Significant pockets of the clergy and laity, however, have remained faithful to the Church. The intellectual and spiritual legacies of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI influenced a new generation of young priests in America. A highly educated, doctrinally orthodox laity has also emerged. Catechetical materials, Catholic publishing, and Catholic websites testify to widespread orthodoxy among the lay intelligentsia and thoughtful Catholics.
When Catholics go fuzzy about sin, when we obfuscate about what leads us away from God rather than toward Him, when we try to subjectivize moral action out of some misguided notion of mercy, we’re not making things easier for ourselves or for anyone else. We’re only succeeding in diminishing the urgency and freshness of the Good News itself.
As the Synod continues to consider how to better proclaim the Gospel, it would do well to remember: If sin is not a big deal, then neither is our being saved from it. And if salvation is not a big deal, what’s so good about the Gospel?
Other Catholics are founding publishing houses (such as Sophia Institute Press, Ignatius Press, Os Justi Press, Emmaus Press, Cluny Press, and Angelico Press, to name a few), online magazines (like Crisis, LifeSiteNews and OnePeterFive), creating routine podcasts and daily radio shows (like The Catholic Current with the imitable Fr. Robert McTeigue)—all of whom can be likened to the pre-Soviet era Radio Free Europe. With skill and ingenuity, they are broadcasting the message of Doctrinal Catholicism over the heads of the cadaverous ecclesial bureaucracy that sits like a massive beached whale on the Mystical Body of Christ. These dynamic New Catholics have become the lean and diminutive David, slinging the tiny polished stones of the Victorious Christ against the massive and dollar-bloated Goliath of the conventional leadership.