Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Sinful clergy behavior one of the main reasons for defections from the Church

In an article published in The Christian Post, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan is quoted as having said that, said that "sinful" clergy behavior is one of the main reasons people are leaving Roman Catholicism and called on believers to hold on to the Church despite its flaws, during a speaking engagement in Milwaukee, Wis., on Thursday.

The Cardinal said that, "It's not a bad idea to fess up to the sinful side of the church...In her human side, the church can be imperfect, sloppy and corrupt. We admit her flaws, but we love her all the more because she is Christ on the cross."  See here:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/cardinal-dolan-admits-sinful-clergy-pushing-people-away-from-catholic-church-103942/print.html

In these times of scandal it is critical to remember that the Church remains spotless even when Her members sin. There is absolutely no doubt that the human history of the Church, like all of human history, has its dark pages. But if anyone cares to take an objective look at this history, one must quickly acknowledge that the doctrine of the Church has always implicitly condemned abuses introduced by Her members.


In the words of Dr. Dietrich Von Hildebrand, "There were sinners in the Church yesterday and there are sinners in the Church today. But the Church Herself, in her divine teaching, emerges gloriously unspotted in a history stained by human weaknesses, errors, imperfections, and sins." In the words of the great Cardinal Journet:

"All contradictions are eliminated as soon as we understand that the members of the Church do indeed sin, but they do so by their betraying the Church. The Church is thus not without sinners, but She is without sin. The Church as person is responsible for penance. She is not responsible for sins....The members of the Church themselves - laity, clerics, priests, Bishops, and Popes - who disobey the Church are responsible for their sins, but the Church as person is not responsible...It is forgotten that the Church as person is the Bride of Christ, 'Whom He has purchased with His own blood.'" (Acts 20:28).

There are those priests who wish to assign the blame elsewhere.  During a recent homily given at the 10 AM Mass at Our Lady Immaculate Parish in Athol, Massachusetts, Fr. Krzysztof Korcz noted how churches are emptying and closing everywhere and laid the blame almost entirely on parents for not imparting Gospel values to their children.

This does not square with the words of Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi.  The humble Italian priest, who received interior locutions from the Mother of God, was told that, "The cause of such a vast diffusion of errors and of this great apostasy rests with unfaithful pastors. They remain silent when they should speak with courage to condemn error and to defend the truth. They do not intervene when they should be unmasking the rapacious wolves who, hidden beneath the clothing of lambs, have insinuated themselves into the flock of Christ. They are mute dogs who allow their flocks to be torn to pieces...."


Which is why some priests dismiss the messages of Our Lady to Father Gobbi.  The message is not one they want to hear.
To whom much has been given, much will be required (Luke 12:48). How quickly some priests forget this as they attempt to shift the blame for virtually everything that goes wrong in the Church to the laity, and especially parents. This is not, of course, to excuse those parents who have in fact neglected to pass along the faith to their children or who have been poor examples of what it means to be Christian. But we have had more than our share of priests who have failed miserably to sanctify others and to provide a model of holiness.

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., whom many consider to have been one of the finest theologians of the 20th century, a Dominican who was a master of the spiritual life, explains in his book "The Priest In Union With Christ, that "St. Thomas writes: 'They who belong to the divine ministry assume a royal dignity and ought to be perfect in virtue' (cf. IV Sent., dist. 24, q. 2); this is also repeated in the Pontifical (Cf. Suppl. Summae Theol., q. 35, a. 1,2, de Ordine). And thus priestly Ordination is certainly superior to religious profession. This sacramental grace of Holy Orders is a modal reality added to habitual grace, which gives the priest a right to receive all the actual graces he needs for an increasingly holier celebration of the Mass. See the Imitation of Christ, Bk. iv, c. 5: 'Thou art made a priest and art consecrated to celebrate; see now that faithfully and devoutly, in due time, thou offer up the sacrifice to God, and that thou show thyself blameless. Thou hast not lightened thy burden, but art now bound by a stricter bond of discipline and obliged to greater perfection of sanctity. A priest ought to be adorned with all virtues and set the example to others of a good life.'...the priest's special obligation to tend to perfection is confirmed by his duties toward the Mystical Body of Christ. He is called upon to sanctify others by preaching the word and by spiritual direction both inside and outside the confessional." (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 54-55).

But many priests today are not preaching the word. They are not instructing the faithful. Many have abandoned prayer. And this has led to a satanic pride which resulted in priests abusing innocent and vulnerable children. We read in Galatians 5: 22-23 that: "..the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But as Fr. Lagrange notes, "In contrast to the spirit of God, the spirit of the Devil at first lifts the soul to the heights of pride and then plunges it down into turmoil and despair, just as the Devil himself sinned through pride and is now condemned to an eternity of despair and hatred of God...humility is never encouraged by this spirit, for it gradually distorts the soul's vision to see itself greater than anyone else. Almost unconsciously it makes the prayer of the Pharisee its own: 'O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men...as also this publican" (Luke 18: 11). (The Priest In Union With Christ, pp. 238, 239).

It is this spirit of pride which has infected much of the clergy in our time. And it is pride which goes before a fall. Although the priesthood "has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church" and "The Lord said clearly that concern for his flock was proof of love for him" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1551), so many of the clergy have not shown any concern for Christ's flock. They have not preached the hard truths which the People of God need to hear. One Worcester-area priest was actually encouraging some of his parishioners to remain in a sinful lifestyle while another gave a homily, broadcast over Gardner, Massachusetts radio, actually denigrating Our Lady.

The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." But corruption of dogma and the works of the flesh are the work of the evil spirit.

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There are no obstacles we can't overcome in His Holy Name!

Brian Hudon, a faithful Catholic blogger loyal to the Church's Magisterium, notes that, "It's a given that the Catholic Church is in decline in the United States of America. The priesthood is aging, the average age of those who attend mass on a regular basis is rapidly increasing and there are nearly none to replace the members of either group. The Church in America is dying and no one will be left the remember it. How did this happen? You might think you know, or perhaps you think you don't, but the answers are more painfully obvious than anyone would believe and in many cases, will be more than unpopular.

A mess has been created in the Catholic Church in America. Note than I said the Catholic Church in America, not the Catholic Church of America or the American Catholic Church as there are no such things as those. But therein lies the problem. Catholics who are American have for too long attempted to put their trademark upon the Catholic Church in America, not realizing the Catholic Church is not only a foreign presence in the United States, but a foreign presence in the world. We here are exiles in the world.

Let us be clear, the Catholic Church is the one true visible presence of Jesus Christ's authority on earth. The Bible comes from the Catholic Church, Catholic meaning universal only, the one true Church founded by Christ. We do not believe in Jesus because of the Bible. We trust in the veracity of the Bible because of the authority of the Church. The Catholic Church, and the Church alone, through the authority of the Apostles of Christ's Church on earth decided what was in the Bible. We used to believe and profess this.

Unfortunately, we have now come to profess, as the lapsed Catholics we have become, that Catholicism is a faith rather than the faith. In a true syncretistic style, many believe all religions now, are more or less the same. Many foolishly and falsely believe we all worship the same God, if only differently. While even popes warn of the danger of "New Age" there is nothing more "new age" than radical ecumenism, if in fact there is ever any ecumenism that is not radical, or rather a type of veiled shame of being Catholic.

And so, we might have our children baptized, and as often have them receive first communion, and now seldom see them confirmed. Parents if they even attend mass from week to week and often don't, do not require their children to attend weekly mass as God requires them to. We allow our children to marry non-Catholics and often marry outside the Catholic faith, even while they continue to receive communion while never attending confession. And we think this all kosher because they are good people.

The marines may be looking for a few good men, but God is looking for valid Catholics, in all human persons, who live their lives in the sacraments of Holy Mother Church. Christ is right when he says the road to the kingdom of heaven is narrow and few there are who will find it. Very few we might fear. Should we believe otherwise is to call Jesus Christ a liar. But we often do that anyhow, even while desecrating and profaning the very sacraments we choose not to believe while making empty public professions.

