Me...Brainwashed?

I would not be surprised to discover that my family think I and other religious people are narrow-mined; perhaps even brainwashed. Indeed, one family member has told a parishioner he should be more open-minded and think for himself rather than simply listen to me, his mother and his family... Though well-meaning, such folk take their cue from person-centred theory (a kind of gentle narcissism) which dominates today's world and from the liberal mainstream media, which present the Catholic Church as The Church of ‘No’: ‘no’ to sex; ‘no’ to divorce; ‘no’ to contraception; ‘no’ to cohabitation; ‘no’ to abortion; ‘no’ to euthanasia. Yet the truth is the Church is the Church of “Yes”, offering the world a culture of Life:

‘Yes’ to natural sex with all its life-giving powers intact

‘Yes’ to every human right by defending that right without which we cannot access any other right: the right to life

‘Yes’ to the permanence and exclusivity of marriage to forestall the pain of broken marriages too easily entered

‘Yes’ to the permanence of family life for the stability of children and adults

‘Yes’ to the compassion that cares for the life of the disabled and the terminally ill

‘Yes’ to holy, chaste friendships that enable us to bond with our own sex.

On the other hand, the liberal and secular mainstream offers only the Culture of death:

the death of social cohesion by promoting the “what is right for me” attitude

the death of children by abortion

the death of those in chronic pain by euthanasia

the death of the disabled by euthanasia

the death of natural sex by contraception and homosexual acts

the death of marriage and family life by divorce and cohabitation

In reality, the Catholic lifestyle is inclusive, not exclusive: 
we can drink, just not get drunk (we enjoy life without recklessness); 
we can have sex, but in the context of marriage (to avoid frequent broken relationships and sexual diseases); 
we can seek career success and material comfort, but not at the expense of our religious duties. 

The Catholic enjoys life without making the things of this life his goal. Those who live without The Faith live in what has been called “a salt-water world”: the more we drink, the more we need: the more successful we are, the more success we seek. Thus the world’s most successful singers want more hits; the most successful sportsmen want more trophies. If today’s world does not allow the Church’s common sense into the public arena it is because the world does not seek sense, it seeks sensuality. The Catholic Church speaks up for the natural, common-sense order of things in regard to sex; for the use of our reason and will to control our base desires and passionate cravings so that our cravings do not control us.

I get the distinct feeling that today's society sees religious people as ‘brainwashed’, and where having commitment to the moral code of religion is seen as religious fanaticism. Perhaps the truth is that it is those in the secular world who have been ‘brainwashed’ by person-centred theory, and who have become fanatical about the "what is right for me" ideology. When one looks around one cannot help but note that in obedience to this ideology, all the morality which held society together (the stability of the natural family and the protection of human life from the womb to the tomb) has been washed from their minds to be replaced with “anything goes as long as it is right for you/me done safely”. Hence, to have things 'right for me' we kill the child in the womb and the terminally ill; we engage in sex as ‘friends with benefits’ -and thus seen the rise of STD’s from around 5 strains in the 1950’s to  around 50 strains today. We permit men to have sex with men and women to have sex with women simply on the strength of their passions -though this is not true sex but merely mutual masturbation. 

Despite what might be claimed by some, today’s ways are not a modernisation of morality; they are a return to the morality of the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations where divorce, abortion, active euthanasia (and orthothanasia or 'passive death') and homosexuality were socially acceptable; a morality of societies that did not last -nor could they: an anti-life culture coupled with the instability of family life cannot generate a stable society. 

Unless our society returns to natural sex, stability of family life and the protection and promotion of human life, today’s culture will die as did those of ancient Greece and Rome. We Catholics need only hold to our Gospel morality and wait for the time (perhaps in a few centuries) when secular society has fallen into such distress and chaos that it will seek us out to restore life and stability to a very broken and unstable world.