The increasing cultural diversity of the Catholic community in Philadelphia is one of the takeaways from a census of Mass attendance taken last October in parish [sic] of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Such diversity was on display at the annual Cultural Heritage Mass in March (above) in the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia. (Photo by Sarah Webb)
There is good news in the Novus Ordo Land; specifically, from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which is shepherded by the Americanist prelate Archbishop Charles Chaput – a longtime neo-conservative icon.
The diocesan newspaper recently ran a story under the headline:
Parish Mass attendance drops again, but cultural diversity surging
While a regular reader of this space is likely to see two pieces of bad news in this headline, the spin coming from the Archdiocese is that the bad news (Mass attendance is down) is offset by the good news (cultural diversity at Mass is surging).
As for the reasons why fewer self-identified Catholics bother going to Mass, the writer labors to provide excuses. Among them:
Loyalty to parish boundaries has become more fluid … Parishioners still on the parish rolls will go to Mass at another church out of convenience of time or location.
Wait a minute. Aren’t these people counted in the census as well? Of course they are.
The article tells us that the figures are “based on actual head counts of successive Saturday evening/Sunday Masses for four weeks in October 2016.”
And then there is the comforting claim, “Hey, our diocese isn’t the only one that is dying!”
For instance, the writer says of the downward spiral that it mirrors the “lower numbers of participation across many religious communities in the United States,” and the deteriorating conditions in Philadelphia are “generally in line with other dioceses in the Northeast U.S.”
In other words, nothing to see here folks; it’s really just a sign of the times!
Most amusing in my view, however, is this preemptive defense of the collapse:
Of course, you can’t blame the pope…
Blame the pope? Hell, many reasonable people can’t even identify the pope!
Now on to the good news:
Masses are now celebrated in 19 languages besides English in archdiocesan parishes … The ethnic diversity of the Catholic population of the archdiocese continues to be reflected in the worship life of the local church.
The photo and caption above are taken from the story. Take another good look at it…
What in God’s holy name, you may be wondering, is a “Cultural Heritage Mass”?
Thankfully, “Catholic Philly” – the official diocesan newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia – made a brief video of just such an affair.
As you will see, it is a gathering wherein costumed human beings – many of whom have been misled to believe that they are taking part in the “ordinary form of the one Roman Rite” – come together to celebrate themselves along with their presider-bishop.
This, my friends, is what passes for Christian “unity” in the conciliar church-of-man – an earthbound cult that has no interest in the actual unity that is fostered and made evident in the Traditional Latin Mass.
It also happens to be a magnificent example of what happens when sinful men go about “altering the Faith of the Church – in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul.”
It is the “suicide” of which Our Lady of Fatima forewarned displayed in plain view.
Well, there is certainly diversity of faith in NO Land.
So when God confused the people with many different languages at the Tower of Babel in order to force the different groups to spread out across the earth, they should have all just stayed in one spot and celebrated their diversity?
Super duper bizarro ugly. Anyone with eyes and ears should naturally be able to detect this. Why do so many force themselves to adapt to such ridiculously corny situations. Agitatingly unnerving.
The only really “good news” we can hope for coming from Novus Ordo land is that they are closing up shop and going away.
So sad though…they really know nothing else. The Traditional Latin Mass has been diabolically eclipsed. Surely this is what Our Lady of Fatima came to to warn us of.
http://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.ie/2017/08/the-idolatry-of-ganesh-hindu-elephant.html#comment-form
Apostolic Constitutions Book II Section 3 VII.
Beloved, be it known to you that those who are baptized into the death of our Lord Jesus are obliged to go on no longer in sin; for as those who are dead cannot work wickedness any longer, so those who are dead with Christ cannot practice wickedness. We do not therefore believe, brethren, that any one who has received the washing of life continues in the practice of the licentious acts of transgressors. Now he who sins after his baptism, unless he repent and forsake his sins, shall be condemned to hell-fire.
…
I’m sure you won”t be hearing a homily like the above at the next kulture mass
I happened upon this interesting quote today:
.
“The right to worship God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience is necessarily one of the fundamental principles of human liberty.”
