Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 12:07am

Much to the Chagrin of the Powers that be, the Tide is Further Turning Toward Catholicism Thanks to Traditional Minded Anglicans

The dream of orthodox minded Catholics and Anglican liberals came true on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 as the Vatican announced that traditional minded Anglicans, clergy included, would be welcomed into the Catholic Church with their own Anglican style rite (though not exactly a rite of their own.) The promise Jesus made that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church is now once again being made manifest for those who chose to recognize it (Matthew 16:16-20.) What King Henry VIII started Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have salvaged. The English and their former empire (if they wish) can return home again.

Since many conservatives may now leave, religious liberals too have high hopes as the worldwide Anglican Communion can possibly fulfill their wish of unbridled liberalism. However, it is becoming plain to see that it is for all intents and purposes the liberal’s wish is now turning into a death wish.  The irony of reading statements by traditional Anglicans thanking God for Pope Benedict’s statement coupled by liberal Catholic posters in the dissident National Catholic Reporter asking to be saved from Rome spoke volumes. Even with fawning mainstream media coverage, every liberal Protestant denomination has seen their numbers plummet in recent years, some as much as 50%, while Catholicism, with all the negative banner headlines, continues to grow around the world.

The Archbishop of Canterbury seems a truly tragic figure cut from a Shakespearean play trying to hold together what a murderous king wrought. It couldn’t be done and so we may now see the implosion of the Anglican Communion, especially in the only region that had any vibrancy, Africa. The African and Asian continents have long been the hope of the One True Church. Fortunately, the embers of truth can also be seen in North & South American seminaries and even in Europe, where the Faith had seemed all but dead.

The last four decades have seen liberal Christianity reach out to every sort of relativistic idea, whim and group. The western intellgentsia praised these efforts even as liberal churches emptied of their adherents.  The Catholic Church reached out as well but a pivotal moment occurred in 1968 when Pope Paul VI published his famous encyclical on life, Humanae Vitae. The Church would not cross the same line that Anglicanism crossed in 1930. As the barricades in Paris burned, the liberal elites predicted the same revolutionary fervor would force the Catholic Church to acquiesce much as the western world had to the ideas fermented by those manning the barricades of Paris. Yet, the Church held the line.

Even though liturgical folly would follow and a dark cloud of gloom would hang over the Church until the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, his leadership would bring the eventual Springtime of Evangelization and a longing for truth. The subsequent pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI would continue the springtime, bringing the Reform of the Reform assisting seminaries and motherhouses that opened themselves up to liturgical reform, devotions and the truth of Mother Church’s teachings. Because of these two pontificates, shoots and blossoms of hope and truth were noticeably visible within the Catholic Church.

Two examples illustrate this point that I made in my 2006 book, The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism. The Diocese of Rochester, which is considered to be one of the most liberal in America, had a Catholic population of 342,000. In 2006 they had a total of six seminarians studying for the priesthood. The Archdiocese of Omaha had a Catholic population of 230,000 with 30 seminarians. In Nebraska, the Diocese of Lincoln (run by perhaps the most conservative ordinary in America, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz) had a population of 89,236 Catholics with 24 in their local seminary and 10 in other seminaries. Put another way, while Lincoln and Omaha did not have as many Catholics as Rochester, these two dioceses had sixty-four men studying for the priesthood while Rochester had only six men.

Liberal Christianity would see their promise and hope disintegrate as an aging clergy turned bitter toward the very young they once claimed as their own a few decades earlier. The young who now attend Mass regularly, are more apt to believe the Church’s teachings and are more pro life in their orientation than their parents and grandparents, a fact that caused consternation with the aging dissidents. During the 1970s and early 1980s when famed dissident theologian Father Hans Kung, boasted that liberals controlled an overwhelming majority of seminaries and chanceries, little did he know that his glee would turn to anger by the time his onetime university teaching colleague, then Father Joseph Ratzinger, would become Pope Benedict XVI.  Censured by the Vatican for his heretical ideas which were increasingly falling on deaf ears, Kung could only long for the days of dissent in Tubingen.