The Creed of the Church is what we believe. It is not what what we wish for. It is not a menu. When we say "I believe" we must mean "I believe" even if we do not understand. All else that is contrary to this makes us enemies of the son of the living God, his Father in heaven and the Holy Spirit. God needs our opinions and personal beliefs no more than the earth requires our opinions of gravity when we trip and fall violently to the ground. The Creed is the physics of Catholic thinking and is not subject to opinion polls.

Among the worst forms of offense against God and the Church are in matters of sexual morality. The first directive of God in all of human history was to be fruitful. We are not however fruitful. Far from it, we are quite barren, a situation that has led directly to the current crisis in the Church. We as a Catholic people are largely producing chaff, the very chaff that the threshers will burn in unquenchable fire. Man commits few offenses so grave as impurity and contraception which produce no heirs for the Gospel.

The Church with regularity prays for vocations as it should, but it does not ask why the garden of Catholic living does not produce bountiful harvests.* Why are the fields dry and the produce so little? Why? Illegitimate births, birth control, pre-marital sex, abortion, divorce and perhaps the thing most deadly to the Church, the loveless marriage that finds no conjugal unity and procreative love in marriage which finds strength and nourishment in the sacraments of the Church. And what of this? Marriage dies without God.

A Church without sons is a Church without priests. A Church without sons is a Church without priests and a Church without sacraments. Before all things Jesus Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, was a son. A Church without sons, dies. He was a son before all things in his last words, made his most faithful disciple at the Cross a son of his own mother, Mary and made her a mother again. Be fruitful God says to the first man and woman and we have not been and the Church thus withers gravely.

I had the opportunity to deliver a much abbreviated version of these concerns to the Bishop of my own diocese this past July. A Church without sons, a Church without family, has no future I told him and a room of some 70 people. Now that has come to fruition as we have been formally informed to expect changes in the Church. The fear is a logical and likely one and inevitable. There are going to be fewer priests and as a result, fewer masses. The end result will be unmistakable, even less mass attendance.

The template here is clear. The destruction of the Catholic family leads to the destruction of the Catholic Church. Like water in the hot sun the faithful will gather into ever fewer and smaller pools to face the world alone under the brutal hot sun of faithlessness, relativism, ecumenism, and sterility. Some, lukewarm, may be soaked up by the protestant residual, but many will simply resume life without God. Hardcore faith rooted in the Tradition and sacraments of the Church will become ever more the exception, than the rule.

Consider the attacks of the world upon faith, public mockery of Catholicism, false claims of science and reason, the propaganda of the culture of death including forms of artificial forms of conception, euthanasia, radical feminism, the homosexual movement, alternate forms of so-called marriage, pornography and near legal and state sanctioned forms of religious discrimination against Catholics by a rogue American state and the road to the kingdom of heaven becomes all the more narrow and difficult to navigate.

I am not proposing solutions. I am not making wild unsubstantiated suppositions. I am simply telling you the time of the day. 50 years of post-Vatican II dissolution of the Liturgy and sacramental life, of rampant birth control, cohabitation, divorce, abortion and timid ecumenism have eviscerated the Catholic faith. Lump on top of this weak and absent catechesis, rote and thoughtless reception of our Lord in Eucharistic communion without repentance in the sacrament of confession and you have a recipe for spiritual disaster."

 

Brian Hudon is doing what Vatican II instructs us to do as Catholics.  For the Council reminded us that we have a duty to clean up every environment where sin and injustice have found a home.  And this includes the local Church.  The Council said, "...the faithful must strive, as much as they can, to clean up the world's institutions and environments, if in some manner they incite to sin, in such a way that they come to conform to the principles of justice, and favour more than they impede the practice of the virtues."

 

Why does the evil in our midst continue to grow unchecked?  Because good men and women have become afraid.  It was Sir Edmund Burke who said that, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

But excessive conformism has led to the passive acceptance of evils which are fatal for the life of the Church and which fearful and timid Catholics now view as unavoidable.  The challenge, as I see it, is for Christians to once again pray for the Cardinal Virtue of Fortitude. Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13). These words are engraved on a bracelet which I wear. Do we really believe this? Or do we let others define who we are?


Issue the battle cry! Let's take back our cities!  Let's say "enough" to the "Culture of Death," the "Cult of Softness," the radical homosexual agenda, New Age Gnosticism, and all the other myriad evils which have infected Holy Mother Church.

Those who walk in the Spirit know no fear. What are we waiting for? The Lord Jesus waits. He grows tired of our excuses:


I’m not holy enough:
Is 6:1-9; Lk 5:1-11

I’m afraid I will fail:
Ex 14:10-31; Lk 15

I’ve made mistakes and I’m a sinner:
Jn 21:15-23; Mt 9:9-13; Lk 7:36-50

I’m too young:
1 Sam 3:1-18; Jer 1:4-10; Lk 1:26-38

I’m not talented enough:
1 Sam 17:32-51; Lk 1:26-38

I want to have a family:
Gn 12:1-3; Mt 12:46-50; Mk 10:28-30

I’m afraid of making a permanent commitment:
Ruth 1:15-17; Mt 28:16-20

I’m afraid of public speaking:
Ex 4:10-17; Jer 1:4-10

I’m not smart enough:
2 Cor 4:7-18; Ex 4:10-17

I’m afraid of being alone:
Ex 3:4-22; Lk 1:28-38

I want to be happy:
Ps 37:4; Mt 5:1-12; Jn 10:10; Mk 10:28-31

I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. There are no obstacles we can't overcome in His holy name. Even while others attempt to label us and dismiss us as useless, as having no worth. I knew a young man with developmental disabilities whose father told him he was "worthless." He was told by his father that the best thing for him would be a bullet in the head. When he asked me one day if he was worthless, I reminded him of his many gifts: his sense of humor, his ability to love others, his ability to pray to God and a litany of other gifts. And I assured him that he is not "worthless."

We live in a sad, broken world. There are many people who are heavily burdened with sin who are hurting. And because they are hurting, they want to hurt others. If you could read some of the comments which have been left at this Blog you would cringe. Sad time. Hurting time. And we pray for such people.

But we cannot let others define who we are. We are children of God who have access to the Holy Spirit's Gifts just by asking for them.

The Son of God loves us. What does that suggest about those who hate us?

The Spirit within us is NOT a spirit of fear!  Now is the time to act if we want to imprint the Christian character on every environment we encounter.  If we fail to rise up to this challenge, the tears of the next generation will be the fruit of our complacency and cowardice.

Is this what we want for the next generation?

*  See here. 

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"If acts are intrinsically evil, particular circumstances can diminish their evil but cannot remove it." Does Pope Francis accept this truth?

The Holy Spirit assures us, through the Apostle St. Paul, that Christ is the head of the body which is the Church, while we are the members that suffer together and rejoice together: "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together." (1 Corinthians 12: 26).

Which makes it all the more disturbing that Pope Francis, before his election to the Chair of Peter, asserted that private homosexual unions do not affect third parties or society in general.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that, "..In the sanctorum communio, 'None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.'  'If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.  Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.'  'Charity does not insist on its own way.'  In this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints, the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all.  Every sin harms this communion." (CCC, 953).

Paragraph 817 of the Catechism assures us that "ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body...do not occur without human sin."  And "private" homosexual unions do not affect third parties?  God preserve us from such nonsense!

Granted that when an evil act, such as a homosexual act, is done in public, the resulting scandal compounds its intrinsic evil.  But an intrinsically evil act does not become good or neutral simply because it is performed in private.  The evil nature of the act remains unchanged.  Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, explains that, "If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it.  They remain 'irremediably' evil acts per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person." (No. 81).

Pope John Paul II insists that, "No damage must be done to the harmony between faith and life: the unity of the Church is damaged not only by Christians who reject or distort the truths of faith but also by those who disregard the moral obligations to which they are called by the Gospel (cf. 1 Cor 5: 9-13).  The Apostles decisively rejected any separation between the commitment of the heart and the actions which express or prove it (cf. 1 John 2: 3-6).  And ever since Apostolic times the Church's Pastors have unambiguously condemned the behavior of those who fostered division by their teaching or by their actions." (Veritatis Splendor, No. 26).

