Statement of Support for
Roman Catholic Faithful
Donna M. Steichen

What do the Catholic faithful ask of the Church? They ask for shepherds who will teach them her saving truth, provide them with grace through her Sacraments, and enable them to worship in the Sacred Mysteries where Christ Himself becomes the Bread of Life to feed them. These are Divine gifts, precious beyond counting, yet they are what Our Lord promised to provide.

Additionally, faithful Catholics expect their spiritual shepherds to defend them from the world's wolves by identifying and condemning the prevalent errors of the day, whether in society or in the Church.

Thirty years ago, most of the faithful so deeply trusted their shepherds to fulfill those expectations that, as the Church in America collapsed and disintegrated, many of them followed bad shepherds into chaos, and called it renewal. Scandalized, nominal or apathetic Catholics gradually vanished from the pews, but other sheep remained so docile that they went wherever any religious professional pointed, even if it were off a cliff into the sea. In their blind trust, such Catholics exhibited the simplicity of the dove without the wisdom of the serpent, and so enabled rash and arrogant innovators to dismantle the healthy Catholic subculture that had sustained a flourishing Church. In this they were not following Christ, who said we must be both simple and wise.

The saving faith with which Our Lord endowed His Church is transmitted to new generations through culture, liturgy and catechesis. Today, Catholic culture is dead in America. Liturgy is unstable and, in most places, ugly, irreverent and banal. Two generations of Catholics are effectively uncatechized. As a consequence, the Church is in such grave disarray in America that it may never recover.

Faithful Catholics are not mere consumers of religion, mere subjects owing unexamined obedience to whichever religious bureaucrats happen to be directing parishes and dioceses. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart: Catholic Christians, loyal to Christ and to His Vicar, who leads His Church on earth. They command our faithful and uncompromising obedience, even if religious authority figures closer to us should rebel against them.

Our present situation is too desperate for us to keep silent out of human respect. When our children are being robbed of their saving heritage, we must stop the robbery and expose the thieves. Immortal souls are being lost.

We cannot wait for permission from bureaucrats or intervention by distant authorities. We must exercise our responsibility as adult Catholics to defend the faith now.

That is the mission of faithful Catholics, and the reason I support Roman Catholic Faithful.

Sincerely in Christ,

Donna Steichen