Lots of you are discouraged, but you mustn’t lose hope.
Today I offer my take on the ever-deepening worries of the faithful, and what we must do.
Steve Skojec is the Founding Publisher of OnePeterFive.com. He received his BA in Communications and Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2001. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Crisis Magazine, EWTN, Huffington Post Live, The Fox News Channel, Foreign Policy, and the BBC. Steve and his wife Jamie have eight children. You can find more of his writing at his Substack, The Skojec File.
Yay! The RSS feed for podcasts is working again!
It only took Apple three or four months to respond.
Steve, first time listening to the Podcast – bravo. You articulated perfectly my sense of the Francis papacy. I get the impression that Francis is more concerned with appeasing and engaging the peripheries rather than strengthening the collapsing core of the faithful. It is amiable to engage atheist, Muslims, and other heretics, but to do it at the expenses of ignoring the march of same sex “marriage”, taking clear positions on sacramental marriage, promoting the farce of “climate change”, is truly demoralizing to the faithful. By and large, we already have weak and worldly clergy in the West who hide from or suppress Truth and Orthodoxy, it is unfortunate that Francis seems to promote this same approach in his papacy. It is also unfortunate the faithful Catholic to go outside the Church to venues like 1P5 when Holy Mother Church should be providing these Truths. The students have become the teachers. Thanks for all you do.
Thank you so much, Tim.
After listening to the podcast, I came across a book review on Fr. Ripperger’s book Magisterial Authority in which that quote from St. John Eudes is used. In response, the reviewer causes against reading our times (or any for the matter) solely through this lens. I will quote here from the review, which can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1MN5H99K8JCRC/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1503022420):
“In the fourth essay ‘The Proper Response to an Erring Magisterial Member’ I thought the advice to pray and do penance when one encounters such a thing to be most excellent. It reminded me of a similar exhortation in the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus, that before reproofing one’s brother one should pray and do penance in secret for him.
That being said, I felt the last point of examination of conscience, asking “what have I done to deserve better leaders?” to not be so great. A problem I see with such an assertion is that: it creates a desire for earthly success to avoid suffering from bad leaders, rather than the imitation of Christ by being obedient unto death and winning heavenly glory. That quote from St. John Eudes about bad clerics has almost become a traditional Catholic cliche it is so heavily used; while other works on calamity and why bad things happen are neglected such as: St. John Cassian’s conference on the Slaughter of Holy Men, St. Augustine’s homilies on the Persecution of the Faithful by Bad Christians, St. Alphonsus on Calamities, and even more modern works like Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Father Raoul Plus. If we consider the sinfulness of the members of the Church throughout history we should have never had good leaders because we have never deserved them. It doesn’t matter how inept our leaders are, God gives them sufficient grace to do their job. Every penitent should know that it is good to suffer patiently for his sins and every Saint wants to suffer for the Glory of God. Let us not think that God would not allow bad leaders to try His Saints, when He has done it so many times before.
If we examine ourselves, we must humbly acknowledge that we deserve to suffer, so we should hasten to do penance. Having good leaders does not mean the members of the Church are no longer sinners or that we “deserve” good leaders.”