– Imperial Wizard H.W. Evans, “ The Attitude of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Toward the Roman Catholic Hierarchy,” The Imperial Night-Hawk, 1:1 (March 28, 1923), 2.
Dear Cortez,
Let us not put words into the divine mouth of our Lady, our Mother, and our Love, as the Mother of the One Who Is Love. What she indeed foretold at LaSalette, was this: “The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay.” What we now bear witness to, masquerading as the “Catholic Church”, as it holds the temporal edifice in its power, in toto, is the church of the Antichrist, while at once, the Mystical Body of Christ, His Bride, is in full and near total eclipse. This is not, as it simply cannot be, this creature beast thing from hell itself, the Catholic Church, as with ontological certitude, being CANNOT both BE and NOT BE, at the same time, and under the same respect. The Church which bears witness to Her greatest liturgical expression, as infinitely understood, and as the Holy Roman Gregorian Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is the Church of Jesus the Christ, which again remains, now in this existential time and space, in near total eclipse. Those who do not hold this reality as reality, are simply on their way to perdition, as we bear witness to the mass Apostasy, whereby as Saint Paul inerrantly prophesied in 2 Thess 2, they who do not hold the Truth, as they do not have a zeal and love for the Truth, will receive the Supernatural operation, as the “operation of error”, in lieu of the grace which they freely reject through their sinful lives, whereby they WILL believe the LIE AS the Truth. There is no exception to this reality as reality. We are living the summa and summit of deception, as we bear witness to the greatest danger to the human soul that has ever been unleashed by the mystery of iniquity in this world, as is fully in accordance with the Will of Almighty God, as foretold in 2 Thes 2. I pray this helps. In caritas.
The Novus Ordo church is dying (good ) and the bishops don’t really seem to care too much. They still have cushy jobs and lots of perks, no matter what. Many of them probably want to laity to take over, kind of like the protestants. The only thing they will never try is going back to tradition because they hate it and would rather see the Church dead than thriving under tradition.
mpoulin: You do know that the the 45 U.S. Bishops at Vatican Council 1 opposed the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility while the majority of prelates from other parts of the world believed the definition necessary precisely in order to strengthen authoritative Church teaching against one of the liberal-democratic ideas that was foundational to the national ideology of the U.S., that of “freedom of conscience”.
This idea of freedom of conscience and religious liberty were both core beliefs of the heresy of Americanism, as well as its belief that the politics of liberal democracy ought to serve as a model for the government of the Church as it did of the nation.
Americanism actually arose in France, the nation where the sin of liberalism had first exploded politically in 1789 but it was in the U.S. that it found the soil to take root and the sponsors in high places to give it a name. So it was that when Pope Leo XIII in 1899 finally saw it necessary to condemn the thing, his letter of condemnation, “Testerm Benevolentiae”, was addressed to one of the chief sponsors, James Cardinal Gibbons, Primate of the Church in the U.S.
The heresy of Americanism may have originated elsewhere and merely took root in the U.S. but it was from here that it backwashed to the rest of the world. Notably, at the Second Vatican Council with its disastrous Declaration on Religious Liberty whose spiritual father was the American Jesuit John Courtney Murray. (Only one U.S. bishop, James Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles, declined to sign the Declaration.)
Good evening VCR,
The “bishops” of whom you write, cannot be the Shepherds of the Church which our Blessed Dominus Deus Sabbaoth and Savior, Jesus the Christ, founded upon Peter and as you intone with your “(good)”, you seem to know that, at least it would seem that you intuit that reality. Those bishops of Lucifer’s church of course can only care about their relative luxury and their sodomy, as they have no love for the other, as they hate the Son of God, as is made evident in their hate of His Mystical Body and Bride. They are bombastic and bellicose now in their diabolical giddiness. You suggest that they will never try to go “back to tradition” and of course this “going back” would be a metaphysical impossibility, as one cannot return to that which one has never, ever known, and beyond not knowing, despises with the vitriol of the diabolical. It is a good with certainty, that this church of the Antichrist does implode, however it would seem that this plays right into the will of the diabolical, as he must first destructively rearrange with chaotic disarray and carnage, before he can then rebuild in his own hideous likeness and image. The novus ordo seclorum will have its one world religion, which Jorge from hell is briskly completing for the Antichrist. In caritas.
