Some strong and necessary words from Archbishop Chaput

Ahtos links to a good interview of Archbishop Chaput.

While I think others may get caught up with the 'politics' what interests me is his sharp understanding of how;

American Catholics need to realize that many in the current generation haven’t just been "assimilated" into the American culture, but have in fact been "absorbed and bleached and digested by it," Archbishop Chaput asserted.

If this realization doesn’t happen, the coming generations will continue on the same path and "a real Catholic presence in American life will continue to weaken and disappear," said Chaput.

Lets play connect the dots with another link from Chronicles of Atlantis on an interview of Dinesh D'Souza. We might conclude that there is a paradox or that both can't be right about the strength (or weakness) of Catholicism or Christianity, at least in the West.

So HERE is another dot from René Girard as he speaks of Christianity's great loss of ground (in more ways than one) over the last few centuries by way of relativism and a modern liberalization of Christian thought with a near total dismissal of dogma. These people, in fact whole congregations, may claim a Christian label but they will be like chaff tossed to and fro when they come to realize the crucial reason for the dogma.

So Christianity, as D'Souza says, may be the fastest growing religion in the world, yet we can safely say that it is not 'performing' at that pace in the West. I think Girard would agree with Chaput that we need to be people girding ourselves up with the Real Presence so we have something to pass on to the next generation.