I print the last paragraph below in red of Fr. Thomas Reese come-to-Jesus piece about Pope Francis and the uproar His Holiness has created by saying “NO!” to any aspect of women being ordained to any of the three aspects or degrees of Holy Orders. Then His Holiness, in contradiction to his cliche about “Who am I to judge?” used a derogatory term to describe those who identity as homosexual. And then speaking to young priests of Rome, he told them not to act like women who gossip or talk too much. YIKES on that one, seeing that His Holiness might be a “woman” in this regard too!
I think it might be a truism that the things we complain the most about are the things we are most guilty of. But who am I to judge?
But back to Father Thomas Reese, SJ. He doesn’t know what God’s plan is for the Church.
He is foolish, not dumb, and like me, he too can find out what God’s plan is for the Church. It is doctrinal and moral perfection, begun in this life, and completed by God Almighty when we enter the fullness of heaven made completely perfect forever by God to live with Him in heavenly bliss and eternal worship.
In other words, God’s plan for the Church is fidelity, fidelity, fidelity to God Almighty discovered in natural law and made specific in Scripture, Tradition and the Moral laws of God found in the 10 Commandments and explained by the catechism of the Catholic Church—IT IS OUT IN THE OPEN!
Here is Fr. Reese’s concluding paragraphs to his NCR article:
But the old progressives are tired and dying off. The young simply don't care, having given up on the church as a boring, homophobic and patriarchal institution not worth their time. The church may become more conservative simply because everyone else gives up on it.
This leaves the pope in an unenviable position. Moving too quickly could blow up the church, as it did with many other denominations. Moving too slowly means losing the young. This is especially critical among women, which is why issues like birth control and women priests and deacons are so important.
In Europe, men left the church in the 19th century because of the hierarchy's political stances, but women stayed. At the end of the 20th century, we began losing women.
Despite its male hierarchy, the church cannot exist without women who do the heavy lifting of passing the faith on to the next generation, either as mothers or teachers.
How the church will survive in the 21st century is a mystery. I am sure God has a plan; I just don't know what it is.
Father James Reese, SJ, nails it though. Wild progressive Catholics my age and older, which includes Fr. Reese and Fr. James Martin, and also Pope Francis, are tired and dying off. The young don’t care about the Church because a life of infidelity to God they have found not within the Church but outside the Church. They have made a free-will decision to leave the Church and follow their mortal sins to its logical conclusion-eternity in hell. By God’s grace, then can repent and return and strive for perfect fidelity to the will of God which is out in the open for all to discover and available for all of us to embrace.
Those who want the Church to conform to their will, including many women in the Church, want women’s ordination, birth control, infanticide through abortion and murdering already born children. They want the ideology of the LTBGQF++ CLUB to usurp God’s plan for males and females and an anthropology that overthrows God’s plan for Holy Orders and the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. The Church cannot be unfaithful to God—that is a mortal sin worthy of eternal punishment in hell. God does not accommodate mortal sin or redeem mortal sin. He redeems sinners who are mortal sinners. The Catholic Church cannot, by the will and grace of God, proclaim infidelity to Scripture, Tradition and Divine Moral Law as the new norm to be Catholic. Those who seek the overturning of God’s truth and fidelity to it are neo-Gnostics!
Jesus did not change His teaching on “eating and drinking the Flesh and Blood” of Himself even when His followers complained about the language, the thought of it and departed Him. JESUS DID NOT CHANGE DIVINE TRUTH OR FIDELITY TO IT TO KEEP SINNERS FROM LEAVING HIM!
But the road iS wide to hell and the way to heaven is narrow. And only fidelity to Jesus Christ is the way for Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
In the meantime, those of us who struggle with fidelity to God and suffer sins due to concupicence and the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and have a confident hope that by God’s Divine Mercy in His only begotten Son, Jesus, repentance is possible, by God’s grace alone, and forgiveness and reconciliation available until our final breath.
And those of us who die in a state of grace, but not yet perfect in fidelity to our Lord will be purified by the fires of purgatory as gold purified by fire and then we will be welcomed by Jesus into the halls of heaven!
5 comments:
That has always been the hallmark, until recent times, of Catholics....fidelity, always faithful...if you dig deep enough into received teachings, you can find what you seek, and no other place.
Reese is blowing smoke out his (orifice of choice) on why younger folk are abandoning the Church, and have been leaving for last half of the last century, although the patriarchal/anti-gay/etc.etc.etc. carries a lot of fleeting weight in the current woke indoctrinated crop of youth who will find, and are finding, that indoctrination empty and only destructive.
They simply are leaving, and have been leaving, because nobody can point them to find this God who is worshipped, and so doubt God's existence, and see only empty form, and sadly, to a large degree they are correct in that latter assessment.
The thing about these people trying to change things, is they also did not find what they sought, they did not find God, and so think revolutionary change of the Church is what will fix everything...they have no idea of what God wants, because God is a stranger to them, and which God they likely doubt themselves, and at best have only a hope, and so are unwitting destructive agents of change, thinking they will find God in the flames....
While the orthodox who oppose them are often no better armed with a knowledge of God, having only the rule book/law on which to prop....
And revolutionaries simply ignore the law, leaving orthodox squawking about rule of law as the barbarians crash through the gates with torches.
Perhaps, Fr. Reece SJ might ponder that when younger and older people step from the world into the Church, they want to see something different: not more of the same.
Father Evans nails it...why go if no different than outside, and why bother giving it my money when what it offers is available for free and actually unavoidable outside.
Make no mistake. The Pope, Reese and his crowd are old, bitter and angry that the young do not desire their sick, twisted version of Roman Catholicism. These are bent individuals, really sick people. Have they seen the 16,000 young men and women marching from Paris to Chartres for the Traditional Latin Mass? Of course not. On top of being evil, they are stupid and willfully blind.
Post a Comment