“God has not called me to be successful; He has called me to be faithful,” Bl. Teresa of Calcutta.

What do the following have in common:

  • Liberal Catholic support for contraception, abortion, divorce and perversion
  • Conservative Catholic support for Torture and Lying
  • Liberal Catholic support for socialism and Liberation Theology
  • Conservative Catholic support for folk heroes such as Maciel, Euteneuer, Corapi and Pavone
  • Liberal Catholic support political candidates who support policies that help the poor and immigrants but who are otherwise vehemently anti-Catholic
  • Conservative Catholic vilification of anyone who is less than a “super disciple” or of anyone who dares criticize Conservative Catholic heroes

Answer: What they all have in common is Sex and Success.

Let me explain.

Over at Mark Shea’s blog, Mark links to a National Catholic Register article in which he discusses voting and Catholics. “Scott W.” of the blog Romish Internet Graffiti comments thus …

Actually, it’s not that difficult to find such candidates [candidates who don’t support abortion or torture]. It is just difficult to find one with a chance of winning which really isn’t the point as we are called to be faithful, not effective.

Scott is echoing Blessed Teresa’s quote above, and in doing so he gets to the root of things – the root beneath the dissidence and turmoil we see in the Church in America.

If an American Catholic is confused or dissenting, he is either a proponent of lust without limit or of success-over-sacrifice.

What I mean by “success-over-sacrifice” is that, for Catholics on both the left and the right, results trump methods and ends justify means.

This is what I would call the heresy of Activism, the belief that this world matters more than the next and that anything we do to compromise our effectiveness (our success) in this world is to be shunned. Therefore, the leftists will tell you that helping the poor is more important than obeying the Church on matters of faith and morals – for results trump methods and ends justify means. Rigthies will tell you that defeating abortion justifies lying, defeating Islam justifies torture, and being an effective (successful) super-disciple is more important than being an ineffective (unsuccessful) moral and faithful disciple – for results trump methods and ends justify means.

And what we worship is not the God of Sacrifice and Suffering, but the false idol of Success.

What they all forget is that this is the only faith where Failure is glorious, where by suffering and dying we heal and live, where the greatest worldly defeat may actually be the greatest worldly (and other-worldly) victory. What they all forget is that nasty item unique to the Catholic Church, not found in any other religion and not embraced by any other philosophy of the world, the cross.

What they forget is we are called to be faithful, not successful.