“Let us not put words into the divine mouth of our Lady…”
Divine?
Thank you, Katherine, for that interesting background… I have yet to study this heresy in detail..
I though it might be a bit of a shocker to Archbishop Chaput to find he shares an opinion in common with an anti-Catholic klansman!
Hello JTLiuzza,
Yes, divine not from her immanence as creature, although full of grace and as thus free of the stain of Original Sin from her Immaculate Conception, rather divine as she fully shares in the Divinity of the most Holy and Blessed Triune Godhead, as the Almighty Father as her Father, the Beloved Son as her Son, and the Holy Ghost as her Spouse. With certitude, as she shares in the Beatific Vision, in her own, the highest creaturely position in God’s created cosmos as Queen of Heaven and earth, she speaks to us and loves us from her share in the Divinity, as her Beloved Son the Divine Person took on our nature in His becoming a human being, such that we miserable human persons may become divine beings. I pray this helps. In caritas.
With respect to being Fair and Balanced there actually really is some Good News Coming from Novus Ordo Land for in my estimation the existence of even one yet not alone TWELVE CLOISTERED NUNS anywhere is nothing short of a modern miracle especially in today’s diabolically saturated world. So here’s “The Rest of The Story” (or Authentic Good News) for those no longer in the trenches and therefore really don’t know what’s happening in the Catholic Church these days except for all the negative things they keep hearing about the Pope and Church hierarchy. http://catholicphilly.com/2017/08/news/local-news/philadelphia-carmelites-welcome-10-new-nuns-to-monastery/
And here’s some more Good News or I guess it could probably be more Bad News for some.https://www.facebook.com/events/477383332601440/?ti=as
http://catholicphilly.com/2017/08/features/videos/carmelite-monastery/
Let’s face it, these are the people that always have in the past and will also be the ones in the future who ultimately save our Church, our Popes and ourselves. https://youtu.be/R7ilhfc4fY4
I was not writing about Our Lady of Lasalette. I was simply using the word “eclipse” to describe my own personal experiences as they pertain to the video from Louie’s post. At least in my life the Latin Mass has been completely overshadowed or “eclipsed” by the new mass. Only until very recently, I had never even heard of the Latin Mass. So yes…The Latin Mass had been in eclipse from my perspective. Thanks be to God though. I have gone to 3 Latin Masses in the past 9 days from which many graces have been flowing! So hopefully those rays of sun will become even more bright in my life. God is Good.
I am sorry for your confusion.
The ones who ultimately saved the Church in the past are the ones who never compromised the faith. To accept the NO as a Catholic expression of faith is a compromise. One of the links you provided says the “nuns” prefer the EF instead of the OF. To hold the Catholic faith one must REJECT the NO on theological grounds not simply as a matter of aestethics.
I ask you to take your position of sedevacantism and theologically and practically analyze it, and then realize that accordingly, these nuns should not even exist.
Good evening John314,
What you direly need to do is to read, contemplate, and discern 2 Thess 2, with particular attention to verse 7, in the Douay-Rheims copy of the prophetic and inerrant Holy Writ, as you choose to divorce yourself from that which you do not even know and therefore you do not understand. The Holy Roman Pontiff has been “taken out of the way”, just as Saint Paul prophesied would occur, in the midst of the “rebellion” (read as Great Apostasy), only then awaiting the person of the Antichrist to be brought forth into the public sphere, by all of the preternatural powers allowed for, by Satan. The most dire and the most dangerous of times which have ever entered this world are to be existentially understood in the here and now. The “operation of error” is being received by essentially all of the human persons alive today, allowing for the Great Apostasy to have occurred, such that the lie is being received in the will as the truth. Wake up. Receive God’s grace, that gift both freely given and completely undeserved by any and all, as time continues to shorten. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Americanism is one of the umbrella of heresies adopted in Vatican II.
Pope Leo XIII addressed it in his encyclical “Testerm Benevolentiae”:
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13teste.htm
This paragraph is a condemnation of Vatican II:’
“The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: “For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.” -Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.
