Pastoral Practice To Take Precedence Over Doctrine? Rubbish.

Cardinal Kasper says we need new language because the language we use now (adultery) “is offensive” (see here). But we already have new language: we speak of ‘irregular situations’. he is right that we should try to avoid offence, but to hide truth by unclear language is to side with the deceiver, the father of lies. There is nothing offensive in the words ‘cohabitation’; ‘homosexual activity’ or ‘irregular situation’. I don't think those in such situations are offended by the language so much as they are offended by the fact that we declare their irregular situation to be wrong, which cannot change no matter what language we use. (Correction: homosexuals are offended by describing the homosexual orientation as ‘intrinsically disordered’. But how do we re-word that? Do we say it the homosexual orientation is ‘of its nature, a misdirected urge’? Will that really satisfy? I don't think so; I think homosexuals want the Church to described it as ‘normal’, and that we just cannot do.

Cardinal Kasper also states that “Doctrine will be unchanged, but practice (application) adapted”. The Doctrine will indeed remain unchanged, simply because it cannot change –and Cardinal Kasper himself has reminded us of that: “We have to be realistic, we have to stick to the Gospel, to the doctrine” yet “apply it to the concrete situation of people who are on the way“ . But can we claim to be holding to the Doctrine while accepting practices inconsistent with it? I don’t think so; it would deprive the Church of any integrity. In this ‘Age of Mercy’ we do indeed have to remember that the core of the Gospel is mercy, but also that it is mercy for the repentant: “Go and sin no more” (Jn.8v11; 5v14). We know Jesus welcomed and ate with sinners (cf.Matt.9) but He described sinners as sick people in need of healing (Mk.2v17); He did not say they were to be left in a state of sickness.

For 'Pastoral Modernisers' to ask that pastoral practice take primacy over doctrine is nonsense: practice is belief lived out. We must live according to what we believe, not formulate belief on how we live, otherwise we could justify every kind of sin: “This is how people have chosen to live; we should find a way to accommodate it”. What rubbish. It is like medics seeking a reason to declare cancer a natural state and tolerate it. That is not merciful to the cancer sufferer, and circumventing Divine Law is not merciful to the sinner.

‘Pastoral practice taking precedence over Doctrine’ is in fact a wicked misnomer for the legitimising of waywardness. It doesn't help anyone to pretend that sin is not sin. And yes, all sin can be forgiven (thank God), but sins (such as theft, detraction, murder etc) are an event; an adulterous relationship is a continuing situation; we can absolve from theft or murder after the fact but not during the act: indeed we would be obliged try and prevent the theft or murder taking place. So too with irregular relationships: we cannot absolve while the situation is ‘in act’ (continues on), only when it has ended and there is a purpose of amendment. Some seem determined to try absolving from sin those in on-going iniquity. It is nonsense. ‘Pastoral Modernisers’ who seek to do this are laughable –or would be if what they propose was not so dangerous to souls -including the souls of those who propose it.

Can we not say that anyone who seeks pastoral accommodation of sinful situations contrary to Divine Law has lost the Faith? How can we not at least say that they have disregard the Ten Commandments in order to accommodate contemporary lifestyles? Are such folk among those who have been advanced to the priestly office and its episcopate? If so, this came about only because those who preceded them had accommodated the world before them, and accepted as their co-workers and successors only those who formed in and convinced by the secular line. This does not seem far from reality given statements reported to be said by some. It is thus that we are left repeating the words of Our Lord: “When the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on earth?” The answer to which is, “No; not if ‘Pastoral Modernisers’ have their way. There will be a vague belief in ‘God’, but in the name of ‘God’ all manner of sin will be tolerated for ‘pastoral purposes’ and ‘reasons of conscience’”. 

The plain reality is that if we accommodate violations of the 6^th and 9^th Commandments we will have to accommodate violations of every Commandment. The Holy Eucharist will have to be given to anyone who presents for It. We are, after all, in ‘The Age of Mercy’; we have to stop calling on folk to “go and sin no more”. It seems, according to the mind of today’s Pastoral Modernisers, that it is wrong to say it. Our Lord was wrong to say it, and that we are wrong to imitate Him. To such Moderniserts, we and the Lord are merciless.

