Ten Years of Confusion
Last night I went to my weekly Bible study at the Baptist church where we analysed John 17, Christ's High Priestly prayer.
I know the verse obviously and was already reflecting about how wonderful it is that I, as a Catholic, have found such deep fellowship with these fellow Christians and get an opportunity to study and share God's word with that community as well as my own.
I was especially struck as we studied the chapter together by verses 20 to 24:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world."My thoughts ran to the last ten years of the Pontificate of Francis and, especially, the incredible toxicity it has brought to the Catholic Church. Before Francis progressive Catholics were just as prominent as they are today, but the pope was the guarantor of orthodoxy. If anything, progressives saw the pope as something of an extremist and orthodox Catholics, though still in the minority, had the backing of the Holy See.
For example, when Charles Curran, a Professor of Theology at Catholic University of America continued to teach and publish articles which contradicted settled teaching, the CDF intervened, initially explaining that:
"In light of your repeated refusal to accept what the church teaches and in light of its mandate to promote and safeguard the church’s teaching on faith and morals throughout the Catholic world, this Congregation, in agreement with the Congregation for Catholic Education, sees no alternative now but to advise the most reverend chancellor that you will no longer be considered suitable nor eligible to exercise the function of a professor of Catholic theology."
You knew the CDF and the Vatican was working to ensure that Catholic institutions taught Catholic doctrine and not some spurious version of it.
Today it seems the pope is the one who is taking Curran's position and slipping hat tips to his heresies into the AAS while promoting to cardinal Robert McElroy, who is now publishing Curran's ideas as his own practically word for word.
"...those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one."
I am sad to say it seems that the only clear thing Pope Francis has done is bring confusion and obfuscation to the Church, resulting in what Cardinal Pell called "A toxic nightmare".
Dissidents like Charles Curran and Leonardo Boff used to be the ones causing confusion which the Vatican adjudicated on. Under Francis, their ideas have resurfaced and they are lauded, promoted and rehabilitated.
In an interview in 2020, Alice von Hildebrand said:
"At the end of time, there will be such confusion in the church, even the elect will be confused. And that is what we’re going through right now!"
Dissidents like Charles Curran and Leonardo Boff used to be the ones causing confusion which the Vatican adjudicated on. Under Francis, their ideas have resurfaced and they are lauded, promoted and rehabilitated.
Without truth we cannot know God.
And, to quote Vatican I:
“The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles” (Pastor aeternus, cap. 4).
Unity comes from clarity and coherence. The Pope's style is smoke and mirrors.
Francis is a master at confusing Catholics, although for the last sixty years we have experienced a lot of it, long before him. And interesting that you attend a Baptist Bible study. Every other Saturday I attend a small Bible study in a nearby Missouri Synod Lutheran church. The pastor and I have become good friends in the last couple of years; we know where we disagree, but I have told him that he is more Catholic than the pope. I would be hesitant to go to a Catholic Bible study. And he receives a few Hail Mary's every day from this end.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I have told several who were in process or have already crossed the Tiber, that they were in fact jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The heterdoxy, as you say has always been there and for decades winked at in some quarters, while orthodoxy is suppressed and scorned by the same folk who were winking at heresy taught in Catholic institutions of higher learning. Now as you say, the difference is they have the very chair of St. Peter backing them. “Oh day of wrath, oh day of morning, heed, fulfill the prophet’s warning”. This is also why we all have nore in common with orthodox brethren in other ecclesial communities outside the Church than those who are in leadership in our own ecclesial community.
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