The Pope is not a Mormon Prophet

From L-R: Western Christianity, the World (and we all know it)

That is, you just thought you knew what Catholicism teaches. 

I can’t think of anything more devastating to the Christian witness ot the modern world than what we’re seeing today.  On any given day, we have people – and I mean leaders including some popes I know – act as if what we always thought Catholicism taught was wrong.  Or incomplete. Or mistaken.  Or a bit off the mark.  Or you just never know.  Or it’s open to debate. 

In our age, where people in the dying West are perishing from misery, pointlessness, depression, drugs, suicide, mindless violence, and a general malaise of existence, taking this message into the world is like bringing gasoline to a house fire. It’s telling people today that what secularism has been saying for years is true: Religions in this objectively valueless world are just made up fables and rules because none of it is true.  Therefore all is whatever, it’s all up for grabs, life sucks and then you die. 

This is exacerbated by the modern Church and its leaders constantly changing, modifying, or casting doubts on what the Church seems to have always taught. Or so you thought.  As my son said after one of his college classes that dealt with Christianity, the Church continually acting like Catholics have been getting it wrong all these years plays right into the secular hand.  

And it isn’t just this or that petty custom over which we’re casting shadows of doubt.  The  things you’re hearing people and leaders cast doubt on cut to the base of reality for the Christian: Are the people and events in the Bible true or fiction?  Deacon Greydanus says there are several things in the Bible that can be dismissed as myth.  Others will no doubt add more to that list than Deacon Greydanus would concede, and then you have yet another problem.   When does it end?  Who is right?  Which ones are myth?  Or if this is suddenly myth today, how can we know that those stories over there won’t be myth tomorrow? 

Or consider salvation.  Is Catholicism even that important when it comes to being saved?  Is Jesus?  Apparently it’s nice to believe in Jesus, but if you don’t it’s hardly a deal breaker. How about morality?  Sexuality?  Heck, abortion.  I’m seeing quite a few supposedly ‘pro-life’ Catholics modifying the Church’s opposition to abortion by adding such terms as ‘elective’ or ‘convenience’, as if other abortions might be fine.   Or Hell?  Hell, can we even know now if there is such a thing or possibility?  Or is it that the Church never technically said anyone would certainly be in Hell, so clearly nobody might be there, and turns out Jesus never even talked about the topic in a clear way. If Catholics before thought otherwise, just chalk it up to one more thing the first 2000 years might have gotten wrong.  You just never know what we should have believed.  

It reduces learning the Divine Truths to nothing other than a polite debate around the water cooler. It makes religious belief into anything but indispensable.  Does the world approach debate about climate change that way?  About racism?  About gender?  About feminism?  About DEI? About European Imperialism?  About the Transatlantic slave trade?  Any polite discussions there?  No fundamentalist tent revival preacher was more assured of the indisputable truth than the modern World is about its proclamations.  If you want something willing to question anything it believes, I’m afraid you’ll have to look to the modern Christian Faith. 

It’s getting to where I can’t rightly say the Church has always taught a growing number of things, at least if I pay attention to the conversations today.  The only ones sure about anything are the non-believers, the secularists, the youth weaned in our atheistic society, and others who know Christianity and flying saucer cults are practically one and the same.  That’s why we change the rules.  The rules were always based on no better than the Tooth Fairy all along.  And our constant willingness to change to order does nothing other than reinforce that teaching. Hence my son’s point. 

Oh, and before we evoke development of doctrine, or historical debates over theology, or that we always need to instruct the faithful on the true teachings of the Faith, we must admit youthful hipsters are also honest. They know all of these sudden debates about what we only thought the Church taught is a direct result of the Church buckling before the World.  It is not clarifying orthodoxy in the face of heresy.  They see the World push, and the Church retreat.  No St. Bonifaces or St. Patricks here.  We’re not about to tell the World it’s wrong.  The World changes the rules, and we begin asking if there were ever rules to begin with.  That’s not explaining that God is not an angry child wanting to hurt us because people mistake God’s justice and mercy.  It’s saying we’re not sure if God cares what we believe at all since the World has already said there is no God, so it doesn’t matter what we believe. 

And not just the youngsters, but the World at large sees it for what it is:  The World compelling the witness of the Apostles to be changed to fit the World’s latest demands. And if we think that will reach people for the Gospel, I’m sure we also believe that the Brooklyn Bridge is finally up for sale. 

Go here to comment.  The simple truth is that Pope Francis is a bad man and a bum Pope.  We have had such before and doubtless we shall have them in the future,  The Conclave of 2013 bungled its task.  He should be ignored as much as possible and soundly refuted when he can’t be ignored.