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Protestantism, Modernism, Atheism
Crisis Magazine ^
| November 28, 2017
| Julia Meloni
Posted on 11/28/2017 12:09:34 PM PST by ebb tide
![](http://3m7ajlsrzj92lfd1hu16hu7vc.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/kasper.jpg)
The reality of the apostasy of faith in our time rightly and profoundly frightens us, said Cardinal Burke in honor of Fatimas centenary.
In 1903, Pope St. Pius X declared himself terrified by humanitys self-destructive apostasy from God: For behold they that go far from Thee shall perish (Ps. 72:27). How much more daunting, said Cardinal Burke, is todays widespread apostasy.
In 1910, St. Pius X condemned the movement for a One-World Church without dogmas, hierarchy, or curb for the passionsa church which, under the pretext of freedom, would impose legalized cunning and force. How much more, said Cardinal Burke, do todays movements for a single government of the world and certain movements with the Church herself disregard sin and salvation?
In Pascendi, St. Pius X named the trajectory toward the annihilation of all religion: The first step
was taken by Protestantism; the second
by [the heresy of] Modernism; the next will plunge headlong into atheism.
So let us, said Cardinal Burke, heed Fatimas call for prayer, penance, and reparation. Let us be agents of the triumph of Marys Immaculate Heart.
A few weeks after that speech, the Vatican announced its shining tribute to the Protestant revolution: a golden stamp with Luther and Melanchthon at the foot of the cross, triumphantly supplanting the Blessed Virgin and St. John.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider has asked how the Vatican can call Luther a witness to the gospel when he called the Mass
a blasphemy and the papacy an invention of Satan. The signatories of the filial correction have expressed wonderment and sorrow at a statue of Luther in the Vaticanand documented the affinity between Luthers ideas on law, justification, and marriage and Pope Franciss statements.
At a 2016 joint commemoration of the Protestant revolution, Pope Francis expressed joy for its myriad gifts. He and pro-abortion Lutherans with female clergy jointly declared that what unites us is greater than what divides us. Together they raise[d] their voices against violence. They prayed for the conversion of those who exploit the earth. They declared the goal of receiving the Eucharist at one table to express their full unity.
In Martin Luther: An Ecumenical Perspective, Cardinal Kasper confirms that the excommunicated, apostate monk is now a common church father, a new St. Francis of Assisi. This prophet of the new evangelization was forced into calling the pope the Antichrist after his call for repentance was not heard. But Kasper finds ecumenical hope in Luthers statement that he would
kiss the feet of a pope who allows and acknowledges his gospel.
Kasper says Pope Franciss Evangelii Gaudium, without mentioning him by name, makes Luthers concerns stand in the center.
So its Luthers gospel of grace and mercy behind, apparently, the high disdain for self-absorbed promethean neopelagianis[ts] plagued by a soundness of doctrine thats narcissistic and authoritarian (EG 94).
So its Lutherthe bizarre protagonist of ecumenical unitybehind the demand for a conversion of the papacy that gives genuine doctrinal authority to episcopal conferences (EG 32). Sandro Magister says the pope is already creating a federation of national Churches endowed with extensive autonomy through liturgical decentralization.
So its Luther behind the demand to accept the unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our
ways of thinking (EG 22). Kasper says Luthers faith in the self-implementation of the word of God gave him a heroic openness to the future.
Ultimately, Kaspers Luthera prophet of openness to futurity, a Catholic reformer waiting for a sympathetic popeemerges as a symbolic father for Modernisms struggle to change the Church from within. Modernism falsely claims that God evolves with historymaking truth utterly mutable. So Kasper the Modernist says dogmas can be stupid and Church structures can spring from ideology and denying the Eucharist to adulterers because of one phrase from Christ is ideological, too.
Kasper baldly calls the changeless God an offense to man:
One must deny him for mans sake, because he claims for himself the dignity and honor that belong by right to man
.
