A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America [Kindle Edition]

Charles J. Chaput (Author)

Book Description

"A genuinely Catholic life should feed the soul as well as the mind; should offer a vision of men and women made whole by the love of God, the knowledge of creation, and the reality of things unseen; should enable us to see the beauty of the world in the light of eternity; and should help us recapture the nobility of the human story and the dignity of the human person. This is the kind of witness that sets fire to the human heart."
—Archbishop Charles J. Chaput
 
In this eBook original, Charles J. Chaput, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, offers a powerful manifesto on the need for Americans to protect religious freedom.
 
As he notes, principles that Americans find self-evident—the dignity of the human person, the sanctity of conscience, the separation of political and sacred authority, the distinction between secular and religious law, the idea of a civil society pre-existing and distinct from the state—are not widely shared elsewhere in the world, and in recent years seem to be in jeopardy on our own shores.
 
Archbishop Chaput offers a call to action for leadership both here and abroad to challenge this damaging trend. By thoughtfully interpreting and applying Catholic values to this confusing moment in history, he provides hope for an American audience hungry for courage and counsel.

Product Details

• File Size: 1691 KB
• Print Length: 31 pages
• Publisher: Image (March 27, 2012)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007M29RBM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,044 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #13 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Church & State
  • #45 in Books > History > World > Religious > Religion, Politics & State
  • #45 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Church & State

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 87 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A timely, important manifesto on public faith and religious liberty March 27, 2012

By Brandon Vogt

Format:Kindle Edition

In the last few years, Archbishop Charles Chaput has established himself as a leading voice on the role of faith in public life. His 2008 book "Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life" (Doubleday, hardcover, 258 pages) prepared Catholics for the presidential election season by encouraging them to live out their faith vigorously in the public square--not simply as good citizens but as bold heralds of the Gospel.

With another presidential election around the corner, the new Archbishop of Philadelphia is back again, this time with a shorter, more urgent call to action. "A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America" (Image, eBook, 19 pages) is more essay than book. At just 19 pages it's a succinct manifesto on perhaps the greatest religious issue of today: religious persecution and the associated threats to freedom.

The book begins by exploring the forces behind this opposition. Archbishop Chaput first takes aim at the modern media, accusing them of promoting an Orwellian "new orthodoxy". This dangerous, yet accepted worldview harbors and promotes assumptions about the purpose of government, the meaning of marriage, and the role of family and sexuality, all of which diverge sharply from past American thought.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the media's treatment of religion. In past centuries, religion was seen as the bedrock of American society and the media treated it as such.... Yet today coverage of religion is "often marked by poor reporting skills, ignorance of the subject matter, and an undercurrent of distaste for religious believers and their convictions."

Archbishop Chaput believes that this has contributed to an unprecedented global crisis in religious liberty:

"Christian minorities in Africa and Asia bear the brunt of the religious violence. But Christians are not the only victims. Nearly 70 percent of the world's people now live in nations where religious freedom is gravely restricted. And even in developed democracies, religious freedom is increasingly under pressure."

Unfortunately, among governments, the media, academia, and the wider culture, many leaders no longer regard religious faith as a healthy force. Threatened by both encroaching secularism and vigilant atheism, religion is quickly bring squeezed out of the public forum.

"The America emerging in the next several decades is likely to be much less friendly to Christian faith than anything in our country's past. And that poses a challenge for all of us as Catholics. It's not a question of when or if it might happen. It's happening today."

So then what's the answer? What can Catholics do to turn this ship around? According to Archbishop Chaput the solution is twofold: a stronger devotion to the Gospel and a recovery of Catholic identity. First, as Pope Benedict has noted through his New Evangelization, much of the world is nominally Christian, empty of any serious commitment to the way of Christ. As the Archbishop explains:

"Too many people who claim to be Christian simply don't know Jesus Christ. They don't really believe in the Gospel. They feel embarrassed by their religion and vaguely out of step with the times. They may keep their religion for comfort value. Or they may adjust it to it their doubts. But it doesn't reshape their lives because it isn't real."

This is perhaps most clear among young people. Citing research from the Barna Group, Archbishop Chaput says that "the Christian image [has] shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people."

Therefore the way toward healing this religious atrophy in America is for people, especially young people, to encounter anew the transformative fire of the Gospel. Movements of young people like FOCUS, Communion and Liberation, the Neocatechumenal Way, the Christian Life Movement, and a host of other Catholic apostolates are key in this regard.

Second, Catholics "need the kind of leadership and the kind of education that radiates confidence in the Word of God, fidelity to the Catholic faith, and a missionary zeal to make all things new in Jesus Christ." In other words, they need a strong Catholic identity.