I once had a nun from an enclosed convent tell me that their previous preacher, commenting on Our Lord’s words in Mk.10 (“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if a wife divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”), said “It’s a pity Our Lord ever said that”. Why? Probably because it makes a priests life hard; he has to confront people and risk being disliked –and God forbid that!

I believe we should encourage those in irregular relationships to continue coming to Mass; to continue their life of prayer and charity; to be as involved in as much of the social life of the parish as they can. They are excluded from none of this. That I do not seek their admission to Holy Communion is not because I want them punished (woe betide anyone who would want that); it is that I don’t want to put them at odds with the mind of God as expressed in Divine Law. I hope to see them yearn for the sacraments so much that they make changes in their lifestyle (i.e., celibate living); a change which heals their soul. I want to see them make Christ the centre of their life and not their new ‘partnership’, so that they may become heroes of fidelity to Christ. 

Reception of Holy Communion is a serious matter, and is not simply about communion with the Church: it is about communion with the heart and mind of God. If those who have chosen to live contrary to the mind of God are admitted to Holy Communion, they are being told a lie by the Church: “Nothing you are doing is contrary to or impedes your union with, God”. The father of lies may not be physically walking this earth, but he is the prince of this world, and it is to him that ‘pastoral Modernisers’ appear to be listening.http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-kasper-adultery-language-is-offensive-insulting-31791/

A Harm-Reduction Model That Does Not Work

‘Harm Reduction’ is a term I first came across when working with opiate-addicted youth. In a nutshell, the idea is that by using clean equipment the potential to contract HIV infection and Hepatitis C from shared needles is eliminated. Further, the purity of the drug can be assured, eliminating the risk of overdose and problems related to using opiates cut (mixed) with other substances (such as scouring and talcum powders or, more commonly, sugar, powdered milk etc) which can cause abscess formation with the risk of sepsis.

In that harm reduction eliminates the risk of HIV, Hepatitis C and overdose it seems that harm reduction is a good tool in care of the addict. However, I remember an article that asked the question, ‘Is this harm reduction or harm continuation?’ Do we really want people to simply be ‘safe addicts’? Surely the option to take is elimination of the addictive behaviours.

All in all, the harm reduction model is a capitulation model: ‘they’re going to do it anyway, so let them do it safely’. This is like a parent telling their teenager, ‘I don’t want you to take drugs but if you do, do it safely’, or ‘you shouldn’t have casual sex but if you do, use a condom so you don’t get ‘caught’ ’. That isn’t the kind of parenting to which I could give approval: ‘do the wrong thing, but don’t get caught out’.

Unfortunately the capitulation model is the route Cardinal Kasper and his fan-club are advocating the Synod take. By saying ‘We can proclaim the Truth of right and wrong; grace and sin, but we must allow those who are in adulterous relationships to sin with our approval so they won’t feel bad and so we can show the caring face of Christ’. Kasper and his cohort are talking absolute nonsense. Essentially they have stopped trying to convert the world and been converted by it. They seem unable to grasp the fact that while harm-reduction may have a place in opiate addiction, there is no way we can 'sin safely', so trying to devise pastoral care solutions for those in irregular situations is to surrender to sin and enable harm continuation of the worst -the eternal- kind.

How any ecclessiastic can approve of harm continuation and sleep well at night is beyond me. I hope that it is beyond the Synod Fathers too, and that Pope Francis realises he must uphold the perennial doctrine of the Church in both teaching and in practice. If he doesn’t; if he tries to uphold the Truth while making pastoral provision for deviation from Divine Law, he becomes a Chief Medical Officer (Surgeon General in the USA)  who proclaims smoking to be harmful yet establishes ‘smoking rooms’ in medical offices and removes the warnings from cigarette packs to provide the illusion (not the reality) of safety. Only a Medical Officer who rejects the research could act in such a manner; similarly, only the priest who rejects the Faith would look for pastoral accommodation of that which is mortally sinful.

