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LESSON NOT LEARNED
It happened right here! Remember? Boston 2002! Silence on the part of the cardinal, the bishops, the seminary rectors, the Religious orders — followed by Scandal. Horrible scandal. Scandal of the most hateful, despicable, vicious perversion that swept away — but not too thoroughly — miters, defrocked priests, caused the closing of hundreds of parishes and the selling off of quite nearly everything Catholic to pay off the lawsuits against predatory priests and silent superiors. Millions upon millions to pay victims and their lawyers, and most sadly to psychologically treat and medicate its victims who are now adults ... It continues to this day! Most of what you put in the basket at church almost certainly goes to pay for the crimes of predatory homosexual priests who molested young boys — committed the most depraved sexual predation on the most trusting of youth … our children. Under the euphemism of “consolidating parishes” countless church buildings and facilities were sold off to become condominiums and even mosques. $35 million on counseling, psychiatric medications, and other services for survivors. Since 2003, it has paid about $215 million to settle legal claims, church officials say (Boston Globe January 2017). Here in Boston
we are STILL paying for a disgraceful and unutterably
shameful SILENCE that not simply “rocked” the Church,
but literally caused much of it to be torn down
to its foundations.
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The
Ten |
The proscription against adultery dates to the 12th century — BC. To preclude any misunderstanding, it was inscribed in stone! Little can be more definitive than that. In fact it is an adage: “It is written in stone”, that is to say, absolutely clear and unalterable. That was one- thousand-two-hundred years before Christ. But now — 3000 years later — we are suddenly unclear about what constitutes adultery?
Of course
Pope Francis has an affinity for Luther to whom,
after 1400 years of deceit and duplicity on the
part of God in failing to reveal the “real
truth” to the Church, finally revealed it
to Luther in the fullness of time. It would appear
that Francis has that singular privilege as well.
Not only had God Himself had it wrong (or had misspoken),
but the Apostles, the Church Fathers, the 21 Church
Councils, the Saints, the Martyrs, and of course
the “less educated” as well had it wrong. The Ten
Commandments are not Commandments after all, or
at least binding in any remotely coherent way. They
are actually The Ten Suggestions that require
“accompaniment” by Team Bergoglio who will parse
them psycho-theologically in order to be
reveal their “real meaning” to the
unenlightened masses — so that sin will no longer
be an impediment to union with God.
The Last and Most Frightening “S”
If Francis persists in effectively amending Scripture to accord with his clearly progressive and dangerously liberal agenda, or in disregard of Tradition, and prescinding from the Sacred Deposit of the Faith, the only logical sequitur is also an “S” word, for it would likely provoke a monumental schism within the Church: not a “breaking away from” by Catholics faithful to Holy Mother Church, but a “having already broken away from” Holy Mother Church by erstwhile Catholics who put liberal ideology in place of theology, man before God, their ambitions before their obligations, and their temporal gains before their eternal losses.
Of course, there are others issues at stake, especially pertaining to the office of the Petrine Ministry in the Code of Canon Law for which no such apparently facile remedy is immediately available, especially as it pertains to CCL Art 1 §3.
“No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” According to the 1917 Code of Canon Law: “Prima Sedes a nemine iudicatur” (Canon 1556) — “The First See [the pope] is judged by no one.”
The clarity and concision of this law is
deliberately rigorous and for good reason —
especially in light of the past 50 years which
have witnessed widespread and regular dissent
and disobedience vis-à-vis the papacy on the
part of cardinals, ordinaries, national
“Catholic Conferences”,
seminary rectors, priests, theologians, and
Religious. Widespread as these have been,
much-needed correction on the part of the
pontiffs preceding Francis has been rare,
tempered, and even rescinded. Francis’s shocking
authoritarian and peremptory character has no
precedent in modern times. The question
confronting thoughtful Catholics is why?
Why is the full canonical weight
of the papacy being exercised so vigorously by
Pope Francis and “Team Bergoglio” — and if it is
divinely ordained why are the
consequences so deleterious to the Church and
the faithful? Why such confusion and apparent
subterfuge (St. Gallen Group)? Why such a
pervasive atmosphere of fear permeating the
Vatican as never before — and as is
routinely reported?
Much more to the point, there is no implied “judgment” of Pope Francis in what is simply, correctly, and canonically termed “The Dubia”, or the questions placed before the pope for clarification are simply that: questions — not judgments of the pope. Issues are involved that stand in dire need of clarification and consensus. Indeed, far from presuming to judge the pope in any way, they are questions requiring his judgment since no universal interpretive consensus is agreed upon — for which reason the dubia were presented to him! Bishops and priests in different countries are in diametric opposition to one another in their understanding of the questions involved. This is a scandalous state of affairs. Definitively answering the questions — which is the prerogative and responsibility of the pope alone — is the only way to settle these divisions, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations not only among the clergy, but the faithful. What is permitted in Poland is not permitted in Canada. Even within one country — America — what is permitted in Los Angeles is not permitted in Philadelphia. In a word, what is sinful in one place is not sinful in another.
That — if nothing else — is the scandal. No casuistry will ever overcome the Law of the Excluded Middle (or the law of non-contradiction): X cannot, at one and the same time, both be X and not-X. It is inconsistent with reason and irreconcilable with logic. It is also a terrible chaos in a universe of immortal souls and Divine pronouncements.
These are real and ultimately vital questions. To simply reply with Canon Law that “No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff” is sufficient ... ultimately is not.
