How Your Priest Shuts Out the Pope and Catechism

There's no secret to it really, and many who ponder their own local liturgies realize it's been going on for quite a long time. They realize that there is a radical disjunct between what the Holy Father teaches day in and day out and what many a local priest preaches during what is supposed to be the Liturgy of the Word. Indeed, increasingly, the only time one hears the Pope mentioned is when he is prayed for very briefly in the Eucharistic prayers of the Roman Canon.

Notice it is not a frontal attack. There is no railing against the Holy Father from the pulpits week after week. No. They simply ignore him and preach on virtually anything else which dovetails with the "peopleschurch" theology advocated by such men as Bernard Cooke, such womyn as Sr. Joan Chittister, as well as groups like Call to Action, papers like the National Catholic Reporter and so on. Thus the Liturgy of the Word is not.

The same holds true for the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Being the product of the teaching Magisterium, which both affirms and develops Catholic doctrine, the Catechism is considered an odious thing to dissidents and left to whither on the "traditionalist" vine. You are highly unlikely to hear any peopleschurch priest attack the Catechism overtly. That would risk trouble. So he simply slams it into oblivion along with the Pope and then the hapless congregation hears hardly a word about, or from, either authority. Every priest or theologian becomes his own supreme authority. And God help the bishop who attempts to put his foot down. More on that in a minute.

So it is more than possible for a Catholic to attend Mass at least every Sunday of the year and never hear a word of traditional Catholic theology beyond the nebulous word 'love' and doubtless new twists on Social Justice themes wherein the social teachings of the Church are tactically made to substitute for orthodox teaching rather than serve as an expression of that orthodoxy. Often enough one hears nary a word even about the Church's teaching on abortion. Forget sermons on the last things, the risk of missing Heaven.

It is the same with the teachings of the doctors, fathers, and saints of the Church. While one may hear of them from time to time, it is rare that they will ever be quoted in the context of affirming actual Catholic doctrines or doctrinal parameters. Again, these will not be openly attacked and too glaringly dimissed as irrelevant for theology today. But there will be a very loud silence regarding them in this context. Their teachings will certainly seldom, if ever, be cited as normative for Catholic morals and teaching.

The sad fact is that since 1970 not all seminarians in the United States have received consistently good theological and priestly formation. They were most often swept up into the movement of putting a "progressive" spin on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, which meant deconstructing Catholic theology and reframing it in relativistic, subjectivist terms, often with a mix of Marxist, eastern religious, and pop psychology flavors, all at once. Many priests then, despite having several degrees, are theologically incoherent and illiterate, except in areas of the agenda. Such priests were served (and now serve) a "Christology from Below" in which it was alleged that Jesus' humanity was suddenly "rediscovered" and, consistent with everything else, his deity was not so much attacked as allowed to fade more and more from public view. Arius redux. God was simply exchanged for the cosmos. This, of course, led similarly to a "eucharist from below," too, in which a new theology of sin and sacrifice appeared which reflected a deliberate shift from personal morality to social structures and the erroneous "either/or" that this entails, an either/or utterly rejected by the documents of Vatican II and the Popes, especially John Paul II. This eucharist from below amounted to a diminution of Catholic Eucharistic teaching.

The Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated species then was allowed to fade more and more even as the presence of Christ in "the people" was said to have also been rediscovered, and a new emphasis on the "priesthood of all" believers was separated from its traditional theological Catholic context and extolled in almost Lutheran tones. Indeed many priests and theologians suggested more and more that it was the celebrating congregation which "does the eucharistic action" (Bernard Cooke, The Future of the Eucharist Paulist Press, 1997 p.32).

Cooke says, "The liturgical leader presides, but it is the community that celebrates.' (Ibid). Here ambiguity rules.

The effects of such changes and desacralization were inevitable: Young ladies were allowed to come into liturgy wearing very immodest clothing, and the quiet, adoring thanksgiving after Mass was practically abolished, to name but two shockers. The liturgy itself, for the hip priests, and for the hip theology, deteriorated into something of an evolving event, choreographed and produced. Embarrassment and akwardness was the one constant shared by the faithful in the pews.

All of this could take place only because the Holy Father's teachings and the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church were effectively shut out from the Liturgy of the Word and the life of the parish whose bookracks carried dissident publications and every form of deviant opinion. You will recall that the Catechism of the Catholic Church was concieved back in 1985 precisely to dissipate the false notions which were circulating regarding the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. And despite the fact that it has been a best seller---showing that people are very hungry for its timeless certitudes, when these certitudes are not preached the faith of the people suffer in time (Rom 10:17).

Bored with the spiritual life, and chafing under the apparent burdens of the moral law, the neo-modernist attempts to translate his ennui into a "spirituality" of "outrage" and "change". He cannot admit to being wrong, so the Church must be wrong. He does not change, so he is determined to reinvent the Church, conform it to his image. This is what he calls being "prophetic". It is tragic.