The Synod Fathers must bear in mind that withholding Communion from those in irregular situations is not about judging those persons as bad; it is about judging what is bad for the person. We know there is natural goodness in us all. When one thinks of major disasters such Hillsborough and the Kings Cross Fire; of 9/11 and 7/7, one sees the natural goodness of those who provided care and compassion to the victims, and we cannot help but be aware that innate goodness. Now, those who were giving of their very best in the above disasters were probably no different to the rest of society, accepting as the norm such things as sex outside of marriage; contraception and same-sex pairings, but they demonstrated great compassion for others –some at the risk of their own lives. Seeing such goodness as well as sinfulness in every man who walks the earth, how can one not leave all judgement of persons to God alone? The Church only has a duty to proclaim which lifestyle choices are at one with our Divine Law, and thus with the reception of Holy Communion. That is not a judging of persons, only God judges a soul. But the Synod cannot pretend that being at odds with Divine Law –the mind of God- is compatible with communion with God.

What do we do if the Synod propels Francis into saying in his Apostolic Exhortation that the Church’s teaching on sex and the indissolubility of marriage is inviolable, but that we must take account of people’s lived situation and be ‘pastoral’ in dealing with those who are in irregular situations? We know that people have a right to marry, they do not have the right to contravene Divine Law, and since we are obliged only to obey in all that is not sin, we are not morally obliged to follow any new pastoral practices adopted by the Church which run contrary to Divine Law. A refusal to comply with ecclesiastical law may put a cleric on the road to suspension, which he may have to be prepared to suffer for his fidelity to Divine Law.

I pray the Synod does not bow to pressure from the world by seeking to provide perilous (pastoral) accommodation of objectively sinful situations; that it does not ask us to facilitate sin. If the Synod Fathers believe they can divorce practice from belief then we will have no integrity as a Church; you simply cannot say ‘this may kill the life of grace in your soul but we’ll make it easy for you to continue’. I for one do not want to hear a physician say “smoking kills, but if you want to continue I’ll facilitate it for you”. Let us hope the Bishops and Pope Francis are not that uncaring; not that stupid; not that ‘faith-challenged’. God bless and guide the Synod and the Pope; St Michael protect the Synod and the Pope from the desire to refrain from hurting people’s feelings and thereby kill the life of grace in their souls.

A Challenge To 'Modernising' Catholics

As I tried to say in my previous posting, I am not and have never been a ‘holy’ priest (I readily admit my need to be more prayerful, humble, patient, self-sacrificing and industrious). There have been times of poor witness in my priesthood; times when my clerical collar was ditched, my conversation poorly guarded and my challenge of souls in immoral situations not as robust as it ought to have been (N.B. robust does not mean harsh, it means clear, as well as gentle). But I try to be prayerful and patient, humble, industrious and instructive. And I do hold to The Faith that was handed on and seek to transmit it to others –though it doesn’t always go down well even within the Church. Why? Because we are awash with a tendency to diminish Truth for the sake of not hurting people’s feelings or appearing oppressive. Within this sea of ‘pastoral sensitivity’ there are islands of orthodoxy and compassionate orthopraxy, but these islands are isolated, and often the subject of derision and even oppression (“No, you cannot have a Traditional Mass”; “no you cannot defer baptising the baby of a cohabiting couple until they are married”; “no you cannot require youngsters to be regular Mass attendees before they have First Holy Communion or Confirmation”).

I want then, to speak of two kinds of Catholics: Catholics of Tradition (Traditional Catholics) and Catholics of Aggiornamento (Modernising Catholics). Both groups are, I believe, well intentioned and sincere. Traditional Catholics however, labour under an oppressive prejudice from ‘modernising’ Catholics who seem to think the Church only became a ‘good’ Church at Vatican II and that all that went before must be suppressed in order for the ‘good, Pastoral Church’ to flourish. We find such Modernising Catholics at all levels of the Church. For such Modernising Catholics all that matters is being ‘nice’, and ‘non-judgemental’. They are ‘nice’ (pleasant; unchallenging, tender-hearted) in the hope that by their human encounter with others ‘a spark’ may be ignited; they are ‘non-judgemental’ so as to avoid oppressing people (or for fear of offending the political and social establishment?). The opposite to ‘The Church of Nice’ is not the ‘Church of Offence’; it is a Church of Truth, clearly yet respectfully declared.

