What Needs to Change with the Catholic Church?

ChurchDemolitionOn June 30, Church Militant posted a video entitled, What Needs to Change with the Catholic Church? – the title alone foreshadowing its doctrinal sloppiness.

In the video, Michael Voris conducts an interview with four men:

– Mr. James Grein, the longtime Theodore McCarrick abuse victim who recently revealed that he had also been abused by Fr. Joseph Bernadin.

– Fr. Paul Kalchik, whom Cardinal Cupich stripped of his pastorship, ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, and threatened with having his faculties removed; all for the high crime of burning a rainbow banner emblazoned with a cross. He has since been in hiding.

– Mr. Stephen Brady, President of The Roman Catholic Faithful – a group dedicated to exposing the clerical network of sexual immorality in the U.S.

– Fr. Paul Sullins, a sociologist of the Ruth Institute who recently published a study documenting the link between the abuse crisis and homosexuality.

Without endorsing every position these men may hold, at the very least one must admire their willingness to invite the slings and arrows that await those who publicly address the homo-clerical crisis and those who labor to cover it up.

Now, back to that title: “What Needs to Change with the Catholic Church?”

The correct answer should be obvious: NOTHING. Absolutely nothing needs to change with the Catholic Church!

As will always be the case, and even more apparently so in times of crisis, her enemies simply need to convert, repent, and embrace the life-giving truths that Our Lord has entrusted to His Church. In other words, non-believers – in the present case, those posing as men of faith – need to become and remain actual members of the Mystical Body of Christ as defined and understood according to Catholic tradition.

As the title to the video suggests, however, Michael Voris & Co., like so many others, are either unwilling or unable to distinguish between – not even by the slightest nuance – that which is truly of the Catholic Church, and that which is the activity of her enemies; men who clearly dwell outside of her confines.

The reason for their reticence in this matter is known with certainty by God alone.

That said, it certainly seems as if some “conservative” and “traditional” Catholic media types are determined to avoid such distinctions, as a deliberate act of the will, because they know that doing so might negatively impact “audience size” (a metric closely followed by one chest-pounding blowhard in particular).

Truth be known; they have a point. It is a fact that simply encouraging Catholics to ask difficult questions (e.g., Are Francis and his minions actually Catholic?) and to seek answers by the light of authentic tradition, invites a genuine risk that the entire enterprise will be viewed by many as too radical to merit any support. Believe me, I know.

In any case, in the first several minutes of the CMTV video, Michael Voris speaks about the “institution of the Church… within the institution” and how “part of the institution has been weaponized for evil, for evil ends.” He even goes so far as to say that homosexuality is “the sacred cow of the hierarchy.”

He’s talking about the hierarchy of the Holy Roman Catholic Church! Clearly, such men are not Catholic, and to the extent that they are hierarchs, the institution they serve certainly isn’t the Church.

Good intentions aside, what Michael Voris is saying, perhaps thoughtlessly, is that the “institution” that is the one true Church of Christ is attacking itself. In other words, he speaks as if the Mystical Body of Christ is the agent of its own passion. This notion is not only demonstrably false; it is patently illogical.

Pope Pius XII taught (as did St. Augustine) that the Catholic Church is as “another Christ” (see Mystici Corporis). Clearly, Our Lord did not scourge Himself, crown Himself with thorns, or nail Himself to the Cross. Nor can it be said that His Passion was carried out at the hands of His disciples, but rather by those who rejected Him.

In the same way, it cannot be said that the “institution of the Church” or some portion thereof is the very weapon “for evil” that is attacking the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Indeed, the Catholic Church is under attack, but it is so at the hands of those who are not her members; most notably men who form the hierarchy of a different  and separate institution; one with its own magisterial texts (Vatican II, Amoris Laetitia) its own saints (Paul VI, John Paul II), and even its own liturgical rites (the dreadful Novus Ordo Missae).

Unless and until one is willing to acknowledge this reality, their view of the present crisis will forever remain clouded and the “solutions” they envision will amount to little more than mere folly, which is exactly what the Evil One desires and has been very successful in accomplishing.

In his First Epistle to Timothy (cf Chapters 2-3), St. Paul warned us about precisely the sort of thing that is taking place today. He begins by describing the necessary virtues of those men who would be bishops. From there, he immediately declares, directly citing the power of the Holy Spirit no less:

Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared… (1 Tim 4:1-2)

Bear well in mind that St. Paul is discussing bishops. He tells us that some will depart from the faith; i.e., they will not truly belong to the Mystical Body of Christ, in spite of any outward appearances.

