In a Holy Week homily, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley told his priests to challenge the American “culture of death,” and a society dominated by “consumerism, hedonism, [and] individualism,” the Boston Globe reported.
Archbishop O'Malley, though not spelling out the issues, exhorted his priests to preach explicitly about “public issues” and “social causes. No one will follow an uncertain trumpet blast,” he said. He said that the Church's position on family values were “essential for civilization in the long run.” The Archbishop warned those gathered that “the word of God cannot be changed,” reiterating the words of St. Paul.
The homily was given during the Chrism mass held each year during Holy Week.
Archbishop O'Malley compared Catholics in America with the Jews exiled in Babylon. Catholics “find themselves in a hostile, alien environment where the overriding temptation is to assimilate, the cultural pull is to conform to a dominant cultural influence that is incongruous with our faith and our destiny,” he said. The tenets of the faith are met “if not with hostility, at best with the yawn of indifference.”
“Today, our challenge is simple: to resist the temptation to conform to the culture of death, to consumerism, hedonism, individualism,” Archbishop O'Malley said.
He described baby boomers as “religious illiterates…. 'My karma ran over my dogma' could be their motto. The boomers,” he continued, “are heirs to Woodstock, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, feminism, the breakdown of authority, and divorce… And they are addicted to entertainment — even the news must be entertaining,” he added.
Read the Boston Globe coverage.
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
