Posted on 11/01/2003 6:02:58 PM PST by NYer
A major legacy of Pope John Paul II is already evident - saints, both canonized and living. Some are offering arguments to the contrary, pointing to the outbreak of immorality within the priesthood. That overlooks an ancient reality, that resolute and dutiful leadership can till the soil for the germination, growth, and flowering of saints; it cannot always prevent the Enemy from sowing seeds of the most deadly and evil sort alongside those that produce the most beautiful flowers. In fact, that enemy is at his most determined when a champion of holiness appears in history such as our present Holy Father.
Christ told a parable directly to that point - the one of the master of an estate whose fields were sown with such evil seeds, telling his servants to leave their growth till the time of the harvest. That might have been hard for those servants to accept, since they saw all the labor that went into the sowing of good seed, and knew the need of success in a good harvest for their master and themselves. Christ told the parable almost certainly to teach His followers not to be scandalized by the presence of Evil within His Kingdom (the Church) on earth.
We might add some other consolations for our time, when so many in the Church are failing in sanctity. Saints are given a grace of perseerance in answer to their prayers that they not be led into temptation, and that they be delivered from evil. Such grace helps them stand against the Evil One, whose whole reason for operation, and only delight, rests in any success in leading some - especially those of special vocation to holiness to surrender to him and become weeds among the wheat. But weeds, no matter how powerful thier fould odor and contagion, quickly wither and rot away. They do not inspire, but rather repulse. Sharing Satan's hideous ugliness, they repel the innocent. They pollute the immediage ground they grow in but sanctity has an immunity against that rot. Turning to Christ - His promises, His graces, His inspiration - saints spread an ineluctable sweet perfume that the stench of asin cannot penetrate.
We are seeing the passing of many of the weeds planted in Christ's Church in the past 40 years, and that menacing condition that suddenly confronted and frightened us has waned much under Pope John Paul II. True, one evilness those weeds produced has recently become sickeningly apparent; but we should know the plants of false philosophy and theology upon which the scandal grew are already visibly dying. The dissent, permissiveness regarding immorality, introduction of modernist heresy into most Catholic education are visibly waning.
But most of all, indifference to and even contempt for sanctity, for devotional piety, for absolute dedicatin to a life relying on traditinal means of achieving it are fading fast, and those virtures have reappeared in unexpected places - even among the laity. That which disappeared from the older religious communities - obedience, self-denial, discipline freely accepteed - are reappearing among newer groups, and fruits of that ancient wisdom already are budding. The old masters of dissent, of fadism and novelty of presumption about the goodness of the worldly and the ineffectiveness of the traditional are all long in the tooth, where any teeth at all remain.
Pope John Paul II contributed considerably to the retreat of these advocates of a Church tht would have been un-Catholic by means of cutting ties to Tradition, and a reinterpretation of scriptural Revelation. This Pope personally helped put out the socialistic arson of the liberation theologians. He ended the activist branch of that movement being carried on by priests become politicians. The chaplains of liberation theology in South America were ordered to make a choice between their priesthood and their politics. A similar choice was offered the Democratic member of the US Congress, Fr. Robert Drinan, S.J., who, true to the original spirit of the society he belongs to, chose obedience.
Priest-theologians such as Fr. Charles Curan and Fr. Hans Kung, after years of vandalism within Catholic higher education, were stripped of their official recognition as Catholic theologians. The movement toward a new, updated Church grafted onto the new modernist heresy was gradually deprived of its validity and viability by statement after statement of this Pope and the officials of his various congregations. The lobbying for a third Vatican Council by the theologians and educators, which reached a peak at the Notre Dame convocation of June 1977, was abandoned after that gathering, as it became apparent that were anothere cuncil held it would be in the hands of Catholic loyalists, and not un-Catholic theorits. Under Pope John Paul II, the bid of modernist theologians for recognition as a third magisterium faltered and failed.
Whereas before his pontificate the attitude had been one of almost full noninterference in local bishops' permissiveness toward heterodoxy in thought and practice, Pope John Paul II and his spokesmen, through word and representation, especially at the synods of bishops, began a countercurrent of orthodoxy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church was one result of this aggressive change of tactics. This work ran counter to the desires of proponents of a "collegiality" that would leave the Pope a mere president of the board, with an advisory role at most. The naysayers tried to block the Catechism and failed.
But of all his accomplishments, this Holy Father's ability to transmit his enthusiasm for genuine Catholic spirituality and morality to youth was by far his greatest bequest to those inheriting Catholic faith. in the 21st century. In a sense he snatched the present young generation out of the hands of those who aimed to make of those yung people disciples of their own tired errors costumed as the latest thing. The Pope made sure that tactic would fail. He did so by canonizing dzens of saints who achieved the honor of canonization not by repudiating the old ways of sanctity, but by living them in their own eras.
Today's young Catholics recognize the genuine character of a Mother Teresa, who was fiercely traditional in her faith, deeply charitable in her living of it. This generation is rejecting the siren songs of radical feminism and false liberation.
