No one is forced to be a Christian. But no one should be forced to live according to the "new religion" as though it alone were definitive and obligatory for all mankind.
It is sad that there are what you might call professional Catholics who make a living on their Catholicism, but in whom the spring of faith flows only faintly, in a few scattered drops. We must really make an effort to change this.
For many people today, practical atheism is the normal rule of life...If this attitude becomes a general existential position, then freedom no longer has any standards, then everyting is possible and permissible.
Certainly, it is difficult to make the demands of the Gospel understandable to secularized people. But this pastoral difficulty must not lead to compromises with the truth.
To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth – that is not living, but existing.
Lest anyone think that I am alone in bemoaning the attempts of some to create a false dichotomy between evangelisation and proselitysm - and I would in many cases argue, a false distinction altogether -, Steve Skojec makes a similar point:
The story that Pope Benedict resigned because he could not travel by plane certainly has a lot of legs left in it. Without a doubt it will occupy theologians for a long time to come.
Distinctions Matter
Distinctions Matter Forward
Missale Romanum
Pre-1951 Calendar