The God of 'Ultimate Inclusion'
An April 15 article on Cruxnow.com’s website is entitled, Irish archbishop: A church that marginalizes is a ‘God-less church.’ It states that the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, “was speaking April 13 during the celebration marking the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Ireland. According to Crux, “Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said God is not ‘a God just of rules and norms,’ but a God ‘who prizes the freedom that enables each one of us to be the person that we are created to be.’”
I’d personally be interested in knowing more about this “God of just rules and norms” the Archbishop speaks of. Specifically, I’d like to hear the Archbishop list these “rules and norms” and elaborate on them. Of course, the Archbishop uses the words “rules and norms” in a pejorative sense. Yet “rules and norms” are precisely what is necessary to put proper constraints on “freedom,” a concept which the Archbishop bravely champions. Yes, we all know that in our day the emphasis on rules and norms is so overwhelmingly great, that we need a great champion like the bishop to courageously speak out to the secular world that human beings need to be freer.
The Archbishop goes on to say, “Our God is the God of ultimate inclusion. Through our humble attempts to build inclusion, we reflect at least partially who our God is.” This is a very interesting concept. However, as the Archbishop should have learned in his catechism class, our God believes in Hell which is actually a place of ultimate exclusion. Of course, the Archbishop would no doubt exclude everyone from Hell, calling his own inclusiveness into question. It is not surprising that the Archbishop never defines the term “ultimate inclusion” in context. Thus, if you are Jimmy Akin it means God’s will that all men be saved, but if you are Fr. James Martin, it means that unrepentant sinners can receive Holy Communion and be” included” in Heaven.
Crux reports, “Martin said the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is 'fundamentally in its inspiration about God',” but noted some people in Ireland “will immediately react that today the Society would feel itself much less denominational or evangelical than in the past. Its activities are motivated by a different and more inclusive spirit of humanitarian concern and attempts to make our society a better and more caring one. It is a philosophy that is open to the participation of people of different convictions rather than any individual religious confession,” the archbishop said.
Translation? The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is now no different than any other secular humanitarian organization and the Archbishop is proud of that. In fact, any particularly Catholic character of the Society or, God forbid, evangelization, is remnant of a dark distant past that had an exclusive spirit and was not motivated by a “spirit of humanitarian concern,” but a concern to love others for God’s sake.
The article ends with this, “The archbishop said “the spirit of the society of Saint Vincent de Paul is in no way a sort of exaltation or glorification of poverty, but a recognition that poverty is an imposed impossibility for people to realize fully their God-given talents.” Thus, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Family, as well as great Saints throughout history who lived in poverty, were prevented by this “imposed impossibility” from fully realizing their God-given talents. Interesting.
The Vatican Speaks Out…For Marine Biological Diversity
The most absurd news of the week is that Archbishop Bernardito Auza, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, actually made a speech to the United Nations titled, “Conservation And Sustainable Use Of Marine Biological Diversity.” The address is a long rambling exercise in meaningless jargon that would make the authors of Vatican II proud. Consider this impressive paragraph:
Although our original mandate in resolution 69/292 was situated in negative terms to “not undermine existing relevant legal instruments and frameworks and relevant global, regional and sectoral bodies,” we should approach our work in a more constructive manner. In this sense, the main objective of the legally binding instrument on which we are working would be to improve existing legal instruments and frameworks by coordinating, reconciling, and supplementing them. Moreover, considering that scientific and commercial activities would be at the core of this instrument, it is our responsibility to preclude the need to renegotiate a global agreement every time a new resource is discovered or a different commercial activity is pursued in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). With this in mind, as we deliberate on the specific details of the draft, my Delegation would like to comment on what we see as five legal gaps…
Yes, the hard earned money of Catholics is being paid to support Archbishop Auza and his staff so that the good Archbishop can espouse meaningless jargon-filled commentary on draft U.N. documents pertaining to the biological diversity of fish. The Church is in a crisis of historical proportions, the world is rejecting the Gospel, and we have Vatican diplomats flying to New York on jets belching “greenhouse gases” to lecture a godless organization about the merits of maintaining diverse marine life. You’ve now heard it all.