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Ray Delisle, spokesman for the Worcester Diocese, puts his spin on Pope Francis' "gay clergy" comments

In an article entitled "Locals hail Pope's comments," published in the July 30th edition of the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, Ray Delisle, spokesman for the Worcester Diocese, referring to Pope Francis' comments recently on "gay priests," is quoted as having said that his comments didn't break new ground and that, "..there is nothing new there."

Mr. Delisle is being dishonest.  I addressed this fact in my last post: http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2013/07/pope-francis-quo-vadis.html 

Pope Francis' comments run contrary to the established teaching of the Church.  The 1961 Vatican Instruction on Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders stated that, "Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers."

And not just for them.  The fact remains that most of the abuse cases within the Church have been homosexual in nature.  Even conservative studies such as the John Jay Study put the figure around 82 percent.

According to Catholic doctrine (which Mr. Delisle probably could care less about), any disorderly tendency, and above all to a vice which is contrary to nature, cannot have a right of citizenship in a person's thoughts.  If someone in his mind makes a concession to such a tendency, he sins.  Therefore, it is not only homosexual acts which are sinful.  A person also sins when his external conduct is allowed to express a homosexual tendency.  See for example, Deuteronomy 22: 5 and Isaiah 3: 4-13).

Increasingly, the Church is being feminized and effeminized.  This is a great tragedy because, as Dr. Leon Podles explains, "Since men continue to want to be masculine, they will continue (unless there are major changes in the Church) to put a greater or lesser distance between themselves and the Church....Feminism and homosexual propaganda dominate the liberal churches, and both drive men even further away.  Apart from some groups of evangelical Protestants, whose commitment to Scripture has made them aware of the lack of men and led them to use tactics which have had at least initial effectiveness, all other varieties of Western Christianity are totally bent on expanding the role of women in the Church and choose to ignore the absence of the male laity....Catholic and mainline Protestant churches that cultivate a gay atmosphere...will keep heterosexual men away.  Fear of effeminacy is one of the strongest motivations in men who will sometimes die rather than appear effeminate....Christianity has within it the resources that allow it to appeal to men, to show that not only will Christianity not undermine their masculinity, but it will also fulfill and perfect it."

But the Church continues capitulate to the Cult of Softness.  And we wonder why vocations are drying up.  I cannot even apply for the priesthood in Worcester.  But the Diocese has ordained men who acted out homosexually or who committed acts of satanic pedophilia.

Rather than trying to cater to the homosexual elements within the Church, our Holy Father should be working to restore sound Catholic doctrine and pastoral practice.

Do we have to be a Church which caters to disorderly tendencies and a criminal subculture? 

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Stacy Trasancos and the sign of the cross...

Stacy Trasancos rightly observes that, "The sign of the cross is the sacramental seal that marks the forehead of those who belong to Christ" while noting that the early Church Fathers "knew the seal brings protection against demons." ("The gift of the 'sphragis,'" The Catholic Free Press, June 14, 2013 edition).

It is true that the sign of the cross "strengthens us in temptations and difficulties" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2157).  But this sacramental does not automatically bring protection against demons as some sort of ersatz magical wand against the diabolical.

Sacramentals are sacred signs, whether objects such as scapulars or medals or holy water, or actions such as the sign of the cross, whose effects are obtained by the prayer of the Church (Canon 1166).  Unlike the sacraments, which were instituted by Christ and which effect grace by virtue of themselves, sacramentals are instituted by the Church and impart grace according to the disposition of the recipients and the intercession of the Church.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church's prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.  'For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ.  From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power..'" (CCC, 1670, citing Sacrosanctum concilium, No. 61).

As Christians we are more than conquerors through the shed Blood of Jesus Christ (Romans 8: 37-39).  The Lord Jesus gives His people who are faithful to Him (are well-disposed) the power and authority over demonic forces.  But if one is not living an authentically Catholic life - avoiding mortal sin while making use of the sacraments of the Church (including the sacrament of reconciliation), daily prayer and Scripture reading, one can make the sign of the cross and it surely will not serve as a seal which brings protection against demons.

I knew a woman who made frequent use of the sign of the cross while serving as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist at Saint Joseph's Parish in Gardner, Massachusetts.  Unfortunately, this woman also promoted abortion and pro-abortion politicians such as John Olver while engaging in sexual intercourse outside of marriage and making no secret of it.

Sacramentals are most helpful to us in the spiritual life if we are living an authentically Catholic life and are well-disposed to receiving grace from Christ and His Church.  Otherwise, we use them in vain.

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"...and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost."

Today, a growing army of lost souls - the children of Belial - are feverishly preparing a world which will be ready and eager to accept the reign of Antichrist, a rule which will be thoroughly saturated with witchcraft and occultism, a demon-state where daily libations of human bodies and blood will be offered in satanic worship to placate the Man-God and his master Satan.  Under the banner of a political and militarily organized atheism, this army of secular and occult humanists are uniting to deny the true God and His plan for humanity.

Only those who remain faithful to the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth, the rock against which the gates of Hell will never prevail, and who daily pray for divine assistance, will persevere to the end.  This explains why so many who once professed the Christian faith have now abandoned the faith altogether or remain in the Church only in a bodily manner (see Lumen Gentium, No. 14).

Father Livio Fanzaga reminds us that, "Prayer is another fundamental weapon for the great battle of the end times.  When man will glorify himself and proclaim the Antichrist as God made man, the supernatural principle will be preserved only by those who cling to the divine presence in prayer.  These will 'experience' God, His existence, lordship, power and glory.  In the time of Antichrist, the power of suggestion will cloud reason.  Only those who intimately experience the supernatural in prayer will have the strength to acknowledge God's existence, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary...in an era marked by the seduction of the heart, of a general obscuring of the mind, and of the folly of reason, only those who have had a strong experience of God in prayer will preserve the faith.  In that supernatural experience the faith will be conserved and you will conform to it.  If you look to the sun and see the light, even if man denies the existence of the sun, what can you say?  Having seen the sun you will not vacillate in the faith.  You will be a rock in the waves of the sea." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, pp. 149, 150).

Romano Guardini, in his classic work entitled The Lord, warns us that the Antichrist's arguments, "will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost." (p. 513).

We pray because we love the Lord Jesus and desire to have an intimate relationship with Him.  Our prayer is rooted in love.  And this love will preserve us from the Man of Sin (even if we lose our bodies to martyrdom).  This is the love that has made the martyrs, virgins, apostles and all the saints.  St. Paul assures us that because of this love, "Neither death, nor life, nor angels...nor things present, nor things to come, nor might...nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord." (Romans 8: 35).

Persevere in prayer and in fidelity to Christ's Vicar the Pope.  Dark days are ahead.  Soon, all will appear to be lost.  For the Church, like her Master, must pass through Calvary.  But afterward will come Resurrection.  And then, finally, the world will burst into flower.

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Pope Francis' example exhorts men to holiness

For far too long, many priests have been offering not the fine wheat of sound doctrine but the chaff of theological dissent from the teaching of the Church's Magisterium. Hence we have experienced not renewal but a spiritual dry rot. Vatican II, in its' Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis) No. 4, had this to say: "The People of God are joined together primarily by the word of the living God. And rightfully they expect this from their priests. Since no one can be saved who does not first believe, priests, as co-workers with their bishops, have the primary duty of proclaiming the Gospel of God to all. In this way they fulfill the command of the Lord: "Going therefore into the whole world preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mk 16:15), and they establish and build up the People of God. Through the saving word the spark of faith is lit in the hearts of unbelievers, and fed in the hearts of the faithful. This is the way that the congregation of faithful is started and grows, just as the Apostle describes: "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:17).

To all men, therefore, priests are debtors that the truth of the Gospel which they have may be given to others. And so, whether by entering into profitable dialogue they bring people to the worship of God, whether by openly preaching they proclaim the mystery of Christ, or whether in the light of Christ they treat contemporary problems, they are relying not on their own wisdom for it is the word of Christ they teach, and it is to conversion and holiness that they exhort all men."