To this end, the Archbishop focuses on Catholic universities, many of which have eased away from their Catholic roots, disregarding both dogma and faith. When this happens, the Archbishop says, "it steals a treasury of wisdom, imagination, and hope from emerging Catholic leaders."

The purging of religious values from Catholic universities teaches young people that religion doesn't have a place in serious intellectual life. It thereby enables religious intolerance and grooms a new generation of leaders who in turn dismiss the role of religion themselves. If rising Catholic leaders are imbued with a strong sense of Catholic identity, they will be prepared to buck the "new orthodoxy" so rampant today.

With the recent HHS mandate, proposals to redefine marriage, and the government deciding what constitutes religious practice, our country is at a critical tipping point. Which makes Archbishop Chaput's book so apropos. Though succinct in pages, its timeliness, clarity, and prophetic nature make it one of this year's most important texts.

"A Heart on Fire" should be in the hands of every American Catholic especially as we move into the upcoming presidential election. And at $0.99 and an accessible 19 pages, there's no reason it can't. Read more ›

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brief, clear and articulate: classic Chaput on an urgent issue March 28, 2012

By Michael Degnan

Format:Kindle Edition

In his talks and in his writings, Archbishop Charles Chaput was ahead of the curve on the religious liberty debate by several years. And he was completely accurate in his concerns. What always makes Chaput's work so compelling is that he combines strong, well-researched ideas with a vivid writing style, respect for persons with opposing views and a confidence in Jesus Christ that transcends politics. This extended essay is no exception. While brief, "A Heart on Fire" is uniquely relevant to today's attacks on religious freedom; but it's also a terrific reflection on the nature of American democracy, the public role of Christian faith and the emerging face of the next America -- an America much less friendly to religious faith than at any time in the past.

It's impossible to buy a better read for 99 cents. Don't be fooled by Chaput's easy, pastoral manner; there's real depth and a serious intellect at work here. Well worth the investment of pennies and time.

60 of 71 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars OK, but it misses a key point... March 30, 2012

By JV

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I appreciate Archbishop Chaput's concern for the need for a true Christianization of America. And I agree whole-heartedly when he says, "Catholic education is heir to the greatest intellectual, moral and culture patrimony in human history." A number of his observations are well worth reading. However, Catholic education in the United States is in shambles, and has been so since the mid-to-late 1960s.
Meaning no disrespect, I see that the US Bishops have done little to correct the problem; especially when one takes into account the insipid, sometimes heretical religious curriculum widespread in Catholic schools for decades. I am product of Catholic education in Philadelphia, in high school from 1972 to 1976. If I had to rely on the wishy-washy religion learned there, (including priests telling their male-students that certain mortal sins were not sins), I would have lost my Catholic Faith a long time ago. A number of people close to me either lost their faith, or almost lost their faith, due to the rampant modernism in Catholic colleges in Philadelphia.
As we move into the 1980s, the bishops also imposed a grotesque sex-education curriculum against the will of the parents (I know many parents involved in this fight who were treated quite shabbily by chanceries when the protested the sex-ed courses).
This explains why there is an explosive growth of Catholic home-schooling. Catholic parents by the thousands at great personal sacrifice, have removed their children from diocesan schools and teach them at home, because they cannot trust the curriculum their own Catholic bishops are giving them. Many so-called "Catholic" colleges, especially modern Jesuit institutions, are hotbeds of theological dissent and immoral teaching.... Canisius college in Buffalo a few years ago held its second annual "Gay, Lesbian, transgender and Bisexual" conference that clearly flouted Church teaching on these issues, and Bishop Kmiec of Buffalo did nothing to stop it.
Due to this breakdown in Catholic education, at least two generations of Catholics are virtually maimed in regard to their Faith. Ignorance of the Faith is the norm rather than the exception.
Thus I found Archbishop Chaput's essay well-meaning, and interesting in many parts, but he fails to mention the central problem with modern Catholic education: the failure of bishops to ensure a true Catholic curriculum is taught. His book ends, "Do we really believe in Jesus Christ or don't we? And if we do, what are we going to do about it?" The essay concludes suddenly without a sufficient answer to this question. I would like to hear how the American bishops intend to answer this question, for it is they who are supposed to lead the flock. Maybe behind the scenes Archbishop Chaput is trying to improve things in this area.
Also, I would appreciate some hearkening back to the magnificent social encyclicals of great Thomist Popes such as Leo XIII, such as Libertas, Immortale Dei and Sapientiae Christianae (On Christians as Citizens). Granted Archbishop Chaput is writing in an American context, but I find his essay comes up a bit short regarding our rich patrimony of Catholic social teaching.
Despite my reservations, I am heartened to see a US Catholic bishop actually calling for Catholics to live as Catholics in the public square, and to work toward exhorting a Catholic influence on our neo-pagan society. Read more ›

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Cri de Coeur April 5, 2012

By Brian J. Gail

Format:Kindle Edition

Charles J. Chaput, OFM, Cap. is a Native American of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe. His tribal name means "the wind that rustles the leaves of the trees."

