Editorial: How do we spread the Gospel amid an increasingly secular culture? We offer three possible solutions

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At the Religious Liberty Summit hosted by the University of Notre Dame’s Law School at the end of June, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty, highlighted the “downright antagonism” to religion so often portrayed in four realms: the academy, entertainment, politics and the media. “From this antagonism to religion that we see today, I fear, comes the direct intrusion of government into the very definition of a church’s ministries, message and meaning,” he said. 

As another Religious Freedom Week comes and goes, Cardinal Dolan’s words have the ring of ominous accuracy. With the rapid secularization of our culture, and the almost inescapable influence of this culture on the lives of all Americans, anti-religious sentiment is on the rise. Along with that — and likely even partially because of that — religiosity itself in the United States continues its rapid decline. A Gallup survey released in March identified the percentage of U.S. adults who belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque in 2020 at 47% — a full 20 percentage points lower than it was when we entered the third millennium. This was not the direction that Pope John Paul II had hoped the Church would go at the end of the 2000 jubilee year in his masterful apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte. And yet, it is where we are. 

As aggressive secularization grows and religiosity declines, religion in the United States finds itself at a perilous point. How do we continue our mission to spread the love of God in a world that sees religion as increasingly irrelevant? Three possible solutions emerge.

The first is greater solidarity among people of faith — and not just individuals in various groups of faith, but people of all faiths. While we may not all share the same tenets of belief, we do share a love of God, an understanding of the great value of mission and service to the world. We can join forces on standing up for the dignity of the human person, for life and for justice. There is much that brings us together, and ecumenical and interfaith efforts will be more important than ever in the coming decades. 

The second is the vigilant protection of the fundamental American right not only to worship but to practice one’s religion in the public square. The solidarity developed among peoples of faith is central to furthering the protection of this critical First Amendment right. Thankfully, there have been some significant wins in the arena of religious liberty, especially at the Supreme Court level. One thinks of the 2018 win of the Little Sisters of the Poor in its long fight against the Obama administration’s HHS mandate. Or the very recent win by Catholic Social Services of Philadelphia that allows the organization the very reasonable right of managing its own foster care program. It is not insignificant that these cases were both argued successfully by the nonprofit Becket law firm, which is doing essential work in the protection of the free exercise of all faiths.  

Finally, and most importantly, each of us has a role to play in turning the tide by growing in personal holiness and, through that, evangelizing the culture that threatens us. As John Paul reminded us in that same apostolic letter: We are not in need of a “new program,” for it already exists — “it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition.” It is up to us, then, to commit to this growth in holiness — to spend more time in prayer seeking God’s guidance for our lives, to read sacred Scripture, to serve one another generously, to be beacons of Christ’s love to all we encounter. It is up to us, too, to know the faith that we profess, and to be comfortable sharing it with others. These ingredients make up the ultimate program for the future of the Church — the one John Paul said “has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem.” 

May it be so. 

Our Sunday Visitor Editorial Board: Gretchen R. Crowe, Scott P. Richert, Scott Warden, York Young

Our Sunday Visitor Editorial Board

The Our Sunday Visitor Editorial Board consists of Father Patrick Briscoe, O.P., Gretchen R. Crowe, Matthew Kirby, Scott P. Richert and York Young.