We must remember — with a faith straitened as perhaps never before — that ultimately the Church is God’s to do with as He wills. He chooses — or permits — Whom He will. Who are we to question God? In the end His ways are not our ways. And perhaps — just perhaps — He has given or permitted us to have what and whom we will — if only to teach us that there is a better ... but only at a cost we have proven ourselves unwilling to pay.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
July18, 2017
Comments? Write us: editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
We strongly encourage you to read
The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a
Radical Pope — As many as 30 Cardinals implicated in
Vote-Canvassing Scandal
“I pray not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast given Me” (St. John 17:9)
The
corruption — on every conceivable level — of the
world and in the world
(and most pernicious of all, within the Church
Herself: her cardinals, her bishops, her priests, her
feminist sisters and “nuns” … dare we say, even her present
papacy!) — and especially in the West (often, and accurately,
referred to as the “Post-Christian world”) — is nothing
less than staggering. In the last 50 years (unquestionably
since the confluence of that socio-theological miasma called
Vatican II) we have encountered unprecedented levels of
what can only be called malignant decadence — spiritual,
moral, and social. It takes ones breath away.
More accurately, we have abandoned God in favor of
ourselves — and as a consequence we have lost not only ourselves,
but our very identity, often painfully acquired over
the last 2000 years. We no longer recognize who we
are and what we are.
“Progress” and “the perverse” have become synonymous.
We have become — for all the wrong reasons — self-loathing: detesting ourselves and the patrimony of a Catholic culture through which our very identity both as individuals and nations had been articulated.
Many hate the Church — and a significant element within the Church hates the Church, remaining within Her as a cancer in its host. Western Christian culture is repudiated, ridiculed, and contemned as anachronistic, imperialistic, homophobic, racist, and misogynistic.
Repudiating the true God as inimical to our passions and perversions, we have made our own gods, and they are many — in fact, as many as we are ourselves. Women are taught — indoctrinated really — to hate men and everything they deem “patriarchal”.
Everything that pertains to our loins, or more accurately, the loins of others — especially of the same gender — has supplanted, displaced, and superseded the numinous, anything authentically divine, and most especially, the holy. The very terms have been relegated to the periphery of polite discourse, when not entirely expurgated from it.
The world has fled God into the illusion of a utopian garden that is a desiccated desert. It is populated by fictions and the rim of the horizon of our desires is the pretension that there is an end called satisfaction instead of an endlessly recursive vanishing point.
We find few paradigms of holiness in this City of Man — sadly, not even among many of our priests, and, more tragically still, even fewer among our bishops. To what, then, shall we strive to attain in this increasingly lonely place we call life without Christ? What vision are we presented, and to what end are we called?
Mother Teresa, in an interview some years ago, explained the obvious. Rational persuasion, logical coherence, even the most impassioned homily will not bring a person to conversion, to Christ, and therefore to the Church. One thing only is capable of this monumental task: example; the example of holiness that we encounter in others that becomes the impetus to emulation: we want to be like them. And they are like Christ.
We are
sadly lacking in example as Catholics. How often
do we feel compelled to say to ourselves, “I want to be
like her, like him!” when we observe an act, some instance,
of holiness that overwhelms us in its simplicity? What examples,
what paradigms, do we confront in our lives in Christ that
compel us to holiness? We must not confuse the
exemplary with the popular, nor must we confuse
it with carefully orchestrated events intended to inspire
us. The exemplary is unrehearsed and has no concomitant
agendum that is concealed within it. It is utterly
spontaneous! ... and therefore, we sense, utterly
genuine.
What historical figures in our lives as Catholics attain to this extraordinary state of the exemplary that motivates men and women to imitation? To what are we exposed that motivates us not to the common and ordinary, but to the uncommon and exemplary? What do we see before us that calls us beyond ourselves and beyond the gray and geometric sterility of the world to what lies beyond it?
In a word,
where is the differentiation between the Church and
the world, the common and the extraordinary, the profane
and the sacred? Let us be truthful and acknowledge the obvious:
the world has permeated the Church to such an extent that
we can no longer coherently differentiate the two except
upon the most tenuous of distinctions. Increasingly the
agenda of the Church is the agenda of the
world. This is not the leaven Christ spoke of. It is the
leaven of the world; the leaven of infinitely deep and unimaginably
hostile places that we pretend do not exist.
First, let us understand this with complete clarity: we cannot attain to sanctity apart from the Church and Her Sacraments. We cannot become holy schismatics, that is to say, apart from the Church which is the Body of Christ. However sterile we have found it since the spurious and self-promoting euphoria of Vatican II … however trampled the Vineyard and however littered with discarded and never-to-be-revised Roman Missals, Religious habits, Chapel Veils, Priestly collars, Roman Cassocks, kneelers … even the centrality of the Eucharistic Presence of Christ, and an understanding of the Mass as a Sacrifice; however grotesquely crippled and contorted the buildings we call our “Churches” have become — more redolent of civic auditoriums than Sanctuaries, there … there … abides the Living God, hidden in Tabernacles we often do not see and only find with much difficulty. He is there! However much we shunt Him aside as both an ecumenical and chronological embarrassment, all the litter of what has been discarded cannot conceal Him from us. He beckons us, and even under the most humiliating circumstances, we can look upon Him Who ever looks upon us.
Apart from the Church, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass … we can do nothing, become nothing, worthy of the Most Precious Blood poured out for us upon that Altar. To be holy we must be part of the Church for the Church, as we have said, is the Body of Christ, and He Who is the Head of the Body is God Himself. Christ Jesus. God Alone is Holy — and it is He Who participates His holiness to us that we may be, in the most clear way possible, what we were created to be; what we essentially are, despite the filth of sin that covers it, obscures it, and defaces it: the imago Dei, the image of God Himself!
