Reporter: That’s ridiculous!
You: Is it? How often do you think about the babies crushed by abortion? How often do you think about human slavery? About the rights of immigrants to not be unjustly spearated from their families? About women being prescribed drugs that are giving them cancer and poisoning the environment? How much do you care about the epidemic of people using other people? Do you know the names of the homeless guy you passed on the way to work? How much time did you spend feeding the hungry last week? Caring for the sick and dying? Visiting the prisons? Teaching the ignorant? Comforting the afflicted? The Church does all that and more exactlybecause it does not want to look anything like your world. There is nothing in your world that we want. There is nothing your world can offer us. Well, I take that back. There is exactly one thing that the Church wants from your world.
Reporter: What’s that?
You: (Suddenly calm. Serious. Very intentional) We would very much like to claim your soul for Jesus Christ–and the souls of your friends and family and listeners. We would love for you to join us. After this interview, would you pray with me?
Reporter: Well, that’s about all the time we have….
And That’s a Wrap.
You might say, “Well that would be the last time they would invite you back.” Honestly, I doubt that’s true. Television, especially, eats this stuff up. Can you imagine the headlines? “Bishop to Anderson Cooper: ‘I want your soul.’” You can’t BUY press like that.
But even if they didn’t invite you back, would that really be so bad?
Catholics are not called to win debates, or elections for that matter. We are here to win souls for Jesus Christ. It isn’t our place to be on the defensive. We are the Church Militant and the gates of the NY Times, or HuffPo, or WaPo, or AnyPo, for that matter, cannot be allowed to prevail against us. The only way we get in trouble in conversations with the Press is when we forget our job. Our job is not to make our doctrines and practices more palatable to the world. They are intentionally unpalatable! God made them so to remind us that there are more things in heaven and on earth than can be explained by our philsophies. Our job is not to be Jesus’ PR flacks. Our job is to fulfill our prophetic mission by making the world confront the truth of Jesus Christ.
If that gets us booted off the air, so be it. But, honestly, I doubt it would. Regardless, it just might make the world stand up and take notice that the People of God are done bowing and burning incense to petty newsroom Caesars for doing exactly what God commanded us to do. And that would definitely not be such a bad thing.
image: Adrian Petrean / Shutterstock.com
