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We see a lot of 'dog and pony' shows today. Things we think are true simply because someone tells us they are, but closer inspection would show us the blemishes. Thing is, more often than not, we just take another's word for it.
In colonial America, for example, the cry to rally the people to revolt was "No taxation without representation." The facts were that representation in Parliament was the last thing we wanted. We'd be one lone voice in a large assembly. Hardly the ability to change things. So when Benjamin Franklin went to England, he was told point blank NOT to accept Parliamentary representation if it was offered.
Today, we see much the same thing. We see and hear views and teachings which seem fine on the surface, but merely cover ignorance, error, and in some cases, deception, handed down with authoritarian ruthlessness. Now for many, they'd say I was speaking about the 'authoritarian, patriarchal' Church. But in reality, I'm speaking of the, so called, modernist, spirit of Vatican II, enlightened, tolerant dissidents.
Now before anyone thinks I'm just being nasty, let me explain.
We hear how we have to allow all thoughts and ideas. No problem with that, overall. The Church has always encouraged people to contemplate God, especially in respect to the times and places they live. That is the 'job' of the theologian, to help explain God to man. However, today, we hear a different voice from many theologians.
If they make an error (no problem since everyone makes mistakes, that's how we learn), they refuse to acknowledge that they may have made a mistake. No, the Church is wrong, not them.
This was the problem with the 'theology' of people like Martin Luther and Matthew Fox (New Age concept of the Cosmic Christ) The problem is, like Protestantism, that if 'they' are right and the Church is wrong (and 'they' rarely agree) then we don't get unity, but division and confusion. To ease this problem, many have adopted the notion that ALL views are equally valid. However, they will never accept the Church's view so obviously not ALL views are equally valid in their eyes. As one person told me, "Catholics have the right to create their own spirituality, their own theology." If that is true, then why did he call orthodox spirituality and theology wrong, and I was ignorant and backwards for believing it? IF truth is relative and then one cannot say that orthodoxy is wrong. However, if orthodoxy is true, it CAN say relativism is true. But the dissident doesn't see that. Instead they often find themselves working to isolate, ridicule, and slander the faithful Catholic. The Common Ground Project failed simply because groups like Call To Action wouldn't discuss but preferred to dictate.
"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people. For among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith; but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men" (2 Timothy 3:1-9).
"Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. It is not pride to wish to do well, or even to look well, according to a real test. It is pride to think that a thing looks illm, because it does not look like something characteristic of oneself. {The Common Man, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1950, p. 254}
We hear such comments as "The Church is hypocritical, anti-woman, because it doesn't address issues pertinent to women." But if one looks closely, the 'issues' they really seek is the Church to change it's teachings on artificial contraception and abortion. The issue is presented as one of fairness, but, like the early revolutionaries illustrated above, fairness is not what they are really after.
We hear how anti-woman the Church is because it won't (can't) ordain women as priests. Yet, from their own literature and conferences; "Is it a dream to get a piece of the clerical pie even if we choke on it?" (Schussler-Fiorenza; one of the co-founders of the Women's Ordination Conference) In fact, Donna Steichen reported that; "The fact is, the leadership of the feminist religious movement has not been interested in the priesthood, as we understand that term, for a long time. They're not going to take a vow of obedience to a bishop and they certainly wouldn't practice it if they did. They want a new church, a church without ordained priests, where the community can choose its own ritual leaders."
Schussler-Fiorenza pointed out that to accept women ordination would only perpetuate a system which is unjust. Rather, they should concentrate on transforming the priesthood into "a non-sacramental office of community-ordained facilitators." So, though we 'hear' groups like FutureChurch and Call To Action advocate women priests, which draws many with it's appearance of fairness, the facts are that they really don't want it. And if they were ever given female ordination, it would be a win-win situation.
"To ordain women is to give this rotten totalitarian system that the Roman Catholic Church has become the push in the grave," ( Shelia Briggs, a former assistant professor of women's studies and now professor of religious and social ethics at the University of Southern California.)
Remember that passage from 2 Timothy 3: 2-5? "For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it."
What they can't see, or refuse to see, is how the Church has always upheld the dignity of women. Not that all Catholics did, but the Church did.
Of course, if you disagree with them, you are the one who is myopic (tunnel vision), closed minded, ignorant, etc. You will be the one belittled and ridiculed. THEY have the truth and the Church doesn't.
The other tact is for the theologian to explain man to God. Here is one of the biggest problems we face today. Sexual sins are not a sin because…..it's healthy, it's natural, it's FUN!!! (Yes, someone actually said that to me) For many, the true test of truth is whether or not it suits them.
"Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. It is not pride to wish to do well, or even to look well, according to a real test. It is pride to think that a thing looks ill. because it does not look like something characteristic of oneself.{The Common Man, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1950, p. 254}
They speak of their conscience being their guide, that they do as they please with a good conscience. But more often than not, if one listens to them, they've killed their conscience and replaced it with one more suitable to them. We hear "I was tired of the Church making me feel guilty…I have nothing to feel guilty about…ergo." Well firstly, the Church didn't make you feel guilty, the person did, because their conscience told them it was wrong. The Church offers reconciliation, a relief from guilt. But because they refuse this, they have to kill their conscience, rather than listening to it.
"By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith, among them Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme" (1 Timothy 1:19-20).
Or as St. Kolbe pointed out, those who are troubled by the guilt of their sins may not turn to the Church for relief, but turn against the Church. The Columbine High School tragedy is an example of this. Two boys who felt alienated take their anger out by attacking those they feel made them outsiders. The thing is, it wasn't the other kids or the school that made them outsiders, they did that to themselves.
Now, it's logical then that many would be drawn to those who dissent. Either they like what they're being told, or they don't want to seem ignorant, so they jump on the bandwagon. It's easier to be a follower, it's nicer to have people think highly of you. So it's preferable to stand far off and see the wonderful vision, than investigate it closely. But if you invite them to take a closer look, and see that it's just a dog and pony show, they'll likely refuse and chastise you for daring call it that.
They'll boast of their enlightenment, their tolerance, and understanding, then be intolerant of you.
"The mind of modern man is a curious mixture of decayed Calvinism and diluted Buddhism; and he expresses his philosophy without knowing that he holds it. We [i.e., Catholics] say what it is natural for us to say; but we know what we are saying; therefore it is assumed that we are saying it for effect. He says what it is natural for him to say; but he does not know what he is saying, still less why he is saying it . . . He is just as partisan; . . . just as much depending on one doctrinal system as distinct from another. But he has taken it for granted so often that he has forgotten what it is. So his literature does not seem to him partisan, even when it is. But our literature does seem to him propagandist, even when it isn't." {The Thing, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1929, p. 120}
G. K. Chesterton said it best: "People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad . . . The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable . . . It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob . . . It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to avoid them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect. {Orthodoxy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1908, pp. 100-101}
As Christ pointed out, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Pax Christi, Pat
He also became sincerely interested in the National Catechist Center, realizing to maintain and keep the Faith alive and for it to grow the people needed to know their faith through catechetics. He was appointed the Director in the mid seventies because of this zeal and his expertise in implementing such plans. Also because of his specialty, he was assigned Rector of the minor seminary in Madagascar which followed the same position in the major seminary there. It was a tumultous time, these years, for a growing resentment had grown against the French and in 1972 the military pulled a coup taking over the government, and three years later Marxist rule took fosrm after martial law had been declared. The Bishop had all he could do to keep his flock faithful. Thankfully the catechetical norms he had introduced were of great value during these trying times.
On April 27, 1978 Pope Paul VI named him Bishop of Mahajanga on Madagascar and he was consecrated on July 2, 1978. During his time in this post, he founded the Ecumenical Commission of Theology and was charged with drafting a statute for the Council of the Madagascar Christian Churches. It was this council that would play a vital role in casting off the shackles of communism and in the island's government becoming democratic in 1992. On February 3, 1994 Pope John Paul II appointed him as the new Archbishop of Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar. He was installed on May 14, 1994. Later that same year he was elevated to the cardinalate during the Consistory of November 26, 1994 receiving the titular church of Sts. Sylvester and Martin at Monti. He was also appointed Apostolic Administrator of Miarinarivo. Cardinal Razafindratandra also serves membership in the Roman Curia of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for the Laity. He resides in the Bishop's Residence at Archeveche, Andohalo, Antananarivo 101 in Madagascar.
1883 A.D.
Pope Gregory XVI issues his fourth encyclical to the bishops of the Rhineland on the "pragmatic Constitution" entitled Quo graviora.
1903 A.D.
Pope Saint Pius X publishes his first encyclical less than two months into his pontificate, and it set the tone for his papacy with E supremi on the restoration of all things in Christ.
1981 A.D.
Pope John Paul II beatifies Blessed Aloysius Luigi Scrosoppi on this date, a Franciscan friar.
1986 A.D.
Pope John Paul II elevates Blessed Antoine Chevrier to beatification status followed the next year by beatification ceremonies for Blessed Marcel Callo, Pierino Morosoni, and Antonia Mesina.
