13.2% of the total population. The average American spends 38 hours per week consuming media, with TV and internet being the top two choices.

“These inspiring messages are sponsored by tens of thousands of Catholics who want to invite neighbors, relatives, and co-workers to ‘the largest family reunion in modern history’. Our true hope and real change won’t come from Washington D.C. this Christmas. The answers to our most critical needs come from Heaven via a manger in Bethlehem, where Jesus continues to change hearts and our world for the better! ” said Catholics Come Home President and Founder, Tom Peterson.

Advent 2011 Resources: Readings, Homilies, and Reflections

Several excellent Advent resources are just a click away. These resources offer simple ways to participate fully in the Advent season, week by week, as Christmas approaches.

EWTN
Advent 2011 devotionals

USCCB
Video, text, and audio readings and reflections

Mobile Gabriel
Mobile access to daily Scripture readings

American Catholic
Daily reflections for Advent
American Catholic blog

from Saint Ann's Media

Daily Mass





This treasury of prayers, now released on Kindle, will help you go to the Lord with courage and pray to receive God's grace.


Sometimes, the Pope said of prayers and devotions, one goes to the Lord "to ask something for someone;" one asks for a favor and then goes away. "But that," he warned, "is not prayer," because if "you want the Lord to bestow a grace, you have to go with courage and do what Abraham did, with that sort of tenacity."

This comprehensive treasury of Catholic prayer includes everyday prayers, devotionals, how to pray the rosary, litanies, the Stations of the Cross, Eucharistic prayers, prayers to prepare for confession, prayers to the saints, Marian prayers, family prayers, and more.


photo courtesy Per Ola Wiberg