In this wasteland barren of spires and empty of cloisters, ugly, squat, geometric and concrete, Bauhaus pretensions emerged from the rubble of “clustered” demolished churches (Churches without anyone left to worship in them — one of the many “successes” of Vatican II). They are no longer grand structures striving to equal the soaring Faith of men and women in heights contiguous to Heaven itself … but stooped, square, economical structures that could as well be mortuaries (or athletic facilities, commercial structures, municipal offices — “functional” things that could, in an instant, reflexively duplicate any of the above in need.
Indeed, we no longer have “churches” as such — but in some paroxysm of needless novelty we now have “Faith Communities” — only parenthetically “Catholic” lest they offend broad ecumenical sensitivities, for are there not other “Faith Communities” distinct from, if often antithetical, even inimical, to the Catholic Faith? By a “Church” we immediately understand something quite different from a “Mosque”, a “Synagogue” , a “Temple”, or a “Kingdom Hall”. Understood as a “Faith Community”, a Catholic Church is no different from any of these. In an age of unbridled ecumenism are they any less “Faith Communities” than our own, we implicitly, even necessarily ask, not just minimizing but marginalizing the unique mission and commission of the Church established by Christ upon Saint Peter? If they were established by Muhammed, or Lao Tzu, or Martin Luther, are not such “Faith Communities” equally acceptable to God in the sweeping logic of ecumenism? If indeed they are, then the crucifixion of Christ on the Cross is emptied of all value and meaning. He died for no reason if every “Faith Community” is the way to salvation. His death was not necessary in the economy of salvation: hence He died needlessly ... even gratuitously. This, of course, is a scandal to the very Gospel He Himself proclaimed. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me.” 12
But in the malformed
logic of ecumenism, even if other “Faith Communities” despise
the Triune God of Catholics and hold to other gods, are
they not equal expressions of man’s faith and legitimate
venues of salvation? In the “correct” atmosphere of post-Vatican
II theology, would we dare to assert that they are not?
“All roads lead to Rome” … that lead away from
Rome — and every paradigm of the holy, however
contradictory, is deemed legitimate and authentic, and the
end of each is the same: Heaven and salvation. Saint, heretic,
infidel and atheist alike go to God. The Catholic Church
has no corner on salvation. She is now simply one among
many, and Christ erred in proclaiming Himself,
“the way, and the truth, and the
life”, and deceived
us in insisting that, “No
man cometh to the Father, but by Me.”
We are
so damnably democratic … We must “spread our tent pegs”,
we are told, to be inclusive of all — even if God is not.
The strange thing, however, about “spreading our tent pegs”
is that the wider, the more inclusive, the more “horizontal”,
they become,
the lower
the apex of the tent. We achieve the horizontal at the expense
of the vertical. We sacrifice the magnificent height to
accommodate the factious width. Ask any camper. Even happy
ones. Eventually the fabric rips and the structure collapses.
Most often in the rain. And in great ruin. The “stitching”
did not, could not, hold this multiplicity of opposing forces
however benevolent or brainless our intentions.
Accompanying this ecumenical
impulse was, necessarily, theological ambiguity. How, otherwise,
hope to bring hoped-for consensus out of conflicting doctrines?
It is this ambiguity that afflicts pulpit and podium alike
in nominally Catholic institutions. In matters of Faith,
morals, and doctrine, it is rather like equivocating on
geometric postulates or axioms; or in mathematics holding
in abeyance quantitative relationships that are otherwise
held to necessarily obtain between integers. Much like Dostoyevsky
we reach a point where we declare,
“To me that 2+2=4 is sheer insolence.
I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing,
but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes
five is sometimes a very charming thing too.” (Notes
from Underground)
This is largely the state of
Catholic theology, and, eo ipso, Catholic homiletics.
We are no longer
—
I repeat: no longer (for once,
and for a very long time we were … prior to Vatican II)
—
certain of just what Holy Mother the Church teaches, given
this priest or that theologian and whether it was Wednesday
or Thursday. “Officially” She teaches “this”, but depending
on the audience She
—
or better yet, and to be fair, Her spokesman in the
person of a priest, nun, sister, bishop, pope, or theologian
—
proposes, or at least appears to suggest the contrary
—
or openly rebels against it! For the average Catholic layman
or laywoman, they: the bishop, the priest, the Religious,
are the consecrated symbols of utter fidelity to the Church,
and for that reason it is a scandalous state of affairs.
How do we live
our Catholic lives as they had been fervently lived for
2000 years prior to the insipid, diffident, confused and
eclectic — and at times even implicitly pantheistic
— impulses and subsequent teachings that emerged from
Vatican II, an unnecessary Council which effectively and
efficiently tore down the edifice of Catholicism as distinct,
distinguishable, and unique? As a way of life? In
other words, lacking visible paradigms of sanctity, how
do we go about living lives of holiness amid the detritus
of so much we once considered sacred and that now litters
the ecclesiastical landscape of the Modern Church
or the American Church or the European Church
— all of which are conflatable into one ecclesiastical body
that appears to articulate itself as distinct from
the Roman Catholic Church? In practical terms it
is an increasingly autonomous body. We see this most
strikingly today in Germany.
This is an obvious
paradigm from another and past generation. It once
was true, but if we are remorselessly candid, it is no longer
so. How often do we go to Mass and leave no more enlightened
or fervid than when we had entered? Much of what was distinctively
and historically Catholic is no longer there. “God loves
you. The weather is great. You are all going to Heaven (and
your dog, too). Be nice. Shalom. Go in peace.” If we
are honest we cannot leave fast enough.
... now called
the Rite of Reconciliation practiced face to face
in a room with well-appointed and comfortable chairs strangely
reminiscent of a psychotherapist’s office? The bulletin
indicates that it is only available 45 minutes per
week or “by appointment” … as with a “therapist”.
