Posted on 05/24/2003 12:43:46 PM PDT by jt8d
PART IV: 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.
PART V: Heresy, Then and Now - The Rights of Man vs. the Rights of God
Offenses committed against the Apostolic Faith may be borne of a revolutionary spirit, the outright rebellion against God; but generally a heresy is the result of Rationalism—man’s inability to reconcile his finite reality with the infinite mystery of God. The revolutionary spirit is exemplified by Protestantism, which in having more than 100 denominations has shown itself to be as much fickle a doctrine as it is obstinate a heresy; but the Arian Heresy best serves to illustrate Rationalism. To quote Catholic historian, Hilaire Belloc: “...Rationalistic efforts against the creed produce a gradual social degradation following on the loss of that direct link between human nature and God which is provided by the Incarnation. Human dignity is lessened. The authority of Our Lord is weakened. He appears more and more as a man—perhaps a myth. The substance of Christian life is diluted. It wanes. What began as Unitarianism ends as Paganism.”
Arianism was the first of the great heresies, arising about 300 A.D. Arianism essentially was a denial of Our Lord's full Godhead combined with an admission of all His other attributes, and thus making Him a creature. The name comes from Areios (Latin, Arius). Arius was a Greek-speaking North-African cleric who exerted a substantial religious force before Constantine came to power. Arius, an enthusiastic man of great ambition, lived in Alexandria. He was possessed by a strong sense of rationalism, but was not the originator of the heresy; rather Arius took this error as his own cause. While he suffered from much vanity, Arius was also eloquent. He espoused a simplicity that appealed to the masses. A disciple of the martyr Lucian of Antioch, he presided over the Church of Bucalis in the year 318, where the Bishop of Alexandria held him in high regard. Arius zealously spread his rationalizing Unitarianism; but in 325 when Constantine came to power, the Bishop of Alexandria, Alexander, excommunicated Arius. Thinking that he might reconsolidate the old pagan empire, the ex-Emperor Licinius protected the new rationalist theology, a movement that had heavy endorsement from the Roman Army—this being of no minor consequence in Roman society. The lines were clearly drawn, and a battle for the soul of Christendom was swift in coming.
A Council was ordered by Emperor Constantine to meet in the town of Nicaea. The reaction against Arius at Nicaea was overwhelming. Arius was condemned, and the creed of his followers was put down as blasphemy; but it was not yet dead. Its adherents learned to compromise on form, on the wording of doctrine, so that Arianism might preserve and spread its heretical spirit with less opposition. But not for the tenacity of Saint Athanasius the Catholic faith would have fallen into compromise. (A note to this history is that Arianists animated their denial of Christ's divinity by taking Holy Eucharist in the hand—a practice now widely accepted in the Novus Ordo church.)
As demonstrated above, heresy is typically propagated by a single charismatic nemesis, originating from within the hierarchy of the Church; but there are exceptions—the most pervasive and bloodthirsty example being Mohammedanism, whose fanatic adepts, coming from outside the Church, imbibe a mixture that is distilled from pagan Bedouin folklore and cafeteria Catholicism. But, because the Protestant impact is more relevant to the present condition of the Catholic Church and for reason that it was the incubus of global revolution, the Reformation requires a more thorough examination. First, one must understand the origin of Protestant heresy, for its rebellious spirit is ancient as the Creation.
The angel Lucifer was the most beautiful of God’s creations… But beauty begot vanity—and rebellion against God, and there was war in the Heavens; and Lucifer was cast down to the Earth. Lucifer, who was the angel of light, thus became Satin: the angel of darkness, the father of lies… and the spirit of revolution. So, the creature of God, who thinks himself equal with God the Creator, is possessed by supreme vanity: having absolute belief in an abject lie, he rebels, thinking this condition to be enlightenment.
The 14th through 16th centuries marked The Renaissance, a period known by its contemporaries as the Age of Enlightenment. Adepts of this age, in their quest to possess all knowledge and understanding, resurrected within the Catholic world that ancient vanity of man—Rationalism. These “enlightened” men desired to reduce the infinite God, who created them in His image, so that God should be made to fit their finite understanding; and thus, began the process to remake God in man’s image. This process was advanced under the pretext of elevating the mind of man, but its subtle leveling tendency encroached upon his soul, and darkened it with the spirit of revolution: Liberty—there is no God; Equality—there is no King; and Fraternity—there is no property or distinction among the social classes.
The seething revolutionary, who is openly hostile to the Social Kingship of Christ, will boldly proclaim, “There is no God!” He hopes the incitement of passions will persuade the ignorant to assume his humanist cause. However, the shrewd rebel is a subtler creature—and thus, he is the more dangerous, for his mischief corrupts the Church from within. His heresy, like an insidious toxin, slowly poisons the Body of Christ with the spirit of revolution. Such a man will patiently seek his opportunity to undermine the social fabric of the Church. He will eloquently argue that all things must reside within the “Brotherhood of Man.” He will impugn monarchy, and hold as unjust any construct that causes distinction among the social classes. This man will subvert the Catholic faith by suggesting novel interpretations of doctrine—propositions that tickle the ear of the vain and unprincipled; or else seduce the immature by asserting that there exists self-evident truths. What he will not tell you is how broadly the notion of “self-evident” truth permeates. For the faithful Catholic, who is well-informed of human nature, would immediately realize that self-evident truths evolve into self-defined heresies; to wit: man begins thinking himself to be equal with God—and those divine truths defined by God soon become lost in a “self-defined” creed. That the shrewd rebel ever errs in being too honest, his “self-evident” halo of intellectual authority would evaporate. So, the shrewd heretic, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, avoids the shrill voice of revolution; rather, his battle cry is the soft whisper of reform, spoken beneath the mantle of Liberty Equality and Fraternity. But those changes that he insists to be necessary for “the good of the people” wax exceedingly beyond legitimate grievance; rather such alterations work to the detriment of the Church and men—faith dies by incremental mutation and neglect. Peaceful reform soon metastasizes into spiritual rebellion, and this is the revolutionary tendency of Protestantism; however, revolutions, like mutations, inevitably lead to something counterfeit, something alien, and something fatal.