According to the Council, the task of priests is "not to teach their own wisdom but God's Word." And this task is of no less importance for the priest than his offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Both of these are inseperably linked to each other: "The ministerial priesthood has the task not only of representing Christ - Head of the Church - before the assembly of the faithful, but also of acting in the name of the whole Church when presenting to God the prayer of the Church, and above all when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1552).

For this reason, priests have the very serious obligation to teach the faithful under their care that it is never licit to have sexual relations outside of marriage; that a Catholic cannot (having been validly married in the Church) after divorce, marry another or otherwise pretend that sexual relations with another individual are somehow "marital"; that "formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense" and that '"the Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life" (CCC, 2272); and that "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible, is intrinsically evil.." (CCC, No. 2370, citing Humanae Vitae, No. 14).

The Church proposes these (and other teachings) as true and it does so in the name of Christ. The priest is not to question them. He is not to ignore them or neglect them out of a false sense of "compassion" or "charity." It was Pope Paul VI who said that, "To diminish in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent form of charity for souls." (Humanae Vitae, No. 29). Pope John Paul II reiterated these words in Familiaris Consortio, No. 33.

We are reminded in Lumen Gentium 14 of the Second Vatican Council that: "He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart." All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged."

When a priest ignores or neglects his duty, his task, of serving the Word of God with fidelity, he fails to persevere in that charity described by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II as a charity which diminishes in no way the saving teaching of Christ. And he will be the more severely judged ( See Luke 12:48).

Thanks be to God, we have a Holy Father whose example is calling lapsed Catholics back into the Church.  See here.

But then it was Saint Francis, from whom our Holy Father took his name, who said, "Preach always, use words if necessary."

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Pope Francis and the restoration of the moral credibility of the hierarchy and the priesthood

In an article which may be found here, Father Roger Landry of the Fall River (Massachusetts) Diocese notes, "One of the most urgent reforms facing him [Pope Francis] is the restoration of the moral credibility of the hierarchy, and especially of the priesthood...The scandals of clerical sex abuse and tales of Vatican corruption have not only severely undermined the Church’s moral authority, but given the impression that living by the Church’s teachings forms freaks and moral monsters rather than saints. In his first couple of weeks as Pope, as well as his fourteen years in Buenos Aires, Francis has been charting out the trajectory of priestly reshaping. We can focus on seven aspects of this needed renewal. The first is with regard to priestly simplicity. Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty, but commit themselves to a simple lifestyle. In many places, this principle is given lip service, as members of the clergy drive fancy cars, frequent the finest restaurants and live in exquisite digs. Cardinal Bergoglio’s example of living in a small apartment rather than an episcopal palace, taking public transportation rather than a car with a driver and cooking for himself cannot help but lead priests to a sincere examination about the sincerity of their own spiritual poverty."

Well said.

Jesus disciples are called to carry their cross and follow Him (Mt 16:24; Mk 8:34; Lk 9:23). Above all, Christians are called to love as Jesus does (Jn 13: 34-35). But the cross is not popular with those who are advancing the "new religion" which will serve the New Order. The cross has never been popular with those who belong to the company of the world or the Devil. Today, countless young people (and old) have given themselves over to promiscuous sexual unions. In the mad pursuit of wealth, power, fame, and various hedonistic pleasures (euphemistically referred to as "choice" or "alternative lifestyles"), many poor souls have given themselves over to the Devil. Many who call themselves "Christian" are really living pagan lives.  And their "pastors," often living disordered lives themselves, say nothing.  Many of these have succumbed to materialism and hedonism. and find themselves unable to condemn sins which they have embraced.


This is, of course, nothing new. But the sexual degeneration in so-called Christian nations today is the most abominable in history. So much so that a young girl in the Ukraine is reported to have been told by Our Lady that: "The present times are worse than at the time of Noah. Then the world was scourged by a deluge of water: now the world is going to be scourge by a deluge of fire." (First apparition to Anna at Seredne, December 20, 1954). St. Louis de Montfort explains that:

"'My dear brothers and sisters, there are two companies that appear before you each day: the followers of Christ and the followers of the world.

Our dear Saviour's company is on the right, climbing up a narrow road, made all the narrower by the world's immorality. Our Master leads the way, barefooted, crowned with thorns, covered with blood, and laden with a heavy cross. Those who follow him, though most valiant, are only a handful, either because his quiet voice is not heard amid the tumult of the world, or because people lack the courage to follow him in his poverty, sufferings, humiliations and other crosses which his servants must carry all the days of their life.

On the left hand is the company of the world or of the devil. This is far more numerous, more imposing and more illustrious, at least in appearance. Most of the fashionable people run to join it, all crowded together, although the road is wide and is continually being made wider than ever by the crowds that pour along it like a torrent. It is strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions, and paved with gold and silver.

On the right, the little groups which follow Jesus speak about sorrow and penance, prayer and indifference to worldly things. They continually encourage one another saying, "Now is the time to suffer and to mourn, to pray and do penance, to live in retirement and poverty, to humble and mortify ourselves; for those who do not possess the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of the cross, do not belong to him. Those who belong to Christ have crucified all self-indulgent passions and desires. We must be true images of Christ or be eternally lost."

"Have confidence," they say to each other. If God is on our side, within us and before us, who can be against us? He who is within us is stronger than the one who is in the world. The servant is not greater than his master. This slight and temporary distress we suffer will bring us a tremendous and everlasting glory. The number of those who will be saved is not as great as some people imagine. It is only the brave and the daring who take heaven by storm, where only those are crowned who strive to live according to the law of the Gospel and not according to the maxims of the world. Let us fight with all our strength, let us run with all speed, that we may attain our goal and win the crown.

Such are some of the heavenly counsels with which the Friends of the Cross inspire each other.

Those who follow the world, on the contrary, urge each other to continue in their evil ways without scruple, calling to one another day after day, "Let us eat and drink, sing and dance, and enjoy ourselves. God is good; he has not made us to damn us. He does not forbid us to amuse ourselves. We shall not be damned for so little. We are not to be scrupulous. 'No, you will not die'."

Dear brothers and sisters, remember that our loving Saviour has his eyes on you at this moment, and he says to each one of you individually, "See how almost everyone deserts me on the royal road of the Cross. Pagans in their blindness ridicule my Cross as foolishness; obstinate Jews are repelled by it as by an object of horror; heretics pull it down and break it to pieces as something contemptible.

"Even my own people - and I say this with tears in my eyes and grief in my heart - my own children whom I have brought up and instructed in my ways, my members whom I have quickened with my own Spirit, have turned their backs on me and forsaken me by becoming enemies of my Cross. 'Will you also go away?' Will you also desert me by running away from my Cross like the worldlings, who thus become so many antichrists? Will you also follow the world; despise the poverty of my Cross in order to seek after wealth; shun the sufferings of my Cross to look for enjoyment; avoid the humiliations of my Cross in order to chase after the honours of the world? 'There are many who pretend they are friends of mine and protest that they love me, but in their hearts they hate me. I have many friends of my table, but very few of my Cross.' (Imit. II, 11, 1)."

At this loving appeal of Jesus, let us rise above our human nature; let us not be seduced by our senses, as Eve was; but keep our eyes fixed on Jesus crucified, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection (Heb 12.2). Let us keep ourselves apart from the evil practices of the world; let us show our love for Jesus in the best way, that is, through all kinds of crosses. Reflect well on these remarkable words of our Saviour, "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, and take up his cross and follow me" (Mt 16.24; Lk 9.23)." (St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, 7-12).

Are we truly friends of the Cross and therefore friends of Christ? Or is ours a counterfeit love? 

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Where has a man-centered liturgy taken us?

Albert Drexel, in Ein Neuer Prophet? (Stein am Rhein: Christiana, 1971) explains that: "The modernism or neo-modernism within Christianity, and especially within the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, is above all characterized by a turning away from the supernatural and an exclusive predilection for this world, the Aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII interpreted one-sidedly and hence misapplied. Teilhard's ideology was was a definitive precondition for this. Inasmuch as he turned his back to the past, fused God and the supernatural with the process of a universal evolutionism, and proclaimed religion to be an active participation in a progressive development ending in Point Omega, the basis was given for a humanist cult of the secular." (p. 115).