Another sad thing which should be mentioned is that when the liturgy is allowed to fall into----or is purposely directed to----- abuses, it arms the extremists at the other end of error, the Integrists, who for all their theological non sequiturs, idiosyncrasies, and erroneous private interpretations, do offer dignified liturgies worthy of the Church. Thus people stumble into other errors trying to avoid the liberals.

It is a fact that many bishops have been intimidated by the neo-modernist lobby which operates at all levels of the diocesan bureaucracies. They know that the neo-mods revile and agitate against orthodox bishops and fawn over their own. But if bishops do not demand that the Liturgy of the Word is truly the Liturgy of the Word then the Gospel will collapse into something else and theological words and concepts will take on new meanings and new senses alien to the tradition of the Church. What will be the end of souls then, to say nothing of culture.

Cardinal Seper, who was Cardinal Ratzinger's predecessor in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote in 1972:

St. Paul said, "We preach not ourselves but Christ and Him Crucified". Our bishops must ensure that the Holy Father's teachings and the teachings of the Catechism are not shut out from the Liturgy of the Word. The People of God are starving for real Bread, the Manna of eternal life. It would be tragic if they are given stones instead of Bread and allowed to perish for want of true nourishment. Then the "woe's" of Ezekial 34 against the shepherds who feed not their sheep would become part of the equation.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ...

I've heard other Protestants mention this as precluding any religious statues. Just curious, though- how do you reconcile a strict, literalist interpretation of this with the fact that the Ark of the Covenant had statues of cherubim on top of it?

I've heard other Protestants mention this as precluding any religious statues. Just curious, though- how do you reconcile a strict, literalist interpretation of this with the fact that the Ark of the Covenant had statues of cherubim on top of it?

I think I already answered that in another message. It has to do with temporary, localized commands versus timeless, universal commands. The command to fashion the ark fits into the fomer. The graven image coammnd, as with all Ten Commandments, fit into the latter.

The simple fact is; bishops, priests and deacons as well as others who work in the catechetical ministries are NOT free to ignore church teaching. They can be and are reprimanded (to the point of losing their faculties) when their teachings fall outside the Church norms! Some have been declared heretical.

Very few and not very often. If I were an errant priest or bishop under current conditions of RC discipline I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

"Perfect love casts out fear." "How do you know that?"

If you read the bible you would know that. St. John wrote that thousands of years ago. It's in the bible.

You mean I can read and discern it for myself without the aid of the magisterium? How refreshingly protestant!

The fruit of private interpretation of scripture and sola scriptura, which has come to fruition this past century, is march darker, friend.

How would one under the thumb of popery know that?

David Armstrong's Biblical Evidence for Catholicism

Why does Roman Catholic need biblical evidence for anything? In the final analysis it's only what the magisterium says that matters.

Liberal Catholic layman Garry Wills has written another book on the Catholic Church, a kind of follow-up to his Bare Ruined Choirs (1972), which I reviewed a long time ago in The Wall Street Journal. In that book, he reminisced about the parish of his youth, one that sounded a lot like the parish in Going My Way. It was gone forever, he said, and good riddance. A newer, more liberal Catholicism had replaced the Catholicism of his youth. Wills had been radicalized in the 1960’s, and he argued that the American Catholic Church had, too.
His new book is called Papal Sins. I prefer to let Catholics respond to Mr. Wills’s historical critique of conservative popes and liberal ones Who Did Not Go Far Enough. Here, I want to discuss some implications of statistical trends that he brings up.

From Going Their Way by Gary North

Here's a better quote:

Every Protestant denomination that has adopted liberalism has suffered a significant decline in its membership. The onset of this decline can be dated: 1926, the year following the Scopes trial/media circus. Also beginning in 1926, independent fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches started growing.
Catholic liberals, such as Garry Wills, have told the Catholic hierarchy ever since 1950: "Liberalize or die!" By 1960, the Catholic church had entered the race to match the mainline Protestants. Despite its late start, it seems to have won.

Sums up the current situation pretty well.

Read the Fruits link, friend.

Thank you for sharing your own personal opinion.

May God Bless you abundantly, illuminate your darkened intellect, and have mercy on your soul.

Don't waste your time. I guess they just WANT to believe we worship statues. For some reason they NEED to believe it. It just seems to me that a reasonable approach would be, "Okay I understand that you really don't worship statues but out of an abundance of caution we Protestants do not want to have statues." Now that is sensible. And the Catholics could say, "Fine there is no command from God that one must have statues." Debate over, understanding and tolerance all around.

This is a great summation of what makes liberals tick!

"Bored with the spiritual life, and chafing under the apparent burdens of the moral law, the neo-modernist attempts to translate his ennui into a "spirituality" of "outrage" and "change". He cannot admit to being wrong, so the Church must be wrong. He does not change, so he is determined to reinvent the Church, conform it to his image. This is what he calls being "prophetic". It is tragic"

Now that just nails it!

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