Philadelphia, Pa., Feb 13, 2018 / 15:00 pm
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has encouraged Catholics to learn from history this Lent: to refuse to negotiate with evil, and to pursue the "difficult but always liberating" path to holiness.
"We negotiate little 'concordats' with our favorite personal sins, ugly habits and dictatorial appetites all the time," Archbishop Chaput wrote in a Feb. 13 column. "The deals we make with the world, and the flesh, and the devil, always go south."
"February 14 this year is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. It's the day on which a loving God invites all of us to smash our miserable little concordats with sin and its alibis to bits."
The archbishop drew his point from an analysis of Reichskonkordat, a deal between the Holy See and the German government, signed in 1933.
On paper, Chaput said, the deal was mostly a good one: the state developed a stable relationship with a well-organized, "potentially troublesome," religious minority, and the Church's people were protected.