Life in the "Kingdom of Whatever"

     "The Reformation also had implications for science and technology.  With varying degrees of self-awareness, when the Reformers dismembered the sacraments, they changed the way Western culture perceived nature and the whole material world.
     As an example: even today, to the extent Catholics are formed by the sacraments, we live in a world infused with God's presence.  For both the medieval and modern Catholic, the material environment is a medium for divine grace.  But the Reformers' disdain for works and sacraments inevitably made faith a more inward, abstract experience.
     Westerners used to believe that the world was part of a spiritual cosmos, but after the Reformation, that confidence is no longer shared.  Consequently, modern merchants, universities, and intellectuals have developed the habit of seeing matter as spiritually inert, which means it is available to be manipulated to serve human desires."

     From a review of Brad Gregory's book The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society by The Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.  As member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput is the second Native American to be ordained bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop.  To read more, please click here.