Frankly, this is not much of an option, especially since
the evisceration of the concept of Mortal Sin (a term no
longer in use because no longer applicable) and the paucity
of “real” sinners like you and me.
Good luck finding
one at all, let alone one who knows and will give
you the mind of the Church — rather than currently
prevailing spiritual trends. Once again, we effectively
encounter, “God loves you. The weather is great. You
are going to Heaven (and your dog, too). Be
nice. Shalom. Go in peace.”
The “Seers”, beginning June 24, 1981 — youngsters then, adults now, some 34 years later — surely have an answer somewhere in the thousands of appearances of the “Gospa” (Mary). 1 Make expensive travel arrangements through them to visit Medjugore (including hotels, meals, and even meeting with one of the “Seers” themselves) and watch your rosary turn into gold! You will hear much of the pronouncements of Vatican II validated by the Mother of God Herself, such as:
“Before God all the faiths are identical. God governs them like a king in his kingdom.” All sufferings are equal in hell; and Mirjana quotes the Gospa as telling her that people begin feeling comfortable in hell. … When the Madonna is asked about the title, “Mediatrix of all graces,” she replies, “I do not dispose of all graces.” 2
Perhaps the “Gospa” will reveal the way of
holiness to you, although her track record over the past
three decades (and thousands of “appearances”)
has been uniformly dismal in the way of predictions and
has led to open schism with the local bishop who insists
(with the Church) that the “Gospa” and her six now-not-so-little-confederates
are not authentic (yes, despite the organized parish
visits, in direct disobedience to the Church, with
your local priest you can make a “pilgrimage” to a site
condemned as spurious by Rome.)
Personal Sanctity. Apart from any organized approach to holiness though the Mass (and the incredibly bad music that is a perpetual distraction from it), or Confession (barely extant), or sound Spiritual Direction (almost universally absent) there is one venue, and one alone that is open to you in these sterile, confused, contradictory, and tepid times in which the Church appears as clear and distinct as a Microsoft hologram: the commitment to personal sanctity guided by the Lives of the Saints, rather than disaffected theologians. “You are surrounded by a Cloud of Witnesses”, we are told 3 who have gone before you and have arrived at genuine sanctity, at complete and indissoluble union with God in Heaven. Let them — by their words and by their example — be our teachers who had taught and guided the Church for two millennia.
Personal Sanctity requires effort.
You must come to know the mind of the Church and authentic
Catholic doctrine and dogma. That is to say, you must be
catechized. “But I went to CCD!” you protest.
“And what did you learn?” I will ask. “Why did God create
you?” And you will have no answer. In a word, you learned
nothing despite the expensive, glossy textbooks your parents
had to pay for, and which were far, far, more pictorial
than substantial. They were … trendy. Empty. Worthless.
And even back then, you knew it. Indeed, your CCD or Catechism
teacher knew as much about the Faith as you
did. Catechesis has not been an important agendum to your
local bishop; even while it should be the most preeminent
as that upon which all things subsequent depend.
The Sixth Decade (the 1960's) of the Second Millennium ushered in the unparalleled destruction of every value inherent in, descriptive of, and intrinsic to Western Civilization — and with a particular vehemence the violent repudiation of the Church and the profanation of all things sacred. Christ became a Flower Child, ascended our altars, assumed the Lotus Position and taught us to worship ourselves through self-gratification. Satiation replaced sacrifice. In place of Holy Scripture and the 10 Commandments, we studied the Kama Sutra and the 64 Positions. It was the decade of decadence, the apotheosis of the self — and we have never recovered from it. It was as if the maw of Hell opened its putrescent mouth and vomited forth every abomination before God, every perversion possible to man. So overwhelming the smoke, that it entered the Sanctuary of the Church itself ... and still lingers, blinds and chokes. In the way of Her sacred teachings, to use JRR Tolkien's words from the Lord of the Ring,
“some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth.”
In many, many ways the Church lost the authenticity of its evangel as it clamored for relevancy in an opiated, lost, and dystopian world. We see it in contemporary theological writings, nominally Catholic literature, and tepid teachings that lack the clarity, conviction, and passion of a Church absolutely clear in its mission and resolute in its tenacity. Such unambiguous literature is now rarely found, and such utter conviction is rarely encountered in the post-Conciliar Church, and most painfully, in the present papacy of Francis.
What are we to do? Very clearly, the following:
Immerse yourself in authentic Catholic doctrine — and assiduously avoid anything, even with (or without) an Imprimatur and/or Nihil Obstat that post-dates 1950. The Imprimatur and/or Nihil Obstat are no longer any guarantee that what you read is consistent with the mind and historical teachings of the Church. Once they were legitimate stamps of approval as consistent with the Magisterium of the Church, but they have long ceased to be so. Open the first few pages of any ostensibly Catholic book and look for the date of the first printing. This will tell you much in the way of their authenticity and reliability as instruments appropriate for the formation of a Catholic Conscience. If it precedes 1950, politely put it down despite the rave reviews of any nominally Catholic source, to say nothing of any secular review.
In a famous line from the movie “The Exorcist” (based on fact) by William Peter Blatty, the elderly Father Merrin warns the much younger Father Karras who is suffering a crisis of Faith that, “He is a liar, the demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien. And powerful. So don't listen, remember that, do not listen.”
By and large, Catholic literature dealing with matters of Faith, Morals, Doctrine, and Dogma — either as pamphlets or scholarly tomes had, prior to 1950, been carefully vetted by competent Catholic theologians, priests, or bishops. They are credible sources and remain so, although many have fallen out of print — not from desuetude but as inconsistent with present and “popular” Catholic thought, often percolated through Rogerian psychology.
