Father John Hollowell

Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 23rd and 24th of 2021   And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.  But he kept calling out all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me!”   Our world is telling Catholics to be silent.  In the United States, for now, Catholics are pressured through a mostly silent campaign to encourage self-censoring, and to discourage speaking the Truth in Love.   In other areas of the world, people are being martyred and tortured for their Catholic Faith and that is a much more literal instance of the world telling Catholics to be silent.   But we know that in some ways, the softer encouragement to self-censor is MORE effective than killing and torturing Catholics because when it gets down to martyrdom and torture, Catholics wake up and start to take their faith seriously.  Those who see fellow Catholics being killed for their Catholic Faith never forget that.   But when it is a soft, subtle campaign to make every Catholic self-censor, it is much easier to