I wonder where such Modernising Catholics get their nonsense. Being ‘nice’ with people does not hand on the Faith: the Faith is a Revelation of Truth, not an emotional encounter. The favourite adage of the Modernising Catholic (that “faith is caught, not taught”) harbours a significant error, since Our Lord sent us to teach all nations, not ‘be nice with all nations’: “He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mk16v16). One believes a statement, and experiences an emotion. Teaching Truth in a cordial manner is not excluded, of course. In fact I recommend it. But hoping people will ‘come to faith’ or ‘have a spark ignited’ because we are nice is near nonsense; being nice with people establishes human communion, not communion with God who is Truth.

Further, ‘not judging’ is dangerous when it conveys to people the idea that they can be saved by ignoring the Divine Law as summed up for us in the Ten Commandments. Today, the third and sixth Commandments (Keep holy the Sabbath; Thou shalt not commit adultery) are simply ignored by the world -and minimised by the Modernising Catholic. It’s interesting to note that while Modernising Catholics are unwilling to say adultery is wrong in all its forms (cohabitation, infidelity in marriage, civil marriages after divorce, homosexual acts) and will only designate those who fail to keep the Sabbath Holy as ‘resting Catholics’ instead of lapsed Catholics, and they prefer to speak of serious sin rather than mortal sin (which expresses death of the soul). They don’t make excuses for offences against the seventh commandment (from which springs the social obligation not to defraud the labourer of his wages). Could this not be seen as indicating that their priorities are corporal rather than spiritual; their goals earthly rather than heavenly?  No wonder the Traditional Catholic is anathema to the Moderniser.

The hypocrisy of Modernising Catholics is disturbing. They claim to be inclusive yet they have no hesitation in being rather brutal with Traditional Catholics (note the way the FFI are being treated by the ‘pastoral’ Church). Yet Traditional Catholics simply want to worship in the Traditional Catholic way, and hand on the Catholic Faith as it was received. Truly, whether the Modernising Catholic is a Pope, Bishop or Priest; a Deacon, Religious or layman, it is hypocritical to wax lyrically about being ‘pastoral’, non-judgemental and ‘inclusive’ while marginalising or oppressing your fellow Catholics who simply want to continue doing all the Church has ever done and saying what she has always said.

In these days of Ecumenism, Modernising Catholics rightly insist that we treat our separated brethren with respect. As such, it is unacceptable that the same Catholics disparage, reject or sideline the SSPX (and Traditional Catholics who have full union with the Holy See). As Robert De Piante said, "We believe what you once believed. We worship as you once worshipped. If we are wrong now, you were wrong then. If you were right then, we are right now". I venture to add: if you say you were wrong before, you have admitted you are unreliable: how can anyone trust you now? How can you even trust yourselves? 

So come on, you Catholics of the ‘Pastoral Church of nice and non-judgememtalism’; liberate your fellow Catholics from the derision and unjust oppression you heap upon them. I repeat something I have been saying for the last 25 years: Follow the word of God in scripture as uttered via the voice of Gamaliel: “If this [Traditional] plan is of God, you will not only be unable to overthrow it, but you may find you are fighting against God." (Acts 5v39). If Modernising Catholics truly think Traditional Catholics are wrong, they must demonstrate the courage of their conviction: they must give Traditional Catholics full and complete freedom to worship and teach as they will; they must humble themselves before God and allow the Holy Ghost to show which style of Church pleases Him most, permitting Him to bring increase where He will and to withdraw from where He will (I cannot help but note here the dearth of vocations and the precipitous fall in Mass attendance in the ‘Pastoral Church of Nice’). Are you a ‘Modernising Catholic’ convinced of the modernising aggiornamento; afraid to give Tradition full and complete freedom? Then you instinctively know what the Holy Ghost is saying and where He is leading, and are fighting against Him. Beware...

My Journey To Tradition

The social setting in which I grew up didn’t encourage religion. We were all working class folk where dog racing, football and weekend beer instead of Church were the way of life. My elder brother and his best pal were among the very first skinheads in our town, and that fashion was taken up later by both me and my younger brother (not the lifestyle: drinking and its associated violence had sadly played a large part in the disruption of families in our social circle). I was more disengaged from the lifestyle than my brothers, but that didn’t stop me being worldly enough to get tattooed, buy a motorcycle, enjoy a smoke or have a beer or two.