The new archbishop of Philadelphia does more than rustle leaves in his first Kindle e-book - A Heart on Fire: Christian Witness and the Next America (Random House Digital, 2012); he fells the giant oak trees of American conventional wisdom.

Chaput believes the wheels of the American Experiment have come off the tracks. However, rather than point to the flipped switch that was the Cultural Revolution, he examines the tracks themselves laid by 17th and 18th century pilgrims and settlers. He cites Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Hawthorne's Celestial Railroad as the binary coordinates of America's split personality.

Bunyan captured the God craving of the pilgrims that produced abundant wheat in the first American harvest; Hawthorne depicts the Self craving, the inclination to indulgence, that produced the weeds co-mingled with wheat in subsequent settlements. This is the claim license makes on liberty and Chaput posits that this manifestation of uniquely American concupiscence is woven into the very fabric of our cultural patrimony.

Some 10 generations removed, this presents a formidable challenge for present and future generations. The public square is now choked with weeds, an inhospitable vacant urban lot. The flight of Catholics to the unengaged suburbia of civic discourse has acerbated the problem. The likely consequence of untended religious liberty, Chaput believes, is its previously unthinkable evisceration in our generation.

Like the man who first appointed him to the episcopacy nearly 25 years ago, Chaput believes in the primacy of culture.... As Blessed John Paul II himself demonstrated on the world stage, the monolith of world communism was no match for a pope's divisions tethered to the "memory and identity" of a Christian nation's anthropology.

Here Chaput turns to the Jesuit John Courtney Murray whose seminal work, The Construction of a Christian Culture, argued 75 years ago that "... a profound religious truth is at the basis of democratic theory and practice, namely the intrinsic dignity of human nature ..." and therefore "... the task of constructing a culture is essentially spiritual for culture has its home in the soul ..."

Chaput believed the Founders well understood this as they set out in pursuit of a novus ordo saeclorum - "a new order of the ages." He cites their working bibliography of Greek and Roman law and literature and philosophy: "Unlike their French counterparts, America's founders had a strong sense of original sin," he writes. "They knew history matters ... that man can't be reinvented out of nothing ... nor perfected by his own devices ..."

Cultural advocacy is Chaput's intellectual sweet spot. He argued in Render (Render Unto Caesar, Doubleday, 2008) that Catholics had a Gospel imperative to bring a scythe to the public square and clear a space for themselves and their progeny before it was too late. His plea appeared to fall on deaf ears. Only months after publication, American Catholics put Obama - the most audaciously anti-life public man of our time in the White House.

Four years later, in another election season, Chaput has returned to the public square - bloody but unbowed. He is virtually alone. He appraises the turbo-charged cultural carnage, reflects on its meaning for his Church, and recalls Roman prefect Symmachus who petitioned the Christian emperor Constantine to restore the pagan Altar of Victory for "posterity's sake." His petition was denied, Chaput believes, because the pagan Symmachus was "arguing from weakness - the weakness of nostalgia ... the weakness of religious rites that no longer had any power ... the weakness of pleading to be heard rather than demanding and winning a place in the human heart through the zeal of religious action and the force of religious witness."

Chaput's concludes that "... nobody listened to Symmachus because nobody cares about embers. But everyone pays attention to a fire - especially when it burns in the hearts of other men and women." It is just such a fire, he declares, that the historical Jesus of Nazareth came to ignite ("I came to cast fire upon the earth and would that it was already kindled!" Lk 12:49).

It may appear to most that Chaput's Church is in the midst of a long and forced retreat into the desert of the post-Christian moment, hunkered down around a dying campfire. But an unlikely voice has arisen in its midst - reasoned, urgent, unapologetically polemical. It is the full throated voice of a formidable warrior bishop who intends to rally the remnant in a last attempt to reignite the Gospel of life and love before his people perish.

It is late autumn in the American Experiment. The leaves that are left are rustling. Trees are toppling. A Native American has cut a path to the center of the public square. His eyes are narrowed, fixed on the collapsing edifice of his ancestors' conquerors.

He stoops to reignite the fire. Then waits as it is kindled. Read more ›

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