The Protestant Reformation of 1530 ostensibly sought to free men from the “tyranny” of the Roman Catholic Church; but with their zeal for liberation the Protestant agents sowed the seeds of the Great Apostasy—the mother of all tyrannies. Within 100 years of Luther's “reforms” the fickle followers of brother Martin, once again, found their liberties waning; but this time the tyrant was the Church of England, and thus began a great migration to the New World—the Puritan colonization of North America.
The Mayflower Compact of 1620 was promulgated to free men from the chains of clerical tyranny—the precept being that the “consent of the governed” was prerequisite to any just government. Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, American Protestants progressed to great wealth—and with prosperity came an increasing realization of detachment from the English monarchy, and its authority. The more these “Americans” asserted their sense of independence the more intense became the rancor of the English Crown, whose Protestant King was becoming appalled by the audacity of his more liberated subjects. The mood was growing bellicose, and a showdown was fast approaching. The breaking point arrived with that most unique Declaration within the universe, that it was “…self-evident that all Men are created equal…” Then, came the fateful day in the summer of 1776, when “the shot heard 'round the world” was the bullet that pierced the armor of monarchy—but soon, Liberty would murder the monarch.
The American Revolution of 1776 (affectionately remembered as the “American War of Independence”) sought to free men from the tyranny of the sovereign, the end results being the first constitutional republic in history. This new entity proposed to secure, under law, the inalienable rights of men to: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. This doctrine is without limits in its interpretation, and thus the door opens wide to all manner of mischief and perfidy. If it is “self-evident” that men have an “inalienable right to life, liberty and happiness,” then to remain self-evident, these “rights” must also remain self-defined. Consequently, “self-evident” Life becomes: relief from responsibility—hence, we have abortion on demand; “self-evident” Liberty becomes relief from the natural order—hence, we have homosexual rights; and “self-evident” Happiness becomes relief from modesty—hence, we have the pursuit of wealth to the point of hedonistic materialism, and the discouragement of moral virtue.
Explicit among these American guarantees is Freedom of Religion: the right of every man to worship his Creator—that unnamed impersonal entity, cited within the Constitution—as he sees fit. We now have “self-evident” definition of a generic “Creator.” This is the true meaning of Religious Liberty. Within this new paradigm a natural progression follows: the right of every man to be his own sovereign—and soon after that, the right of every man to become his own god—his own “Creator.” Ergo, Religious Liberty—the right to an individual interpretation of God, dovetails perfectly with the Protestant notion of the right to a personal interpretation of Holy Scripture. But in “freeing” men from the authority of the Holy Church, and from the authority of those earthly sovereigns subordinate to the Church, the Protestant reformers set the stage to “freeing” man from The Sovereign God and the Social Kingship of Christ. The Reformation was in actuality the mother of The Protestant Revolution—and thus its zealous heresiarchs opened wide the floodgates of moral chaos, and eventually would serve in delivering the world into Satan's waiting hands.
Besides being a schismatic and an integrist, you're also a monarchist, right?
You're a pretty miserable human being, I guess. You don't like the Church, and you're not too wild about America.
Did an audience actually sit and listen to you read this dreck?
If you want to be taken seriously, you'll tone down the monarchism. Even conservative Catholics seem to love the representative republic that is the United States of America.
Yeah. You'd rather have a Catholic king telling you how to live your life.
Me, I'll make my own decisions based upon my own well-informed conscience.
It's not a matter of subordinating the Nicene Creed to the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge allows me to recite the Creed with no interference.
If your Catholic king should decide that my next door neighbors, Jason and Susan, and their three kids had to recite the rosary (even though they're evangelicals) or be punished, I'd object, as a Catholic.
You're in the wrong country, my friend. Catholicism is not about "fighting." It's about love, God's love.
I'm afraid we're in different centuries, my friend. I'm not going to shove my faith down anybody's throat.
You're a monarchist. I thought that was what monarchists wanted, Catholic kings.
You denigrated the Pledge of Allegiance and the Declaration of Independence. What governs your actions as a citizen of the United States?
Are you Catholic or Fundamentalist?
The fundies don't like anything where the Lord Jesus Christ is not mentioned, by name, either.
Propose your king. We'll see how many Americans like him versus George W. Bush.
You're pullin' my leg on this monarchism nonsense, aren't you?
We fought a war to rid ourselves of such foolishness.
My conscience, informed by the teachings of the Catholic Church and Scripture, and the Constitution of the United States.
It is. And we must work toward supporting the President in his appointment of judges who will interpret it properly.
I'd rather have an objective stake in the ground like the Constitution than some freakish king, who might decide we all need to take Tuesdays off to pay him homage.
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.