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To: BlackElk; huskyboy
Thanks to both of you for stating some things about being "Catholic" that I was beginning to think I alone believed. After being on these threads for a couple of years now I think the "right",who stand outside and accuse,are at least speaking "truth",albeit from their perspective. In my mind they miss a bit,but they admit to their position vis-a-vis the Catholic Church.

I find those who insinuate themselves onto these threads,identifying themselves as catholic but never coming out with any statements or opinions that show support for anything except those things that endorse or promote "change", are far more dangerous to the Church and the world. I don't want to offend anyoone,but my grandma always said "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". I appreciate the candor of most of the "traditional preference" folks,but I wish they would give the rest of us the benefit of acknowledging that we do know what they are saying but we think the fight is within the boundaries of those "professing" to be in union with the Pope within the Catholic Church.As the Pope has said "we must smother error with truth".

208 posted on 05/19/2003 3:27:20 PM PDT by saradippity
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To: saradippity
"As the Pope has said "we must smother error with truth."

Here is a sampling of some of "the devil we know"... "smothering error with truth."

These excerpts are from a 17-page-long dissertation I presented last summer, in part as a rebuke of the media's ongoing attempt to misidentify the problem of homosexual priests to being an issue of "pediophilia:"

The ecumenical philosophy of Religious Liberty espoused by Pope John Paul II goes without equal. The Holy Father is undoubtedly an unswerving champion of the new theology. The Modernists see him as their own—the quintessential intellectual. John Paul II is looked upon as the ecumenical pope, the progressive pope; and, in 1986, he became the pope of Assisi, where representatives from the world's “other great religions” gathered together under the Holy Father’s big ecumenical tent to declare their own brand of Solidarity. With the advent of Assisi, Religious Liberty triumphed over Catholic unity, and apostasy was now being openly celebrated within the Church; and being done so without apology—excepting for Pope John Paul’s ongoing lamentations before the world for the historical “mistakes” of the Church Triumphant.

What ever happened to the Church Militant? We now prefer the impotent homiletics of an ambiguous theology, patronizing psychobabble, and other flowery liberal niceties. To illustrate this point, let us examine some of the more recent ecumenical developments:

1986 Prayer Meeting of Religions at Assisi: At this “celebration” in the presence of Pope John Paul II, a statue of Buddha sat smiling upon the holy tabernacle of a Catholic Basilica – the Church of Saint Peter. Perhaps the Holy Father thought rubbing elbows with this trinket would bring the Church good luck? All the world’s “other great religions” were given equal billing on the ecumenical marquee. We’re all one, big happy commune—Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jainist, Shintoist, Animalist, Pantheist, Spiritualist, etc.—it makes no difference in Pope John Paul’s grand ecumenical love-in.

1999 Vatican meeting with Christian and non-Christian Iraqi clerics: Pope John Paul II is presented a gift, the Muslim Qumran. As a sign of respect—and solidarity with Islam the Holy Father bows before, and then, kisses the holy book of Islam. Islam denies the Holy Trinity and the deity of Christ. Islam also denies the sacraments, the real presence, etc. Post September 11, 2001, we may also conclude that Islam denies the right to life for any human being, if that soul does not bow to Allah—a pagan moon god drummed up from Bedouin myth. But these trivial details do not dissuade our Holy Father from continuing to bestow his seal of approval upon the false religion of Islam and its little pieces of truth.

1999 Catechism given by The Holy Father: The Pope postulates that Heaven, Purgatory and Hell are not actual physical places where the reunited body and soul enjoys eternal glory with Christ, receives final purification from the effects of sin, or else suffers eternal punishment for willfully rejecting Christ. According to John Paul II, Heaven and Hell are metaphorical biblical language describing a state of mind and not a physical reality. Does anyone seriously believe these statements to be in keeping with the orthodox Catholic faith?

