In the past 24 hours, I’ve heard from two separate people who said that if they were in RCIA today, instead of during Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, they’re not sure they would have gone through with it. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. It won’t be the last. But it raises an important question:
Why are you Catholic?
Why, when the Church is so obviously riddled with corruption, when the hierarchy is overrun with compromised and complacent men, when the very papacy itself has fallen into the hands of a man under the sway of The Enemy, are we still here?
In his famous letter to his flock, St. Athanasius of Alexandria answered this question over a millennium-and-a-half ago:
May God console you! …What saddens you …is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises─but you have the apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle-the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?
True, the premises are good when the apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way …You are the ones who are happy: you who remain within the church by your faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis.
No one, ever, will prevail against your faith, beloved brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray.
Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.
We remain because, as St. Peter once said to Our Blessed Lord at a particularly challenging moment: “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”(Jn. 6:69)
OnePeterFive exists because we have a vision for the Church. It is a vision not of our own making, but one that has been inherited from our forebears in the Faith. We look back over the continuity of 20 centuries. We observe the struggles, the heartache, even the martyrdom — but also the accomplishments, the civilization-building prowess, the glory and honor of Christendom. Our motto here seems simple, but it entails a great deal. How do we “rebuild Catholic Culture and restore Catholic Tradition?”
One painstaking day at a time.
We confront what is happening in the Church because we know this is not how it should be. We know, by reviewing times past, what the Church could be again. Catholicism is the greatest thing that has ever happened to the world — first and foremost, through the unique and exclusive salvific graces Our Holy Mother Church provides to mankind — but also through her influences on art, music, law, governance, science, education, and everything that makes civilization possible. And we know that the Church can be — that it will be — the guiding force of the world again.
Every day, we get up and ask God for help and guidance in this overwhelming task. We brace ourselves as we survey the devastated visage of this crowning achievement of human history. We look for the evil lurking in the shadows, and we shine the light. We look for the good that is, or was, and we begin the process of restoration and recovery.
We do this work because we love the Catholic Church, and we want to see it made great again. Because we believe that nothing is more important than returning the Church’s focus to her most important mission: the salvation of souls — knowing that all these other things will flow naturally from the first.
We’re pretty sure that’s why you’re here, too.
We need your help to keep going. This is hard work. Work that demands a tireless dedication and a great deal of time. If you benefit from what we do here and have not yet supported us financially, would you please consider doing so today? We’re over half way through the month, but we’re at less than 25% of our fundraising goal.
We don’t sell a product or service. We give away our content — thousands of article and dozens of podcasts — completely free of charge. We simply ask that if you find it worthwhile, you help us to keep doing this, keep building this, keep expanding the influence we hope to exert for the good of us all.
If you can give $5,000, it would be fantastic and even game-changing – but if you can only give $5, don’t feel that it’s not enough. Yesterday, over ten thousand people visited this website. Just yesterday. If each of them gave $5, what a difference it would make.
Thank you to all of our existing supporters, and to all of you who will support us now and in the future. We are building this together. We are taking our Church back one day at a time.
In Christ,
Steve Skojec
Publisher & Executive Director
OnePeterFive
I came into the Church during John Paul II’s pontificate, when I was still in the Navy. Knowing what I know now, it would’ve been hard, but I think I still would have wanted to go through with it, because I truly believe this to be the Church that Christ founded (but from what I gather, I’m lucky to have missed out on the RCIA process).
It’s a magnificent example of God’s grace that wonderful people like you, who come to the one true Faith and stay with it, in spite of the rubbish going on in the Church at the moment. Others are joining the Catholic Faith as true, orthodox Catholics RIGHT NOW! It’s astonishing! To be able to recognise the authentic path to Eternal Life even when it’s choked with weeds, flooded with filth and seemingly impassible. ……….. Gosh!
I’m a revert, being away from the Church for 30+ years – been back now for 20+ years. God’s Actual Grace hit me strongly and I came back right then and there. The process was swift for me because I remembered! When my husband wanted to come into the Church I refused to send him to RCIA because I had seen the horrible, modern material. So we gradually used good, OLD, books, what I remembered, and very soon afterwards, the Latin Mass. After he was confirmed Our Dear Father in Heaven has done the rest for him.
