Not taking advantage of being Catholic

Apart from the anticlericalism I am talking about, there is the type where one tries to take advantage of the condition of being Catholic in order to impose one’s personal opinion in what is a matter of debate, or to demand the provision of certain professional services, free of charge, from other Catholics, without just and reasonable financial redress, because that is their work and how they live and support themselves. Even worse, whenever these services are sought from people who are either indifferent or hostile to the Church, they are fully paid for, perhaps even though the Church is betrayed.

Not presuming to represent the hierarchy

When I see, in the political life of any country, laypeople arrogate to themselves the role of representing the Hierarchy, embroiling it in temporal affairs – because they themselves (who ostentatiously call themselves Catholics) are not capable, or do not seem capable, of assuming their personal responsibility as citizens, and cling to the Church like ivy to a wall, first making it disappear with its foliage, and then destroying it with the roots that seek the sap in the crevices of those noble ashlars – then, as a rule, I keep quiet and pray. Always, however, the passage from St Luke comes to my mind, and I seem to hear the voice of Jesus our Lord, saying to them: It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’, but you have made it a den of robbers (Luke 19:46).