Vatican Cardinal & Protestant Leaders Meet to Commemorate Previous Pointless Meeting
As a Catholic World News editor’s note states, “Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, joined leaders of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Methodist Council in signing the Notre Dame Consultation Statement.”
The Presidents of the Lutheran World Federation, Christian Krause, and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification at St Anna’s Lutheran Church in Augsburg, Germany, on 31 October 31 1999. (Photo Credit: K Wieckhorst)
For those who don’t remember, the “Joint Declaration on Justification” was the “fruit” of years of meetings between Vatican representatives and Lutheran leaders to try to come to some agreement in justification. Of course, for anyone who believes in logic, these meetings were doomed from the start, as the Catholic and Lutheran notions of justification are contradictory. The end result was a joint statement with no authority in the Church that used ambiguous phrases each side could interpret in their own way. Then the meaningless document was, of course, celebrated as a fruit of ecumenism even though nothing was accomplished.
So to “commemorate” this nothing burger, ecumenist in chief, Cardinal Kurt Koch, signed the “Notre Dame Consultation Statement” along with delegation leaders from the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Methodist Council. The text of this statement would make Archbishop Auza proud. Perhaps he could use some of the statement’s meaningless jargon for his next impassioned plea to the UN to help keep fish diverse:
We have found that the method of the differentiating consensus has proved to be a fruitful means of overcoming controversies by identifying common substance and distinguishing from its different confessional expressions. Thus this type of consensus encompasses both agreements and differences. It is a creative way to deal with past, present and future complexities, holding together differing perspectives without reducing them to one perspective. We are convinced that we should apply this method to other controversial questions within and between the churches but also to conflicts in the wider society.
Cardinal Koch is here demonstrating that he is a star pupil of the JPII Institute for Writing a Lot of Words While Really Saying Nothing. As readers know, these ecumenical meetings are merely pretexts for Cardinal Koch and his staff to burn fossil fuels and the faithful’s pocketbooks flying around to places like Notre Dame, wining and dining with leaders of non-Catholic sects, all the while following the lead of Pope Francis in not so much as hinting they should convert to the true Faith. Instead, Cardinal Koch whips up some scholarly sounding jargon with his staff like the paragraph above to justify his meeting as profound progress and then jet sets off to his next locale. One wonders if Cardinal Koch’s desk is full of travel guides of exotic destinations he wants to visit along with a chart telling him which indigenous false religion he will have to “dialogue” with to get there.
“New Evangelization” Colossal Failure as Catholics & Youth Leave US Church in Droves
SPRINGTIME UPDATE: On April 18th, Catholic News Agency (CAN) reported the latest Gallup poll numbers on church membership, and the results were bleak for Catholics and youth. CNA reports, “Nearly one out of three millennials, defined as people born between 1980 and 2000, describe themselves as having no religion. Of the 68% who said they do have a religious faith, only 57% said they belong to a church…Since 1998-2000, the percentage of Catholics who say they belong to a church has dropped by 13 points. In 1998-2000, 76% of Catholics said they were members of a church. By 2016-2018, this figure had dropped to 63%.”
What happened to all of the yutes we were going to draw in with Life-Teen rock Masses, “relevant” liturgies, hip new priests, and de-emphasizing the god of “rules and norms?” Looks like they are fleeing the Vatican II Church faster than passengers fled the Titanic. What is worse, the self-proclaimed Conciliar Church still doesn’t get it. Instead of changing tactics, they are going to continue with the exact same game plan. The recent “Youth Synod”, reported Crux back in March, said, “People Must Listen to Young People.” Of course, nobody heard the voice of truly Catholic young people at the Synod. Instead, leftist organizations sent leftist youth to the Synod to create the appearance that Catholic Youth were somehow demanding a cornucopia of leftist 1960’s demands all involving approving of sin or else calling for the old standbys of women and married priests, etc.
The part Church leadership doesn’t get, is that young people want to be led, not listened to. And they want to be lead by men who actually believe in the Catholic Faith and give them a reason to do so as well. They want to be respected enough to be challenged with the unvarnished Christian truth about such things as doctrine, sexual ethics, and an adult truly Catholic liturgy created to worship God and not to pander to themselves. Perhaps Catholic membership in the American Church will have to get to zero before those in charge get the message. Then again, that may be the goal.