I agree that if I had been subjected to the modern “convert” junk I would have be just a new modernist in a Catholic dress.
This is a monumental obstacle for people wanting to return to the faith and also for people interested in coming into the faith that have never been in the Church. I have a few in my family that have left the faith, which was no surprise being they were very ‘nominal’ Catholics when practicing at all. But how to help lure them back?? Lure them back into WHAT exactly?? Into THIS?? What we have now in most N.O. Parishes is either just ‘fluff’ or they are wallowing in out and out ERROR and HERESY. So……we’re supposed to invite them back to that? Most people that left the Church I would presume left the N.O. Church, so they wouldn’t even know what was going on in a Traditional Parish with TLM anyway! It’s a conundrum that one just doesn’t know how to deal with!!
I was just thinking this. I had a great line to people that were not catholic:
“why arn’t you catholic”
I stopped using it. Why bother? What does it mean to be Catholic? Nothing. WHatever you want it to be. The devil has been successful in protestantizing the faith.
No. Respectfully that’s not true. It means everything to be Catholic. Go to Mass, confession, Adoration, pray the Rosary faithfully. Prove you love Jesus by keeping His commandments. It may seem, as it surely did to the Apostles, that Our Lord is asleep in the back of the boat. But appearances then, as now can be awfully deceptive. Our Lord is not asleep. He merely appears to be. With one word he calmed the storm and He will calm our current storm in the world and in the Church, at the time of His choosing. He knows the perfect time at which to issue His command. Our task is to wait and trust, to watch and pray as it has always been. Do not lose heart nor be discouraged for these times have had to come. These things too shall pass. Do not abandon the Lord. Stay in the boat, full of confidence that it is He who is the Captain, despite appearances to the contrary. Satan would like nothing better than to rob us of hope and confidence in the Lord, Our Lord. Trust, hope, love and pray.
yes, well said, thank for the supportive words. I guess what I meant is people thinking that the church is just another social justice organization with these weekly meetings called “masses”.
The foundational concept of “Catholic” yes still exists, but all this kookyness is confusing for evangelization! What am I promoting? A social justice lobbying organization or the Barque of Peter. How can I explain to them that Francis is not an exemplary catholic. In fact, hes a terrible one….
Well stated freargone. I love your handle btw, a most appropriate one for these times
This is the best of these comments that I´ve read ! God bless you Feargone !
Why not say “why aren’t you a traddie Catholic?”
Ah! Me likey!
:^>
It’s a terrible dilemma. I have friends scattered around the country and I try to point them to the Catholic faith. I first look up TLM parishes in the area. If I strike out there I look for a parish where the TLM is prayed.
Regardless, call the priest or RCIA director and frankly, spill the beans. I just tell them what I’m looking for. I’m not cagey at all. Face it, if you don’t want your friend to go there, it is likely the priest doesn’t want your friend, either. I tell them I believe the teachings of the Catholic faith before Vatican 2 and want to know if they affirm the perennial Magesterium without hesitation. I ask about what they think of Vatican 2. Ask specifically about artificial contraception for sure. Yeah, it is a litmus test. The responses will give you plenty to go on vis a vis whether it is a Catholic Church you are potentially sending your friend or family member to or whether it is a felt-banner-hanging, communist-sympathizing, kumbaya-singing, Luthero-Masonic congregation.
Their are good priests and there are good RCIA programs, but there is no guarantee that you will find one unless you look, or find a trustworthy persons to guide you to either or both. Pray for the catechumens, their sponsors and their instructors, at this point God’s Grace might be the only true guarantee for all of us.
My wife and I were in RCIA when Bergoglio was elected. We entered the Church that Easter. My wife has commented a number of times that were we to have been in RCIA during this pontificate, she doesn’t think should could have gone through with it.
I hesitate to say it because it sounds hokie and made up, but it is the truth. When our priest announced Bergoglio’s name, I sensed an overwhelming and dark, ominous “spirit” descend on me. Best way I know how to describe it is like a wet blanket. I felt it in my chest like a dead weight. I actually almost got cold feet as far as proceeding onward with RCIA. And this in spite of the tremendously positive experience we otherwise had in RCIA. I have no reason for this. None of the standard “reasons” explain it; I have no prejudice against Latins {our wonderful Priest himself was a Mexican}, I had no knowledge of Bergoglio before. His being a Jesuit was a bit of a concern, but certainly didn’t explain the weight that descended on me that day.