What religion are these nuns practicing? The NO religion. How is that good news?
Johnjo suffers, as do many, in equating the false religion of modernism with Catholicism.
Its been being analyzed for almost five decades now. The Church of Christ, the perfect Church, cannot lead souls to hell. If the vatican 2 church promotes UNIVERSAL teachings that lead souls to hell, than it is impossible for it to be Catholic. We are not talking about private teachings that may be wrong, we are talking about universal teachings.
This cop-out excuse (it was a “pastoral” teaching” so it doesnt count and you really dont have to abide by it) is not something that the majority would understand (even if that excuse were legitimate, which it is not). The bottom line here is that when the pope speaks in an authoritative voice, aka universally, the flock is obliged to obey. Ergo, sedevacantism.
“Masses are now celebrated in 19 languages besides English in archdiocesan parishes.” Hah! In the 1960s, Paul 6 and the others proclaimed Mass would be more understandable “in the vernacular” — which turned out to be somebody else’s vernacular!
I’m quite sure that Louie never envisaged his blog would become a quasi-sede hangout!
Yes. The Papal Subject. Quite sick of the demented, self righteous, know it all, correct everyone attitude,,,,aka sede. If they really had all the answers they wouldn’t be so confused. They wouldn’t be so concerned about the havoc wich the devil has been wreaking WITHIN the Church. You know the one that Our Lady so often warned us of, (Thank you, my Lady), and the one we must trust that only She will fix- just as She promised. They instead would be off in their la la world, wherever that exists, completely at peace. On the contrary, it is not peace which they exibit. They all have that same streak…I don’t know exactly what it is, but it isn’t good and is quite obviously detectable. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about. The truth is…they have no idea..and don’t know where to go.Prideful….an attitude not found in the holy ones at the foot of Our Lord’s Cross. We are witnessing the crucifction of Holy Mother Church. My heart is breaking. I am honored to suffer as this HAS reached into my personal life. So save your sede wasted words and rambling sentences, and get to the foot of the cross where your view will be clear through your tear stained eyes.Also Louie has requested several times to refrain from the sede talk…(sorry I couldn’t resist this comment). Please. He too must be suffering in various personal ways. So really, save it.
Rich, you want to be a legalistic and state that if a bad teaching is sent out as “universal” than all bets are off, “ergo sedevacantism,” but when the Pope who opens a council and the Pope who closes a council both say that it is “pastoral” and not binding unless it is explicit, then you paint it with a broad liberal brush and choose to ignore and condemn. You can’t have it both ways.
Good Thursday morning Cortez,
In charity, examine very carefully again that which you have just written. Compare and contrast it to that which those you choose to pejoratively identify as “sede” have written in this same space. The confusion of which you write actually belongs to you and thus your anger is evident in your words, as you attack the character of the other verbally, with words like “demented”, which you clearly do not even understand the meaning of. As a physician who has cared for demented human persons for the past quarter of a century, I do understand the meaning of the word “demented”, and clearly. Your confusion is made entirely and pristinely evident from your second sentence onward, where you in the understanding of res ipsa loquitur, diminish yourself to the level of your passions, inordinately placed where your intellect belongs, while at once suppressing your intellect into the subordinate position of the passions, because it has no where else to go. Why? Because you offer utterly no intellective argument in opposition to the reality that the Holy Roman Pontiff, as Saint Paul inerrantly prophesied in 2 Thess 2, has been “taken out of the way”. The people who write in this space, holding the reality as reality, do not attack those who are receiving the “operation of error” to believe the lie as the truth, rather they strive to illumine the truth as it is. That Cortez is evidencing righteousness, not “self-righteousness”, as you falsely claim. The self-righteous attack the other in their very person with words like “demented” and “know it all”, used in a callous and diminutive fashion. In the end, Cortez, you are actually evidencing yourself as the person which you claim the “sede” to be. The Truth is hard Cortez, as He is a Divine Person, and Jesus the Christ commanded that He did not come to bring peace, rather the sword, as it is in division where the truth springs forth and is plainly seen.
