By Bishop James Conley
On Sunday the Church celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation or Triumph of the Cross. The Cross of Jesus has always been a sign of contradiction to the world. The cross symbolizes both death and life, suffering and triumph, defeat and victory. We Catholics remind ourselves of that contradiction every time we make the sign of the cross.
In his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, St. John Paul II sounded an alarm when he wrote that we are very rapidly regressing into a “culture of death.” The phrase is frequently used in Catholic circles. But what did John Paul II mean by it?
Our late Holy Father wrote that at the heart of a culture of death is “the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism.” A culture that consistently employs violence to resolve conflict is a culture that lives “as if God did not exist,” he said. And when the sense of God is lost, then “there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life.”
When a culture turns to violence to solve its problems, it becomes quickly a culture of death. Decades of legalized abortion has numbed us to the truth that every child is created, from its very first moments, with an inherent and inviolable dignity and worth. Physician-assisted suicide is now legal in 11 states. When a culture gets accustomed to routinely euthanizing the elderly or those with terminal illnesses, life becomes cheap.
In a culture of death, we can hardly be surprised when we read about yet another school shooting or a brutal stabbing on a commuter train, or an assassination of a young man who dared to challenge others in the public square about what they believe. But the truth about God and the truth, about the dignity of people made in His image, cannot be eliminated or suppressed by an assassin’s bullet or a murderer’s knife.
The truth cannot be killed. In the end, truth prevails.
St. John Paul II wrote that ultimately, a culture of death comes about when a society loses its sense of the sacred, its sense of God.
And that brings me to Charlie Kirk.
Kirk, killed last week in Utah, was convicted about his search for truth. He aimed to know the truth about humanity, and to live it. He aimed to use logic, humor and wit to talk about truth, to engage in actual dialogue.
He didn’t always hit the mark. Some of his political positions were directly rooted in the Gospel, and some of them were just that — political positions, not matters of faith, on issues about which Catholics can disagree.
And the way he spoke about them was often compelling, bold, reasoned — but at times incendiary, and at times at odds with the Church’s teaching, as was the case in his support for a retributive approach to the death penalty.
Kirk made people angry — and then, last week, he encountered the rage at the heart of the culture of death.
Since his death, Kirk has been called a martyr. It is only for the Church to declare someone a martyr, when they are killed for hatred of the faith.
But the word martyr means witness, and that word — witness — aptly describes a person who died because of his beliefs — his religious views, his political perspectives, his exercise of the free speech guaranteed to all Americans.
Charlie Kirk died as a witness to the importance of standing with the courage of your convictions.
For us, the lesson is to stand with the courage of our own convictions — and most importantly, a conviction more important than the political — the conviction that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
The reality of the culture of death can tempt us to be reticent about our convictions. It persuades us to avoid uncomfortable or awkward conversations with people whom we know hold opposing views. But if we are intimidated into silence through fear, and unwilling to speak the truth when we know we will meet opposition or disagreement, how will people ever come to know the enduring truth, which Jesus promises will set us free?
How will the culture of death in which we live ever be reversed? “You will be my witnesses,” Christ promises his apostles, “to the end of the earth.” This week is a call to courage in that vocation, no matter the cost, in the culture of death.
Every year the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is followed by the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. The feast recalls the Blessed Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross of Jesus after his crucifixion.
At that point in her most sorrowful heart, she held the faith and hope of the Church. In the end, it was her deep faith and trust in the Lord that allowed her to go on. She knew that at the cross, she was not at the end of the story.
Mary lived that sign of contradiction in her heart. May she instill hope in our hearts that we might transform this culture of death into a culture of life and a civilization of love, a culture and civilization that values every human life at every stage, that cares for the vulnerable, and embraces forgiveness and reconciliation.