Needless to say we went through with it and led our adult kids to the Church as well. I even staunchly defended the man until I could simply no longer do it.
My heart breaks for the Catholic faith, for my friends and family who are Protestants who have no respect for the Catholic faith, its ordained or even its faithful, for the “lostness” I see everywhere in the Catholic faith today, among old faithful, new converts, Priests, Bishops, everybody seems like they are staggering around in confusion, even those who have strong and clear faith and have not budged in the hold of doctrine are still impacted by the chaos that exists. On the surface things may seem OK but address the state of the Church and the cloud immediately hovers over the conversation.
Through it all I have come to love more and more the teaching of the Church and I have been so blessed to have a FSSP parish in which to worship. I thank God for the FSSP. But the condition of the Church today is obviously grave and in truth, I cannot say that I see a human solution to the problems we face. It must be decidedly and clearly divine in origin. Indeed, I see things getting far worse. I hold to the hope and faith that God will use this time for His purposes and in His will, but I confess there are often times I simply do not see with my limited mind’s eye how the Church can be redirected back on the path to holiness, piety and truth.
Much work goes into this site to bring us updates that may not otherwise be seen. In charity, and for our own sake, we should refrain from bashing the clergy and the Pope, and lose the good of this work. Let us follow King David who did not want to harm God’s anointed. Are we not behaving as Pharisees in some way? Pope Francis does have a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin. If we too profess a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, should we be more generous?
Pope Francis says he has a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
Indeed! He “says”. As he many things says. Too many. And even terrible things…
See here the official logo of his planned visitation to Fatima. Is this what we can call ‘devoted’?
I don’t think so. Where is Blessed Virgin? It’s just once mentioned bellow, and than just and only as ‘Maria’. Nothing more.
See the image of the Holy Rosary! It looks like the Rosary belongs to him, and not to Mother of God, Blessed Virgin Mary.
There are dozens of such ‘small’ things, that people don’t really see, because they don’t pay attention…
http://hr.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/02/14/objavljen_logo_papina_pohoda_fatimi,_12_i_13_svibnja/1292532
From only the logo, I see it is really all about him, as per usual.
I cannot read the article, but sadly the logo is quite secular.
I continue to pray for his conversion. it is really though between him and our Lord now.
Did you ever heard him saying about ‘God’s failure’?!
Watch and hear him here (in that video of romereports) in his own clearly and loudly words.
The translator was speechless for a year,… before he could say THAT in English!
https://churchpop.com/2015/12/03/the-two-things-pope-francis-carries-everywhere-in-his-pockets/
I try to avoid anything he says anymore.
He is a very angry man, the poor soul. His anger is eating him up and he projects this anger towards God onto to humanity, in my opinion.
And this is most frightening to me.
With the correct formed opinion, that could be maybe a best thing what we can do. For a while.
However, we all are called to defend the TRUTH, and we all are called to help fellow human beings so they can recognize and distinguish the TRUTH from the LIES.
That is everything but easy or fun, but we are CATHOLICS.
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.”
S. Paulus (to apostle Timothy)
Yes. I am resolute in these things.
There is no other choice.
Exactly.
It’s not like we don’t have an image of Our Lady of Fatima—you know, the actual statue—that could have been used instead. But no, “Papa Franciso” gives us his name over Our Lady’s.
The Most Humblest and Mercifulest Pope Evah!™ strikes again.
I have often thought about King David for the exact reasons you say, but King David refused to harm God’s anointed. He did not shy away from asking why God’s anointed wanted to harm HIM.
I think you are right in some ways, but I for myself cannot stand by and ignore the destruction of faith and morals that this man Bergoglio is AT THE VERY LEAST allowing under his pontificate.
As for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, I will reserve judgment. After all, “who am I to judge” and “the Pope judges all, no one may judge the Pope”…
2 Thessalonians 2:1-17.
Especially verses 14-17.
