….I borrowed this article’s title, “On the Power of the Powerless,” from one of the great essays of the last century. Václav Havel, the playwright and political dissident, wrote “The Power of the Powerless” in 1978 at the height of communist repression in his native Czechoslovakia. The content is brilliant, but Havel’s main point is very simple: Even in a world of persecution and state control, the individual is never really powerless. He or she always has the power to say no, to refuse to believe lies, and to search out other people who share a love for truth and are willing to suffer for it.
Havel was never religious. But his friend and fellow Czech dissident, Václav Benda, was. And Benda’s the man whose example I want us to remember in the coming weeks and months. Especially in yet another election year.
A husband and father of six, Benda — when he was pressed in the 1970s to join the Communist Party for professional reasons — declined. It killed his career. He was hounded out of academia. He was forced from one menial job after another. He was harassed for his peaceful resistance activities, which were technically legal under Czechoslovak law. He was arrested and jailed for four years. But none of it deterred him. He and his family had a profound Catholic faith, and they lived it intensely. At Easter in 1985, in the midst of all his political problems and government bullying, Benda wrote an extraordinary defense of Catholic teaching on divorce, contraception, and abortion (collected here) — this, despite knowing that part of the Czech Church was collaborating with the regime, and some of her leaders were both corrupt and cowards.
Through it all, he never lost his gratitude for the beauty of his family and the gift of his faith. Nor did he lack a sense of humor about his own sufferings. At the height of his government troubles, he wrote that “I consider it extremely unreasonable, once you’ve shown some eccentric willingness to throw yourself to the lions, to complain that their teeth are not very clean.”
All of this man’s energy, creativity, and courage flowed out of one source: his identity and fidelity as a believing Catholic layman—the vocation which began at his baptism and shaped his whole life. Which is why, even in his prison cell, Václav Benda was a free man; free in a way his persecutors could never be.
For us American Catholics, the truths of our faith have been easy to learn, easy to affirm, and too often easy to forget, for the last six decades. The Church in our country has enjoyed a fairly free and comfortable life for a long time. And a great deal of good has been done. It’s still being done by good people in every American diocese and parish. We should be grateful and proud for all that God has made possible, and our place in helping to achieve it. But if the hatred unleashed by the 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down Roe v. Wade teaches us anything, it’s that our comfortable times — the go along and get along times — are over. What we need now is to think and act accordingly. We need to recover the spine and the missionary nature of our baptism….
From Archbishop Charles Chaput on What We Need Now
It’s over for the United States. The country is dead, but the corpse hasn’t reached the stage of rotting yet. I’m done trying to care or make the country better. I’ve taken to withdrawing and keeping to myself, making sure that me and mine are safe and well taken care of. I read two stories today about violence at fast food restaurants over minor disagreements. What the hell has happened? It’s all Democrats’ fault. We’ve let in too many undesirables, failed to educate our young, failed to enforce laws against crime, failed to hold elected leaders accountable, and the country is a crapstorm as a result. It’s over.
I know how you must feel. But I don’t think many Americans are fully aware of the horrific sufferings which people have endured, in foreign countries– and continue to endure, to this day. I have neighbors who are Jews, Israelis, Russians, Russian Jews, Ukranians (Orthodox), Chinese, Latin American, etc. etc.– who all have horror stories in their pasts, before coming to America, and making a successful life here. You know, almost every Jew has at least one relative who died in Hitler’s evil Holocaust. Horrific! They may show you photos of their beloved family members who died in the Holocaust. One lovely Chinese neighbor, who immigrated with her family to America, has an elderly grandfather, age 93, still in China, too old, not wanting to leave China and come to the U.S. This Chinese lady saves her money to return to mainland China each year, to see her beloved grandfather, and check up on him. She relates a harrowing story, each time she makes her visits to her beloved grandpa– and I always say prayers that she will be safe, and return to America safe and sound. I have an elderly Russian Orthodox neighbor, dying of cancer, who has told stories of Russian soldiers burning his family home down, and burning down all the other family homes in his neighborhood, when he was a small boy— and the families escaped, and fled to America. I have elderly neighbors whose family immigrated from Armenia, due to the horrific 1915 Armenian Genocide. The lovely, elderly wife was a beautifully-trained concert pianist when young, and she has photos around her grand piano, of their family members and friends, who were killed in the Armenian Genocide. She and her husband and children, and their family, are very devout, and have long been active in their Armenian Church and parish school, and parish community. The list of horrific atrocities endured by each immigrant family I know, goes on and on. Very scary! My grandparents were also immigrants, who didn’t get their U.S. citizenship (in California) until after I was born. Oh, what a great treasure America was, for them. The story of our great country, America, isn’t over, yet. A huge number of sincere Americans of deep religious faith, and love of God, family and country, are praying and working, night and day– and recruiting more and more Americans, who wish to join in the return to love of God and religious faith, and love of family, and country, and Biblically-based morals– especially, young people, growing up, marrying, and starting families. Our Lady, Patroness of the Americas, is here to help us, with her divine Son, Jesus. We live in terribly troubling times– but Christ and Our Lady, and all the angels and saints, are here with us, and want to help us. We do not suffer alone.
The world has gone crazy. I saw a video about how the new Star Wars TV series is the gayest Star Wars ever. What has the world come to?
The new Star Wars series is getting slammed and mocked in audience reviews. Disney has ruined Star Wars. George Lucas should never has sold Star Wars to Disney. But I can’t fault him for taking the money. The hilarious thing is that critics reviews gave the series an A+ in an obvious collusion with Disney to promote and prop up the awful series. We do live in an utterly corrupt system.
Thank you, Mr. Benda for your faith and courage. And thank you, Archbishop Chaput for bringing this to our attention. It is so good to read about and hear good things for a change.