Milestones or Millstones?

“Progressives” in the Catholic Church

This is a frightful pronouncement so terribly apropos of our times, and they are worth repeating for the sake of emphasis:
 

“Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ ...”
 

These words should be emblazoned over the doorway leading to every “contemporary” theology department, every religion class in every nominally Catholic college, every archway to every seminary, above the lintels to every chancery, every rectory, every self-absorbed parish council chamber – really, they should be etched into the hearts and minds of every Catholic who is susceptible to the most profane, absurd, inane and irrelevant teaching palmed off to the faithful as authentic doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Perhaps you have forgotten, but ours is a mandate to be faithful ... not a mantra to be “progressive” especially at the cost of reason, faith, and truth.

Who has not heard, in stupefaction, in growing astonishment, virtually every authentic teaching of the Church for 2000 years arrogantly dismissed with a learned air, superior to faith, by those to whom it has been entrusted  – and from which, to the vapid applause of the world, they have defected, opting for the laurels (as well as the money ...) of men instead of the glory of God?

Who has not suffered this agony?

Who has not suffered this second Crucifixion at the hands of men and women who, not contented with throwing the Word of God back into God's Face, programmatically throw it back into our face; demanding adherence, demanding acceptance, demanding credence, demanding "progress” that has somehow moved beyond the immutable truths given us by Truth Himself; truths that stand, as it were, in obsolescence before the “enlightened mind” of “modern” man – christened “progressive”, for whom dogma is not just anathema, but is tautologous with “intolerance”.

Having lost their own belief, they invite us, even coerce us, to disbelief. Having lost obedience to God, they require the disobedience of men. Having become a law unto themselves, they have outlawed the law of God. Finding this law intolerable, they create a god in their own image and promulgate this strange god's laws ... that happen to coincide with their own interests.

In a sentence, “They do not have God.”

It starts at the top and percolates down, leaching into the minds of the little ones through either the pride, the arrogance or the indifference of their teachers: bishops, priests, religious functionaries, parents ... “who do not remain in the teaching of the Christ.”

Jesus spoke sternly and very clearly about such teachers:

“whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea" (St. Mark 9.41)

Take a deep breath.
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^*  alternately translated as, “who goes too far” (NAS, NIV, NASB)
 

Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

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