Friday, March 29, AD 2024 4:09am

PopeWatch: Anti-Catholic

 

Rod Dreher who left the Church years ago for Orthodoxy appears to have a clearer view of what it means to be a Catholic than more than a few of our Bishops:

 

“In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness.  And tenderness leads to the gas chamber,” said Flannery O’Connor. Her point was that sentimentality cannot restrain the darker forces in human nature. Which brings us to the Catholic bishops of eastern Canada.

They recently published a pastoral document indicating how, in their opinion, Catholics who commit suicide voluntarily, through doctor-assisted euthanasia (which is now legal there), should be treated by the Church. The full document is downloadable here. It is a masterpiece of Francis-speak. The document can be summed up like this: “Yes, euthanasia is strictly forbidden by the Catholic Church, but we know that some people are going to choose it anyway, so we intend to offer them all the sacraments to help them along the way, because who are we to judge?”

 

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See what they’re doing there? Invoking the compassion of Jesus and the counsel of humility and mercy of Pope Francis to lay the “who-am-I-to-judge” groundwork. But wait, doesn’t the Catholic Church teach that suicide is a grave moral wrong? The bishops knew you would say that:

Especially within the context of the Church’s teaching on suicide, this pastoral approach of accompaniment is extremely important in our contact with, and ministry to, those who are suffering intensely and who are considering asking for medical assistance in dying. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches us that God is the sovereign Master of life. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of (CCC, no. 2280). The Catechism teaches that suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate one’s life (CCC, no. 2281). However, the Catechism also notes that “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide” (CCC, no. 2282). Such circumstances can sometimes lead persons to so grave a feeling of desperation and hopelessness that they can no longer see the value in continuing to live, this desperation and hopelessness diminishing their responsibility for their actions. Only attentive pastoral accompaniment can bring us to an understanding of the circumstances that could lead a person to consider medical assistance in dying.

This is diabolical. They’re saying, “Yes, we know, the church says it’s wrong, but in certain instances, it can be right, because circumstances may “diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” What this teaching of the Church intends to do is to encourage hope for the soul of the suicide, that God may not hold him responsible for the great sin he has committed — a sin from which there can be no repentance. It does not justify euthanasia. But, having made a hole big enough to pilot a supertanker through, the Canadian bishops deliver the real goods:

 

Go here to read the rest.  What these Bishops are preaching is not Catholicism but Anti-Catholicism.  In the name of mercy for sinners they in effect negate Church teaching and make the Church an accomplice in evil.  This is the core of what Pope Francis is attempting to do to change Catholicism, may God forgive him, and what every faithful Catholic has a duty, not a right but a duty, to fight.

 

 

 

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DonL
DonL
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 4:26am

There is but one comment that comes to my simple mind….”Gasp!”

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 4:52am

This occurs because these clerics do not believe in the existence of hell, or if they believe in its existence, then like Bp. Robert Barron here in the US, they do not believe that anyone is going there.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 4:58am

Agian, under this pontificate, we will be known as the Church Ambiguous. Relativism Rules with Frankie. What a shame that many Bishop’s are catching the virus and gladly passing it along.

Pray hard!

David Spaulding
David Spaulding
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 7:10am

I was educated by IHMs through 12th grade and I was taught that convincing someone that something inherently wrong is actually OK transfers the guilt to ourselves.

In High School, the example was always “let us say you convince a girl that sleeping with you before marriage is not actually wrong because you are in love; if she believes you and accepts that your analysis makes it not a sin, it remains a sin and you have adopted it, EVEN IF you believe it yourself.”

Two questions:

1) This strikes me as correct but I haven’t thought about it in a long time so, is it?
2) If it is correct, have the Bishops taken on their own heads the sins of those who kill themselves, believing that, if their bishop says it is so, it is so?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 7:12am

Jesus, told us to “go forth and sin no more.” The Theological Virtues are Faith, Hope and Love. The secular virtues are fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance. The Spiritual Works of Mercy include “admonish the sinners.” Here one loves one’s neighbor and fears that for her/his sins, he/she may go to Hell.
.
I seriously am working on my “Charity.” I need to convert myself to accept the idea that anybody that voted for Crooked Hillary could possibly get into Heaven.