Correction:
First the error:
The self-righteous attack the other in their very person with words like “demented” and “know it all”, used in a callous and diminutive fashion.
Now the correction:
You proffer the self-righteous attack of the other, in their very person, with words like “demented” and “know it all”, used in a callous and diminutive fashion. I pray this helps. In caritas.
In Caritas, in all ad hominem attacks, the attacker unwittingly hurls accusations that he himself is guilty of. It is one of the saddest times of my day when I read ad hominem attacks amongst Catholics. It is like watching a man self condemn himself unaware, like you said, that he has capitulated his intellect and has allowed his lower passions to rule.
Cortez, the sede opinion is not an easy opinion to hold. It comes at a great price. To hold the position is not prideful in the least. One must admit to oneself that he has fallen for a lie his entire life. This takes much humility. It takes great trust to walk away from the NO sect knowing that you are trying to follow Christ and not man. I have to follow the Catholic faith where ever it leads. We have good reason that it will lead to our own individual cross. There we will unite our suffering with His. What I cannot do is stand by passively while Our Lord is blasphemed by modernists. Nor can I hide any longer and hope it will get better by itself. I must defend Him and His Church. I know you want to do the same, but you need to know who the enemy is first before you do battle. It is ontologically impossible that the enemy is the Church. They may hide inside the Church but they are not nor can ever be part of His Spotless Bride. Francis cannot be His Vicar. Its a metaphysical impossibility.
Dearest Tom A,
Amen. Alleluia. Do not trust in men. Do not trust in princes, apart from the Truth, as we ultimately trust in Him alone, as Truth and Love Himself. In caritas.
Conscience: ” faith has been falsified and many people without any wrong intention let themselves be influenced by Liberalism & Modernism. That is why they are ready to believe that all religions save. If each man’s faith is according to his conscience–if it is conscience that produces faith–then there is no reason to believe that one faith saves any better than another, so long as the conscience is directed towards God. We are now being told that man does not receive truth but constructs it. Yet we know, and our intelligence corroborates this, that truth is not created–we do not create it. With truth there is no past or present or future. Truth belongs to all times, it is eternal”. Archbishop Lefebvre
In caritas, I know your type well. Very smart. Very knowledgeable. Yet your manner is so insufferable, so persnickety, so cramped, so pedantic, that regardless of the truth of your words, your persuasive efforts are doomed to remain little more than a virtue-signaling exercise in futility and thus forever barren. O how the devil would hate it if you were to retreat into an extended period of silence and contemplation!
Dear AlphonsusJr,
Let it be known that your endeavor to indict simply rests, and again as to be known as res ipsa loquitur, in the ad hominem. You have no intellective power at your behest, as it simply does not exist, as if it did you would have proffered it. Thus, you suppress your intellect and therefore you do not approach the argument as argument, rather you reach into your entrails, and it is from there in the passions, from whence your words do come. You do not know me at all AlphonsusJr and as thus, all you can do is “type cast” and project. Your imaginative powers supersede your intellective operation. I pray this admonition as admonition helps. I am as I can only ever remain, this side the veil, a perfectly miserable human creature, and in knowing that with certitude, I make no attempt to “persuade” as that is not truly Christian. Christ is the Truth as Love Himself and that which He is, needs no persuasion. In caritas.
Dear johnjobilbee,
Thank you so much for this link–please notice that the new Chaplain for the Carmelites is Rev. Fr Scott Allen, FSSP who is a true Roman Catholic priest ordained in the Roman rite by a bishop consecrated to the Latin Roman Rite. Please pray for him as he teaches the true Faith, guides, and ministers as a true priest of the Latin Roman Rite. The souls of the nuns and the faithful are blessed to be under his care. Those who cast despersions are ignorant of the crooked finger of God and how miracles can happen even in Philadelphia.
John, the Catholic Church CANNOT promote universal error. I dont care what the mason (john 23) and the homo (paul 6) said. If it is promoted universally, as v2 was, then it is being taught, as truth, to the whole Church. This whole “pastoral” thing is a joke. Yes, you and I may see the errors of v2….but what about the millions who do not see it??? Do you really think that Christ’s perfect Church would operate like that?