I converted to The Faith at 20 years old, partly because I had seen the damage the atheistic lifestyle (and attitude) did to families and persons, but also because I had looked to Catholic priesthood as my path in life from about the age of 8, having seen The Song of Bernadette and fallen in love with ‘the lady of Lourdes’. At the time my family advised me to be an Anglican/Episcopalian, “because then you can get married as well”, but my response was always “No; I want to be a proper priest” –it just seemed to me that if Henry VIII had started his own Church it couldn’t be Christ’s Church, and I knew “Catholics have been around forever”. But I wasn’t a Catholic, so being a Catholic priest was not a possibility, it seemed. At any rate in my teens other things got in the way. There was a girlfriend or two, and the great, happy experience of a Juvenile marching band (see here).

I took instruction in The Faith when I was 20 because my mother had booked us onto a pilgrimage to Lourdes and if I was going to Lourdes, I was going as a Catholic. The priest who instructed me used “Drinkwater’s Abbreviated Catechism with explanations”, an expansion of the old ‘Penny Catechism’ (akin to the Baltimore Catechism). When I asked Father to explain the Trinity a bit more he annoyed me by patting my head and saying ‘accept it on faith’. Me being me, that didn’t satisfy and I went off to the local Catholic bookstore where I bought F J Sheed’s “Theology and Sanity”; Ott’s “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” and Philip Hughes’ “A Popular History of the Catholic Church”. The correlation between all these books fed me well, and I simply found myself living with the ancient Faith. I had discovered the Sacred Tradition quite by accident, and even accompanied a lady from the parish to some SSPX TLMs so as to experience ‘the old Mass’. Still, adherence to Rome was important to me, so it was to the local Seminary that I applied. Once there I was told that although I was an older entrant I could not have a shortened course because I was “too narrow and needed to be opened up”.

The seminary had some sound professors but I was aware of an unhealthy fascination with Vatican II, so that anything from before 1965 was viewed rather negatively; we were even to be ashamed of our ‘imperialistic’ missionary work. But it was the emphasis on replacing ‘clericalism’ with ‘pal-priests’ and replacing Canon Law with ‘pastoral care’ that did me the most damage: I could filter out the errors in what we were taught, but ordained as a ‘pal priest’ under the banner of ‘God loves us just as we are’ gave concupiscence a free hand, allowing me to ditch the clerical collar in favour of my biking gear even when doing pastoral work. It also disabled me in both seeking and promoting holiness of life.

To be honest, my ‘biker’ gear caused me some problems as a priest. The locals saw me as ‘just one of the lads’ (presuming I was ‘into’ all that the ‘lads’ were ‘into’). I celebrated liturgy as reverently as I could, and I preached The Faith as it has been handed down, but I held to the 'God loves us as we are' idea which meant I frequently failed to challenge folk in 'irregular' lifestyles. Thus there was an incongruity about me that destroyed my inner peace (external peace was lacking too, since on the basis of my liturgy and preaching some accused me of being ‘pre-Vatican II’ and were less than supportive, though I must say all of my Bishops have been excellent with me; I can truly see each one as a Father to me). Still, disturbed by my incongruity I requested and was granted a sabbatical period to return to my previous profession for a year. On my return to ministry I was given the opportunity to celebrate the TLM for a priest friend going on holiday, and I suddenly rediscovered what I was about. That brought inner peace, but wasn't always welcomed by priests and parishioners, who are often unwelcoming of anything that is even remotely ‘pre-Vatican II’.

I couldn’t discover my integrity in the Novus Ordo because when one is facing the people and taught to engage with the people, one unavoidably becomes a bit of a performer, focusing on the people and the here and now, rather than on God and the eternal. Celebrating the TLM stopped me in my tracks: this was how the ancient saints celebrated -how can I be seen around in my biking gear, be careless with my conversation then come in and offer the Mass as it has been handed down to us by the great saints? How could I offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and be making little or no sacrifice of myself in daily life? I rediscovered my Traditionalism and returned to the wearing of the clerical collar for my pastoral work.

