Atheist turned Catholic
Joined October 2022
- Tweets23.6K
- Following1.3K
- Followers773
- Likes154K
Steven S ⁜ retweeted
“If I really thought that the Church does not exist to bring people to Christ, then I would resign and get an honest job.”
Well, another Cardinal has come out with a, shall we say, puzzling take on evangelization.
A few years ago, Cardinal Américo Aguiar, at the time auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, said that he and the other organizers of World Youth Day in his hometown had no interest in converting anyone to Christ.
Now Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algeria has opined that “the Church is not there to convert” and “Christians should approach other religions through fraternity rather than seeking conversions.”
Excuse me, but…what?
Last time I checked, the Founder said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Sure sounds like conversion to me.
When St. Paul came to Corinth or Athens or Thessalonica, his purpose was not to listen or to form a discussion group but rather to declare an unnerving message: the euangelion (glad tidings) that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
So impassioned is he for this work that he says, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:22); and “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16)!
Moreover, the entire thrust of the Second Vatican Council was toward bringing the Light of Christ to the peoples of the world (Lumen Gentium). And this missionary élan has given rise in the last few decades to the idea of a “new evangelization,” which is to say, a fresh declaration of the Lordship of Christ.
Quite obviously, no one thinks that this work of evangelization should be done in a brow-beating, overbearing, or disrespectful manner (proselytization), but for God’s sake, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
If I really thought that the Church does not exist to bring people to Christ, then I would resign and get an honest job.
Steven S ⁜ retweeted
All employees come in 5 levels, choose wisely:
Level 1 - tells you there's a problem
Level 2 - tells you there's a problem and what caused it
Level 3 - tells you there's a problem, what caused it, and options to fix it
Level 4 - tells you there's a problem, what caused it, options to fix it, and which one they'd pick
Level 5 - tells you there was a problem, what caused it, how they fixed it, and future proof’d it
Steven S ⁜ retweeted
There's a strange thing that happens online and in real world conversations, where understanding or explaining an idea or phenomenon is interpreted as SUPPORTING it.
As a result, people pretend to not understand things, lest they be seen as advocating them.
Steven S ⁜ retweeted
In 1973, college girls in Santa Cruz would get into a stranger's car and spend the ride guessing what the killer looked like. The driver was the killer.
His name was Ed Kemper. Students had been warned to accept rides only from cars with a university sticker. His mother worked at UC Santa Cruz, so he had one.
He was 6 foot 9, and his IQ had tested at 145. At 15 he shot and killed his grandparents. He was released at 21, against the advice of the hospital's psychiatrists, and in November 1972 his juvenile record was erased. By then he had already killed three times.
The day after he killed a 15-year-old girl named Aiko Koo, he sat in front of a panel of psychiatrists for a parole check. They found no reason to consider him dangerous.
He had wanted to be a cop, but he was rejected for being too tall. So he drank with cops instead, at a bar across the street from the courthouse, and asked them how the investigation was going.
Kemper says a detective once came to his house to take away a gun he wasn't supposed to have. The loaded .22 he had used in the murders was under the front seat of his car. A purse, a book bag and the IDs of his last two victims were in a box in his bedroom closet. The detective left thinking he was a nice, helpful guy.
In the video below, recorded in prison in 1984, Kemper tells these stories himself.
In April 1973 he killed his mother and her best friend, then called the Santa Cruz police from a phone booth in Colorado to confess. They thought it was a joke and told him to call back later.
He asked for death by torture and got life instead. He is 77 now and was denied parole again in 2024.
Psychiatrists, cops and the girls in his passenger seat all looked at him and saw nothing. Who was supposed to stop him?
Steven S ⁜ retweeted
Government (and every single person not actively stopping it) is in-effect importing them