The famous library at Alexandria 4 in classical antiquity was burned by the Muslims in 642 in an effort to destroy any book incompatible with the Quran.” Modern” Catholic theology and literature has engaged in a similar enterprise. Many of the greatest books in Catholic literature are now only available on-line or through small publishing houses committed to preserving genuine Catholic teaching.
Apart from this treasury of 2000 years of Catholic teaching we are left with incomplete, contradictory, and confusing doctrines, not of the Church, but of dissident and disaffected theologians, priests, and would-be “priestesses” who, in today's “inclusive” seminaries are the instructors of what few candidates to the priesthood we have left following their decimation by homosexual clerics. Richard McBrien, Daniel Maguire, Hans Kung, and Teilhard de Chardin — all voluble and nominally Catholic writers — two were collarless priests — are among the most eminent examples of this theological dissidence, confusion, fiction, and heresy. In their writings we are presented with a mixture of some truth (to entice us) and many lies (to confuse us) reminiscent of the stratagems of the demon in Blatty’s, The Exorcist. Where is a Catholic to go to re-acquire an authentic Catholic identity consistent with the Church and the Saints for 2000 years?
Many of us have them. We cleave to them as to invaluable possessions, for they introduced us to an awareness of the holy and of places other than Earth; to a belief in things more profound than venal democratic institutions and more enduring than perverse social issues. They opened the vista to things eternal and resplendent in glory, to things holy that the world could not possibly sully and debase because of the ontological distance that separated them, a distance as great as sanctity from sin. They are in carefully kept albums from a time of innocence, and inscribed in the Family Bible placed beside a statue of Mary the Mother of God. They are indelibly impressed in our memories; our First Holy Communions, May Processions, the Baptisms of our children, and on the memorial cards of those we love and who now live, please God, in a place called Paradise, forever beyond this jaded Earth.
A soul at a time, beginning with our own.
Let us look at a few fundamental concepts with which we ought to familiarize ourselves if we are committed to persevere to Personal Sanctity. Once we have acquired these we have the tools through which to articulate our own lives, whatever our vocation in life, to accord with the mind of Christ and the mind of the Church in matters dealing with the Faith, the Faith that has been faithfully transmitted to us through the Deposit of Faith, for what we are striving toward is nothing less than Exemplary Holiness which itself is nothing more than Personal Sanctity.
Devotion
to Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the
Altar.
We recognize that HE is there,
REALLY and TRULY, in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
This the character of exemplary Catholicism: the recognition
of God Himself in the Second Person of the Most Holy
Trinity really and truly present to us in the Tabernacle.
Without His Presence, without Him, the building we call
a Church is nothing but a meaningless and empty edifice.
He is there! And He awaits you. Anytime
of the day or night. For the most part He is left alone
and unrecognized. We do not kneel before Him, but have
the hubris to stand as before an equal! Is that how
you will approach Him in the Last Judgment? We do not
have the humility to genuflect when we pass before Him,
acknowledging Him … and yet we would not dare pass a
mere man we know without greeting him with some gesture
of recognition …
Frequent,
but Discerning Reception of Holy Communion:
You are familiar with the
spectacle of everyone going to Holy
Communion as though there were no sinners in the pews.
This indiscriminate partaking of the Bread of Angels
with no Examination of Conscience prior to approaching
Christ in Holy Communion is itself a Mortal Sin if one
is aware of an unconfessed Mortal sinned that has not
been absolved in the Tribunal of Penance (Holy Confession).
In the state of Mortal Sin and not sufficiently cognizant
of the true and real Presence of Christ in the sacred
species of Holy Communion, it is an act of blasphemy
and therefore the death of the soul in conspectu
Dei (in the sight of God), for Saint Paul is very
clear: “For he that eateth
and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment
to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”
5 Most often, apart from ignorance,
the source of this sin is the Capital Sin of Pride which
refuses to constrain us to conspicuously remain
in the pews in recognition of our unworthiness, through
Mortal Sin, to receive Holy Communion — when everyone
else is. Even if Pope Francis in his Joy of Love
(Amoris Laetitia) deems it acceptable
in second, third, or fourth … “unions” … of those
“living in God’s grace”, adultery notwithstanding.
Recognition
of the real Distinction between Venial Sins and Mortal
Sins:
This is not the venue of a discussion of
the distinction between Mortal and Venial Sin. Suffice
it to say that a Mortal Sin must contain
all three of the following: (1) the matter of
the sin must be serious, (2) one wills to commit
the sin, and (3) one commits the Mortal Sin.
A Venial Sin is not serious in nature, is committed
without a full understanding of the detrimental nature
of the sin, and/or is not committed with the total consent
of the will. Venial sins do not preclude participation
in Holy Communion. Mortal Sins do.
Devotion
to Mary:
One preeminent hallmark of Catholic piety
is the love of Mary, Mother of God. Devotion to Mary
is the sine qua non of the fully lived Catholic
life. Her place in the economy of salvation is absolutely
singular: she alone gave flesh (her flesh) to the Word
Incarnate. Hence “every generation
shall call me blessed” 6 She is our
Mother. 7
Recognition
of the Reality of Heaven and Hell
It is the Sin of Presumption
to assume that, as a matter of course, we will go to
Heaven and stand before the Beatific Vision of God eternally.
Even Saint Paul exhorted us to work out our salvation
“with fear and trembling.”
8 Despite the total absence and silence at
the pulpit of any mention of Hell, it is quite real
and many go there. 9
The
Four Final Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell
In many old graveyards you will find the
following inscribed upon many humble markers: “Sum
quod eris, fui quod sis” — essentially, “As
you are I once was, as I am you will one day be.”