Those young Catholics who seize upon anything will seek and fid it in the spirit of Pope John Paul II, not that of dissenters who nearly a half-century ago stirred revolt at the Catholic University of America. Few young people are disciples of Georgetown's Fr. Drinan of Notre Dames's Fr. Richard McBrien. But there are scores of today's young Catholics who follow the lead of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa. Few ever know what has happened to Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, Fr. Curran, Fr. Kung.
The prime heroes of the fictional "spirit of Vatican II" have all but departed the stage, and left no memorable lines from the roles they played. Their modernist prophecies have all but failed, their progressivist directin has been lost in the sand, like water disappearing into the desert wastes. The once heralded Detroit Call to Action conference choked itself into a permanent coma on its own excesses. It reached confidently for control of the Catholic Church in America, and came up with a handful of hubris that was displayed as a trophy until it dawned on its organizers and promoters the faithful weren't listening. There was nothing Catholic to learn from them.
The just-celebrated papal 25th jubilee brought a few echoes of complaint. One Catholic mentioned the Pope's "negatives" he is stubborn in his failure to be up-to-date about women't rights and about the new sexual "realities," such as abortion and contraception and homosexual rights. And a particularly disgusting backhanded article from Associated Press finds doubts about a mireacle being used in Mother Teresa's cause and about her taking financial support from a disgraced American financier, and about her refusing to modernize her hospice care of the poor and sick. They just don't get it.
Mother Teresa gave to Christ in the sick and poor what they could get nowhere else - she gave herself. She kept nothing. Whatever came to her from any source she knew belonged to those in desperate need, those abandoned on the street. Where were those with the latest medical technology when Mother Teresa and her nuns went about collecting those abandoned children of God, never asking what they could pay or whether they were worth helping? And that is what brought so many young girls to help Mother Teresa.
The Indian Hindu girl of the miracle some call dubious, claiming it actually was a work of medical science, knows better than the scoffers. someone cured by a miracle knows the truth. A certain doctor claims credit for the cure. But then a skeptical world will never give credit to God, because a skeptical world doesn't know Him the way saints know Him, and the way those favored by miracles do.
As for the Pope's "negatives" in defending life, condemning use of contraceptives, upholdiing celibacy and a male priesthood, refusing recognition to the homosexual lifestyle - the critics don't get it. Such negatives are exactly the positives that make this Pope great. Only a faithless Pope, an impostor Pope, would allow what the Church has always condemned as impossible, against God's will and His natural laws. Greatness is in denying the right of the world to be wrong. Sanctity is in holding God's will and the grace He dispenses above al other opinion or authority, and above all other riches.
On all sides there are people claiming to knowledge and intellect who act foolishly, and try to get others to imitate thier folly. Today is filled with politicians who feel their role is to get for those they want to vote for them whatever those voters would like to have, either in the form of such "rights" as that of "choice", of freedom for sexual indulgence, or liberty in the art of seduction by way of unbridled "expression" or error taught as the latest education. The world is filled with egotists calling themselves artists, jesters insisting they be considered savants, and doodlers considered clever caricaturists.
When they have their way long enough, and those they have fooled and those they have seduced and those who have followed them as if they were prophets and masters have grown old, a new generation comes and sees them for what they are - part-time, bit players not deserving either the few lines they had or the applause they received too long. That new and wiser generation then turns to those who are deserving of admiration and imitation.
And such a generation is fortunate indeed to find a Pope John Paul II and a Mother Teresa. And then, and only then, such leaders, too honest and humble to have ever sought or claimed honors, enter history as great, or her, or saint. About that a generation's judgement becomes history's - and that is happening to this Holy Father and the saints of his vision and inspirationi.
Apologies for typographical errors. My keyboard has very sticky keys and I lacked the time to re-read the article to make the necessary corrections.
First sentence -- "and living"? It appears to me that one of the harshest condemnations of the post-Vatican II period is its failure to produce saints. We have seen a rash of canonizations, most of which failed to follow established safeguards. Still, Padre Pio, Mother Theresa and Msgr. Escriva were most likely saints, but all very much from the pre-conciliar period. None were thrilled with Vatican II. Mother Theresa considered even communion in the hand to be an abomination.
Regarding living saints: it has been 40 years now since Vatican II. At this time period after Trent there were an incredible group of saints who were renewing the Church. Looking around today's scene, I see no one. Even Archbishop Lefbvre, who seems to be of saintly quality, was without question a product of the pre-conciliar era. So was Sr. Lucy who almost certainly will be canonized someday. Where is the holiness, where, for that matter, are the miracles? Where in the US is another Solanus Casey, or even a Fr. Baker (of Buffalo) for that matter? I see no sign of such people.
If I were in grave danger of soul and/or body, and I wondered, "Is there a living saint to whom I could turn?" where would I go? For decades, thousands flocked to Padre Pio's monastery in the most remote part of Italy, but where would you go today? The only person who comes to mind is "little Audrey" from Worcester MA. Her case might be especially relevant in relation to the Terry Schiavo situation:
Max, you have a very low opinion of your ability to be a saint. Don't look for saints; BE a saint yourself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.