I remain ‘Traditionally’ Catholic because I see where the alternative leads us by subconscious submission to concupiscence. Indeed the person-centred attitude in the Church of today is dancing to the tune of concupiscence and bringing souls of pastors and people alike to the brink of destruction. I am deeply concerned by this because the people of God are being led astray, which is not countered by pastors who have been fooled by the false light of the person-centred Gospel. Thus they support homosexual pairings, cohabitation, contraception et al, as though these are alternatives within the Gospel rather than alternatives to the Gospel. I believe that too many have erred and unconsciously swapped spirituality for psychology; swapped Christ for Carl Rogers; swapped the understanding of human nature passed on by the saints for the theories of Freud, Jung, Klein et al., which is why they fail to speak up clearly, consistently and publicly for human life and natural marriage in all its facets. Fundamentally, the ‘do not judge’ of the Gospel has been wrongly equated by them with the non-judgementalism of the therapeutic world, yet they are entirely different: the Gospel requires us to judge acts and attitudes for the sake of souls (cf.Jn.7v24; Matt.18v15-17; Jas.5v20; Gal.6v1; 2.Tim.4v2); the therapeutic world repudiates such judgement.

We must pray for our priests (of both presbyteral and episcopal rank) and for the Synod, that they may rediscover Gospel Truth. All have been shaped by the psychological theories of the 1950’s and 60’s and cannot see their errors simply because these are not errors when viewed through their kind of ‘formation’ –which has also affected the priests who trained under them. I still believe today what I first argued in a philosophy assignment in seminary: ‘our real battle is not with Galileo and the physical sciences but with psychology’; with those psychological therapies which are inherently “person-centred”; therapies which seek to make the person free from “external oughts and shoulds” (such as the Ten Commandments) and which locate our negative behaviours in past experiences rather than in original sin. I do not want to say that there is no truth in these therapies; I honestly think they have some merit. But they are not the whole truth, and they miss the Core Truth of sin and redemption. As Catholics, we have the task of restoring that understanding to the world –after we have restored it to the Church. I hope the forthcoming Synod puts us on that path.

Synod & Francis Set to Change the Faith?

The Holy See has announced the establishing of a commission to look at reforming the annulment process. As Rorate Caeli says (here), this ‘somewhat preempts the Synod on this path (the Synod propositions will certainly mention it anyway), leaving the New Kasper Doctrine as a focal point of discussions’. Indeed it leaves the Synod free to focus on debating the nature of marriage and sexuality as its primary focus. With so many bishops and priests currently watering down the Church’s teaching on these by favouring Communion for the Divorced and civilly ‘remarried’, as well by supporting homosexual civil ‘unions’ under the guise of protecting civil rights, the Synod is in great danger of denying the Gospel and Christ.

Though it is becoming increasingly difficult, I am always encouraging people to hope and trust that Francis will not allow the Synod to deviate from the established doctrine that marriage is a permanent union between one man and one woman, exclusive of all others, open to the procreation of life. I encourage this hope because it is a teaching consistently taught by the Church right up until and including the so-called ‘Vatican II Catechism’ (formulated as recently as 1992 by the entire hierarchy of the Church and their theological advisors, and promulgated as the sure norm for teaching The Faith by Pope John-Paul II). If the Synod holds to this Faith, all will be fine. If the Synod recommends allowing Communion to the remarried Divorcee, cohabiting couples, and/or supports civil ‘unions’ for homosexuals even in order to protect their civil rights, then Pope Paul VI’s ‘smoke of Satan’ will have surely entered the Church, because the bottom line is this: if Francis and/or the Synod declare a change to Church teaching on marriage and sexuality they do not actually change the Faith, they actually abandon the faith. It is useless to say the Pope is our Supreme Teacher and that we must give submission of will and intellect to his teaching, because that holds only when he holds himself bound by revelation and defined dogma, of which he is but the custodian, not the originator.

I cannot bring myself to believe that Francis will allow an attempt to change doctrine happen because it would take the arrogance of hell to proclaim that the faithful and the Popes have been wrong for over two millennia, and I am unwilling to ascribe such arrogance to any man. Can we really ascribe it to Francis and our Bishops? And if not, can we ascribe to them simple stupidity, or a faithlessness that has seen them fall into relativism? I hope not.

If the Synod and Francis do attempt to impose a new teaching which contravenes defined teaching, we are at rights to decry that new teaching for as long as it takes to have it declared erroneous -and not only the right, but the duty. Let us hope and pray that what the Synod does is look for the reasons why the world fails to accept the importance of family and natural sexuality, and find ways of addressing that failure so that Gospel Truth can once again be valued by the Church and by the world she is sent to teach. 