Understand your mortality, recognize the inevitable,
and act accordingly. Remember the distinction between
“life” and “life everlasting” … however it will be lived
… in Heaven or Hell. Have always before you the Last
Four Things that will surely come to pass instead
of the present “popular” things in vogue with a Church
that has become heavily feminized in every aspect of
its “Liturgy” and social teachings.
Never
Pass a Church without recognizing Christ within:
“Gloria tibi, Domine!” (Glory
to You, Lord!), or “Laus (or Gloria) tibi, Domine”
(Praise to You, Lord!). A devout Catholic always makes
some sign of recognition of Christ in the Most Holy
Sacrament of the Altar when he passes a Church. This
is accompanied by tracing the Sign of the Cross on our
forehead or over our heart. When this becomes instinctual
(as it had been prior to Vatican II) it will assist
us in recognizing Who abides there and for what reason.
It is the instinctive call to holiness.
Receive
Holy Communion on your Knees
Remarkably, this is no longer
the norm in modern Novus Ordo Masses. Saint Francis
himself, it is said, refused Holy Orders (becoming a
priest) because he did not think himself worthy to
hold the Sacred Body of Christ in his hands.
You may be reproached by the priest in your parish
for not following the “approved posture” adopted by
the diocese or the USCCB. As Saint Peter responded to
those who discouraged his preaching the Gospel,
“Is it better to obey God,
or men?” 10 For 2000 years Holy Communion
was received this way, and nowhere in the documents
of Vatican II does it suggest otherwise.
Would you approach
Christ in less an attitude of
humility and adoration? Do
not fear being scorned for what others may ridicule
as your “sanctimony”. It is Christ Himself you
kneel before! What thought of anyone
else should occupy your mind?
For God’s sake get on your knees!
Honor
the Saints and Martyrs
They, not your Parish Council
are your faithful and eternal friends. If they are no
longer honored in the present Martyrology, honor them
still, and invoke their aid and protection. Remain in
their company, who behold the face of God in
Heaven. It is the Company to which you are called!
Christ Himself promised us that the very Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. And yes, the Church, as we limply excuse ourselves, is “made up of sinners.” But it is also made up of saints. That is our universal vocation: to be nothing less than saints, whatever our earthly vocation. But we are not saints yet. As Saint Francis famously said, “Let us begin. For up to now we have done nothing.” Do not be afraid of sanctity. It is the very character of the image in which you have been created.
Whatever the Church now suffers
on earth it has suffered before, if not on so vast a scale.
And that is precisely why your call to sanctity is so vital.
You must pursue the sanctity that the Church at present
appears to have lost, or spurns as too onerous … too “otherworldly”
in this Age of Man. You must be the sign of contradiction
that is the Sign of the Cross, and Him Who was crucified
upon it for you. You must be in the world but not of the
world, for Saint John warns us,
“Love
not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If
any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not
in him. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence
of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the
pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the
world. And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence
thereof: but he that doth the will of God, abideth for ever.”
11
Spurn the world — and the empty love and praise of the world! Keep all that is holy before you and this day begin to dwell already in the Mansion prepared for you by Christ before the foundation of the world.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
April 19, 2017
_______________________________
1
See
http://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/medjugorje-private-revelation-and-the-seer-ing-truth.htm,
2
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/the-devil-and-medjugorje
3
Hebrews 12.1
4 “In AD 642, Alexandria was captured by
the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas. Several later Arabic
sources describe the library's destruction by the order
of
Caliph Omar. Bar-Hebraeus,
writing in the 13th century, quotes Omar as saying to Yaḥyā
al-Naḥwī: "If those books are in agreement with the Quran,
we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the
Quran, destroy them." Later scholars are
skeptical of these stories, given the range of time that
had passed before they were written down and the political
motivations of the various writers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria
5 I Cor. 11.29
6 St. Luke 1.48
7 St. John 19.26
8 Philippians 2.12, 2 Cor. 13.15.
9 St. Mat. 7.13
10 Acts 5.29
11 1 John 2.15-17
12 St. John 14.6
Note: An invaluable source for historically authentic Catholic teaching including the writings of the Church Fathers can be found at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ and http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
The indispensable Baltimore Catechism — universally used by the Catholic Church until it was discontinued following Vatican II can be found (and downloaded as a PDF) at: http://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/baltimore_catechism.pdf . It presents a clear, concise, and readily understandable presentation of our Holy Catholic Faith. We encourage you to explore it.
_____________________
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
| “More and more voices of high-ranking prelates stubbornly affirm obvious doctrinal, moral and liturgical errors that have been condemned a hundred times, and work to demolish the little faith remaining in the people of God.” 1 |
Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, responded with a move that has compromised all the bishops. He openly uttered the obvious to nearly every Catholic outside the Continent of Africa: it is probable that most high-ranking members of the world-wide episcopacy — cardinals, archbishops, bishops, prelates, primates, metropolitans, episcopal vicars — have effectively lost their faith, succumbed to the World, the Flesh, and the Devil and remain only nominally “Catholic” — and determined to erase even the memory of Catholicism as it had been practiced for 2000 years prior to Vatican II ... and Pope Francis (who is likely to exile Cardinal Sarah in the way he has callously dismissed every voice of opposition to his regime of progression ad infinitum and ad absurdam).
But the word is out! And who can take it back?
Who, with a straight face, can say “surprise!”? No one in America or Canada or England. No one in Europe. In fact, no one outside Africa and Asia. We let them pretend to be holy when their words and deeds were blatantly and unapologetically perfidious. We did not raise our voice against them because they knew that genuinely faithful Catholics were taught to revere them and make every implausible excuse for their dereliction. Heretical bishops and theologians are a dime a dozen. But still we pretended that they were “Catholic” to cover our own shame for their scandalous behavior, disobedience, delinquency and turpitude — which none in higher authority reproached or redressed.