In the New World Order, man will no longer believe in a God whom he cannot control. Man will worship himself and his new leader who will, like Hitler, be deified: the man spoken of by Saint Paul as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition. 

The new worship which is emerging is man-centered.  And it is reflected in various liturgical actions such as banal pop-style music "concerts" and spontaneous applause over human achievement.  Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI - while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - wrote a book entitled "The Spirit of the Liturgy," in which he warned that, "Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment.  Such attractiveness fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation...Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act.  Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, pp. 198-199).

Since Vatican II, we have entered the time of wretched idolatry prophesied by the Fathers of the Church - for they emphasized the corruption of the liturgy which would prevail just prior to Antichrist during the last days.  The Holy Mass is valid in her essence.  But years of reckless tinkering with sacred realities has produced a mediocrity-ridden liturgy, a shallow show which has distracted from the holy while driving the faithful out the doors or so weakening their faith that they find themselves paralyzed before the current zeitgeist.  Emptied churches, convents and seminaries does not a reform make.

This past Saturday, while at the Easter Vigil Mass at Our Lady Immaculate in Athol, Massachusetts, I witnessed spontaneous applause some 5 times during the liturgy.  The entire atmosphere was more akin to a circus than a solemn liturgy.  I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist:

"Why, God, have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your people, whom you acquired of old, the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage, Mount Zion where you dwell. Direct your steps toward the utter destruction, everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly; they set up their own tokens of victory. They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs, swinging his ax in a thicket of trees. They smashed all its engraved work, struck it with ax and pick. They set your sanctuary on fire, profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground. They said in their hearts, “We will destroy them all! Burn all the assembly-places of God in the land!” Even so we have seen no signs for us, there is no prophet any more, no one among us who knows for how long. How long, O God, will the enemy jeer? Will the enemy revile your name forever? Why draw back your hand, why hold back your right hand within your bosom? Yet you, God, are my king from of old, winning victories throughout the earth. You stirred up the sea by your might; you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food to the sharks.You opened up springs and torrents, brought dry land out of the primeval waters. Yours the day and yours the night too; you set the moon and sun in place. You fixed all the limits of the earth; summer and winter you made. Remember how the enemy has jeered, LORD, how a foolish people has reviled your name. Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you; do not forget forever the life of your afflicted. Look to your covenant, for the recesses of the land are full of the haunts of violence. Let not the oppressed turn back in shame; may the poor and needy praise your name. Arise, God, defend your cause; remember the constant jeering of the fools. Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the unceasing uproar of your enemies." (Psalm 74).

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Sentinel & Enterprise: Will Pope Francis be another John Paul XXIII?

You have to hand it to Charles St. Amand, the editor of the Sentinel & Enterprise, a local newspaper serving the Leominster-Fitchburg area as well as seven other cities and towns.  The man is most consistent.  When it comes to articles and editorials which touch upon the Catholic Church in particular and Catholicism in general,  Mr. St. Amand never troubles himself with getting the facts straight.  See here for example.

Take yesterday's editorial entitled, "Francis: Whose shoes will he fill?"  We read: "With the election of a new pope, Catholics around the world must be wondering what the latest successor to St. Peter has in mind for the Mother Church...He has shown himself to be socially conservative in Argentina by his stance against gay marriage and his backing of the traditional role of women in the Church, but he has also scolded some of his priests there for their refusal to baptize children born out of wedlock."

Actually, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" should never be applied to the Church.  As Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains, "These terms, facilely applied to many natural realms, can be extremely misleading when applied to the Church.  It is of the very nature of Catholic Christian faith to adhere to an unchanging divine revelation, to acknowledge that there is something in the Church that is above the ups and downs of cultures and the rhythm of history.  Divine revelation and the Mystical Body of Christ differ completely from all natural entities.  To be conservative, to be a traditionalist, is in this case an essential element of the response due to the unique phenomenon of the Church.  Even a man in no way conservative in temperament and in many other respects progressive must be conservative in his relation to the infallible magisterium of the Church, if he is to remain an orthodox Catholic.  One can be progressive and simultaneously a Catholic, but one cannot be a progressive in one's Catholic faith.  The idea of a 'progressive Catholic' in this sense is an oxymoron, a contradictio in adjecto...With the labels conservative and progressive they [the intellectually dishonest with an anti-Catholic agenda] are in fact requiring the faithful to choose between opposition to any renewal, opposition even to the elimination of things that have crept into the Church because of human frailty (e.g., legalism, abstractionism, external pressure in questions of conscience, grave abuses of authority in monasteries) and a change, a 'progress' in the Catholic faith which can only mean its abandonment.  These are false alternatives.  For there is a third choice, which welcomes the official decisions of the Vatican Council (Vatican II) but at the same time emphatically rejects the secularizing interpretations given them by many so-called progressive theologians and laymen.  This thirs choice is based on unshakable faith in Christ and in the infallible magisterium of His Holy Church.  It takes it for granted that there is no room for change in the divinely revealed doctrine of the Church." (Trojan Horse in the City of God, pp. 10-11).

So it's not a question of Pope Francis being "conservative" or "progressive."  The Holy Father opposes so-called same-sex "marriage" and the ordination of women to the priesthood because divinely revealed doctrine cannot change. 

The Sentinel & Enterprise editorial refers to Pope Francis' predecessor on the Chair of Peter, the same Pontiff who called for Vatican II, as "Pope John Paul XXIII": "Will he [Pope Francis] maintain his life of simplicity and pursuit of social justice, or will he be the next John Paul XXIII?"  Obviously, the writer of this confused editorial was thinking of Pope John XXIII who was elected Pontiff on October 28, 1958 and installed on November 4th of that same year.  Pope John reigned as Vicar of Christ until June 3, 1963.

This is the sort of coverage of Catholicism that Catholics have come to expect from the Sentinel & Enterprise.  But they deserve better.

Related reading here.

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No disorderly tendency can have a right to citizenship in a person's thoughts

In its document entitled Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, which was published on October 1, 1986, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recalled the distinction between homosexual tendencies and homosexual practices: "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

Many interpret the Church's teaching as meaning that a homosexual person only sins if he or she actually engages in homosexual acts.  I have received comments at this Blog suggesting that only homosexual acts are sinful.  But this is not the Church's teaching.  Although the homosexual inclination itself is not a sin, still, the homosexual person sins if he or she makes a concession to this tendency in his or her mind.

It is Catholic doctrine that any disorderly tendency, and most especially toward a vice which is contrary to nature, cannot have a right to citizenship in a person's thoughts.  Recall the teaching of Our Lord Jesus in Matthew 5: 27, 28: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'  But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

This is why in the Confiteor [Latin: I confess], which is part of the Penitential Rite, one asks for forgiveness for thoughts, words and deeds.

We know as well that homosexual persons also sin when their external behavior expresses a homosexual tendency.  Which is why we read in Isaiah 3:9 that, 'Their very look bears witness against them; their sin like Sodom they vaunt, They hide it not.  Woe to them!  they deal out evil to themselves."  And in Deuteronomy 22:5 we read, "A woman shall not wear an article proper to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's dress; for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord, your God."

As I said in a previous post, the Cult of Softness continues to spread.

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George Soros-funded groups advancing a corroding and ambiguous pluralism to destroy the Catholic Church

By now you may have heard about the group Faith in Public Life, which is funded by one-time Nazi collaborator and atheist billionaire George Soros, and its plan to wage war against the Catholic Church and her Bishops.  Another Soros-funded group, Sojourners, which is headed up by Jim Wallis, promotes the New Age Globalist Earth Charter which seeks to replace the Ten Commandments and dismantle the Roman Catholic Church.

Sojourners has an article at its website written by Christian Piatt.  In this article, Piatt writes, "A recent poll found that, despite the teachings and public positions of church leaders, a majority of Catholics not only support contraception, but also support Obama’s mandate to require employers to pay for it. Then there’s the troublemaking American nuns, getting into hot water with the male Catholic gentry for not toeing the ideological church line, particularly with regard to matters of sex and sexuality.


