c) THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

"I am not ashamed of the Gospel"

In matters of religion, be they about doctrine or morals, precepts or counsels, about the laws of God or of the Church, about worship or hierarchy, about the Pope, the bishops or the least priest, not only our speech but also our very lives should cry out to the world: I am not ashamed of the Gospel (...).

This is the hour for us to profess and practice our faith fearlessly.  This is the hour for us to work strenuously for the Christian rebirth of our people, disillusioned and vexed, as they are, by the false promises of those who, instead of well-being and prosperity, have given them only humiliation and misery.  This is the hour for us to lavish our love on the people in the name of Jesus Christ so that they do not go after false teachings and even falser promises.  This is the hour for us to draw as one man around our supreme leader, the vicar of Jesus Christ. ¹⁵

"Who said martyrdom is not for us?"

Who said martyrdom is not for us?  In Scripture, the Holy Spirit says to each of us: suffer agony for your soul and struggle unto death for justice.  This justice is the truth of Christ.  Those who abandon this truth think unjust thoughts and become doers of iniquity, thus incurring the eternal wrath of God (...).

For this truth we must fight strenuously even unto agony and death.  Sooner or later, an hour of this agony will come into everyone's life.  If nothing else, says a Doctor of the Church, the unrelenting struggle of the spirit against the flesh, the anguish of a soul sometimes subjugated by earth like a slave and seemingly rejected by heaven as unworthy: this is martyrdom.  To have the courage of one's convictions and to live a Christian life before a scoffing world because it does not have the courage to believe: this is tantamount to martyrdom. ¹⁶

"We must openly take sides with God"

Many remain Catholic but out of cowardice keep their faith hidden.  We must not condemn ourselves to silence when we hear the thrice holy name of God blasphemed and our Common Father, the Roman Pontiff, jeered at.  We must not be like the Catholics Pascal describes with such deep insight: "They are irresolute because of cowardice, complacent because of self-interest.  One hardly knows what they really stand for."

The time for powerful action has come.  Are we not sons and daughters of heroes and martyrs?  Are we not heirs to a faith that stood up to tyrants and villains?  Do we not profess the faith that has conquered the world?  If this faith teaches us that here below we are constantly struggling with spiritual enemies, are we not to struggle with the enemies of religion?  Our love for religion should prepare us for an untiring defense of this faith.  However, there is no better or easier defense than to openly and fearlessly profess it in word and deed without ostentation. ¹⁷

"The courage of righteousness "

Now is the time for us to show the children of the world, who brag they are free, what true freedom is and what it consists of.  If the life of a Christian is warfare at all times, what shall we say of our modern days?  We can try to fool ourselves all we want.  But in our day a war, a treacherous war, is raging against Catholicism from one end of the world to the other (...). It is up to us, sons and daughters of the true Church of Christ, to fearlessly fight this war, a glorious and holy war par excellence.  It is up to us to display before friend and foe the power and enthusiasm of courageous Catholics, the power and courage of a people radiant with all the splendor of Christian faith and hope.

If the wicked have the daring of evil, to the point of impudence, why should the upright lack the daring of righteousness?  If the wicked have the courage to ruin themselves, why should we not have the courage to save ourselves?  If the wicked are free to corrupt youth, why should we be timid and afraid to train them to be good Christians?  The wicked could not care less about other people's feelings. 

They trod underfoot the cherished traditions, the laws, the conscience, the will of a whole people.  But we, brightly enlightened by nineteen centuries of God's light, urged on by all that is good and true on earth, sustained and blessed by heaven, assured of an immortal reward, are we going to draw back in fear? (...).

Especially you young people, the precious hope of Church and country, never forget that battles and victories must begin in your heart.  Your heart is the first battlefield on which the great problems and most sacred rights of Church, family, and civil society are first brought up and studied (...).  Do not let yourselves be duped by the idle talk of a world that snickers because it does not have the courage to believe.  Flee from the apostles of error as you would a poisonous snake.  Deepen your knowledge of the principles of our holy faith.   Cultivate the science of the faith.  If you are believers out of deep conviction, all the seductions of the world cannot touch you.  Victorious within yourselves, you will lift the banner of Christian truth higher and higher.  You will fear only God and be truly free. ¹⁸

"Have the strength of your convictions"

Fortitude: this is what is missing in most people today.  Fortitude is not firmness, because firmness can also be an inert force.  Nor should fortitude be confused with fidelity and constancy, because fortitude is the cause not the effect of these two virtues.  Fortitude is not violence, because violence peters out in a fleeting and sterile effort.  Fortitude gives power to mind and heart, a power that stands fast, that goes forward, that withstands all attacks and overcomes all obstacles.  Fortitude is a conquering virtue.

