Also in the mail...

I don't know how long the Aug-Sept issue of Catholic World Report has been hiding under a pile of stuff in the living room-but I spied it last night. There was an interview with Russell Shaw (on his new book with Fr. McCloskey III-Good News, Bad News (Ignatius Press).

In the interview, Mr. Shaw talks about how, in the early middle part of the 20th century: "American Catholicism was on the verge of becoming the dominant cultural shaping force in the US," but how through a variety of forces-mostly from within the Church-starting in the late 1950's that "the Catholic subculture and with it its dynamism and its capacity to be a strong influence on the larger secular culture" collapsed.

So, Mr. Shaw is asked: What are Catholics to do? His answer:

In a way we're back to the situation the Church was in the early centuries in the Roman Empire. The Church was underground, small, suspect, despised, and sometimes persecuted. What did the Church have? Catholics. Individual Christians living out their commitment to Christ were able to speak convincingly to their pagan neighbors and give an account of what they believed and why they believed it. It worked then, and that's the way it has to work now also.

This is a great message. Hopefully you can read the whole article. (I am not sure if CWR puts many of its articles online.)

Of course, (and here comes one more shameless plug) if you want to read more of what Russell Shaw has to say about the mission of ordinary lay Catholics in evangelizing the culture, you can always take advantage of our current special .

Oremus pro invicem!