So if over half of the faithful openly differ with the Church, and if the hands and feet of the missional arm of the church vocally oppose the Vatican, what’s the point of the institutional doctrine to begin with?

When it comes down to it, what seems to me to be at the heart of such traditions is not so much faithfulness, but rather control. If your inclusion in a system is contingent on you conforming to the beliefs of the leadership, then that institution has the power either to coerce you into compliance or to exile you for disobedience...From what I can tell, Jesus never made his disciples sign a statement of faith." (See here).

No, Jesus never made His disciples sign a statement of faith.  But He did say to His disciples, the Shepherds of His Church, "He who hears you, hears Me.  He who rejects you, rejects Me.  And he who rejects Me, rejects Him who sent Me." (Luke 10: 16).  He also said, "If anyone does not receive you or listen to what you have to say, leave that house or town, and once outside it shake its dust from your feet.  I assure you, it will go easier for that region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than it will for that town." (Matthew 10: 14-15).  If Jesus did not expect people to conform to His teaching, which is zealously guarded and interpreted by the living teaching authority which He established, why did He say that those who refused to listen and conform to that teaching would fare worse than Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment?

And why did Saint Paul write, "I am amazed that you are so soon deserting him who called you in accord with his gracious design in Christ and are going over to another gospel.  But there is no other.  Some who wish to alter the gospel of Christ must have confused you.  For even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel not in accord with the one we delivered to you, let a curse be upon him!" (Galatians 1: 8).

And why did the Apostle John write, "Anyone who is so 'progressive' that he does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God...If anyone comes to you who does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house; do not even greet him, for whoever greets him shares in the evil he does." (2 John 9-11).

While it is true that a legitimate pluralism exists within the Church, one which, for example, includes diverse rites and spiritualities as well as theologies which reflect the one faith, a pluralism which leaves room for diverse world views, is dangerous because it can occasion relativism. In the Church, such a pluralism has no place. As Pope John XXIII taught, “..there is no other truth than the one truth she [the Church] treasures…there can be no ‘truths’ in contradiction of it.” (Ad Petri Cathedram, AAS 51 (1959) 513, PE, 263.70). The Synod of Bishops, Second Extraordinary Assembly, recognized this truth when it said that, “The pluralism of fundamentally opposed positions” does not build up the Church but “instead leads to dissolution, destruction and the loss of identity.” (Synod of Bishops, Second Extraordinary Assembly, 1985, Final “Relatio”, 2.C.2, EV 9 (1983-1985) 1764-65, OR, 16 Dec. 1985, 7.).

And that is exactly what Sojourners wants: the dissolution and destruction of the Catholic Church which would result from a loss of identity.  A false and corroding pluralism has already found its way into the Church. In his wonderful book entitled “A Crisis of Truth: The Attack on Faith, Morality, and Mission in the Catholic Church,” Ralph Martin explains that, “Pastoral leaders today often fail to exercise their responsibility effectively because they have inadequate models for leadership and employ inadequate criteria to judge their own work and the work of others.

Pastoral passivity is often justified as an appropriate posture for leaders of a ‘pluralist’ Church. Indeed, pluralism in the Church can be a very good thing. The life of the Church is enriched by a certain kind of diversity in cultural expression, pastoral approach, and even theological and philosophical expression of the faith. Yet pluralism is legitimate only if it involves diverse expressions of the one faith as definitively interpreted by the teaching authority of the Church over the centuries.

Today, calls for ‘pluralism’ are often pleas to abandon the one faith. Many of those who work for the ‘pluralistic’ Church of the future, in contrast to the ‘monolithic’ Church of the past, are actually working for the destruction of the Church and any meaningful measure of unity of faith. Pope Paul VI called this kind of indiscriminate pluralism, the kind that lacks any clear criteria, ‘corroding and ambiguous.’ It is indeed at work in the Church today.

Often an uncritical pluralism is combined with a conception of the pastoral leader as someone who is a ‘unifier.’ Of course, those responsible for families, parishes, and other segments of God’s people need to work to unify their people. But they should not achieve unity at just any price. The unity appropriate to God’s people is a unity based on a common adherence to Christian truth and the person of Christ. Saying ‘yes’ to the teaching of the Church in areas of faith and morals is to say ‘no’ to those who undermine and challenge them. Unity is based on truth. Yet many pastoral leaders today are presiding over a ‘unity’ which contains contradictory elements, a ‘unity’ which includes both acceptance and rejection of Christ, His Word, and the teaching of the Church. To tolerate the corruption of Christian truth in the name of unity or pluralism is to make a mockery of the genuine function and role of pastoral authority. It is, in fact, to preside over that corroding of Christian faith which Paul VI warned about.

Sometimes such corroding pluralism is tolerated because of a muddled or vague understanding of the wheat and the tares parable and other scripture passages that talk of problems within the Church. In this connection it is frequently said that: ‘The Catholic Church is a church of sinners, a broad church that includes everybody; it is not a sect.’ Besides often incorporating an imprecise and often incoherent use of the sociological categories of ‘church’ and ‘sect,’ such formulations are, more seriously, based on a misinterpretation of such scripture passages. The point of such passages is often to describe actual or future situations that can never be remedied simply by human effort, but can ultimately only be fully resolved by an action of God himself. The point of such passages though is not to counsel the advocacy of a lukewarm, passive, indifferent vision of Church life, in which the corruption of Christian truth and God’s people is benignly presided over.

Such false applications of the parable have been common previously in Church history to justify a distorted approach to Church life, and St. Augustine addressed this situation squarely:

‘In answer to these persons I would say, first of all, that in reading the testimonies of Sacred Scripture which indicate that there is presently, or foretell that there will be in the future, a mingling of good and evil persons in the Church, anyone who understands these testimonies in such a way that he supposes the diligence and severity of discipline ought to be relaxed altogether and be omitted is not taught by those same writings but is deceived by his own conjecture. The fact that Moses, the servant of God, bore most patiently that mixture of good and evil among the chosen people did not prevent him from punishing many, even with the sword….In our times, when the sword has ceased to be visible in the discipline of the Church, what must be done is pointed out by degradations and excommunications.’” (A Crisis of Truth, citing St. Augustine, “Faith and Works,” 1737a).

The Council of Trent teaches definitively that the Gospel is the source of all saving truth and authentic moral teaching. As Catholics we are not called to “remain silent” about the Gospel in the name of “pluralism.” We are called, as Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council reminds us, “..to hold fast to the traditions” which we “have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (cf. 2 Thes 2:15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all (cf. Jude 1:3)…” (Dei Verbum, No. 8).

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Charles Curran and the National Catholic Reporter: The Church should not be certain of her teaching

Upset that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued a notification criticizing Sister Margaret Farley's book on sexual ethics entitled "Just Love," Charles Curran, writing for the National Catholic Reporter online, complains, "There is a long list of Catholic moral theologians whose works on sexual ethics in a similar vein have been condemned or censured by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the course of the last 40 years. Pope John Paul II wrote his 1993 encyclical, Vertiatis splendor, because of the discrepancy between the official teaching of the church on moral matters and the teaching of some moral theologians even in seminaries. According to the pope, the church is 'facing what is certainly a genuine crisis, which is no longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine.' All have to recognize there is such a real crisis in the church today. But the crisis is not just a crisis in moral theology; it involves a crisis in the church as a whole and in our very understanding of the Catholic church.."

Curran then argues that, "..the danger for authority in the Church is to claim too great a certitude for its teaching and proposals.."  See here.

It is most ironic that Curran chose to cite a passage from Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth).  This because Pope John Paul II reminds his readers toward the conclusion of the first chapter of this Encyclical that the Church has been entrusted with a more-than-human authority.  John Paul says that this more-than-human authority "is apparent from the living tradition."  Then he confirms this by citing a key passage from Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, which says that, "...the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.  This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit.." (No. 10).