I admire the charitable tone of your post but to allow members of the clergy up to and including the pope to continue to commit innumerable abuses (there’s no other word for it) of all different sorts and refrain from ‘shining a light’ (to use Steve’s own phrase) on those abuses is, I believe, a dereliction of the duty that every catholic has to defend the Faith and condemn grievous error.
I’m afraid I must also admit to actually laughing out loud when I read your penultimate sentence about the pope’s devotion to Our Lady. Even if my Marian devotion was little more than lukewarm, I still don’t think I would have allowed a secular/offensive/sacrilegious (choose your adjective) son et lumière show to be projected onto the facade of St. Peters on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
THANK YOU!!
That event was the moment, I knew for certain that my suspicions were now validated. And it was a very awful feeling, based on observation and fact.
Pope St Felix III “Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men—when we can do it—is no less a sin than to encourage them.”
Francis does (i.e., video presentation) American Football Superbowls too. You know, where Lady Gaga performs a dazzling occult show/ ritual (lowered into a pentagram on the stage) and where Beyonce prances about half-naked in the dress of an African goddess. Awesome, don’t you think.
In the interests of full disclosure, I did not watch any of this and I will not watch any of this. I am relying upon others’ descriptions of the events that transpired during the game/ show.
I am heeding the Lords words to come away and to not be a partaker of these evils. But, “who am I to judge, Jorge” has no problem associating himself with any of that in the interest of reaching out to sinners. (Of course, Francis would associate himself with sinners just as Christ himself did.)
If the Pope is merely being bad in action, we can just say let us pray for him.
But he is so much worse for teaching false doctrine. So we must counter that and expose the evil of his teaching.
The unfortunate thing is that there is so much to bash about the Pope precisely because he is Pope.
If you had a teenager who was falling in with the wrong crowd … the kids he wanted to hang with were into drugs and into the occult … what would your response be? (Don’t want to say anything bad about his friends?) Maybe one of the kids in the wrong crowd was a preacher’s son … (His father is a pastor?)
“Touch not my anointed” … meant to not physically harm/ not physically kill … I don’t think any of us are advocating putting poison in the communion chalice or hiring an assassin.
Shall we condone and approve what is wrong and what is in error by our silence and indifference? Maybe we should organize a million Catholics march on the Vatican with signs and handbills or make some you- tube videos calling out Francis’ errors or put up a bunch of posters in the public streets of Rome?
Is speaking the truth now “bashing the clergy”? How many soul will be led astray by false mercy and by pastoral accompaniment? Are we kind and generous to those who will perish because of scandal?
I’ve read just the title of this article for now, and I must to finished it, as I’ve used this very same quote a few days ago elsewhere:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
(John 6, 68b-70)
I have heard the same. One in fact who became Catholic under Benedict is now thinking of leaving.
But like I’ve always said, there is only one Church that Christ established. As terrible as the shepherds are (and not all are) it is still Christ’s Church. Thanks to her 2000 year magisterial teaching, we can still follow Christ despite His Vicar and supposed Shepherds. He has made provision for this eventuality.
I became Catholic under Benedict. When I read this in Skojec’s opening paragraph “I’ve heard from two separate people who said that if they were in RCIA today, instead of during Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, they’re not sure they would have gone through with it” I wholeheartedly agreed, but wanted to add more
Although I was in RCIA under Benedict, that alone was such a joke and so watered down that I fail to see how anyone “goes through with it” based on RCIA alone. RCIA was merely a formality I had to endure to finally cross the finish line. I had read and read and read for years prior to that (mainly Ratzinger and St. JPII) and cannot imagine that RCIA alone (at least in my experience) could convert anyone.
Having said that, I cannot imagine how horrible and watered down it is today under the bizarre Bergoglio.
I think I would be asking the question, “What difference does it make if I become Catholic if we are all Protestant now?” If conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism is discouraged in the name of ecumenicism …
… If two Sacraments are a matter of discernment and of private conscience … If One Commandment is a matter of discernment and of private conscience … why not all of them? Morality is now whatever we want it to be.
It is indeed very difficult to remain in an organization when those who run the thing don’t even seem to believe in it.
It’s wonderful then that the Church is not merely an organization but the Body of Christ.
Agree…and the Body of Christ is more than just those who are members of the Institutional Church on Earth – the Church Militant. The Body of Christ which includes the Church Triumphant (those in Heaven), and the Church Suffering (those in Purgatory) has an enormous amount of members, of which the Lord is the Head.