If you were wise enough to remain always humble and small in your own eyes, and to restrain and rule your spirit well, you would not fall so quickly into danger and offense.
Thomas a Kempis
Book 3
Chapter 7
One of your best posts Tom.
The “millions” who do not see the errors of the conciliar church, in good conscience, like children following a wayward father, are obviously excused. Now we both know that no one can command another to sin, so this complicates the matter, which God alone will judge.
Dear John314,
There is nothing in Truth that “complicates the matter”, which as the Divine Person as the Beloved Son of God, as God Himself commanded, “Let your yea be yea and your no be no. Anything else is from the Evil One.” We must never forget that personal salvation is never complicated as it can never be, again this as commanded by the Son of God, who said that only those with the faith of a child will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Nothing complicated about the faith of a child John314, rather it is Lucifer who dangles the deception before the human intellect, and when grace is rejected, that gift of the Holy Ghost both freely given and completely undeserved, the “operation of error” is received into the intellect and the lie is believed as the truth—inerrant Holy Writ.
You see John314, the Truth is hard as He commanded Himself to have not come to bring peace, rather the sword, as it is in division where the truth springs forth and is plainly seen. The truth is, we are all utterly culpable from the moment of attaining the age of reason after being baptized into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Knowingly or unknowingly, yet culpable. To suggest otherwise is to deny grace, which the Angelic Doctor told us is absolutely essential for the will, after first being informed by the intellect, to choose the good over the privation of the good which is due in the act. Yours’ is a perverse understanding and use of the term, “good conscience”, as the only good conscience is that of the baptized which conforms itself, through utter submission and often including the suppression of the errant intellect, into the teaching authority of the true Holy Catholic Church and Her Universal Magisterium. Any other form to the “conscience” will lead the soul to an eternity in hell with certitude.
Now, in the understanding of the properly formed conscience, you had this to say:
” The “millions” who do not see the errors of the conciliar church, in good conscience, like children following a wayward father, are obviously excused.”
You place an internal contradiction into the context of your statement, which induces the logical fallacy of the non-sequitur, causing your statement to utterly implode under its own weight. Your statement places an affront to the Thomistic, metaphysical law of non-contradiction, as you write that “The ‘ “millions” ‘ who do not see the errors of the conciliar church…” are somehow, by virtue of their not being able to see the truth of the “errors of the conciliar church” are acting, “in good conscience”. John314, a conscience which leads an human person into the privation of the due good (read as evil), and in this instance the privation of the due good as the evil, is to see the “conciliar church”, in error, as the True Church, CANNOT at the same time, lead that same soul into the good, in truth, which is to see that the “conciliar church” cannot be the Church of Jesus the Christ. Otherwise said, you have written here that by leading a soul into error, the conscience is “good”. That is a metaphysical absurdity which does not have being in reality, rather it is a deception. Lastly, your analogy of “children” following “a wayward father” only applies if those same “children” have not attained the age of reason, as if they have, they are culpable for their errors as are we all in truth. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Reply from “In caritas” to myself:
Good evening John314,
What you direly need to do is to read, contemplate, and discern 2 Thess 2, with particular attention to verse 7, in the Douay-Rheims copy of the prophetic and inerrant Holy Writ, as you choose to divorce yourself from that which you do not even know and therefore you do not understand.
Are you saying I’m ignorant?
I would say that there is plenty of “ad hominem” to go around. I propose higher standards in the future or else we might need an “ad hominem” sheriff .
John 314 and In Caritas, I would add that we cannot with certitude say that the millions who remain decieved by the errors of the conciliar false church are “excused.” That is a subjective assessment. Objectively, we can only say these millions hold a faith that is different from the faith held by the millions prior to the apostasy that occurred in the wake of V2. I too was a part of that diabolical organization for decades even though I always felt there was a contradiction from what was passed on to my forefathers. It took a concerted effort of self study over a period of decades to understand the deception. Was it a grace I was given or was it my duty as a Christian to know my faith? Why do I see it and countless millions not? I have no answer to these questions since the concern the subjective internal forum. We can only make objective observations. Objectively one must hold the Catholic faith to be a member of the Catholic Church. It is rare to find a Catholic inside the conciliar sect.