In the heyday of 1960s liberalism, Kung would tool around the narrow streets of the German university town of Tubingen in his Porsche leaving the poor bicycling Father Ratzinger in the dust. Some forty years later, the Tortoise of Truth had passed the Hare of Relativism.  Because of this glorious event, the Wrecks of Walsingham can sing of liberation, Saint Thomas More and the English Martyrs are vindicated. The faithful of England can come home again; the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 is almost complete. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been said to be despondent over her church, her heir (Prince Charles) has announced that he doesn’t believe in the title Defender of the Faith.

Perhaps the future King of England will be relieved of this meddlesome title and realize that crossing the Tiber is his country’s best hope.  Though the Catholic faithful may be accused of triumphalism, it is not gloating which causes them glee, but the humility of seeking what Christ wills for His Church, salvation. There is a hope that others may join the faithful on the path that Christ made manifest through His suffering, dying and rising and in the teachings of a growing Church He started 2,000 years ago. The authority that Christ left to those who would guard these sacred truths is now being listened to, respected and followed even amidst a torrent of negative verbal barbs thrown by powers and principalities that have always been rebellious. Against this improbable backdrop, the tide is still turning.

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Tito Edwards
Tuesday, October 20, AD 2009 10:51pm

Dave,

Perhaps the future King of England will be relieved of this meddlesome title and realize that crossing the Tiber is his country’s best hope.

Too many quotes to pull from a great article.

King Henry VIII created this mess so as to satisfy his lust.

We can see the many problems in todays society as we see our nation succumb to sex on demand. Where sex becomes our identity and all vices turned to virtue.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Tuesday, October 20, AD 2009 11:27pm

“King Henry VIII created this mess so as to satisfy his lust.”

Actually, it was more about his desire for a legitimate male heir than anything else — he could “satisfy his lust” with any of his numerous mistresses whenever he pleased, but only a properly married wife and queen could give him an heir, which Catherine of Aragon was not able to do. In other words, it was more about his “right” to have exactly the kind of child he wanted (male) by any means necessary … hmmm, sound familiar?

What if Henry and Catherine had been able to accept her infertility as God’s will for them, and fully embraced their only daughter Mary, or another relative, as a potential heir; or allowed the succession to pass to another noble family, placing their trust in God to protect the nation, rather than violate the law of His Church? Maybe things would have been less stable in the short term, but a lot of grief would have been avoided in the long term.

Tito Edwards
Tuesday, October 20, AD 2009 11:56pm

Elaine,

You are correct!

And how eerily similar it is in todays dark climate of secularism.

Joel Torczon
Joel Torczon
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 12:52am

And to think the church’s detractors blast it for being so medieval when the secularists themselves seem to be eating the bitter fruits of ol’ King Henry XVIII. Kudos to Dave for a splendid article … loved the “Tortoise of Truth vs. Hare of Relativism” comment!

Coffee Catholic
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 2:18am

I became Catholic in 1998 when I was 23 and I was horrified by what I saw taking place within the Church and also outside of Holy Mother Church in society and other churches.

I could never explain my yearning for the traditional Mass and the traditional ways ~ except to say that I, a young 20-something, yearned for a GROWNUP approach to the Faith. Seriously! All of this Liberal crap is so immature and childish and even the young Catholics of ten years ago and today just can’t stomach it.

Now I’m just… shocked to the core!! I thought that this “dying” of the Christian faith was a bad thing, that this meant that Christianity was going to flicker out and pretty much die and we Christians that were left over would be a rarity.

Now I see exactly what is going on and it’s so awesome! This death of all of these Reformation protest-churches (protestant!) is opening the door wide for the regrowth of the Catholic Faith all over the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where I live, you can see how much Christianity has totally died a death ~ and I used to think, “What an spiritually sterile place I’ve come to.” But now I see that… “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest sends workers into his harvest…”

The situation is not so wretched and hopeless after all!!!!!