We are a part of that “organization” which cannot help but weather all the storms and emerge victorious. No way am I jumping ship – pardon the mixed metaphors.
But our Church is not an organization. It is a supernatural gift, given to us by our Lord.
Many years ago, i had the same thoughts as you, and I would bet a good day’s wage,that many here on this site have as well.
It is not ‘their’ Church, even though they think it is. It is Christ’s Church and we have been given a very special grace to stay with Her, during this most difficult time.
Rest your sights ‘Above’.
We are all suffering spiritually under this Pontificate. This is the time where Saints are made. We will suffer through this and follow our Lord!! Colossians 1:24
…
“…when the very papacy itself has fallen into the hands of a man under the sway of The Enemy”
This is how you describe the Holy Father??
Yes, as a matter of fact, the description fits perfectly.
If the brown shoe fits…
Amen! But I thought they were black? ~8^>
I sincerely believe Pope Francis is in need of great prayer. His soul is in grave danger.
And I pray for His conversion.
It is such a pitiful moment for him and for our Church.
I am off to the Orthodox. The post-Vatican ll Catholic Church is not the same entity as that Catholic Church which existed prior to 1965. They are completely alien entities.
I am 32 years old, born, baptised, confirmed, and married in the modern Roman Catholic Church. I’m not a sedevacantist, I’m not some bitter old fogey. I just see the realities.
I am not out to convert people. I admire you traditional Catholics. You are violently outnumbered, you represent less than 1% of the Church. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
Outnumbered? How many do you think there were in the Upper Room? The Orthodox Church is not the way. It’s quitting. Stay and fight. We need you.
Please!
Sorry, I just don’t believe it is the same Catholic Church. Also, in the Upper Room, did Christ malign and persecute His own disciples?
No Rob, of course he didn’t. But PF isn’t Christ. He’s his representative. He appears to be doing a lousy job but he isn’t Christ. Not even close. He will pass. All this will pass. We need to stand firm. To pray like there’s no tomorrow (indeed, for us there might not be) watch and wait. Stay true. Our Lady of Good Success said of these times “Know that when you see these things, my time has come”. At Fatima “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Help it to happen sooner. Stay and fight. I’ll remember you in my rosary and at Holy Mass tomorrow (I’m lucky, it’s Latin). God speed.
Got news for you. They’re a bigger mess than the Catholics!
Let me know how many Orthodox parishes allow pagan worship inside the sanctuaries. How many have active anti-chastity pro sodomy groups in operation. List is endless. The Catholic Church in no place to criticize others.
Got no time to treat with the cowardly who run away and leave The Bride of Christ to the wolves without fighting to defend Her.
Good luck in your new church. Lot of the Orthodox hanging out with this Protestant Pope.
Your Pope and most of your clergy don’t even believe it is necessary to be Catholic for salvation. If the Pope doesn’t believe, why should I listen to others?
I’m not here to debate. It’s tragic that the Catholic Church died after 1965. God bless you all. Tuning out.
Do you think the gates of hell prevailed against the Catholic Church or that the Orthodox Church is the Church Christ founded?
…
What did God accomplish with Gideon and 300 men? What did God accomplish with a young boy, a few flat stones and a slingshot? What did God accomplish with twelve men who literally turned the world upside down? If you read the Old and New Testaments, you will find an entire cloud of faithful witnesses.
I don’t know about the God you believe in, but the God I know and trust and love and worship likes those kind of odds (1% to 99%). Shall we place a bet? I wish you luck betting against God.
ONE person alone with God is a Majority. BTW you do understand Remnant??
I see the attraction from a human standpoint, for sure, but I strongly suspect you’ll be back!
We may be 1%, but we are 1% of the Church.
You are about to enter 0% of nothing.
…
That’s correct. Tho in hyperbolic terms.
Hey, trust me, as a convert myself, I understand both your frustration and to a degree, your attraction to the Orthodox faith. I get it.
Holy Mother Church is definitely beat up and lying in the ditch.
Many are walking by, shooting a glance to see what the groaning is about and then hurrying up to get past the ugly scene as they have a schedule to keep to get to their popular places of worship in evangelicalism and to some degree, Orthodoxy.
