Why I’ll Stay Catholic Even if the Whole World Turns Against Us

Catholic Stand ^ | February 14, 2016 | Felix Whelan

[NYer]

Last year, in response to a Pew Research poll showing the American Catholic Church in decline, Elizabeth Scalia (now at the editorial helm of Aleteia) posted this challenge on her Patheos blog The Anchoress:

If you're Catholic and have access to a web-page, a radio program, a Facebook page, whatever, take a few minutes, and tell the world why you are remaining a Catholic in an era where doing so seems not only counter-cultural, but also counter-intuitive and even, perhaps, a bit risky?

Thoughtful and moving responses rolled in from all across the Internet, and continue to to do so today.

For my entry, I'm phrasing the question this way:

Why would I stay Catholic even if the whole world turned against the Church and labeled me a fool for remaining a believer?

The short answer: Because the whole world is wrong.

But it's a question that deserves a long answer, so here goes ....

First, I should define my terms. By "the world" I really mean the much narrower "worldly" subset of modern American and European Western Culture. By "wrong" I mean, well... WRONG. Dangerously wrong. Spinning out of control wrong. In the process of destroying itself wrong.

If the title of this article enticed you to click the link, chances are you already have a strong opinion about the Catholic faith. You either love it or you hate it. Either way, you are likely already aware of the "hot button" social issues on which the world and the Church disagree - abortion, contraception, so-called "gay marriage," euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, the "New Atheism," etc., etc., etc. And on every single one of those fronts, and many more besides (the "hot button" issues barely scratch the surface), wherever the world calls something "good" that the Church defines as "evil," I really do believe that the world is 100% wrong and the Church is 100% right.

I say this with confidence because those obvious "hot button" worldly issues are only visible symptoms of a deeper and more dangerous disease infecting the modern (and "post-modern") western psyche.

Western Culture has lost its mind.

In his book Theology and Sanity, the great Catholic apologist Frank Sheed put it this way:

... if we see things in existence and do not in the same act see that they are held in existence by God, then equally we are living in a fantastic world, not the real world. Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by him is not a matter of sanctity, but of plain sanity, because God IS everywhere and all things ARE upheld by Him. What we do about it may be sanctity; but merely seeing it is sanity. To overlook God's presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there...

We murder babies in the womb and play Frankenstein with their cells not because we are evil, but because we are mad. We treat sex like a toy and each other's bodies like objects not because we are devils, but because we have lost all self control. Men marry men and women marry women (or have their genders surgically "reassigned") not because we are wicked, but because we have lost all sense of what it means to be either a man or a woman. Blind to the reality of God everywhere and holding up all things, we fall prey to false gods, first and foremost our own vane and bloated egos. We become our own gods and spin ever further from any kind of moral center, any semblance of a solid ground of reality beneath our feet.

This madness afflicting Western Culture is by no means "modern." It entered the world with the Fall of Adam and Eve. It is the madness of original sin.

And for the sake of our cure from this ancient affliction, the very real God atheists tell us does not exist, the one who created man and woman and the sacrament of marriage, who knits every baby in the womb and counts all the hairs on the heads of old men, who is everywhere and upholds all things, became one of us in a real physical body, in the real person of Jesus Christ, at a real, measurable time in recorded history. He really established one Church (the Catholic Church, from which all other Christian denominations schismed over time), was really crucified, really died, and really rose from the dead to make it possible for you and me and everyone everywhere to defeat sin and death and regain our sanity.

That's reality. And only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth regarding it.

Whatever in the world disagrees with that truth or contradicts it is delusion, plain and simple.

So, the real question is not, Will I remain Catholic or embrace worldly values?

The real question is, Will I remain sane or embrace madness?

I choose sanity. I choose the Catholic Church. Forever.

In response to my choice, the world is welcome to call me a fool. I don't mind. I don't expect rational behavior from madmen. Now that really would be foolish!

[Elsie]

“But what Catholicism is, I have come to discover, is true.”

The church is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet of god.

[Elsie]

“But what Catholicism is, I have come to discover, is true.”

---

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Elsie]

I will stand with the Catholics if the world should turn against them.

When the choice is between nature and nurture I go with nature every time.

Weak minds are easily influenced.

Ok then...

[Elsie]

I am and will remain LDS (Mormon) although the whole world has been against us!

But a LOT of your fellow Mormons have seen the Light and have jumped ship...

[Elsie]

The anti-Catholic remarks are always amusing to me.

Heck; CATHOLIC ones give ME the giggles!