We must resist this God
also for Gods sake. He is not the true God at all, but rather a wretched idol. For a God
who is not himself history is a finite God. If we call such a being God, then for the sake of the Absolute we must become absolute atheists. Such a God springs from a rigid worldview; he is the guarantor of the status quo and the enemy of the new.
A shocking ultimatum from the man hailed as the popes theologian: either embrace a mutable God whos not an enemy of the newor profess absolute, unflinching, hardcore atheism.
Kasper says the Church must be led by a spirit that is not primarily the third divine person. That ominous spirit, says Thomas Stark, is apparently some Hegelian agent of creations self-perfection. Pope Francis, against all the sourpusses (EG 85), describes our final cause as the utopian future (EG 222). Because God wants us to be happy in this world, its no longer possible to claim that religion
exists only to prepare souls for heaven (EG 182).
But Christ said, In the world you shall have distress (Jn. 16:33). The 1907 dystopian novel The Lord of the World hauntingly imagines the travails of historys last days, when humanity has heeded Kaspers call to resist God with absolute atheism if necessary. By this point, Protestantism is dead, for men recognize at last that a supernatural religion involves an absolute authority. Those with any supernatural belief left are Catholicpersecuted by a world professing no God but man, no priest but the politician.
More and more clergy apostatize. Man has learned his own divinity. Yet Fr. Percy Franklin still adores the Eucharistic Lord, still believes that the reconciling of a soul to God is greater than the reconciling of nations. He secretly hears a dying womans confession before the real prieststhe euthanizerscome.
Her daughter-in-law, Mabel, scoffs that the new atheism has perfected Catholicism:
Do you not understand that all which Jesus Christ promised has come true, though in another way? The reign of God has really begun; but we know now who God is. You said just now you wanted the forgiveness of Sins; well, you have that; we all have it, because there is no such thing as sin. There is only Crime.
And then Communion. You used to believe that that made you a partaker of God; well, we are all partakers of God, because we are all human beings.
Mabel and the rapt multitudes ritually worship Man. God was a hideous nightmare. Their spirits swoon before a politician promising the universal brotherhood of man.
That savior of the world is the Antichrist. All must deny God or die.
For history, like the novel itself, ends not with rapturous utopia but with tribulation, apostasy, martyrdoms, and Gods triumph over the revolt of evil [in] the form of the Last Judgment (CCC 677). In the throes of his own tribulation, Fr. Franklin calls us to cling to the faith and those refuges of old:
The mass, prayer, the rosary. These first and last. The world denies their power: it is on their power that Christians must throw all their weight.
TOPICS: Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS: francischurch; oneworldchurch
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To: metmom; Elsie
I am awed in the presence of a master.Elsie, I need your aw shucks picture. 😊
601
posted on
12/02/2017 6:50:34 AM PST
by
Mark17
(Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
To: metmom
> Please cite the passages from the Torah that state that.
Nobody is obligated to accept your say so, which amounts to nothing more than your opinion, without substantiation from the Torah itself.
My commenting time is limited. I will not repeat what I wrote.
To: Mark17
> I am glad I could help. Feel free to holler at me again. I dont believe the way you do, but that doesnt mean we cannot discuss issues from time to time.
I appreciate that. Stay well.
To: Hrvatski Noahid; metmom
What, you can’t even do a simple copy/paste, but you can take the time to say you don’t have time?
Suspicious!
604
posted on
12/02/2017 7:07:59 AM PST
by
Luircin
To: Hrvatski Noahid
Stay well.Thank you. Same to you. 👍
605
posted on
12/02/2017 7:10:40 AM PST
by
Mark17
(Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
To: metmom
“The Roman rite and the Eastern Orthodox disagree over some basics of the faith as well.”
Yes, but members of the Roman Rite do not claim to be Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox do not claim to be members of the Roman Rite. Protestants are Protestants. And those Protestants almost universally claim to be sola scriptura followers yet they sometimes disagree on very basic things. If you’re honest, you’ll admit that what usually happens on FR is that there will be one of two results: 1) Protestants will clash with one another, 2) if there is a Catholic involved the Protestants will claim the glaring difference between Protestants is actually not an important matter of the faith after all. How is that logically consistent?