We have watched them solemnly process into the conclave or the synod(s) — after feverishly assembling their own “schema” to subvert anything authentically Catholic: somber, grave faces of men who relished their image of stern sobriety ... until the doors were closed. The dissection of doctrine then proceeded and the vivisection of morals. The body of Holy Mother Church was barely left intact ... and barely recognizable!
How prescient Cardinal Robert Sarah! Not until the last drop of Faith has been exsanguinated from the Body will these men rest who “work to demolish the little faith remaining in the people of God.”
What a staggering statement!
________________________________
1 Catholicherald.co.uk 03 April 2017
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
April 3, 2017
“Hello. You are my project and I am your artist. You are the “medium” of my art, much as paint is to some artists and clay to others, and I will fashion you into something of my liking. Is that okay with you? You will admire my finesse and I’ve had lots of practice. Did I tell you that I went to school for this? No kidding; I got a BA in Art with a specialty in “accompaniment.” Never heard of it? It’s new. Very fashionable in Rome. I will follow you around and teach you some things to make you appear to be Catholic and okay with God; kinda smooth out the rough edges of the “sin”-thing so that you will be comfortable with it now and do what other Catholics do who, unlike you, at the moment are not in a state of mortal sin.
Of course they are sinners, too, but at the moment they are not sinning by living in adultery as you now are in your second (or is this your third?) “marriage”. No big deal. Like Francis said, who are we to judge anyway? What is more, the pope has recently concluded that we cannot really be sure about sin in any event because of what he calls the “Internal Forum” — your conscience really. It may be telling you that something is not a sin for you, even if the 10 Commandments say it is before God and for everyone else, unless, of course, their “internal Forum” tells them it’s okay for them, too. Got it?
“In life, shades of gray predominate”, Francis told us, so nothing is clear and there is no need to beat yourself up for something that may, in fact, be “good” and “wholesome” and “positive” according to Francis — despite appearances and connotations to the contrary. Clear on that? The thing is, I’ve got to accompany you and show you that what you may think is wrong really isn’t any more, especially if it’s making you uncomfortable or feel guilty.
Of course as an ARTIST of ACCOMPANIMENT, in order to have the “stuff” of my art to work with, you will have to tell me some, well, deeply private things, possibly salacious things, but hey, that’s art. I am NOT a voyeur. I am an
ARTIST! As one Dominican journal gushes,
“Pope Francis
describes the bedside manner needed in the art of
accompaniment as “steady and reassuring, reflecting our
closeness,” and as having a “compassionate gaze”
(EG, 169). Some refer to this bedside manner, practiced
within welcoming and loving communities” 1
Conservative Catholics do not understand this. They are into the manly work of evangelization and conversion; not accompaniment, compassionate gazes, and certainly not “this art of accompaniment which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other.” They simply do not anticipate that they, like Moses, will have to veil their faces because they will radiate the lumen gloriae of the adulterous and the sacrilegious subsequent to “accompanying” them … after, of course, removing their sandals before these demigods in accordance with non-existent canons of the Art of Accompaniment that we can find in no college curriculum (see Exodus 3.5 which Francis invokes and 34.33-35 that we invoke).
The … shall we say, delicate … language of “art” leaves them — conservative and traditional Catholics — understandably uncomfortable, especially in the wake of the last 30 years of pervasive pederasty in the Church. And who, we wonder, will teach us to learn to make “compassionate gazes” and how will we be graded on our performance? Will such “gazes” be accompanied with a sigh? Is that also in Performance 101?
If they hope to gain any traction in the “modern” Church they need to be slick like us, saying things no one really grasps and using ambiguous words which have no substance.
Francis and Kasper are “Artists” to be sure … Conservatives
just don’t have the “stuff” to be artists. Too few theta
waves. Indeed, does the Church need more “Artists” as Francis
insists? :
“The Church will have to initiate everyone — priests, religious and laity — into this ‘art of accompaniment’ which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5).” (Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, 169)
She already has an abundance of “Ministries” (EXTRAORDINARY Eucharistic Ministers, Music Ministers, Youth Ministers, Hospitality Ministers, Community Service Ministers — Shawl-Making, Greeting, Lectors, Prayer, — virtually every activity at church anoints one a Minister).
And now a superabundance of “Artists”?
After all, according to Francis, each of us will have to be “initiated”, not into a Sacrament, but into an Art. We will practice art, and therefore be practitioners.
Every Catholic an “Artist” and a Practitioner of the Art? (yet a new, but universal Ministry!)
Is this our new vocation? If we are all Practitioners chasing the lost, who are the remaining sheep? Are they not Practitioners, too?
Did you just think “circular”? Did you just visualize a dog chasing its own tail?
The Church needs more sanctity — not artists. More priests and fewer ministers. More Catholics and fewer Practitioners.
“Ecce enim regnum Dei intra vos est!”
(Saint Luke 17.21)___________________
1 http://www.dominicanajournal.org/the-art-of-accompaniment/
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
24 March 2017
We must mightily strive to forever preserve intact and to protect the Sacred Deposit of Faith, and the indefectibly Authentic Teachings and Magisterium entrusted by Almighty God to the Holy Catholic Church which no man — or group of men — can change, alter, cancel, abrogate, diminish or attenuate!