In his Second Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul elaborates on the last times and the deceptive nature of these apostate bishops:

Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked. Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness. Traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God: Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid. (2 Tim 3:1-5)

Though it appears that he is speaking of “men” in a general sense (and he is to an extent); in context, it is clear that St. Paul is speaking of those men who have the office of teaching – namely, bishops. They will have but an appearance of godliness (some translations say an appearance of religion). They are, however, imposters who must be avoided; that is to say, they are anathema.

This, my friends, is a perfect description of the men that occupy “the hierarchy,” the “sacred cow” of which, according to Michael Voris, is “homosexuality.”

I took the time to watch the entire video. I cannot in good faith encourage you to do the same as there is little edification in store for those who do. There are, however, a couple of clips that I would like to highlight inasmuch as they demonstrate the darkness that envelopes the minds of those who fail to make the aforementioned distinctions.

At roughly the twenty-four-minute mark, Fr. Sullins states:

…look at the Pennsylvania grand jury and all of the media reports on that, and yet that’s extremely unfair in many ways to the bishops that it reported on if you read the whole report. It’s a malicious bias – anti-Catholic, anti-bishop bias – in that whole document, and the reason I’m saying this is that … whenever the nation of Israel left God or rebelled against God, ultimately God’s solution to that was to turn them over to their enemies for purification. So I have great hope that God in turning us over to our enemies, turning the bishops over to their enemies is going to have a good effect.

Fr. Sullins tiptoes right up to the very edge of a stark reality; we are being subjected to the evil dictates of men properly known as enemies of the New Israel. And yet, he either cannot see, or will not acknowledge, the plain fact that among the Church’s primary enemies today are not simply Attorneys General and members of the secular media; rather, they are unbelieving men posing as members of the Body of Christ – “bishops” even – men who have but the appearance of godliness. In truth, they have left God! They have departed His Holy Catholic Church!

This includes the perpetrators of homo-clerical abuse indeed, but even more broadly it includes men like Jorge Bergoglio and every single solitary layman, priest and bishop that supports his clearly diabolical (that is, conciliar) cause.

One might be moved to ask: Can a person at one and the same time be an enemy of the Holy Catholic Church and yet a member of Christ’s Mystical Body?

If Pope Pius XII is to be believed, the answer is no – not inasmuch as we are discussing things made manifest; i.e., concerning those whose opposition to the true Faith is not merely occult (that is, secret or hidden).

The Holy Father writes:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith… The cooperation of all its members must also be externally manifest through their profession of the same faith and their sharing the same sacred rites, through participation in the same Sacrifice, and the practical observance of the same laws. (cf Mystici Corporis) [Emphasis added]

In this, the word “same” refers to that which is truly Catholic; the same Faith and same Divine Laws that have been handed down throughout the centuries.

Now, if anyone truly wishes to defend the claim that men like McCarrick, Wuerl, Cupich, Bergoglio, et. al. “externally manifest and profess the same Catholic faith, and observe the same Divine Laws,” they are welcome to go right ahead and die on that hill if they wish. As for me, no thank you.

Lastly, Fr. Kalchik – may God relieve his obvious suffering, and I mean this sincerely as to watch him speak is truly painful – at the roughly three-minute mark, states:

After the French Revolution the hierarchy of the Church – pope, bishops – have had nothing to check their power and or to balance them, and so again, what we see playing out is a function of that absence of a check mechanism. Because in years past, you know, if a particular bishop within a particular country was out of line, the king would intervene and he would be deposed. Right now, you have a system that has no checks and balances in it.

Fr. Kalchik’s understanding of papal power is clearly off the mark, and to the extent that he shares Michael Voris’ view that “the institution of the Church” is perpetrating evil against itself, this is not surprising.

In truth, the fact that there is no earthly authority in place to “check the power” of the pope isn’t a problem to be solved; it is the way Our Lord constituted His Church. It is the pope – not any other earthly authority – that deposes bishops:

It is the pope whom Christ “enriches above all others with the supernatural gifts of knowledge, understanding and wisdom, so that he may loyally preserve the treasury of faith, defend it vigorously, and explain it and confirm it with reverence and devotion.” (cf Mystici Corporis 50)

If the above is unfamiliar to you, read it again. This being so, if ever a man claims to be “pope,” and yet he obviously needs to have his power checked because he is launching an all-out, multi-faceted, doctrinal, moral and pastoral attack on the Church and her faithful – one that is highly coordinated with numerous avowed enemies of Christ (LGBT activists, one-world government secularists, population control advocates, etc.), wouldn’t that be a pretty clear sign that his claim is utterly bogus?

In conclusion, it bears repeating the answer to the question posed in Michael Voris’ video:

Absolutely nothing needs to change with the Catholic Church; her enemies, many of whom shamelessly parade around in clerical costumes, simply need to repent, convert, and embrace her life-giving truths.

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