The Church on Her Knees: the Sad State of the Catholic Church under the Papacy of Francis

Cardinal Cupich: “We must let go of “cherished beliefs”

Where do we go when the “Church of Discernment”

Replaces the Holy Catholic Church?

U.S. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich appointed by Francis to the powerful Vatican Congregation for Bishops made the following unimaginable statement: “If Catholics want to engage in “discernment” like Pope Francis does, they must let go of “cherished beliefs” and outlined the “rebuilding and re-imagining of the Church through “discernment” and “dialogue” — nouveau concepts dear to Pope Francis's vision of a new Church emerging from the ashes of 2000 years of history, teaching, and tradition that Vatican II ignited and Pope Francis is determined to consume in a conflagration that will obliterate all distinctions between Catholics and Protestants — and perhaps a totally “inclusive” pan-religious “Faith Community” that will abolish the Roman Catholic Church — much as the Communist Revolution was to abolish all class distinctions in the “withering away of the State”. It will be, as Cupich flatly states, “a revolution”, a process and a Church that will necessarily have its “own vocabulary”.

“Graduation Day” for Catholics?

Indeed, Cardinal Cupich maintains that we must graduate from our Catholic “adolescence” into what we presume he understands as a largely Protestant spirituality based on conscience:

According to Lifesite News, “In June, the Cardinal interpreted the Pope’s 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love) as a call for Catholics to graduate from “an adolescent spirituality into an adult spirituality” where they will be able to use their “freedom of conscience” to “discern truth” in their life ... Cupich has argued that active homosexuals should be able to receive Holy Communion and is a public supporter of Jesuit priest and homosexualist Vatican adviser James Martin.” ¹

How are we to understand his clearly pejorative description of genuine Catholic spirituality as “adolescent”? After 2000 years is it in need of maturation? Is it not much more a matter of accommodation — specifically ecumenical accommodation to better align Catholic with Protestant doctrine and spirituality? Indeed, the admiration of Pope Francis for the arch-heresiarch Martin Luther and his recent ebullient “Commemoration” of the Reformation is unmistakable ... and deeply regrettable. It is an exuberance equally shared by Cardinal Cupich. ²

What does it say, however, to the faithful of the past 2000 years? That they have lived in spiritual immaturity, replete with all the devotions and practices that characterized Catholics before (and even after) Vatican II — and which were the very beliefs and practices which Luther reviled, and many Protestants since?

An “Imaginary” Church?

First let us be clear about terms — specifically the word “re-imagine”.

We can only re-imagine what was first imaginary to begin with. If we “imagine” something, it is clear that what we envision does not exist (or, possibly, once did and no longer does) — it is so remote from recollection, so distant in the past, that we no longer have a clear idea of what it really was and certainly no contemporaneous connection with it — hence we must resort to imagining what it was, which is to say that our concept of it is imaginary: it does not pertain to what actually exists, but but to a mental fabrication, a mere ideological construct that has no correspondence in reality. At best, it is what we imagine might possibly exist or what had existed in some long-forgotten primeval haze ... but no longer does, or is no longer present to us.

Does this describe the Holy Catholic Church? Is Cupich, then, an imaginary cardinal since the Church that conferred this office upon him is itself imaginary — as are, eo ipso, her sacraments, doctrines, dogmas, teachings, and discipline?

Where will Catholics faithful to the Magisterium and the Sacred Deposit of Faith go once this revolution materializes? To what Church — after the Roman Catholic Church has been “re-imagined” — indeed, we hold that it was never imaginary at all (and therefore in no need of re-imagining) to begin with, but a beautiful reality in the ugly and impoverished world of the City of Man? To the nearest Lutheran or Episcopal “church” with a female priestess — or, for that matter, even a transgender male-female/female-male “officiant”? The logic of “ecumenism” does not exclude this blasphemy — indeed it does not even exclude the mosque!

Of course this sounds nonsensical. Why? It is nonsense! We cannot go to a Lutheran church or a mosque — however ecumenically magnanimous we are urged to be — for nowhere else apart from the One, True, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church will we find Jesus Christ — in the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in Holy Communion, and in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

An “imagined” or “re-imagined” church has none of these — and never will. In a word such an “imagined” church — even were “re-imagination” possible — would be an utter imposter: not the beautiful and spotless Bride of Christ, but a meretricious harlot with many “lovers” upon the altars of many religions in the world — and of the world. (1 John 2:15)

_______________________

¹ https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholics-must-let-go-of-cherished-beliefs-to-discern-like-pope-francis-u.s

² https://www.archchicago.org/news-release/-/article/2017/10/24/the-archdiocese-of-chicago-and-the-metropolitan-chicago-synod-of-the-evangelical-lutheran-church-in-america-to-commemorate-the-500th-anniversary-of-th

Geoffrey K. Mondello
Boston Catholic Journal
Sunday 8 July 2018

Printable PDF Version