UPDATED Father Koch:
December 8, 2025 at 8:07 a.m.
UPDATED COLUMN for Dec. 5, 2025, Second Sunday of Advent
The prophet Isaiah has a great vision of the entire world converging upon the city of Jerusalem to encounter the living God. In the framework of the restoration of the Jewish people after the Babylonian Captivity, his image lived on in the imagination of Matthew as he placed John the Baptizer into a theological context. Instead of making a path in the wilderness, though, Matthew sees John as a voice in the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord. This is a reminder to us that it is always in the wilderness that the church finds its truest home and fulfills its mission.
It is hard to think of ourselves in the wilderness when in recent historical memory the church has been at the forefront of so much of our lives. Yet, on the fringes that the church that the message of the church can ring the loudest.
For Catholics here in the USA it was only in the 1960’s that as a group we began to experience a fuller integration and acceptance into American society. Until then, we were less educated, less financially powerful, and less influential in the body politic than we are now.
In the presidential campaign of 1960, candidate John F. Kennedy, only the second Catholic ever nominated for president by a major political party, addressed the matter of his religious faith to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. There he asserted: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
“For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.”
That speech helped him get elected as it eased the many fears of electing a Catholic as president. Yet, many see that as the moment when the church here left the wilderness and entered the mainstream of American society.
Then, coupled with the social upheaval of the following decade, and the aftermath of Vatican II, the church in America began a slow decline, while having a bigger voice.
The abuse crisis, which uproared in 2002, the decline in religiosity, and the continuing social revolutions, are now moving the church back to the periphery. Because we are used to being mainstream, we are experiencing the strife of being relegated again to the fringes.
The same happened in Europe prior to here, and in some areas there the decline was sharper and deeper. Much the same has been true in parts of Latin America.
It is in Africa, where the church is emerging and is at the same time being most harshly persecuted, that we find the strongest churches and most vibrant communities.
Yet, as we become more marginalized the faith seems to become more powerful and present. We seek a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and we can only do so when we live, not in the noise of the power of the world, but in the wilderness with John.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.
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UPDATED COLUMN for Dec. 5, 2025, Second Sunday of Advent
The prophet Isaiah has a great vision of the entire world converging upon the city of Jerusalem to encounter the living God. In the framework of the restoration of the Jewish people after the Babylonian Captivity, his image lived on in the imagination of Matthew as he placed John the Baptizer into a theological context. Instead of making a path in the wilderness, though, Matthew sees John as a voice in the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord. This is a reminder to us that it is always in the wilderness that the church finds its truest home and fulfills its mission.
It is hard to think of ourselves in the wilderness when in recent historical memory the church has been at the forefront of so much of our lives. Yet, on the fringes that the church that the message of the church can ring the loudest.
For Catholics here in the USA it was only in the 1960’s that as a group we began to experience a fuller integration and acceptance into American society. Until then, we were less educated, less financially powerful, and less influential in the body politic than we are now.
In the presidential campaign of 1960, candidate John F. Kennedy, only the second Catholic ever nominated for president by a major political party, addressed the matter of his religious faith to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. There he asserted: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
“For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.”
That speech helped him get elected as it eased the many fears of electing a Catholic as president. Yet, many see that as the moment when the church here left the wilderness and entered the mainstream of American society.
Then, coupled with the social upheaval of the following decade, and the aftermath of Vatican II, the church in America began a slow decline, while having a bigger voice.
The abuse crisis, which uproared in 2002, the decline in religiosity, and the continuing social revolutions, are now moving the church back to the periphery. Because we are used to being mainstream, we are experiencing the strife of being relegated again to the fringes.
The same happened in Europe prior to here, and in some areas there the decline was sharper and deeper. Much the same has been true in parts of Latin America.
It is in Africa, where the church is emerging and is at the same time being most harshly persecuted, that we find the strongest churches and most vibrant communities.
Yet, as we become more marginalized the faith seems to become more powerful and present. We seek a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and we can only do so when we live, not in the noise of the power of the world, but in the wilderness with John.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.