2001 Ecumenical Council of Bishops: Catholic bishops declare that no substantive difference exists between the Catholic dogma of salvation through sacramental grace, and the Lutheran heresy of salvation by faith alone. Should anyone be surprised by this natural progression of events? The Magisterium has always taught, as an infallible dogma of the faith, that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church—period. But perhaps the enlightened ecumenical Bishops skipped a few classes during their Catechism.

Children of Babylon or Prodigal Son?

Truly, the fulfillment of a pagan one-world religion is nearer to being a reality now more than ever, as Rome continues to trumpet its divergence from orthodoxy to be a watershed for the Church. That such an evisceration of the Catholic faith was the planned outcome ought to be painfully obvious. We have struggled through forty years of the Catholic world turned upside down; but perhaps, like the obstinate Israelites of Moses' day, Catholics of the modern era must endure another forty years in the desert before they repent of their pride. Pray we are like the Prodigal Son and not the children of Babylon.

Catholics ought to consider the declaration of Saint Pope Pius V: the Tridentine Rite is the Mass in perpetuity, and anyone who would alter the sacred liturgy, let him be anathema. Nowhere within the Council text of Vatican II will one find instructions to destroy the Latin Rite, to “create” a New Mass, or to promote any other of the endless ecumenical novelties that have been substituted for Catholic tradition. However, advocates of Catholic orthodoxy are threatened with excommunication for resisting the changes wrought by the reformers. Rome insists that those who are faithful to tradition shall remain under pain of this indictment for as long as they adhere to such practice. How peculiar the Ecumenists tolerate every belief except the orthodox Catholic faith. But who stands indicted today? Truly, it is not the followers of tradition that have perverted the faith of Peter, and brought shame upon the Church; rather the guilt belongs to the Modernists, those liberal sheep in wolf’s clothing who gutted the Holy Mass; those vultures who compromised the priesthood; and those “bishops” who remained obstinately silent about criminal acts while hiding behind the ecumenical love-in. Catholics ought to soberly examine the costs of blindly following the ecumenical Church. For Modernism has singularly accomplished in less than one lifetime what the combined efforts of every previous heresy had failed to achieve over the course of two millennia:

1. Modernism has caused the estrangement of thousands of devout Catholics: Those who remember the unequivocal edicts issued against Religious Liberty, not least of which were the proclamations given by Pope Saint Pius V and Pope Saint Pius X, the only popes to be canonized by the Church in 500 years;

2. Modernism has confused the faith of a generation: Those who were brought up with the orthodox precepts of the traditional Baltimore Catechism and 1917 Code of Canon Law, and have since been forced to digest the heterodox theology promulgated by the “new” Catechism of the Catholic Church and the “revised” Canon of 1983;

3. Modernism leads countless astray: Those compelled to march lock step beneath Rome's banner of Ecumenism, whom now see the modern Church, and wonder “What difference to be Catholic or Protestant, or of any other belief?”

Today the Cult of Man provides Catholics yet one more miserable manifestation of its pathology: a cadre of incorrigible homosexual priests—and their protectors, who echo the same liberal cacophony that dominates the secular culture: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!

Roman Catholics now stand at a crossroads on this journey to pluralism. We either continue merrily along, like the Children of Babylon, whilst following worldly charlatans down their ecumenical road to ruin; or else we return home, like the Prodigal Son, back to the apostolic faith of our fathers.

The Church must make an abrupt about-face for two paramount reasons. Firstly, to reconcile with heresy is to be anathema. God-given common sense pleads with us to recognize that another 40 years of celebrating the “brave new liturgy” of Annibale Bugnini and his fellow theologians of the “new way” will empty the Catholic faith of all meaning. Secondly, the Church jeopardizes her authority of infallible moral teaching. The loss of that authority would be disastrous for humanity. Perhaps most poignant is this question: When did being accepted by the world become a Catholic virtue? This cult of personality is not part of our faith; however, such folly is much the mark of our ancient adversary, Satan, and the heresies he has inspired through the ages.
247 posted on 05/19/2003 8:20:27 PM PDT by jt8d (War is better than terrorism)
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