There is no question the Catholic Church needs courageous men at this time in history and we will for sure lose those who lack the patience and the guts to dig in and hold the faith.
Schismatics always have “Golden Ages” and always have. Witness the Golden Age of Islam, another schismatic and heretical group. Why, it could be said to still be going on! Ditto the various iterations of Protestantism.
God didn’t need the whole army of Gideon to accomplish His work. He didn’t need the whole army of Israel to accomplish His work. He sent home the one’s that lapped like dogs and the newly married and those that didn’t have the courage for the fight. And so in truth, He doesn’t need you or me to accomplish His work. But He has offered us the opportunity to join Him and to prove our faith.
If you want the Truth, go where it is, even if you have to fight to find and protect it. You will not find that in Orthodoxy where given time you will no doubt find that it, too, has its problems. I’ll take the whole of truth with problems over partials truths with problems any day.
I do wish you well, and remember, when you get tired of Orthodoxy, the Catholic faith will be waiting for you, and with your past experience, you will no doubt be an even greater asset to the Church.
I deleted my comment. After a lot of prayer and struggle, I’ve come to my senses. You were right.
Thanks Rob. 🙂
@ Rob Portland: we are more than 1%; as Marc Alcan below says, we are members of the Body of Christ. See my reply to him, regarding the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering,- and us who are living, comprise the Church Militant. That is a huge number, over the centuries. Please don’t even consider leaving the Church Militant. …there are many devout Catholics who are ‘not Traditional’ and who are truly scandalized by this Pope… but would never consider leaving.
All this drama because Pope Francis wants to go the way of the Eastern Orthodox regarding Communion for certain individuals in post-divorce marriage? The majority didn’t have full knowledge (poor catechetical training) or complete consent (pressure, psychological factors, etc), and now that their life is built around this new union, we say keep it sex-free for the rest of your life. Put yourself in their shoes.
So then, most marriages aren’t valid? And the sacrament of marriage really isn’t a sacrament, but instead it is an ideal or a goal to strive for — but that few truly achieve? Are you planning to tell Christ that he was wrong? Or do you think Francis will be doing that himself?
If anyone calls themselves a Christian and hasn’t read Scripture enough to know to know and believe one of the central commands of Christ ie…
Douay-Rheims Bible
“He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself”,
but instead loves sex more than the command of the Lord then yea i wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.
The Pope’s preferred interpretation of what he himself wrote in Amoris Laetitia is not even Orthodox; it’s Protestant. The Orthodox do not allow Communion to people who engage in “discernment” to in effect rationalize their way out of responsibility for sin, but only to those who have submitted to the discipline of their Church, have obtained a decree that their first marriage is irretrievably destroyed, have confessed their part in the sin the caused such destruction, have performed the prescribed penances, and have obtained the blessing of their Church to go forward in a new quasi-married relationship. (They would, of course, want to put these things a little differently than I have; I’m still a Catholic looking in from the outside.) From what I have read, Orthodox commentators are aghast at our Church’s allowing Communion to those who disdain any admission of sin and refuse to do penance and reform their lives. We have, at best, an Anglican Pope, not an Orthodox one, and, I’m sorry to add, not a Catholic one.
As with so many issues, a maintenance of the Church’s ancient teaching in one generation would largely solve it for future generations. But alas, such “rigidity” is not in concert with the preferred Protestant antinomianism of the current “Catholic” culture.
And thus, we will not only mislead the current generation, but confound the next.
I have one genuine question: What are you all going to do whan Francis revokes SP? He already announced that the “reform of the reform” is dead.
I am not a part of an SSPX or a FSSP parish. I am not a sedevacantist and I have attended exactly one Latin high form mass in my entire Catholic life. (It was a special 800 anniversary celebration for the Dominican order.) There is major problem when Catholics who have only known the new mass are realizing that something is seriously awry and amiss within the Church. All of that being said …
When it becomes clear that the mass has become a sacrilege and a desecration because of what Francis has done and is doing and when it becomes clear that a great number of pastors have followed in these errors, I will try to find a faithful priest and faithful group of laity who hold to the true Catholic faith and who are meeting in the wilderness (or dessert). The modern-day version may be someone’s basement.