The Church has a more-than-human authority.  She has a divine commission to teach and guard what has been handed on, what has been received through Revelation.  And she accomplishes this task with "the help of the Holy Spirit."  So when Curran objects that, "the primary authority in the Church is the Holy Spirit, who speaks in very diverse ways," he is not being honest.  Jesus has invested in the Magisterium of His Church, the Holy Father and the Bishops united with him, the more-than-human authority to speak in His name on everything which pertains to faith and morals (Matthew 16: 17-19).  And this task of interpreting the word of God is carried out with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.  Yes the Holy Spirit speaks in very diverse ways.  But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God is not carried out in diverse ways.  It is carried out exclusively by the Church's teaching office.

Curran has his own crisis to deal with.  Influenced by our secular culture and its rejection of anything which has the character of coming from above, he has succumbed to a skepticism of authority.  In a Keynote Address entitled Good Shepherd: Living Christ's Own Pastoral Authority, which was delivered at the 10th Annual Symposium on the Spirituality and Identity of the Diocesan Priest on March 18, 2011, Bishop Samuel J. Aquila had some important things to say about the role of Bishops. His Excellency noted that:



"Perhaps most difficult for us who lead in the Church today, due to the influence of the secular world with its rejection of God and the authority of God, along with a real skepticism of authority, is the exercise of the office of governance. Benedict XVI reminds us as bishops and priests again to turn to Jesus Christ to learn how to exercise this authority. No one is really able to feed Christ's flock, unless he lives in profound and true obedience to Christ and the Church, and the docility of the people towards their priests depends on the docility of the priests towards Christ; for this reason the personal and constant encounter with the Lord, profound knowledge of him and the conformation of the individual will to Christ's will is always at the root of the pastoral ministry. (General Audience, May 26, 2010).

Jesus at times was direct in calling people to conversion – to change their way of acting and thinking. This directness makes many of us uncomfortable today. We should follow his example and language, even if we do not use his precise words. His language is good to contemplate and definitely should challenge us to look at how we correct the faithful, including priests and bishops, and speak the truth especially with those who say they are with Christ and the Church but do not accept the teaching of Jesus and the Church.

One has only to read Matthew 23 to hear the forceful language Jesus uses when speaking with the Pharisees and Scribes. He refers to them as ―hypocrites, blind guides, and white washed tombs and towards the end asks them the question, ―You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? In our politically correct world this type of language would never be tolerated today, and yet the Gospel writers were not hesitant to pass on these exhortations of Jesus.

Furthermore, when Peter began to remonstrate with Jesus about going up to Jerusalem, he did not softly tell Peter, ―You do not understand. Rather Jesus spoke the vigorous words, ―Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men (Mt 16:23). Jesus speaks these words with force to the apostle he has chosen and the one whom he made first among the apostles. In love Jesus makes these direct statements to open the eyes of those whose hearts and minds are hardened. His straight talk, given in love for the person, desires the conversion and holiness of the person to the ways of God.

Jesus provides the Church and her leaders with the criteria for correcting a brother or sister. ―If your brother sins against you; go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector (Mt 18:16-17).

The steps in this passage are clear and Jesus is teaching us, but do we listen and follow his example? If this criteria had been followed with dissenting theologians, priests, religious and faithful in 1968 with the encyclical, Humanae Vitae, would we still be dealing with the problem today of those who dissent on contraception, abortion, same sex unions, euthanasia and so many other teachings of the Church?

One must honestly ask, how many times and years may a Catholic politician vote for the so called ―right to abortion, ―murder in the words of John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae (58), and still be able to receive Holy Communion? The continual reception of Holy Communion by those who so visibly contradict and promote a grave evil, even more than simply dissent, only creates grave scandal, undermines the teaching and governing authority of the Church and can be interpreted by the faithful as indifference to the teaching of Christ and the Church on the part of those who have the responsibility to govern. If we honestly pray with the Gospel we can see that hesitancy and non-accountability are not the way of Jesus Christ, but rather are a failure in the exercise of governance.

Bishops and priests, as an act of loving obedience to Christ, must return to a full exercise of the governing authority of Christ witnessed in the Gospel. If we do not exercise that authority, are hesitant to exercise it, or doubt it, then it only leads to the ―father of lies taking hold of the minds and hearts of the faithful, and their continuing to act in the ways of man and not the ways of God.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his conversation with Peter Seewald in the book Light of the World, made the following observation concerning the sexual abuse crisis among clergy, after speaking with the Archbishop of Dublin. In their conversation they spoke to a mentality prevalent after Vatican II. ―The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people. Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate. In this respect there was in the past a change of mentality, in which the law and need for punishment were obscured. Ultimately this also narrowed the concept of love, which in fact is not just being nice or courteous, but is found in the truth (emphasis added). And another component of truth is that I must punish the one who has sinned against real love (Pages 25-26)." (Full Address here).

Take note of Bishop Aquila's warning to his brothers in the Episcopate: "If we do not exercise that authority [which Jesus has entrusted to the Church's Pastors], are hesitant to exercise it, or doubt it, then it only leads to the father of lies* taking hold of the minds and hearts of the faithful and their continuing to act in the ways of man and not the ways of God."

This is precisely what Curran wants.  He wants the Church's Pastors to doubt the authority and the teaching entrusted to them..  This is why he insists that "the danger for authority in the Church is to claim too great a certitude for its teaching."

Is Charles Curran serving Christ or the father of lies?

* John 8: 44.

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This year's Walter Duranty Award goes to Hilary Mantel

The sexual abuse of children is not a "Catholic problem."  It is a societal problem.  In point of fact, there has been far less less abuse within the Church than there has been across the rest of society.  See here.  Your children are much safer in the Church than they are in the public schools.

But you would never know this to listen to Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author who was raised Roman Catholic and educated at a convent school.  According to the now enlightened Ms. Mantel, the Catholic Church "is not an institution for respectable people" because the sexual abuse scandals involving a tiny percentage of Roman Catholic priests have demonstrated the "cruelty" and "hypocrisy" of the Church. See here. In other words, because of the sinful and even criminal actions of a handful of men, in a Church comprised of more than one billion people,  everyone in the Church is deserving of condemnation: from the Holy Father down to the last little lady sitting in a pew somewhere.

And so Ms. Mantel left the Mystical Body of Christ thereby proving that she never belonged to our company anyway: "It was from our ranks that they took their leave - not that they really belonged to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have stayed with us.  It only served to show that none of them was ours." (1 John 2: 19).

The Church is not an institution for respectable people?  But such has always been our boast: "Brothers, you are among those called.  Consider your situation.  Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom; not many are influential; and surely not many are well-born [read "respectable"].  God chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the wise; he singled out the weak of this world to shame the strong.  He chose the world's lowborn and despised, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who were something; so that mankind can do no boasting before God..." (1 Corinthians 1: 26-29).

A few men betrayed the Gospel and engaged in cruelty and that's your reason for leaving the Church founded by Christ?  That's your reason for leaving behind the Eucharist - the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ?  Note how Ms. Mantel has also abandoned faith in the Eucharist.

There is absolutely no doubt that the human history of the Church, like all of human history, has its dark pages. But if anyone cares to take an objective look at this history, one must quickly acknowledge that the doctrine of the Church has always implicitly condemned abuses introduced by Her members.


In the words of Dr. Dietrich Von Hildebrand, "There were sinners in the Church yesterday and there are sinners in the Church today. But the Church Herself, in her divine teaching, emerges gloriously unspotted in a history stained by human weaknesses, errors, imperfections, and sins."

In the words of the great Cardinal Journet:

"All contradictions are eliminated as soon as we understand that the members of the Church do indeed sin, but they do so by their betraying the Church. The Church is thus not without sinners, but She is without sin. The Church as person is responsible for penance. She is not responsible for sins....The members of the Church themselves - laity, clerics, priests, Bishops, and Popes - who disobey the Church are responsible for their sins, but the Church as person is not responsible...It is forgotten that the Church as person is the Bride of Christ, 'Whom He has purchased with His own blood." (Acts 20:28).

Hilary Mantel prefers the company of "respectable" society.  You know, the sort of people who sip tea as they discuss the merits of abortion and the value of sodomite unions.  The sort of people who condemn the Church they never understood even as they embrace myriad evils.  For such "enlightened" souls, abortion is not cruelty, it is simply "choice."  And the millions of murdered babies discarded in trash bags is necessary to promote the "health" of women and the progress of human society.

