I have read the July and August editions. Now, I have known for a year or so that some of the writers have crossed into dubious positions regarding some aspects of the Church. I want to address some ideas which indicate that a person's soul is in danger.
First of all, as I have written many times on this blog, to stay with Rome is to be protected from the lies of the evil one. For over two-thousand years, the Church, established by Christ for our salvation, for our guidance and care, has seen saints, sinners, even heretics. The Church has been vigilant in condemning errors in our own times, with both St. John Paul II and the Pope Emeritus pointing out the dangers of the Modernist heresies, which have been highlighted for our benefit for over a hundred years..
However, some Catholics have taken criticisms of prelates and even the current Pope too far.
I shall expand on this.
Second, no teaching of the Church from the Throne, from the Chair of Peter has been heretical. None, and none ever will. This is our faith, our teaching.
Third, we have all been given reason and the ability to study, all. Man is a rational animal. Man has natural law written on his heart. There is no one, except those who are mentally challenged, who cannot read the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the encyclicals.
It is our duty, not merely our right, to study and understand our faith. Those who do not are lax and in danger of losing their souls. If we are dull, it is because of sin in our lives. Dullness of the intellect of an adult is caused by habitual sin. Even children learned the Baltimore Catechism and Latin in previous days.
Fourth, as laity, many things are NOT in our area of expertise and many things are not our business. We have our own call to evangelize and make holy the world, not to be constant critics of popes, cardinals, bishops.
The problem is serious and it has a name.
Pride.
Those who have not allowed God to purify them in the Dark Night of the senses or the spirit are the ones who are writing false teaching in this newspaper and in blogs.
In the Dark Night, one sees one sins, God destroys egoism, and one gains a proper perspective of one's standing before God.
If one is holier than Rome, or thinks one is, one has not worked through the levels of humility.
We cannot follow sedevacantists. Those who do not think the present pope is truly pope are not only in error, but have separated themselves from the Church of Christ. Their souls are in grave danger. They have become Protestants.
This is the way of the heretics. Luther, Zwingle, Calvin all thought their ideas were better than Rome's and that they were holier than the various popes in their times. We can judge objective evil, but we cannot judge the heart of anyone.
Do you remember when, as an adolescent, you first discovered your parents, your good Catholic parents, were flawed? You rebelled for a short time and, then, came to your senses, that all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Some writers are stuck at being fifteen years of age.
Now, we can rationally see mistakes of prelates and in our own parishes and dioceses, if there are serious errors coming from the clergy, we address this personally, and then, if necessary, involve the bishop, with reverence to his role, his call, his apostolic succession. Not all, in fact, very few, bishops are saints, but we still owe them respect.
Pride is a sin which morphs, making the person think he is humble and obedient to Christ, when in reality that person is spinning off into their own church.
There is only one Church.
I am warning Catholics both here in the States and in Europe not to read or listen to those who are sedevacantists. They write poison, which seeps into the soul, the heart, the mind.
To stay with Rome is the only road to salvation, and those of us who have been given the Truth are more responsible for our salvation than others.
I am sad to see bloggers leaving the heart of Rome. We must pray for them, as their souls are in great danger.
Look at the lives of the saints. There is only one St. Catherine of Siena. There is only one Athanasius, and the many, many saints who lived in times of turmoil remained humble, obedient to the Truth, obedient to Rome. Unless one is as holy as those two saints mentioned above, one should be quiet.
Read the Doctors of the Church, read the encyclicals, our rich heritage of truth.
Read the Fathers of the Church.
If the sedes spent as much time on their private lives working to perfection, they would not have time to be so critical. If they were evangelizing, spreading the Good News of the Gospel, they would not have so much time to be critical.
They have taken the war for holiness outside themselves and made it external, political. This is a false position. We fight spiritual warfare primarily in our own souls.
Only those in the highest states of holiness have the "right", the knowledge, to criticize.
Beams and motes....or beams and beams proliferate. Deal with your own beams first.
Priorities. We are not called to be clerical critics first and foremost.
Do what lay people are supposed to do--get holy and be leaven in the world.
Pride is the primal sin. And, those who engage in constant criticisms have fallen into the adversarial spirit, which is not from God.
Here is another post on this subject.
26 Apr 2014
A
person caught up in the adversarial spirit will not find peace in God,
but fall into rancor,anger and depression. If you are merely tearing
down, you have let satan use you. Eventually, the person with the
adversarial spirit ...