 

 

 

Bernadine: …all gifts, all virtues, and all graces are dispensed by the hands of Mary to whomsoever, when, and as she pleases. O Lady, since thou art the dispenser of all graces, and since the grace of salvation can ONLY come through thy hands, OUR SALVATION DEPENDS ON THEE.

Bonaventure: …the gates of heaven will open to all who confide in the protection of Mary. Blessed are they who know thee, O Mother of God, for the knowledge of THEE is the high road to everlasting life, and the publication of thy virtues is the way of ETERNAL SALVATION . Give ear, O ye nations; and all you who desire heaven , serve, honor Mary, and certainly you will find ETERNAL LIFE.

Ephem: …devotion to the divine Mother…is the unlocking of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Blosius: To the, O Lady, are committed the KEYS and the treasures of the kingdom of Heaven.

Ambrose: …constantly pray ‘Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since thou hast its KEYS.

Fulgetius: …by Mary God descended from Heaven into the world, that by HER man might ascend from earth to Heaven.

Athanasius: …And, thou, O Lady, wast filled with grace, that thou mightiest be the way of our SALVATION and the means of ascent to the heavenly Kingdom.

Richard of Laurence: Mary, in fine, is the mistress of heaven; for there she commands as she wills, and ADMITS whom she wills.

Guerric: …he who serves Mary and for whom she intercedes, is as CERTAIN of heaven as if he were already there…and those who DO NOT serve Mary will NOT BE SAVED.

Anselm: It suffices, O Lady, that thou willest it, and our SALVATION is certain.

Antoninus: …souls protected by Mary, and on which she casts her eyes, are NECESSARILY JUSTIFIED AND SAVED.

[Elsie]

There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures.

Let's try some easy math:

There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics world wide;

If merely 1% of them  'ask' Mary for help just once each day;

that means that 12 million separate prayers are headed Mary's direction every day.

Given that there are 86,400 seconds per day... (24 hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds)

...that means that Mary has to handle approximately 139 'requests' per second!

Purty good fer someone NOT 'divine'!

[Elsie]

Catholicism will spread, as its name indicates.

---

Matthew 13:24-30  Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)

24 Another parable he proposed to them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seeds in his field.
25 But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way.
26 And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle.
27 And the servants of the goodman of the house coming said to him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it cockle?
28 And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?
29 And he said: No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it.
30 Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn.

[Elsie]

If somebody wants to convert me away from Catholicism, he'll have to convince me of one of the following:

1. That there is no God.
2. That Jesus Christ is not God the Son.
3. That Jesus Christ did not establish a Church.
4. That the Pope is not the successor to St. Peter

 

 

If somebody wants to convert me TO Catholicism, he'll have to convince me of the following:

1. That Rome's Mary is the MOTHER of God.
2. That Jesus Christ - God the Son - listens to and DOES anything His mom tells Him to do.
3. That Jesus Christ established ONLY the Roman Catholic Church; excluding ALL others.
4. That  'St.' Peter was the first pope.

 

If somebody wants to convert me away from Catholicism, he'll have to convince me of one of the following:

1. That there is no God.
2. That Jesus Christ is not God the Son.
3. That Jesus Christ did not establish a Church.
4. That the Pope is not the successor to St. Peter

If somebody wants to convert me TO Catholicism, he'll have to convince me of the following:

1. That Rome's Mary is the MOTHER of God.
2. That Jesus Christ - God the Son - listens to and DOES anything His mom tells Him to do.
3. That Jesus Christ established ONLY the Roman Catholic Church; excluding ALL others.
4. That  'St.' Peter was the first pope.

[Elsie]

I don't bash Protestantism.

Then you MUST agree with the words of your chosen religion; right??

"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours." Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)

Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema. - Vatican 1, Ses. 4, Cp. 1

[Elsie]

The site lists and explains the DOGMA that we Catholics must believe.

Too bad...

---

Is the present pope GOD's representative on Earth?

[Elsie]

Not one of the non-Catholics on FR promote their chosen place of worship as the One True Church,

Uh...

A Mormon is non-Catholic...

[Elsie]

Well, I got a rise out of you.

Your day is complete.

[Elsie]

My godmother married my uncle, who had divorced his first wife. It bothered her for AGES. My uncle's first wife finally passed away and my aunt/godmother married my uncle (father's younger brother) in the Church. She was SO happy and finally at peace with her faith.

To REALLY sleep well at night; get yer marriage SEALED in a Mormon temple...