If I cannot find that, then I will pray the act of contrition, the creed, the Lord’s prayer, the scripture readings for the day, the rosary and do whatever else can be done apart from having a priest. I will long for the Eucharist, but I will know that it isn’t possible. As for confession, I will confess my sins and I will ask my Lord for the gift of perfect contrition.
When the abomination of desolation has come, I will flee. And I will pray, pray, pray for guidance and direction as to what to do, where to go and how to best respond.
I wrote a more substantial answer but somehow lost it in cyberspace. Suffice it to say, what I will do is go into the catacombs, into the wilderness, into the dessert as the early Church did when facing persecution and again when the Arian Heresy arose. Francis will have the buildings with its stained glass and stunning architecture and the faithful will have the actual faith and teachings of Christ’s Church.
I recall a line I read in Aquinas’s Summa Theologica once, to the effect that if one rejects a single proposition of the deposit of faith, then one doesn’t have faith, but merely opinion.
This is so because one has faith by an assent to the authority of the One who reveals, God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. If you reject a single element of the faith, then your assent to the other elements is simply because your personal opinion happens to agree with them at the time.
Because PF rejects one or more of the elements of the deposit of faith, he is, along with many, many very highly placed clergy, simply faithless. He is an apostate. He actually may be an infidel (because an apostate at one time had faith and later rejected it, and I’m uncertain if PF ever had faith).
I just started RCIA. Doesn’t matter who is the pope to me, what draws me to Catholicism is the fact that it’s true.
This is a great testimony, and one I as a convert can relate to tho I confess I get too wound up with the Pope at times.
Sam, you are headed in the right direction.
It’s true.
RodH/RTHEVR
Sam, welcome. I am glad you are here. And I am glad you are in RCIA. You have answered rightly and you will be blessed because of it. You will be rewarded, just as Peter was rewarded when he answered correctly when the Lord asked his disciples, but who do you say that I am. Why am I Catholic?
Because Catholicism is true.
Because the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ himself established.
Because to whom shall we go? (the title of this article)
You are reading here of our collective angst as Catholic faithful to a “situation” within the papacy and within the Church that should not be happening. Sooner or later the situation will be straightened out — either by the present day Cardinals, by a church council of the future, or by Our Lord and Our Lady. Welcome.
Which is why we can know through both Faith and reason that a pope who condones same-sex sexual relations as long as they are not called marriage, and do not involve children, is an invalid pope, who obviously cannot thus be infallible in regards to our Catholic Faith and morals.
No doubt, we are witnessing an an attempt by a very powerful lobby to change the teaching regarding sexual morality. As the veil is being lifted, the apostates are being exposed.
Sifting of the Church.
Every now and then the flour needs to be sifted.
Get’s rid of the cockroaches that sneak into the bag.
To whom should we go?
Indeed. It is very similar to the question a great many of us had been asking about the fate of the U.S. Where should we go?
Shall we run to Canada? Can we be free there? How about Australia? Great Britain? Switzerland? Ireland? Maybe an expat living in South America somewhere?
Should freedom and WesternCiv fall and fail here, there is no where to run to, no where to hide, no where to retreat to safety. We would be fleeing from danger and tyranny into danger and tyranny, as the city on the hill ceases to be a beacon.
No, there is no safety elsewhere. There is no retreat. We either win here, or we lose here, but here is where the battle will take place, the fate of the world decided, and souls lost or saved.
This battle is for the heart and soul of the church. This one is for all the marbles. It has been, and continues to be, fought elsewhere as well, but it is here that it shall ultimately be decided.
This fight is not going to be fun. It shall not be over quickly. There will be casualties, and you may be called on to perform duties that you are not trained for, have no experience in, and have very little chance at being successful. Fear not!
You may find it comforting to know that you are not the first to be placed in this situation. Similar battles have taken place before, fought by your ancestors, and won by your ancestors. Your history exists because they won their battles. It is now our turn. For this fight, this time, this place, were you born. You have been called, and our Lord has granted to you gifts of talents to be used in this time and place. See that you unleash them well.
Prepare to take up your cross! Under that sign shall you conquer! The prayers of all free men go with us. I will see you on the beach!
Our Church stands! Our Lord stands! Holy is His Name!