Even during the most hard-fought struggles, fortitude remains within the exact limits of the truth.  With calm and sovereign authority, it rules and directs all the faculties of the mind, all the outbursts of the heart.  It is fortitude that creates great enterprises (...). 

You, too, must have this fortitude, the strength of your convictions, above all.  When one has nineteen centuries of light, glory, and good works behind him, when one is sustained by an invincible army of apologists and doctors, when one has the support of knowledge and talent, of chastity and sacrifice, of the apostles and martyrs, of a Church that even today fills the world with marvelous deeds, oh, that person will surely speak and work with holy freedom and noble pride! 

He has every right to look error in the eye and not flinch!

Use this fortitude against your passions.  Even our passions can be powerful instruments for good if we are able to control them, to channel them with the fortitude of our will.  Lightning crushes and destroys as it passes; but, made docile by the hands of science, it conveys the thoughts of men and women across the ocean with the speed of lightning.

Do you have energy and drive?  Come!  The field is so vast.  Looking over your program, gentlemen, I read: the organization of Catholics in Emilia; Catholic action; religious and worship activities; the press; schools, etc.  Do you have any ambition?  Well, then, channel it toward the conquest of all that is good, of all that is true.  Yes, there is such a thing as holy ambition.  It keeps spurring us on: higher, still higher! higher in efforts, higher in virtue, higher in sacrifices, higher in regenerating power! excelsior, excelsior!

You must have the energy of the apostolate because every Christian must be an apostle.  How can one possess the truth, see it, feel it, love it, and not experience a powerful need to spread it and share it with others?

You must have the fortitude to hold on and resist during the hour of trial and battle because every Christian is a soldier (...). Fight with courage but, at the same time, with charity.  In the words of a distinguished modern writer, your adversaries, howsoever wicked, still belong to the architecture of good; and if God were to deal some powerful blows, they would be transformed.  Put your hand into the sanctuary of the heart.  One by one touch all the chords in it, and you will discover the chord of love.  Touch that chord with kindness, which is the sister of charity.  That chord will vibrate and you will have won over an immortal soul and gained a new heart to the scepter of truth.  Always remember that Christian truth does not want people who kill but people who save.  It does not need executioners but victims.  Recall that, when describing the armor of a Christian soldier, the Apostle Paul mentions shoes: the soldier's feet should be shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.  At the school of Jesus Christ, to fight and win means to love.  Love is victory, hatred is defeat. ¹⁹

"Character, which gives rise to firmness and courage"

The most precious trait a person could have in society is character, the fruit of deep convictions; character, which, in turn, gives rise to the firmness and courage that make one express his or her opinion without fear and before anyone whenever necessary.  Unfortunately, a dreadful scourge of our day is the absence of this character.  As a result, people often do not understand each other because, like chameleons, they keep changing ideas, opinions, and language, according to the persons they may be talking to (...). It is high time to do away with half-baked consciences and cowardly fears.  Oh, once again, why do we not make good use of all the freedom which is ours? ²⁰

"It is time to wake up, it is time to act"

It is up to us who, through the mercy of God, are believers to make every effort to save society and our country from greater evils, especially because, frankly, we ourselves are not without fault.  For too long we have been weak, uncertain, almost afraid of the threatening look and arrogant demeanor of the shameless destroyers of the faith, a faith that should be more precious to us than our very lives.  While we may not have offered incense to their idols, we nonetheless hid ourselves and left these people at liberty to do harm and say whatever they wanted.

It is time to wake up, it is time to act (...). Those who see the wicked feverishly engaged in their activities and stand aside are traitors and cowards.  The gospel is full of allegories, recommendations, reproaches, and anathemas against the laziness of the do-nothings and the sterility of lethargic souls.  No vice is condemned more often and more forcefully.

To these people I say: what good is it to you to keep deploring the evils besetting you if you do nothing about them?  It only helps make our enemies bolder, for in this attitude they detect your cowardice and weakness.  Do you not know that, generally, the events of one age have their roots in an earlier one, that the order of events results from the order of ideas and that, as a result, if we want a better future, now is the time to prepare it for ourselves? (...).

Expecting everything from miracles is neither virtue nor faith but

unwarranted presumption.  True believers surely believe in miracles, but they know very well that God does not perform them either to satisfy the vain curiosity of the foolish or to reward the laziness and sloth of anyone. ²¹

"Christian society does not reject the Nicodemuses but does want the fire of Peter"

The timid and the cowardly must become strong because, while Christian society does not crush the fainthearted, it does need lions.  While it does not reject the Nicodemuses, it does call for the fire of Peter (...).  In a word, if all those who are inwardly Catholic were to show themselves Catholics in deed, you can be sure that goodness would begin to battle with evil on an equal footing and that the rights of the majority of citizens would be respected by the very people by whom, frankly, Catholics allowed themselves to be taken advantage of.  Well, then, let this be your first task: to do good together and to do it openly and courageously. ²²