[Smokin' Joe]

Who am I to discard a thousand years of my family's faith. Would I suddenly declare all those who preceded me, who stuck to the Church through thick and thin, through prosperity and ruin, and even change of country, to be wrong?

No.

I will remain Catholic.

[Elsie]

7. Never taught that Peter was the "rock" of Mt. 16:18 upon which the church is built...

Heretic!!!

Heat the OIL!!!

As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18

 

• Augustine, sermon:

"Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' There's the rock for you, there's the foundation, there's where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer. — John Rotelle, O.S.A., Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine , © 1993 New City Press, Sermons, Vol III/6, Sermon 229P.1, p. 327

Upon this rock, said the Lord, I will build my Church. Upon this confession, upon this that you said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer her (Mt. 16:18). — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 236A.3, p. 48.

 

• Augustine, sermon:

For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. — Augustine Tractate CXXIV; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Volume VII Tractate CXXIV (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.cxxv.html)

 

• Augustine, sermon:

And Peter, one speaking for the rest of them, one for all, said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)...And I tell you: you are Peter; because I am the rock, you are Rocky, Peter-I mean, rock doesn't come from Rocky, but Rocky from rock, just as Christ doesn't come from Christian, but Christian from Christ; and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mt 16:17-18); not upon Peter, or Rocky, which is what you are, but upon the rock which you have confessed. I will build my Church though; I will build you, because in this answer of yours you represent the Church. — John Rotelle, O.S.A. Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 270.2, p. 289

 

• Augustine, sermon:

Peter had already said to him, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He had already heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not conquer her' (Mt 16:16-18)...Christ himself was the rock, while Peter, Rocky, was only named from the rock. That's why the rock rose again, to make Peter solid and strong; because Peter would have perished, if the rock hadn't lived. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 244.1, p. 95

 

• Augustine, sermon:

...because on this rock, he said, I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not overcome it (Mt. 16:18). Now the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Hold on to these texts, love these texts, repeat them in a fraternal and peaceful manner. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1995), Sermons, Volume III/10, Sermon 358.5, p. 193

 

• Augustine, Psalm LXI:

Let us call to mind the Gospel: 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church.' Therefore She crieth from the ends of the earth, whom He hath willed to build upon a Rock. But in order that the Church might be builded upon the Rock, who was made the Rock? Hear Paul saying: 'But the Rock was Christ.' On Him therefore builded we have been. — Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume VIII, Saint Augustin, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXI.3, p. 249. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.LXI.html)

 

• Augustine, in “Retractions,”

In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: 'On him as on a rock the Church was built.'...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' For, 'Thou art Peter' and not 'Thou art the rock' was said to him. But 'the rock was Christ,' in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable. — The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1:.

 

[Elsie]

FYI, molestations are much higher in non-Catholic churches.

Oh?

You have access to COMPLETE information to PROVE what you just claimed?

[Smokin' Joe]

Through Him are all things possible.

[Elsie]

I'll stay Catholic even though the Pope has turned against us.

REALLY?

Who is 'us' and how has...

This fella??

Bishop of Rome,

Vicar of Jesus Christ,

Successor of the Prince of the Apostles,

Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,

Primate of Italy,

Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province,

Sovereign of the State of Vatican City,

Servant of the Servants of God.

...turned against them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Infallibility:

To fulfil the teaching office of their pastoral ministry, the Apostles and their successors, the bishops, are given a gift of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The Pope, as head of the college of bishops, enjoys this gift of infallibility in a unique sense. As pastor and supreme teacher of all the faithful, and charged with the responsibility to confirm his brothers and sisters in the faith, the Pope may proclaim as definitive a point of doctrine touching faith and morals.

When the Church, by her Magisterium, proposes something to be believed as being revealed by God in Jesus Christ, a Catholic is obliged to adhere to the definition with the obedience of faith. When the Magisterium proposes something not in a definitive way but so as to help the faithful in a better understanding of God's Revelation, a Catholic is obliged to give to such teaching the religious assent of his spirit.

It is, therefore, the Pope's role, as it was that of Peter, to guide the community of Christ's faithful, to safeguard them in the truth, and to confirm his brothers and sisters in the faith made possible in Jesus Christ.

Fr. Kevin Beach http://www.catholicmissionleaflets.org/leafpope.htm 

[Elsie]

Who am I to discard a thousand years of my family's faith.

Would I suddenly declare all those who preceded me, who stuck to the Church through thick and thin, through prosperity and ruin, and even change of country, to be wrong?