“And both claim to be Catholicism in it’s original form with the other group being schismatic.”
Well, most Catholics and even many Eastern Orthodox will not say that the other is “schismatic” today. After all they are following their designated bishops. I understand what you’re saying, however, I don’t think your analogy works. Any logical person could see how Churches separated since 1054 - who had issues between them dating back centuries before that - could develop different views. But why is it so quick to happen among Protestants - especially when they claim to be sola scriptura people (in other words, they’re using the same source for final authority)?
A town I lived in some years ago had two Presbyterian churches. One of them was large and traditional and the other was a different denomination and liberal. The larger traditional one ended up in some sort of theological spat with in itself. A group broke off and they named their new church after the main issue of the theological spat (although they also still call themselves Presbyterians). All of this happened almost over night when you speak in terms of the long history of the Church. That’s the Protestant way. It’s not “Reformed and Still Reforming”, it’s “Fragmenting and Still Fragmenting”.
“So which one is right and why?”
I don’t believe for a single second that you believe either one is right or that either one could be right. The logical problem with that belief on your part is that Protestantism can’t possibly be right since Christ didn’t found it and a German monk did only 500 years ago.
“Your criticism of Prots disagreeing as making anything they believe invalid falls flat in light of Catholicism and its many flavors.”
No, my “criticism” of Protestants “disagreeing” stands and always will - precisely because their disagreeing shows the utter logical hopelessness of sola scriptura.
“For that matter, we can’t even get all the Catholics within the Roman rite to agree on whether Francis is a legitimate pope.”
He is a legitimate pope. You don’t have to get people to agree to it. He is one whether they agree or not. And I don’t even agree with Pope Francis on many of the things he says or does - but he is the legitimate pope. Truth cannot be merely subjective.
“And according to previous popes and Unum Sanctum, that’s pretty basic.”
It sure is. And that’s the point. But the vast majority of Catholics - and ALL of the Catholic hierarchy recognize the pope as legitimate. Case closed. But popes die. There will be a new one in a few years. A much more grave situation is when you can’t get Protestant denominations to agree on what happens in Baptism. 1) Baptism is a PERENNIAL thing. It’s been practiced for 2,000 years. No pope will hold the office for more than 30 or so years EVER. Popes come and go. Baptism stays. It matters much more what people think about Baptism then whether or not they like or dislike a particular pope! 2) If something happens in Baptism it has eternal significance. No particular pope’s popularity does. If something happens in Baptism it could effect or affect me forever and if I don’t receive it, it could affect or effect me forever. The popularity of a particular pope - or even the legitimacy of one - effects and affects me not in the least in terms of my eternal destiny. This was shown rather clearly in the Great Schism of the West 600 years ago. That’s the difference.
606
posted on
12/02/2017 7:29:22 AM PST
by
vladimir998
(Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
To: vladimir998
Why do you assume that aMPU was making a “nice comment” if he is mocking a book of the Bible? No Vlad, I was making a joke.
I understand you do not do humor. Others understood immediately.
In the end, it was funnier because of your lack of humor and the shared experience with others. I can be thankful for that.
Sirach isn't inspired Scripture. Consequently not part of the canon. Consequently, I will put it on foods that need a kick.
To: vladimir998
Your post illustrates why I came up with the Rules. I think this post touches on all of them. Have a good one vlad.
To: Hrvatski Noahid
IOW, there’s NOTHING.
So I have no reason whatsoever to give any credence in the least to your claims.
Odd how you found time to make snarky comments about others and participate in the discussion.
If it’s in the Torah, it should only take minutes to find and post. Nobody is asking for a dissertation. We are asking for God’s word. If you can’t be bothered to post that, there’s nothing.
609
posted on
12/02/2017 8:26:08 AM PST
by
metmom
( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
To: Hrvatski Noahid
I’m also not asking you to repeat what YOU wrote.