Don the Kiwi
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 3:23am

A great, and might I say predictable 😉 article Dave.

And I have been meaning to buy your book for ages.

MUST – BUY – DAVE’S – BOOK !!!!

God bless.

afl
afl
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 4:47am

From another era ” The shot heard around the world”. Dave, you have not lost your ability and rhetoric to bring insight and hope to those who love our Church and its tenets and traditions. Boy is the tide ever turing. Those Catholics who have espoused relativism and have tried to change the foundation of the Rock must be in total shock. God Bless and long live Benedict XVI.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 5:32am

“The last four decades have seen liberal Christianity reach out to every sort of relativistic idea, whim and group. The western intellgentsia praised these efforts even as liberal churches emptied of their adherents.”

Christians trying to change in order to satisfy agnostics and atheists is foreordained to end in spiritual death.

Mack Hall
Mack Hall
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 6:47am

Once again Dave puts everything together perfectly! I am passing this on to the young person whom I am sponsoring in RCIA.

Thanks again, Dave and commentators!

Chris Burgwald
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 7:39am

I’ll be very curious to see how the African Anglicans respond to this… they tend to be more evangelical (“low church”) than the TAC, and hence (presumably) less-likely to swim the Tiber, despite their “merely Christian” orthodoxy.

Andy
Andy
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 7:51am

Elaine,

You’re not quite correct.

Actually, it was more about his desire for a legitimate male heir than anything else — he could “satisfy his lust” with any of his numerous mistresses whenever he pleased, but only a properly married wife and queen could give him an heir, which Catherine of Aragon was not able to do. In other words, it was more about his “right” to have exactly the kind of child he wanted (male) by any means necessary … hmmm, sound familiar?

It has been noted by many that Henry’s romps with his mistresses likely caused Catherine’s inability to have a male heir. She wasn’t infertile; they simply had absurd infant mortality. What is that a symptom of? Syphilis. A sexually transmitted disease. Indeed, Henry satisfying his lust probably was at the heart of the whole thing.

Zak
Zak
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 7:51am

I think the responses of people in the US like Mims are indicative of the evangelical Anglican reaction; to paraphrase, “it’s nice they agree with us the liberal Anglicans are bad, but we’re not gonna start worshiping no pope or Mary.”

c matt
c matt
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 8:26am

Not to mention, as we know today, a male heir (or lack thereof) comes from the genes of the father, not the mother. So it was Henry’s fault he could not get a male heir.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 8:27am

Andy — you’re correct in saying Catherine wasn’t “infertile” in the strict sense; she got pregnant plenty of times, but only had one child live to adulthood, while all the rest were miscarried, stillborn, or died shortly after birth. And it’s quite probable that syphilis or some other STD contracted from Henry’s “romps with his mistresses” had something to do with it.

However, Henry and Catherine themselves had no way of knowing that, so as far as Henry’s actual intentions were concerned, it was his determination to have a legitimate male heir that was the heart of “the king’s great matter.”

Also, remember that Henry and Catherine’s one surviving child grew up to be known as “Bloody Mary” because of her counter-persecution of Protestants during her brief reign. Well, that would likely never have happened if Henry hadn’t treated her like dirt and tried to force her and her mother to give up their Catholic faith, and Mary to admit she was a “bastard,” after his marriage to Anne Boleyn. She might have been a really good queen if only she’d been treated with some respect in her younger years.

dymphna
dymphna
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 9:54am

Elaine, Catherine wasn’t infertile. She got pregnant 4 or 5 times. Henry’s proable syphilys caused sickly children.

Devin Rose
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 1:53pm

Kung would tool around the narrow streets of the Germany university town of Tubingen in his Porsche leaving the poor bicycling Father Ratzinger in the dust. Some forty years later, the Tortoise of Truth had passed the Hare of Relativism.