Dear John314,
To suggest that someone is ignorant of truth is not an attack on their person, their character, and therefore it has nothing to do with the ad hominem, which is an attack, not against the argument which a person proffers, rather it is an attack of the person who offers the argument. Ignorance is an objective reality as is the lack of ignorance or knowledge. To point out to the other that they are ignorant of truth is actually commanded of us by our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, as He commanded us not to place our candles of light under a basket but rather to let them shine, as to illumine His Truth as Truth Himself. Lastly, to point out the ignorance of the other in truth, is actually an act of charity towards the other. I pray this helps. In caritas.
I’ll take that as a yes. And I am indeed caught unawares again, because I thought we were having a theological discussion, which properly discoursed, does not include denouncing others as ignorant. The Lord does not command you to do this. Relax.
To John314, re the ‘millions who follow in good conscience’:
“…and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit.” Matthew 15;14
John314 has a very fair point here. How can someone be culpable if he/she is duped by false teachers?
Most people I know don’t even KNOW about the Second Vatican Council, it’s highly unlikely that they have the “full awareness” required to be held responsible.
They are taught very specific things even in the Catechism, how could they know that these teachings contain doctrinal errors?
I agree with Tom A when he says that “we cannot with certitude say that the millions who remain decieved by the errors of the conciliar false church are “excused”” but we shouldn’t guess either way.
Maybe some people are culpable and others (I suspect the vast majority) aren’t, we cannot know for sure.
And we certainly CANNOT say for sure that a catholic will be sent to hell for having followed the teachings of what they believe is the Church.
God is not unjust, and He knows when there is no full awareness. How can you have full awareness if you have been duped by false teachers and you believe that you are following the truth?
So I repeat: we shouldn’t guess either way. A lot of biblical Patriarchs were Polygamists, and yet they are Saints, because they didn’t know that polygamy was wrong so they didn’t sin mortally.
And there are countless accounts of polygamy among the patriarchs: even Abraham and Jacob were polygamists, but they are Saints and recognized as such by the Catholic Church.
Why, when we clearly know that polygamy is against the eternal natural law of God? Because they didn’t know that; they didn’t know that polygamy was against the eternal law of God, so even thoug polygamy was, is, and always will be an objective grave sin, they weren’t held accountable and they weren’t guilty of actual mortal sin.
And the fact that they were both polygamists and saints is just that: a brutal fact; nobody can change that. And that proves my point.
I’m sorry if i misspelled some words, i’m Italian and I do not live in an anglo-Saxon country.
Good Saturday morning John Coltrane,
Please read above, under this moniker, the responses to John314 and I will attempt now to further edify what was written. We, the baptized, each unto his own, is held fully accountable before Almighty God as Infinite Judge, as true Justice is that which is indeed fully due the other. As He created us in His own divine likeness and image, as pure Intellect and Will, we have these two operations given us, such that we can truly be free and submit ourselves, each fully, into His Life as Life Himself. Christ Jesus commanded in the Gospel of John 14: He who knows My commands and follows them, loves Me, and as I am in the Father, you are in Me, and I in you. Your Old Testament example does not apply John Coltrane, anymore than the example of licit divorce applies from the Old Testament. Christ Jesus came to fulfill the Covenant and to establish His Church, removing our “stony hearts” and giving us “fleshy hearts”. In the Old Testament they had the Mosaic Law. In the New Testament, the fulfillment of the Old Law, which is now and forever gone as a means in and unto itself for salvation, we have the Church established by the Son of God as God, such that we have grace, that which flows from the Holy Redemption, by virtue of the Blood of the Holy Cross. This gift of grace, John Coltrane, that which is both freely given and completely undeserved, by any and all but for the Blessed Virgin and Mother of God, our Mother, is the only means for our salvation, as we can only ever remain immanently incapable of same. To deny this, is to deny the divinity of Jesus the Christ, Son of the Living God and His Incarnation, and this is precisely what the “conciliar church” does. One of the principle deniers of the Incarnation is the quintessential deceiver, Joseph Ratzinger.