“Salus
Animarum”
the Salvation of Souls
It
is unlikely that the vast,
indeed, the overwhelming majority of today’s Catholics
have not so much as heard of this phrase as old as the
Church itself; certainty, not in English — and with
greater certainty still, not from the pulpit. The very
concept of “the salvation of the soul” appears
to be non grata in homiletics for quite nearly
50 years (corresponding, unsurprisingly, to the implementation
of Vatican II) — despite the fact that the imperative
itself is clearly and unambiguously codified as the
supremus lex (the supreme law) in Canon Law (1752):
It is nothing less than the sole reason for the Incarnation … the Suffering, Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection … of Christ: the salvation of souls!
Christ as Savior; Christ as Redeemer, cannot be understood apart from this most fundamental and utterly simple concept: He came to save souls — not to heal bodies (although He did), not to rectify injustices, not to rehabilitate politics, not to instruct us on economics, and certainly not save the environment.
He came with only two purposes that are really one:
To do the will of the Father
And the will of the Father is this: to save souls for all eternity in Heaven (and in so doing, to deliver them from Hell).
It is really that simple; in fact, so simple that it eludes us in our pretensions to sophistication, and our preferences for sophistry.
For 2000 years the mission of the Church (and its
raison d’etre , the very reason for its being) could
be summed up in two words instantiating that same beautiful
simplicity: “Salus animarum — the Salvation
of souls”. Through Christ in the Sacraments
this is its sole mission.
No other Mandate
The Church has no other mandate from Christ. Even healing the sick, raising the dead, delivering men from demonic possession, and all that He taught in the Sermon on the Mount were means only to the principle end: the salvation of the soul. Christ Himself emphatically asks:
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (St. Matthew 16.26).
The purpose of all that He said and did was always eschatological, that is to say, pertaining to the Four Last Things:
Death
Judgment
Heaven
Hell
Everything else pales in significance. Two come once only, and two are at once everlasting.
To pretend that we really do not fully understand what Christ was talking about, and which He proclaimed in the clearest terms, is just that: pretension. We know very well what Christ said and did — but to our own devious and often deviant ends, we assume an air of erudite perplexity concerning them:
“Despite what He appears to say; indeed actually says — this is what He really means …” What follows seldom has anything to do with what He means. And we recognize it.
Our own interpretation merely accords with what we wish He had said, for this would provide us with excuses for our sins or alternatives for His extremely unsettling pronouncements. We go from the reality of: “If only He had said …” to the fiction: “This is what He really means … because I am much more comfortable with this interpretation — which, rather coincidentally, allows me to continue in sin.” In short, it is nothing more than wishful thinking, because they cannot both be true.
However contradictory to what Jesus and His Apostles really said and taught, we choose to believe another narrative, however factitious; a simulacrum that borrows the vocabulary of the real but with connotations utterly incongruous with it. It is disingenuous, a sham. There is a pathos of similitude but the depiction is counterfeit. We have not entered the mythical: we have fabricated it. Shamelessly. It pleases us … and this is the first clue that it is deceptive. We have both an aversion and an affinity for the truth. It is the patrimony of our broken heritage from the beginning. We ineluctably desire the true, but when it indicts us we demur from it; unable to accommodate both we resort to dissimilation, to a semblance of the real that is, despite our collusion with pretensions, a defection from it. Hence our penchant for comfortable and spurious “interpretations”.
For all our carefully fabricated allusions to what Christ really said and meant, we know the truth — because He is the Truth Who does not deceive nor can be deceived. We are not pleased with all He said, especially concerning things that frighten us because they describe us … and convict us — and we know it!
Despite this, we insist that so many vitally important things that Jesus clearly uttered are nevertheless not true — because they are not “inclusive” and do not accord with our delicate post-modern sensitivities that any real deity would surely ascribe to. That some, perhaps many, are left in “outer darkness”, excluded from Heaven because of their depravity and perversion, their penchant for sin and their obstinate predilection for evil, is unacceptable to our presently enlightened humanity. The list of our objections would be too long to enumerate and ultimately too tedious. Let us be satisfied with a few:
Not everyone goes to Heaven (St. Matthew 7:14)
People — indeed, many people — go to Hell (St. Matthew 7:14)
Hell is a real place of punishment, torment, and eternal suffering beyond our comprehension. It is the abode of the devil and demons. It is eternal and eternally devoid of any hope. (St. Matthew 5.29-10; Luke 16:19-31, 13.42; 25.41; St. Mark 9:42-44 etc.)
No one “goes to the Father” — enters Heaven — except though Christ (St. John 14:6)
If you deny Him before men on earth, He will deny you before His Father in Heaven (Matthew 10:33)
Not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (St. Matthew 7:21)
Not any and every religion will bring you to Heaven (St. John 6.26-70)
Being a “nice person” does not suffice to bring you to Heaven or exempt you from Hell (St. Matthew 5.20; St. Mark 16.15-16)
Such pernicious nonsense has no place in our mythologized concept of God. We will have Heaven … “dammit” ... but on our terms — despite what Jesus Christ says … much to our consternation, and quite likely to our damnation. We prefer other interpretations; more comfortable and convenient exegeses ... and sadly they abound.
For my part, fool that I am, I will take Christ at His word. In fact, I stake my life on it.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Comments? Write us: editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
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ROMAN MARTYROLOGY
Thursday July 27th In the Year of Grace 2017 Season after Pentecost
At Rome, Pope St. Celestine I, who had
condemned Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and put Pelagius to flight.
By his command the holy universal Council of Ephesus was also held against
the same Nestorius. At Cordova in Spain, during the Arab persecution, the holy martyrs George, a deacon, Aurelius and his wife Natalia, Felix and his wife Liliosa. And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors,
and holy virgins. Response: Thanks be to God.
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Why the Martyrs
Matter
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