I laughed out loud at this–a vivid image!

e.
e.
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 5:15pm

The irony of reading statements by traditional Anglicans thanking God for Pope Benedict’s statement coupled by liberal Catholic posters in the dissident National Catholic Reporter asking to be saved from Rome spoke volumes.

Why can’t we simply do some sort of “Parish-Swap”, where we trade liberal Catholics for Conservative-minded Anglo-Catholics?

That way, we not only welcome the traditionally-minded folks into the fold, we also do away with all the rubbish that is liberal Catholicism!

Tito Edwards
Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 5:59pm

e.,

Brilliant idea!

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Wednesday, October 21, AD 2009 9:54pm

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Steve
Steve
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 6:15am

Great news, great article. We need these people who love Our Lady, love a dignified liturgy and love the Pope. They will teach our liberals and the rest of us much.

Coffee Catholic
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 2:58pm

I second e’s great idea!!

restrainedradical
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 3:14pm

I hate to be the one to rain on this parade but…

1000 conservatives join the Church: Front-page news.
1000 liberals leave the Church: Just another Monday.

If it’s numbers you want to talk about, Catholicism isn’t doing too well. Catholics are leaving the Church just as fast as Anglicans are leaving theirs. If it were its own religion, ex-Catholics would make up the 2nd largest religion in the US. In my experience, the most common response to “What religion are you?” is “I was raised Catholic but…”

I don’t think this “to hell with liberals” attitude is productive. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out with both hands to the right and to the left.

e.
e.
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 4:27pm

“There’s nothing wrong with reaching out with both hands to right and to the left.”

How about this — why don’t those conservative Anglicans just remain with their coreligionists who have embraced homosexuality, woman priests, etc.

They should, instead, reach out with both hands to those on their left and simply accept them and their beliefs, however wrong.

The same with us Roman Catholics.

We should reach out with both hands to those on the left, those who advocate abortion, those who support homosexuality, those who promote woman priests; and simply accomodate them and their beliefs, however wrong.

Did not Christ preach in Matthew 18:17 that those who dissent from the Church are to be treated, not like a heathen or a publican, but as somebody whose errant beliefs we should accomodate?

restrainedradical
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 5:00pm

“However, did you notice any breaking news when something good happens i.e. the provisions Pope Benedict made for orthodox minded Anglicans?”

Front page of the New York Times.

e,
No doctrinal changes were made to accommodate the conservative Anglicans. I’m not advocating any of the following but here are some examples of what’s possible on the orthodox left: women deacons who marry and baptize, openly gay celibate priests, married priests and bishops, a more democratic election of bishops, radical liturgical reform (rock bands, dancing, etc.), a higher bar for just war, maybe some wiggle room on contraception, pushing for liberal causes like weapon bans, torture bans, more lenient sentencing, selective conscientious objector status, gays in the military, environmental protection, universal health care, minimum wage, unionization, world courts, etc.

e.
e.
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 5:09pm

Yeah — I’ll look forward to having Mass celebrated where in it, heavy metal bands perform, various break dancing takes place, and the Communion served is actually an Oreo cookie, with Elton John serving as its chief celebrant.

Nice liberal utopia you have going there.

Personally, I’d rather have a Church with a few, but very faithful, people (as even then Cardinal Ratzinger had once envisioned) as opposed to one entertaining the numerous masses, the majority of which yield to heretical beliefs/practices.

restrainedradical
Thursday, October 22, AD 2009 8:03pm

“Even the Anglican story of this week was hardly given a mention in most newspapers, TV network or cable news channels, a very strange development when one considers the fact that some Protestant commentators called it one of the biggest developments in the religious world since the Reformation.”

Front page of the NY Times, WSJ, Washington Post, and LA Times. That’s as mainstream as you can get. If you didn’t read about it in the MSM, I suggest you find better news sources.

Judging by the web traffic, the Anglican news wasn’t very popular with readers. No surprise there. The Average Joe doesn’t care.

Tito Edwards
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 2:20am

Again I can’t believe I’m agreeing with the lower case vowel again.