And so, this years Walter Duranty Award for living in denial goes to Hilary Mantel, for proving that even the most "respectable" people can live a life of dim-wittedness and hypocrisy.  Please compare Ms. Mantel's photograph with the New Oxford Review graphic (featured in one of their ads) depicting the dumbed-down liberal "Catholic."

Is it just me or is there a resemblance?
Oh boy.

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Representative Steve Vaillancourt disgraces the New Hampshire House of Representatives

Remember when New Hampshire Republican Steve Vaillancourt from Manchester defended the inappropriate comments made by Representative D.J. Bettencourt on Facebook last year in which he referred to Bishop John McCormack as a "pedophile pimp." Vaillancourt wrote, "This pedophile enabler has blood (and perhaps other bodily fluids) both figuratively and perhaps literally on his hands...The Bishop has disgraced the Catholic Church."  See here.

The highly emotional and erratic Republican lawmaker had to be physically removed from the state House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon after making a Nazi salute during a contentious debate about limiting what is considered valid voter identification.  The Huffington Post is reporting that the angry Republican "shouted, 'Sieg Heil' and moved his hand in the air after House Speaker William O'Brien (R-Mont Vernon) restricted what he could address during a floor debate on an amendment to a state voter ID bill. O'Brien had restricted what Vaillancourt could say about the full bill, saying that he could not reference the House Election Law Committee's discussion, only the issues presented in the committee report.


O'Brien, who had previously threatened to toss Vaillancourt from the floor, used Vaillancourt's outburst to have the veteran lawmaker moved off the floor. It is the first time in at least a decade that a House member has been removed from the chamber in New Hampshire. House members then voted 238 to 103 to allow Vaillancourt to apologize to the full chamber in order to be allowed back in, setting off further debate when Vaillancourt did not apologize in the manner that O'Brien had expected.

'Part of the apology is to get the record straight. I did not use the word 'Hitler,' Vaillancourt said before O'Brien ordered him away from the podium.

State House police were called to remove Vaillancourt from the chamber, where he was sitting in his seat, with several House members tweeting that he would not leave. Rep. Christopher Serlin (D-Portsmouth) tweeted that "Stand Our Ground" was shouted by House members just before police physically removed Vaillancourt from the chamber. O'Brien also had Vaillancourt's voting card taken from him to prevent him from casting votes. A committee was formed by O'Brien that would meet with Vaillancourt to discuss his apology." (See here).

Dr. Germain Grisez, addressing the responsibilities which accompany communication, writes, "All communication should be open to community, and mutual good will and honor are essential for that purpose.  Pleasantness in speech and manner manifests good will and the desire to please others.  Marks of courtesy - polite words, gestures, and other actions - manifest not only respect for persons insofar as they are persons, but the honor appropriate for each in accord with his or her social status, the relationship of persons, and other circumstances (S.t., 2-2, q. 114, a. 1).  Hence, in communicating, people should always be courteous and pleasant (See Col 4: 6), unless it is unavoidable to sadden others or there is some reason for not trying to please them."

Representative Vaillancourt had no such reason.  His was merely a temper tantrum, an emotional outburst because he couldn't have his own way.  For that reason, the sophomoric lawmaker should be censured appropriately.

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Tricia Wittmann-Todd believes she knows what's best for "her" Catholic Parish

As this article notes, even though Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has asked parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Seattle, Washington to circulate petitions in support of Referendum 74, the ballot measure to roll back Washington's recently passed same-sex "marriage" law, several parishes have refused to do so.  One of these parishes, St. Mary's Parish in the Central Area, issued a statement through its "pastoral life coordinator" Tricia Wittmann-Todd.

In her "weekly message," Ms. Wittmann-Todd writes:

"Dear People of St Mary's,


I am writing to share with you my decision regarding collection of signatures at St Mary's for Referendum 74, to repeal the redefinition of marriage. This is a very sensitive issue, impacting people at the very core of our lives. Archbishop Sartain has sent a letter to all Catholics. I have attached the letter. He has given permission to parishes to collect signatures for the Referendum and encouraged us to do so. He has also expressed that each parish leader must decide how best to proceed, given the pastoral considerations within the parish. After much prayer and reflection, I have decided we will not collect signatures at the parish. I am certain you will find ample opportunity elsewhere to sign whatever petitions you choose.

This decision is based on two primary considerations. St Mary's mission is "House of God, Home for Everyone". One of our highest values is inclusion and welcome. I fear that the collection of signatures would be hurtful and divisive to our parish. I am particularly concerned about our youth who may be questioning their own sexual identity and need our support at this time in their lives.

The second consideration is that as Catholics, each of us is asked to form our conscience and decide how to vote on this and other issues, ie tax policies, services to the poor, environmental laws, capital punishment, etc. We form our conscience through studying the Word of God in the Bible, listening carefully to the teachings of the church from our Tradition and the discernment of the Spirit within our own experience. Many of our parishioners have not had sufficient opportunity to form their consciences and those who have represent a wide variety of beliefs. Some believe the church should marry all committed couples, others that the state should marry all but not the church, others that the term "marriage" should be preserved for a man and a woman, while other relationships are "domestic partnerships", and there are those who believe only heterosexuals should have partners. Our Archbishop is trying to help us in the process of conscience formation by articulating the reasons he believes we should support Referendum 74. I ask you to prayerfully read his letter, hearing all that is being said. In addition, read the Bible, particularly those passages cited by the church on marriage. (you can find these documents at the USCCB website.) Finally, pray and reflect on your own experience of marriage and listen to what God is telling you. Sometimes I think when God is speaking to us, we respond-"call the Bishop, I don't have time to listen. " But as Archbishop Sartain writes "The church calls everyone to holiness."

I hope to have a gathering soon where we can learn more about how to form one's conscience in general and particularly on the question of marriage. In this, as in all things, I pray we will treat one another with love and respect, building up our community of faith.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and questions with me.

Blessings on this Easter Season,

Tricia"

Well, you asked us to share our thoughts Tricia.   Here are mine.  Vatican II, which you obviously have little or no respect for, teaches quite clearly that, "In forming their consciences, the Christian faithful ought to give heed to the sacred and certain doctrine doctrine of the Church.  For the Catholic Church is, by the will of Christ, the teacher of the truth.  It is her duty to give utterance to, and authoritatively to teach, that truth which is Christ, and also to declare and confirm by her authority principles of the moral order flowing from human nature itself." (Dignitatis Humanae, No. 14).

The faithful have a responsibility, a duty, to assent to the Church's teachings and to obey the Church's pastoral leaders just as the Lord Jesus obeyed the Father.  The duty of the faithful to obey the Holy Father and one's own Bishop is analogous to the responsibility which the faithful have to give religious assent to their teachings which call for such assent.  Canon Law makes this clear: "The Christian faithful, conscious of their own responsibility, are bound by Christian obedience to follow what the sacred pastors, as representatives of Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or determine as leaders of the Church." (Can. 212).

In your arrogance, you have decided that St. Mary's Parish will not collect signatures in an effort to oppose homosexual unions even though your Archbishop has asked the faithful under his care to do so.  As a result, you are not only being disobedient to your Archbishop but you have set yourself against the teaching of the Church.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its document entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons," makes it clear that the homosexual movement takes advantage of legal tolerance to promote its idoelogy and to place people at risk, particularly youth.  The very youth you claim you are concerned about.  And this authoritative document warns that "the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil." (No. 5).  And even where homosexual unions have been legalized, "clear and emphatic opposition is a duty." (No. 5). 

What do the words "clear and emphatic opposition is a duty" mean to you Tricia?  Jesus is Our Lord.  And the Church's Pastors govern in His name. And yet you have chosen to reject the clear and unambiguous teaching of the Church's Pastors. Reflect on these words of Pope John Paul II Tricia: "Being of sacramental origin, this authority is exclusively of divine origin, and remains such; it has no need, therefore, of ratification by anyone else." (Address to the Bishops of Brazil, February 26, 1990).

You have succumbed to pride Tricia.  You are opposing the Church's Pastors.  This means you are opposing the will of Christ.

I am praying for you.

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