Now, here
are words – a frightful pronouncement, really – so terribly
apropos of our times. They are worth repeating for the sake of
emphasis:
"Anyone who is so
"progressive" as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ, does
not have God;
whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son."
These words should be
emblazoned over the doorway leading to every
"contemporary" theology department, every
religion class in every nominally Catholic college,
every archway to every Seminary, above the lintels to
every Chancery, every Rectory, every
self-absorbed Parish Council chamber – really, they should be
etched into the hearts and minds of every Catholic who is
susceptible to the most profane, absurd, inane and irrelevant
teaching palmed off to the faithful as authentic doctrine of the
Catholic Church.
Perhaps you have forgotten, but ours is a mandate to be
faithful ... not a mantra to be "progressive" at the cost of
reason, faith, and truth.
Who has not heard, in
stupefaction, in growing astonishment, virtually every
authentic teaching of the Church for 2000 years arrogantly
dismissed with a learned air, superior to faith, by those to whom it
has been entrusted – and from which, to the
vapid applause of the world, they have defected, opting for the
laurels (as well as the money ...) of men instead of the glory of
God?
Who has not suffered
this agony?
Who has not suffered
this second Crucifixion at the hands of men and women who, not
contented with throwing the Word of God back into God's Face,
programmatically throw it back into our face; demanding adherence,
demanding acceptance, demanding credence, demanding "progress" that
has somehow moved beyond the immutable truths given us by Truth
Himself; truths that stand, as it were, in obsolescence before the
"enlightened mind" of "modern" man – christened "progressive", for
whom dogma is not just anathema, but is tautologous with
"intolerance".
Having lost their own
belief, they invite us, even coerce us, to disbelief. Having lost
obedience to God, they require the disobedience of men. Having
become a law unto themselves, they have outlawed the law of God.
Finding this law intolerable, they create a god in their own image
and promulgate this strange god's laws ... that happen to coincide
with their own interests.
In a sentence,
"They do not have God."
It starts at the top and
percolates down, leaching into the minds of the little ones through
either the pride, the arrogance or the indifference of their
teachers: bishops, priests, religious functionaries, parents ...
"who do not remain in the teaching of the Christ."
Jesus spoke sternly and
very clearly about such teachers:
"whosoever shall
scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he
were cast into the sea" (Mark 9.41)
Take a deep breath.