Restrained Radical,

I would prefer quality over quantity any day of the week. A smaller more faithful Church would only feed my soul and bring me ever closer to reaching Heaven.

restrainedradical
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 7:28am

Why is it that only conservatives can be faithful Catholics? How do women deacons diminish the quality of the soul food you want and decreases your chances of reaching heaven?

The new apostolic constitution should teach us the opposite lesson. The one true faith can accommodate different paths. The NO doesn’t detract from the TLM. The Church can appeal to conservatives and liberals.

restrainedradical
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 9:55am

The Early Church didn’t have an Anglican Use, received Communion in the hand, probably sitting down, had Mass in the vernacular, women deacons, married clergy, and bishops elected by the laity. One can be liberal and orthodox.

The Church thrived through inculturation. Traditionalists (those who believe it should be the only way, not merely an option) arbitrarily pick some point prior to Vatican II and say “That’s were the Church must freeze.” Evangelical Protestantism thrives today despite the fact that its members are more socially conservative than Catholics, mostly because it is extremely liberal in style. Too liberal for my taste but the point is that one can be liberal and orthodox.

e.
e.
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 11:52am

Tito:

Again I can’t believe I’m agreeing with the lower case vowel again.

You demonstrate remarkable reasoning here, Taco Man! I am deeply humbled. Although, it is not I that you are actually agreeing with here; it is more so our great vicar of Christ himself who’ve taught me much.

Restrained Radical, I would prefer quality over quantity any day of the week. A smaller more faithful Church would only feed my soul and bring me ever closer to reaching Heaven.

AMEN!

It’s like that “Salt of the Earth” metaphor that then Cardinal Ratzinger had elaborated on in that same-titled book:

He envisions a largely post-Christian world in which the church will be on the defensive, smaller in numbers, but, he hopes, more coherent and committed in its faith.

Quality vs. Quantity: Personally, I believe Christ would rather have the few and the faithful as opposed to the many and the heretical.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 1:08pm

e, I sometimes wonder if Benedict might be mistaken, and we instead see the emergence of a huger, committed Catholic Church.

e.
e.
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 1:12pm

Pinky,

A Catholic Church blessed with a multitude of faithful Catholics would be a great blessing, I grant you that.

Indeed, there is nothing more I would want than sharing the authentic Christian faith with those who genuinely adhere to it.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, October 23, AD 2009 1:38pm

Restrained Rad, reading over this article and your comments, I think we’ve got a failure to communicate. I’ve seen four different things labelled “liberal Catholicism”:

1) orthodox Catholicism which illuminates a person’s politics toward compassion for the poor and needy, which Americans call liberalism

2) hope for the increased allowance of some of the newer (or very old) religious practices within the orthodox Catholic faith

3) disobedience, or permissiveness toward disobedience

4) doctrinal dissent, or permissiveness toward doctrinal dissent

You mention things that could potentially fall under all four categories. I don’t think anyone here would dispute the holiness of concern for the well-being of the poor. Liturgical development and changes in specific rules of Church discipline are fine (although I’m personally shell-shocked, and I’d like to see things left alone for a while). Breaches in Church discipline for the sake of disobedience, well, that gets into motivation, and I’m glad I don’t have to decide what falls under category 2 or 3. The last category is full-on wrong.

I think this article lumps categories 2 through 4 together.

Coffee Catholic
Sunday, October 25, AD 2009 3:36am

As far as I’m concerned, the more “Catholics” that leave the Church, the better. They’ll leave room for the truly Catholic Catholics! We don’t need the Liberals and cultrual Catholics in our ranks, holding us back and trying to control our Church so that they can justify their sins and their lifestyle choices ~ or their sheer spiritual laziness that only brings them to Mass on Christmas and Easter.

This is no rain on our parade ~ it is a cleansing of Holy Mother Church! And good riddence! Those empty spots left by lukewarms and Liberals mean we have more space for real Catholics!

