Sunday Meditation: Don't Let the Priest Pirates Steal the Treasures of the Church!

Pirate in priest's clothing.

Today at our SSPX chapel in Linden, VA we celebrated the Feast of St. Pius X from September 3rd in the traditional calendar. As patron saint of the Society, that was appropriate. St. Pius X certainly represents a man for our season in the Church when modernism has perverted so many Catholics and is bringing many to the brink of hell.

In his encyclical Pascendi, Pius X called modernism the "synthesis of all heresies." Compared to the numerous documents by Francis he was concise, describing modernism and its errors in only 57 paragraphs. Compare that to the long-winded documents by Francis filled with ambiguity, confusion, and error: Amoris Laetitia -- 325, Laudato si -- 246, Fratelli Tutti -- 287, Querida Amazonia -- 111,  Christus Vivit -- 299, etc. 

Is There a Crisis in the Church? Duh! Is there a Law of Gravity?

What's more effective - hacking at the branches or getting to the "root of the problem?" 

Let's ask some questions relevant to the situation Catholics are facing today?

The First question is fundamental. Is there a crisis in the Church? If you claim there isn't, you need to explain the reason for these and other sad realities:

Sunday Meditation: Pope St. Pius X, a Man for Today

In the traditional calendar, yesterday was the feast of Pope St. Pius X, a man for our age. 

The situation at the beginning of the 20th century was much the same as it was for us at the beginning of the 21st. Dissent was rampant. Catholics in the pew were being formed and misled by theologians and catechists espousing a novel religion at odds with the faith, the very essence of modernism which the pope called the "synthesis of all heresies."

Modernism both without and within the Church led Pius X to publish Pascendi, the encyclical against modernism, as relevant today as when it was published September 8, 1907. Pius lamented that the modernists preached that "Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed." That for the faith to be "living" it had to adapt to the spirit of the time. Like today's modernists, those of the early 20th century maintained that "all religions are true" and that doctrine "evolves." Nothing is fixed; the rock is smashed to sand. Although the Assisi meetings were decades away, the spirit of false ecumenism was already polluting the faith with syncretism.

Papal Encyclicals and the Bard's Plays: What They Tell Us about Modern Villains

Liberal conspirators planning to smear Robert Bork, two
of the "howling pack" who killed his nomination.

I belong to an interesting book club. We alternate reading Church documents with reading the plays of William Shakespeare.

What's the connection?

The four of us just happen to be interested in both. But what I'm finding is that, as a Catholic, Shakespeare addresses the big moral issues just like the papal encyclicals do. The effects of the seven deadly sins: pride, avarice, anger (think of the number of tragedies that deal with murder), lust, etc. We've been drawing the plays at random, but choosing the encyclicals by interest (with the qualification of being pre-Vatican II). The second play drawn was Coriolanus. Despite two semesters of Shakespeare in college, Coriolanus is one of the few plays I'd never read.

The Triumph of Modernism: An Explanation of the Current Crisis in the Church

Pope St. Pius X

I think what we are seeing in the Church today is the triumph of modernism. Modernism, a declared heresy (in fact the "synthesis of all heresies"), is the "smoke of Satan" that entered the Church after Vatican II. In 1907, Pope St. Pius X who battled modernism throughout his pontificate, required all clergy, religious superiors, professors in Catholic institutions, etc. to take an oath against modernism.
The oath professed belief in revelation, divine acts, miracles and prophecies as the "surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion." It professed adherence to the papal encyclical Pascendi which condemned modernism and its tenets very specifically. The oath rejected the "error of those who say that the faith held by the Church can contradict history, and that Catholic dogmas, in the sense in which they are now understood, are irreconcilable with a more realistic view of the origins of the Christian religion."

How Would You Describe the Church Today?

Pope St. Pius X

Remember in the gospels how often we read that people followed Jesus because he "spoke with authority." How's that working today do you think? Do those serving in persona Christi inspire confidence because they "speak with authority?" If you had to pick a word or phrase that summed up what Catholics are experiencing now would "speaking with authority" make the list? Not mine (at least for most prelates). Here's my take on the current situation which was confirmed big time by the recent synod. I believe these words describe the state of the Church:

• confusion
• ambiguity
• error
• disharmony
• discontinuity
• silence on moral truth
• obfuscation

Dare I say diabolical disorientation?