Unfortunate Cardinal Says Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality is “Very Unfortunate”
According to CNA, Cardinal “Nighty-Night, Baby” Tobin, during an interview with NBC’s “Today Show” on April 17th stated. “that the language used by the Catechism of the Catholic Church to describe homosexual acts is “very unfortunate,” adding that he hopes the Catechism will use different language in its discussion of homosexuality.” However, the clueless Cardinal was mislead by the Fake News’ question.
NBC’s Anne Thompson asked Tobin how he could welcome people he calls “intrinsically disordered.” Tobin responded, “Well I don’t call them ‘intrinsically disordered.” Thompson then asked, “But isn’t that the Catechism of the Catholic Church?” to which Tobin replied, “That is, it’s very unfortunate language. Let’s hope that eventually that language is a little less hurtful.”
As our President would say…"Wrong!"
The Catechism does not say that people are intrinsically disordered. It says that homosexual acts, by their very nature, are intrinsically disordered as they are against the Natural Law. Similarly, it states that the inclination towards disordered acts is itself objectively disordered as “sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”
Yet Tobin, most likely not having cracked a Catechism since he was in grade school, let Thompson lead him down the primrose path on national television and got a sound bite of a Cardinal disagreeing with his own catechism out of it. Of course, this is to be expected as CNA reports that, “Tobin endorsed a 2017 book, “Building a Bridge,” by Fr. James Martin, SJ, which has also called for the Church to amend the language with which it discusses homosexuality.”
What Tobin and Martin refuse to recognize is that in addition to the Church “welcoming,” “including,” “respecting,” and “accompanying,” people, it is Her mission to also preach the truth in charity about sin and to assist souls in no longer being chained by it, but freed from it through God’s grace.
The Register Reviews a Book on Liturgical Wreckovator, Annibale Bugnini
On April 22nd National Catholic Register posted a book review of Yves Chiron’s “Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy.” Reviewer, Anna Abbott states that the author, Chiron, “depicts Bugnini neither as a heroic reformer nor a comic-book villain, but as a human being and man of his time. It is a fraught subject he handles skillfully.” This is Charon’s first mistake, as if there ever were a real-life comic book villain, Bugnini would qualify. Except in this case, the comic book villain was allowed to triumph instead of his plot being foiled.
Abbot writes of Bugnini writing the following in his memoirs:
I suddenly wondered: how could I have this people, with their elementary religious instruction, participate in the Mass? Above all, how could I make the children participate?”
This confirms my suspicions that the Novus Ordo Mass was designed for an audience of five year olds. I have long noticed that the Novus Ordo liturgy has an annoying tendency to condescend to the faithful and treat them like children. Lay readers slowly read the readings to us in a sing-songy voice as if it were story time on Sesame Street. The cantors slowly sing the schlocky responsorial verse to the psalms as they raise their hand to signal to us rubes that it is time for us to sing, as if we don’t know. We are supposed to look around and shake hands with our neighbors in the middle of Mass. And worst of all, we are supposed to parrot back pre-scripted lines the entire Mass in unison as if we are too stupid to pray on our own.
This is all confirmed in the condescension of Bugnini who believes his Pre-Vatican II congregations “with their elementary religious instruction” (see Traditional) were too stupid to “participate” in the Mass, when in reality they were participating interiorly far more than they were after Bugnini’s experiment got done with them.
Abbott goes on to recall, “There is the story of Fr. Louis Bouyer and Dom Botte, given a 24-hour deadline to compose the Second Eucharistic Prayer, hastily writing it up in a Roman café. It is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking.” I’ll go with the latter. We were falsely told that this Eucharistic Prayer was of St. Hippolytus of Rome, when in reality it was written by two priests in the equivalent of a Roman Starbucks in the 60’s. In the end Bugnini et al. believed us all to be uneducated mouth breathers who didn’t know what was good for us and his liturgy demonstrates it every day.
Its times for violent purging of gays in the Church
ReplyDelete