Michael J. Iafrate
Sunday, October 25, AD 2009 11:02am

Why can’t we simply do some sort of “Parish-Swap”, where we trade liberal Catholics for Conservative-minded Anglo-Catholics?

That way, we not only welcome the traditionally-minded folks into the fold, we also do away with all the rubbish that is liberal Catholicism!

There is much more to being Catholic, and much more to being Anglican, than taking sides in the culture wars.

Your suggestion here shows that your real religion is culture war nonsense.

Eric Brown
Sunday, October 25, AD 2009 2:12pm

Precisely Michael. I find this “war” mentality very disconcerting. Do we really want people to “leave the Church?” Perhaps we should want them to continue in their process of conversion, as we are called to — not get out. One might gather that people who wish these things have no hope for these people — perhaps they do have it. It is surely hard to discern.

But what I cannot gather is, how is sitting around in judgment of others’ Catholicism, or lack of it, to our spiritual betterment? Have we made it through that narrow gate, or are we confident we’re going to pass through it? For the way toward destruction is wide and spacious.

Judgment comes to the hypocrites and sanctimonious just as it does to the unrighteous — and from my reading of the Gospels, more harshly. Sometimes I get the impression, because it is so incredibly hard to imagine otherwise, that the people who evince such, dare I say, a pharisaic tendency don’t offer anywhere near the number of prayers for ‘bad’ Catholics, for their conversion, and for their ultimate salvation at the mercy of God with all the sinners that has ever lived in the history of our species than the condemnations and persistent flammatory rants about these people and their spiritual and moral failings — no matter how objective they be. Does holiness not demand more of us?

It is too easy to sit around and list the spiritual and moral failures of an individual, or a categorized group. It is another thing to reach out, to try to be the difference to these people. Sometimes this requires not be stridently and coldly objective. I did not convert because people were telling my that a “gay lifestyle” was going to lead me to Hell. I converted because there was a vibrantly orthodox priest that loved me as a person, who did not see me merely as a dissident Catholic. It is so reductionist to reduce a person merely their worldview or personal struggles, no matter how much those things define them. A person is made fundamentally in the image and likeness of God — there is our starting point and dare I say, our ending point.

This has nothing to do with accomodating heterodox theological or moral views, or shifting away from orthopraxy. If I seem self-righteous, pray for me, the unbelievable sinner I am. To take one of the dissident issues very personally, I would rather be a sinner who made it through the narrow gate and a saint in heaven by the unfathomable mercy of God that struggling homosexuals can pray to (and are prayed for by), whose life may have changed theirs, before I ever sat in stridently objective judgment of “those people” who might as well leave the Church and let more orthodox people enter in a nice exchange.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Tito Edwards
Sunday, October 25, AD 2009 2:36pm

You’ve made the mistake that these people are judging.

They want to feed their souls.

The modernists in the Catholic church, some not all, want a church that cannot exist.

I completely agree about a church swap.

The modernists do more harm by leading others astray. They’ve done more harm than good.

Your comments are full of assumptions that are unwarranted.

Eric Brown
Sunday, October 25, AD 2009 2:44pm

Do they want to feed their souls? If I wasn’t aware of the fact (and maybe not an orthodox Catholic), I might not have guessed.

Moreover, I do not understand how the fact that dissenting people wishing the impossible legitimizes “swapping” them for people who would wish to enter the Church. For afterward: would they return? Would we go after them? Or would we leave them to their “liberal” ways?

I cannot see why we cannot simply invite those who wish the fullness of truth and be the Catholics we need to be to our brethren who are on the fringes of orthodoxy. Why do they need to leave? I’m not a huge fan of the “get out” mentality. I don’t think it’s reasonable.

Even if modernists do harm to the Church from within, I don’t see how those desperately insistent on orthopraxis — as good and noble the intention is — but if it is done to the point of throwing virtue out the window, I’m not convinced that some, particularly the most extreme traditionalists, do not bear culpability as well.