I want to know what GOD wrote that you claim He did that you claim validates your position.
610
posted on
12/02/2017 8:27:08 AM PST
by
metmom
( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
To: vladimir998
“Yes, but.....”
pffftttt........
611
posted on
12/02/2017 8:30:19 AM PST
by
metmom
( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
To: ealgeone; aMorePerfectUnion
“Your post illustrates why I came up with the Rules.”
Your post illustrates that you will not address any of the points made. You really can’t. You didn’t read post #430 did you? You really didn’t know that aMorePerfectUnion was mocking a book of the Bible by calling it “Siracha sauce”, right?
Yeah, that’s obvious.
“I think this post touches on all of them. Have a good one vlad.”
And your response - ignoring the points I made - shows exactly what I have said about you: You do not care about getting things right. You do not care about the truth.
612
posted on
12/02/2017 8:33:56 AM PST
by
vladimir998
(Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
To: metmom
You what think Luther is to blame for the current dumpster fire occuring at The Vatican.
613
posted on
12/02/2017 8:40:07 AM PST
by
Gamecock
(The greatest threat to humanity is not "out there" but "in here" in the recesses of the soul. TK)
To: aMorePerfectUnion
“No Vlad, I was making a joke.”
Yes, you were mocking a book of the Bible as a condiment. I know. I never said you were not making a joke about the Bible. I know you were. That’s the point.
“I understand you do not do humor.”
I do not mock the Bible. You do. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humor. I just don’t mock the Bible. You do.
“Others understood immediately.”
Other anti-Catholics shared in your mocking of the Bible. Yes, I understand. Why would they act any differently than you? Why would they not mock the Bible as you did? That’s exactly the kind of behavior I expect from your set.
“In the end, it was funnier because of your lack of humor and the shared experience with others. I can be thankful for that.”
Sure, you can be thankful that I did not participate in your mocking of the Bible while other anti-Catholics did. Yes, thankful. That’s what you’re thankful for - mocking the Bible.
“Sirach isn’t inspired Scripture.”
Actually, it is. Only Protestants - and not even all of them - believe otherwise.
“Consequently not part of the canon.”
No, it’s most definitely part of the canon - in East and West. Latter-day newcomers like Protestants don’t get to create new canons.
“Consequently, I will put it on foods that need a kick.”
Keep mocking God’s Word. Your reward will be your own.
614
posted on
12/02/2017 8:47:46 AM PST
by
vladimir998
(Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
To: metmom
“pffftttt........”
That’s perfectly emblematic of your level of argumentation here.
615
posted on
12/02/2017 8:58:21 AM PST
by
vladimir998
(Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
To: Elsie
BwaHAHAHA ... and that is par for the vladi needy ego, steeped in arrogant condescension.
616
posted on
12/02/2017 8:59:19 AM PST
by
MHGinTN
(A dispensational perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
To: Elsie
Did you miss the scene when Saul had the prophet summoned by the medium/witch of Endor?
617
posted on
12/02/2017 9:02:46 AM PST
by
MHGinTN
(A dispensational perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
To: grey_whiskers
There is, according to Scripture only One mediator between Man and God, the man Christ Jesus.
618
posted on
12/02/2017 9:04:09 AM PST
by
MHGinTN
(A dispensational perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
To: MHGinTN
There is, according to Scripture only One mediator between Man and God, the man Christ Jesus. LOL!!! That refers to *Salvation*: note that Man is in English, "the mass of people" or '"humankind."
Look at it like this:
Like you've never asked anyone to pray for you.
Or prayed for a non-saved friend to come to Christ.
You might even note Stephen in Acts, while being stoned, prayed, "Do not hold this sin against them." That was mediating.
619
posted on
12/02/2017 9:11:18 AM PST
by
grey_whiskers
(The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
To: unlearner
620
posted on
12/02/2017 9:15:38 AM PST
by
MHGinTN
(A dispensational perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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