Hmmmmm
Hmmmmm
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 7:13am

Erastians– we are being led by a league of cowardly erastians!

David
David
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 7:28am

Damm It. It’s all about contraception. The virus has spread to the top again in philosophies and attended diseases: circumstantial ethics, an ignoring of teachings in practice, abortion, and now euthanasia.
And we have another Winnipeg Statement.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 7:38am

No one but the devil could imagined such a harbinger of evil as Pope Francis who has set off a nuclear explosion of moral corruption. He call evil good and good evil. The most recent example being the Canadian bishops who have found in the “spirit of Pope Francis” the rationale to approve euthanasia. This move will be surely picked up by other Bishop’s conferences and some state legislatures as a new ‘right of Mercy’. God have Mercy and stop Pope Francis from destroying the Catholic Church and it’s position as a moral leader of the world.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 8:29am

The year of Mercy ended…about three years ago.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 8:40am

It is the sin of presumption to believe that the soul is saved because God is good, all merciful, and perfect Justice.
Jesus Christ crucified ASKED His Father in heaven to “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” The soul of Christ then descended into hell, as the Body of Christ laid in the sepulcher. There is a most interesting and informative exchange between Alyssa Pitstick and Hans von Balthasar in Father Richard John Neuhaus’ First Things magazine in the archive.
Jesus descended into hell. Hell refused to allow Jesus to enter for then hell would have become heaven. Respecting the devil and the devil’s privacy, (God does not contradict Himself) Jesus did not enter. Jesus called forth all the souls of the blessed awaiting Him as Jesus did Lazarus. Then Jesus led the blessed souls into heaven.
The devils are creatures and part of creation. If persons must conserve and steward all creation, then the devil must be exorcised and returned to the bottomless pit that the devil and his minions have chosen for themselves.
The souls in hell are not remembered causing people to believe that hell is not peopled by souls. Like Lucifer, the souls in hell have chosen to annihilate themselves in a bottomless abyss for eternity, never facing who they, themselves, really are. How can one love who refuses to be loved. God is on the outside, looking in.

ken
ken
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 9:03am

“This occurs because these clerics do not believe in the existence of hell, or if they believe in its existence, then like Bp. Robert Barron here in the US, they do not believe that anyone is going there.”

This is a frickin lie. Bishop Barron said there is nothing wrong with hoping no one goes to hell, which is quite different from believing no one goes there.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 12:55pm

Imagine what Dostoevsky could’ve done with material like this!

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, December 15, AD 2016 6:47pm

Ken,
Bishop Barron is incorrect if Christ was correct twice in saying many will be damned.
We can pray for everyone on earth in our generation or in our family but hell according to Christ cannot be empty and He trumps Rahner, Von Balthasar, Etc. etc….Luke 13:24…” strive to enter by the narrow gate for many I tell you will seek to enter and will not be able to.”
Matthew 7:22-23…” Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
That’s Christ using “many” twice.

TomD
TomD
Friday, December 16, AD 2016 6:54am

This is diabolical.
yup

They’re saying, “Yes, we know, the church says it’s wrong, but in certain instances, it can be right, because circumstances may “diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” What this teaching of the Church intends to do is to encourage hope for the soul of the suicide, that God may not hold him responsible for the great sin he has committed — a sin from which there can be no repentance.
Actually, the church DOES teach this, but those instances are highly unusual. We saw one such example on 9/11 as people jumped off of the twin towers to avoid burning to death. To apply this teaching to those who succumb to the temptations of the angels of death (ahem, euthanasia advocates) IS diabolical.

TomD
TomD
Friday, December 16, AD 2016 6:58am

…should have added “willingly succumb” since we all know that many will be forced to be euthanized.

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