By Fr. Robert J. Carr
©Catholic Online 2005

Recently, I attended a meeting of concerned parents and citizens seeking to reverse the current movement to undermine Judeo-Christian morality. I showed several parents the book Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky and encouraged them to read the book and know what is inside, but not to use the techniques. Our opponents use Alinsky’s ideas, but they do not work in the long run. It is in this book that Alinsky praises Lucifer as the first radical.

If you read my last article in the series, “Alinsky Is Dead, Long Life Paul”, then you will see that we follow Paul in the fight against the disciples of Alinsky. What we do therefore is actually partner with God, just as St. Paul did.

GOD RENEWS US

In Romans 12, Paul teaches us to allow for the renewal of our minds. We do that by participating in a relationship with Christ both personally and communally. This gives us the vision to see the true reality and the solution to that reality. Yet remember we are partnering with God. We actually allow Him to show us what to do, after all he is our true General, for he is our King.

OUR MISSION AND THE TOOLS WE NEED

How do we do that? Simple, Jesus teaches us in the Our Father to work with our hearts, souls, minds and strength for two things:
1) For the coming of God’s Kingdom
2) For the manifestation of God’s will.

We allow ourselves to experience a renewal of our minds in our relationship with Christ by:
1) Humbling ourselves in prayer before God.
2) By living the Gospel and
3) Following the Commandments beginning with
A.Love the Lord your God with all your heart Soul Mind and Strength and
B. Love your neighbor as yourself.
C. And continuing on with the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20.
4) Then we arm ourselves with spiritual armor and vision found in Ephesians 6:10.

Many of our opponents will look at this and laugh at the concept. That is our greatest strength. When we are in prayer personally and communally, actively engaged in the sacraments including Eucharist and Reconciliation, we are actively in relation with Our King and working to do his will. No force in the universe can defeat Him, nor can it defeat us.

We need to be daily involved in the word of God, especially, but not exclusively, the gospels and the epistles and the psalms. We need to prayerfully read his word daily. At the very least we need to pray with the daily readings. If at all possible we need to be:
1. In prayer daily for 20 minutes minimum and if possible an hour or more before the Blessed Sacrament.
2. We need to be familiar with the scriptures.
3. We need to be praying the rosary daily.
4. We need to be faithful to mass and go daily if possible.
5. Priests and religious must be faithful to the breviary as well.

You will discover there that the bible is filled with suggestions of what do to in our current struggle. For example, recently, someone representing SNAP and attacking the Church wrote to me the following chilling words. “There are no innocent Catholics.” I wrote back pointing out that this is the philosophy of Al Qaeda. I then asked who was funding the local chapter of his organization. Dan Lyons of Forbes magazine found that SNAP was well funded by trial lawyers. (Paid to Protest Forbes September 15, 2003.)

The letter writer responded asking me if I disagree with his statement. Of course I do, these are words that incite violence. Civil wars have been fought over less. They are the words that spark genocide. They are also the words that brought down the World Trade Center Towers. “There are no innocent (fill in the blank here.)” Yet, how do I respond to him? I took it to prayer.

In prayer, I realized that he employed a common technique used when one is trying to put someone on the defensive: answer a question with a question. I also remembered that one of those who used it was Jesus himself in Luke 20.

This is how I responded.

“The old answer a question with a question trick, you have learned well from the master in Luke 20. Yet, as you see, he also teaches ‘as you have not answered my question, neither will I answer yours.’ “

Notice, I also had fun with this person. That is essential. You must have fun doing this. It is one of our tools to be laughing as we fight our attackers.

Again the person responded, yet, this time citing an upcoming episode of 60 Minutes II and asked me my opinion of the case involved. Notice something. Again he does not answer my question, but answers a question with a question, same technique, but there was something else. He revealed knowledge of a program that had not aired. This brought up additional questions of how he got that information. Further, he said he had no idea ...