To suggest that any of us, the baptized, is somehow excused from knowing the Truth is simply not in keeping with the teaching of the Church as Church, which is in the antithetical understanding of the “conciliar church” as Church, which with metaphysical certitude it cannot be, as being cannot both be and not be, at the same time, and under the same respect. The Angelic Doctor taught in the Summa Theologiae, that the operation of the intellect must first inform the operation of the free will. We know by virtue of the Natural Law, that which is made manifestly evident in our very nature as human persons, that each and every human person seeks the true, the beautiful, and the good. It is a definitive aspect of our very immanence and it is no more avoidable than the natural law of gravity. We can deny the reality of the law of gravity, all day and everyday, and we can attempt to defy it by jumping off a 100 ft. cliff, and we will meet our mortality each and every time. The denial of Natural Law of course does not in any iota alter what Natural Law dictates thus.
In that understanding, Saint Thomas Aquinas then taught that once the operation of the intellect fully informs the operation of the will, the will is then put into metaphysical “act” to make an assent, by virtue of its metaphysical “potency” having been activated by the metaphysical “act” of the intellect. The Angelic Doctor then taught, that it is by virtue of the singular action of grace alone, that the operation of the will can then freely choose the “good” over the “privation of the due good”, as the evil.
In sum then, to suggest that any baptized human person infused with grace, by virtue of the very act of the Sacrament of Baptism, which is infinitely independent of the person administering the Sacrament, and assuming the baptized person was not of the age of reason at the time of baptism and freely rejected the grace, and also infused with the Supernatural Virtues (as Faith, Hope, and Caritas), is somehow inculpable, again denies the Incarnation of Jesus the Christ, literally. Immanent to this denial of the Incarnation, is also a denial of Original Sin, as they go hand in glove. This because, if we don’t require the Redemption of Jesus the Christ, causing His grace to flow into the will of His human persons for the sole purpose of our very salvation, allowing us then to choose the good over the evil, then we must not have the stain of Original Sin in our very being, because under this belief, grace is not necessary for salvation. To deny grace then, is to deny concupiscence as the temptation of the flesh, having occurred as a consequence of the Fall in the Garden; the stain of Original Sin. To deny concupiscence is to deny the very reality as Reality, that each and every human person experiences, this temptation of the flesh, every day of our lives, without ceasing in our waking hours.
You see John Coltrane, we simply cannot have it both ways. Either each and ever one of God’s miserable human creatures, myself as the first, is perfectly incapable of choosing the good over the evil, as immanently understood, or we are capable of this choice, on our own, as being cannot both be and not be, at the same time, and under the same respect. The ontological law of non-contradiction cannot be broken in reality as Reality, as Almighty God is the Uncreated–Creator of all else that has being, the Prime Mover–Unmoved, the First Cause–Uncaused, or He is not and as thus, as He Is (as “I am Who Am), He cannot also be, “He who Is not”–the law of non-contradiction established. I pray this helps. By the way, your English is wonderful. In caritas.
Dear John Coltrane,
How many are searching for the Truth? And how many are following blindly? I don’t know. Furthermore, God’s justice is not our justice.
All I did (and you seem to take issue with) was quote Matthew 15;14, the very words of Jesus Christ.
John Coltrane, the confusion you exhibit in asking hypothetical questions in regard to culpablilty of ignorance stems from your attempt to discern the internal subjective forum of another soul. When it comes to those who profess a faith different from the Catholic faith, it is prudent to stick to objective judgments. Outside the Church there is no salvation. This reality should cause in our a beings a great desire to pray and do penance for those we suspect outside the Church, that they receive the grace of conversion. Avoid asking yourself hypothetical questions as to “what if.” This line of thinking leads one to make judgments where we are forbidden. Trust in Our Lord. Those who hold a faith different than Catholics will be judged justly. So shall we. Just as I am not competent to say everyone who does not appear objectively to be a part of the Church is damned, I am also not competent to excuse someone of ignorance and create a false hope of salvation based on an errant conception of human compassion.
A celebration of ethnic identities, not of the sacrifice of Christ.