Keeping Faith In Francis and In The Synod

I have never (I hope) tread upon the reputation for personal holiness ascribed to any man, and I hope that I stay clear of that in this post, for in this at least I am at one with Pope Francis: “Who am I to judge?”.  I am not about then, to judge the holiness of Pope Francis or the members of the up-coming Synod. That said, and taking seriously the duty to point out Truth from error and good from evil, it is clear from the Catholic blogosphere that many Catholics are distressed by Pope Francis and some of the hierarchy, almost to the point of being theologically scandalised by them, scandal being the loss of faith due to the actions of another:

Scandal is an attitude or behaviour which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbour’s tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. CCC.#2284

Many Catholics fear that the up-coming Synod is pre-determined to rid us of defined moral doctrine in order to gain acceptance of the Church by the contemporary world. Personally, I retain hope that Francis will not allow the Synod to deviate from our moral doctrine as taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, since he will not want to endanger his own soul or the souls of the people of God. This loss would be the result of truly scandalising the faithful by throwing out the teaching of a Catechism which was prepared by Rome in collaboration with the entire hierarchy of the Church and the assistance of numerous theological consultors; put together under the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and promulgated as the ‘sure norm’ for the teaching of the Faith by His Holiness Pope John Paul II. 

If Francis does allow the Synod to deviate from the Catechism, we may be obliged to respectfully call him and the Synod to account, for their influence over people for good or evil can be great even though neither a Synod, Council or Pope have the authority to overturn the Deposit of Faith.

As the Universal Pastor, Francis is personally responsible (at the cost of his salvation) for ensuring the Synod does not deviate from the Faith of two Millennia because, as the Catechism reminds us:

Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing. CCC.#2285

We surely do not want Francis to go down in history as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We have had enough Popes in the past who have scandalised the faithful of their own time and whose reputations still tarnish the Church today. We do not need another. Let us then pray for the faith, humility and courage of the Pope and of the Synod members. Our parish have been saying the following prayer at Sunday Mass for the last few months, and we will continue to do so until the Synod is over.

Most Holy Trinity,

from whom all families take their origin and meaning,

as we pray for the exaltation of Holy Mother Church,

and for the conversion & peace of the world,

we ask you to bless and guide the forth-coming synod on the family.

Open minds and hearts to the place of marriage & family in your plan for our salvation.

Help your holy Church and the world in which she lives,

to uphold the sanctity of human life from natural conception to natural death;

the rightfulness of natural marriage,

and to find grace-filled solutions to the breakdown of marriage and family life.

Seeking the intercession of Our Blessed Lady, of St Joseph her spouse,

of St Michael the Archangel and of all the angels and saints,

we make this prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Card-Carrying TLM Nutters?

James Preece has announced that he and his wife have joined the Latin Mass Society and thus became “bona fide card carrying nutters” (see here). Sadly, this is how many who support the TLM are seen; as eccentric nutters; a people who are afraid and seek security in the past. This is entirely wrong. Those who join the LMS or attach themselves to the TLM as their form of worship are like the sensible man who “built his house on rock”; they are men who remain attached to their roots for firm anchorage in “the faith delivered once for all to the saints”. 

Joining the LMS, which I heartily approve of, may make a man seem like a ‘card-carrying nutter’, but only to those who do not, will not, or cannot value Sacred Tradition; those who want a form of worship that affirms the people, and a ‘do not judge’ Church which gives them the autonomy in moral and doctrinal matters that Adam sought in eating the forbidden fruit. Before God and the saints, I dare to say the card-carrying nutters are seen as fully and authentically Catholic, and those who abandon the Doctrine and worship of their forefathers as the nutters. Yes, TLM’ers are, like all of us, sinners, but they are folk who ‘push the envelope’ to encompass the whole of the Catholic Revelation and not just that portion which began in the 1960’s. Thse who do not, will not or cannot value Tradition box themselves off into a seriously flawed standpoint: that of following the latest moral and sociological fads to which they must constantly adapt in order to be ‘relevant’. As one Anglican clergyman said, “He who marries the spirit of the age is bound to be a widower in the next”. The Church is now packed with such widows who do not seem to see that the death of their spouse is the result of their pursuing every new novelty as though it were a new revelation.