Tito Edwards
Sunday, October 25, AD 2009 2:56pm

Eric,

You may be describing an obscure minority.

I’m all for church swapping, but I believe it is more rhetoric than anything else.

I’ve witnessed many, many priests, even today in the archdiocese that you and I share, continue blurring the lines between the teachings of the church so that anything is permissible.

Believe me, just because Pope Benedict’s initiatives have sprung doesn’t mean that those that want to harm the church are gone, nor are they sincerely ignorant of the truth. I have had to bite my tongue often to post about these dissident priests in our archdiocese. I have decided to let Cardinal DiNardo do it quietly rather than make more of a scandal than it already is.

Yes, extreme traditionalists do bear culpability. The way they judge others without getting to know the person. They way they lack charity and gossip about others behind their backs. Especially how snobby they can be. I have friends who are extreme traditionalists and I see how uncharitable their behavior can be. And I do call them out on it all of the time.

As far as church swapping, it represents my sentiments of how disgusted I am at both priests and laypeople that continue to teach, proselytize, and live worldly lives and values openly and without a sense of wrong that gets my gander. Believe me there are more than 10 times those type of people than there are extreme traditionalists.

Believe me, they will leave (not all, some or maybe many) under their own recognizance before we ask them to leave (which no one has asked them to, but have only suggested on websites such as ours). Once they learn more of what it means to be a Catholic than to be of the world.

e.
e.
Monday, October 26, AD 2009 1:30pm

Has Eric and Michael Iafrate ever even consulted Scripture itself and look towards why Jesus Himself said that those who dissent from Church teaching (Mt 18:17) are to be treated as a heathen or publican?

How many heretics in the early church won the hearts of innocent Christians simply because they were welcomed and embraced by those in the Church herself, which seemed to legitimize them and their heretical beliefs?

An example of this is to be found within the Arian heresy which insinuated itself through countless ranks of the flock simply because of this error.

Such a case is to be found today where many countless Catholics have succumbed to the Protestant notion that there is no such thing as the ‘Real Presence’, as traditionally defined by the Church, and that the Eucharist is nothing more than merely a symbol.

Those naive continue to fall into such heresy because of how Catholics like Eric and Michael Iafrate would rather ’embrace’ such Catholics instead of subscribing to the same treatment of them as Jesus Himself had prescribed.

It is no wonder why heresies such as this continues to gain ground amongst the majority of Catholics today within the Church but errors such as ‘abortion is a right, not an act of murder’ is likewise adopted and embraced not only by those who truly believe in such a horrendous notion as this but also by the innocent who unwittingly accept such an error because errant Catholics like their CCD teachers tell them it is so.

Joel Torczon
Joel Torczon
Wednesday, October 28, AD 2009 6:02pm

Wow, I checked back and found quite the debate going on. All I can say is this in response to the statement, “The one true faith can accommodate different paths”: So long as they don’t bear the taint of dissent. It doesn’t take much to smell out a rat.

e.
e.
Wednesday, October 28, AD 2009 6:07pm

“So long as they don’t bear the taint of dissent. It doesn’t take much to smell out a rat.”

The problem being that there are those Catholics who would gladly accomodate the rats, even if innocent members of the church itself suffers that black plague of heresy which would tragically claim the very lives of many of the Faithful.

Tito Edwards
Wednesday, October 28, AD 2009 8:54pm

e.,

So e., when are you going to add a pic to your avatar?

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Saturday, October 31, AD 2009 5:14pm

[…] Much to the Chagrin of the Powers that be, the Tide is Further Toward Catholicism Thanks to Traditio… by Dave Hartline on October 20, 2009 A.D. (I know that this article came in year two, but he gets a […]

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Thursday, December 3, AD 2009 10:57am

[…] Reform of the Reform by liberalizing access to the Latin Mass and his ecumenical efforts of reuniting Anglicans to Holy Mother Church.  It was inevitable that the bishops would rise in defense of the faith here […]

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