Liberty vs License: The Crisis in the Catholic Church - Part 2

A picture is worth a thousand words. The fact that the smoke of Satan has entered inside her walls literally with the Satanic architecture of the papal audience hall. Satan is hardly disguised there, but raises his reptilian head for all to see.

See  Part 1

Without naming Lamennais, Pope Gregory XVI addressed his errors in the 1832 encyclical, Mirari Vos: On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism:

...it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain “restoration and regeneration” for [the Church] as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed, these authors of novelties consider that a “foundation may be laid of a new human institution,” and what Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing “may become a human church.”

 The pope went on to decry indifferentism which:

...gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it....When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin....

Lamennais’ support for freedom of the press was also addressed by Gregory:

We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice.... The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books.

Many of the errors of Lamennais and others infected Vatican II, particularly the idea that somehow a Catholic state has no right to exist and that the Church endorses the separation of Church and state. The idea that Christ is sovereign on earth was downplayed to the point that several Catholic countries that still recognized the rights of the Church in their constitutions, altered them to define themselves as purely secular states. When Columbia amended her constitution in 1991, she followed the advice of churchmen who, referencing Vatican II, called for eliminating language giving the Church special privileges. Christ, it seems, may rule in heaven but not on the earth He created. The earthly reign of Christ the King was gutted.

We are living today with the results of two centuries of liberalism. The rejection of God and his laws contributes to a growing chaos, since man’s natural reason combined with his instincts and desires without referral to religion makes him a law unto himself.
Liberalism also advances the false philosophy that man is always progressing so that tomorrow is always better than today and, ultimately through human action, we will reach a grand Utopia. The past has nothing to teach us, and, in fact, can be dumped down the memory hole as nothing but the musings of old, dead white men.

Where does that lead? We’ve all been infected to the point that the Church is filled with people who have imbibed liberalism on a daily basis from the day they were born and believe that in the name of liberty and freedom every aberration and obscenity must be tolerated. We have the most graphic pornography being fed to children practically from the playpen and libraries invite drag queens, some of whom are child molesters, to teach babies how to “twerk.” Freedom of religion now equates to allowing satanic exhibits in state capitols.

The modernists are doing their darnedest to burn down the Church. They will never succeed,
but they are deceiving many and setting them on the path to perdition. 

The term “liberal Catholic” is an oxymoron. You cannot be a liberal as defined by Sarda and retain the Catholic faith. Think of a lake with a factory on its banks that continually spews chemical waste into the water. If left unchecked, the lake becomes increasingly more unfit for human use and those who drink its water get sick. That’s what happens to Catholics who embrace liberal ideas. Eventually, even if they continue to go to church like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and other CINOs (Catholics in Name Only), they will bear little resemblance to those who embrace doctrines of the faith.

The crisis today is like nothing we’ve seen in history. In an interview with The Traditionalist magazine, eminent German author, Martin Mosebach, lamented that a “great part of the believers who have remained in the Church have been in the meantime reeducated.”:

Large sections of today’s Church are Arian, iconoclastic, Protestantizing, anti-sacramental, secularized. But in contrast to the past the believing people, who always forced a return to Tradition, are missing. At least in Western Europe that is very easy to explain. After the absence of fifty years of orthodox religious instruction the Catholic religion has become unknown even to those who still practice it. Many of the theological catastrophes of the past never reached the little people, the real flock of Christ. They continued to be Catholic regardless of whatever heresies to which the leading social strata adhered. Today the Church has amalgamated most intimately with the dominant antireligious economic and political powers. She has gambled on complying with the demagogic demands of forces that are totally alien to the Church but, without a doubt, have won over the majority. It is true that the Tradition of the church is ‘out of season.’

Mosebach describes a “spiritual lethargy” among German conservatives where traditionalism is viewed with distrust, a lethargy that leads people to believe that “after all, religion is nothing so important one would stick one’s neck out for it.” This attitude is hardly limited to Germany. Consider how quickly the bishops of the United States caved in to secular mandates to close their churches, a clearly unconstitutional order. They implicitly endorsed the government’s view that liquor stores and abortion clinics were essential, but not worship of God. Who challenged Caesar’s overreach? Small Protestant churches, the SSPX, and a few brave clerics who offered Mass in parking lots, fairgrounds, or from the back of a U-haul.

So where do we go from here? The crisis in the Church is serious indeed. If we were people without faith, we would admit that the patient is critical, on life support, and unlikely to survive. But we embrace the faith and Christ’s promise not to abandon His Church. No matter how bad things look, no matter how satanic the culture, hope fills our hearts with confidence.

One of the major reasons for the cancer in the Church is the abandonment of the faith as taught by the Apostles and Fathers of the Church. So the cure involves filling ourselves with the faith of our fathers. What the Church has taught for millennia, the unchanging truths passed on by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, represent a clear antidote to the poisonous doctrines of liberalism. The best way to fight in the crisis is to put on the armor of God and begin by attacking our own sins, failings, and weaknesses. Our own “lethargy” and indifference aid the enemy.

Which brings us to the season of training – Lent. What will we do to unite ourselves more closely to the Lord’s will this Lent? What message does our guardian angel carry from the throne of Jesus Christ? Our purpose in this vale of tears is to “know, love, and serve God in this world so we can be happy with Him in the next.” Have you considered how you will get to know Christ better, love Christ better, and serve Him better this Lent?

St. Jerome tells us ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. To know the Lord better, read a good translation of the Bible every day. If we don’t understand something, we have 36 Doctors of the Church and our guardian angels to enlighten us. Jesus told us how to love Him better: “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.” 

How vigilant are we to follow God’s laws and avoid the near occasions of sin? And how well do we follow the second greatest commandment: “To love our neighbors as ourselves?” Start Lent with a good examination of conscience. As St. Athanasias says, “You cannot put straight in others what is warped in yourself.” Finally, our last obligation is “to serve God.” How we do that depends on our state in life. Service of a contemplative religious or a mother of a large family is not the same as that of a single person devoted to running a shelter or soup kitchen. Discernment and the advice of a good spiritual guide is helpful in this respect.

A major Catholic duty is to weed out the pollution of liberalism infecting us. Rationalization and a tendency toward moral relativism are certain warnings that we are sick. Embracing Dogma and Sacred Tradition are sure cures, but they take study and time. So the final prescription is perseverance. Remember, we pray to St. Joseph for the gift of “final perseverance.” We will have it if we start the daily practice of perseverance now. How well we persevere during Lent will give us a good indication of how we’re doing. May each of us find ourselves knowing, loving, and serving God at Easter more than we ever have before. May God bless us all and, by His grace, make us saints!