Many times people who were in a relationship with manipulative people did not realise it until they left it.
The current state of the Church reminds recovering 1960's Catholics that relapses do occur. But it also shows a new generation of faithful Catholics what liberalism does to the Church. They now have first-hand experience of the confusion, manipulation and psychologizing of Catholicism by those who wish to change it with a new paradigm that is based on social activism.
Liberalism has all but destroyed mainline Protestantism. All the mainline Protestant Churches are on life support especially the Protestant Episcopal Church in America. Most disaffected Protestants were welcomed into the Full Communion of the True Church. Many of them are aghast with what is happening in the Catholic Church under Pope Francis.
There are two examples this past week that illustrate the nature of progressive Catholicism as it concerns psychoanalysis and condescending manipulation.
The first is from Pope Francis' Wednesday audience concluding His Holiness' series on the 10 Commandments. Tell me what you think of this statement:
“God’s precepts can be reduced to being only the beautiful facade of a life that nevertheless remains an existence as slaves and not as children. Often, behind the pharisaic mask of suffocating correctness lies something ugly and unresolved. Instead, we must let ourselves be unmasked by these commands on desire, because they show us our poverty, to lead us to a holy humiliation”.
The second is a critique by a nun about Vatican operatives speaking to Contemplative nuns about Pope Francis' document on formation.
She was also negatively struck by the continued reference to “being grown women” - a repeated motto from the speakers at the conference - which in her view, “treated sisters as if they were people who until now did not act in a way that is adult and mature, which isn’t the case.”
Becoming adult Catholics was the mantra of so many bishops, priests and theologians especially in the 1970's and 80's. It meant doing what these people were teaching especially when it went against common sense, logic and the Deposit of Faith. It is condescending and manipulative.
What do you think?
18 comments:
What do I think?
I think that I've completely lost faith that the Catholic Church is leading myself, others, and the culture to the Truth.
I think the hierarchy are not far from "tweaking" the belief in the real presence in order to be "inclusive."
Women, or women, priests - sure.
I
The Catholic Church will be all but indistinguishable from the most liberal protestant churches of today.
That's what I think. And it hurts.
I think Dan is right to an extent. The Catholic Church is under attack and this time the enemy was clever enough to attack from within. The very character of what it means to be Catholic is being questioned and distorted but it will not last forever. I have far more confidence in two promises:
1). "The Gates of Hell will not prevail against my Church"
and
2). "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph"
As far as the other stuff goes, what it reveals is that the perpetrators of this rot have no faith themselves. In their heart of hearts, they do not believe in God or they believe in some deistic notion of God, not the Blessed Trinity that sent Jesus Christ to transform our lives. They're all too "adult" for that.
What do I think?
Well, John Henry Newman was scathing about 'liberalism' in the Church, which hasn't stopped liberal-modernists quoting him as if he were on their side.
A lifetime of studying history and politics has convinced me that the Left specializes in lies and disinformation. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao; continue the list of 20th century revolutionaries in politics (and don't kid yourself that Musso and Adolf were right-wing; they were not).
Bergoglio was an aficionado of another left-wing populist, Juan Peron. As Pope he is a fraud, a humbug, a hypocrite, a liar, a bully and a borderline heretic. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt but now I have nothing but contempt for him and the shady coterie he surrounds himself with.
The sooner he is removed from the scene, the better.
John Nolan,
From your mouth to God's ears!
Mr Nolan:
I think we have to be careful here in singling out Bergoglio, What surprised me most about the last conclave was how fast he was elected. He may have been close second in the running when Ratzinger was elected from the rumours at the time, but the question I have is why, why was Bergoglio so popular in the first place? This reveals a lot about the cardinals themselves, and perhaps why the vast majority are silent today in the face of the current crisis in the Church. Should a new conclave need to be called, I do not think much will change on the type of person they will elect as pope. The crisis in the Church is very deep, and I keep repeating myself, the hierarchy in the Church is in the grips of the kind of very Modernists that St Pius X fought so hard against.
Actual history for John Nolan: Contemporaneous conservatives praised & supported Mussolini & Hitler or, worst case, played the "Not as bad as..." card. Lots of history got rewritten after Allied troops started uncovering death camps. Similar things are going on in 2018. A few years from now, you'll have trouble finding anyone who supported Trump.
Anonymous Kavanaugh,
Why do you have to relate everything to Trump. Sounds like he is living rent free in your head.
FYI, Piux XI, a conservative,condemned both Hitler and Mussolini, in separate encylicals, Non Abbiamo Bisogno and Mit Brennender Sorge, which was smuggled out of the Vatican by Bishop Spellman, another conservative. Since you want to relate everything to modern politics, I daresay if Pius XI were alive today, he would condemn the modern Democratic Party for its slavish devotion to abortion and gay marriage. FYI, the New York Times wrote lots of nice things about Hitler.
Have a good day! MAGA
Here's some actual history - Mussolini and Hitler were killing lots of people.
I must be very dense because I see no problem with the quoted statement from Pope Francis. It seems an entirely orthodox warning against spiritual pride. Moreover, I fail to see how the statement reflects “a new paradigm that is based on social action.” Perhaps it reads differently, however, when read in the context of the entire address.
Since Anonymous mentions Trump, John Nolan’s litany of Pope Francis’s negative traits, i.e., “a fraud, a humbug, a hypocrite, a liar, a bully and a borderline heretic” seems to fit Trump perfectly (with “heretic” being understood in the sense of someone who commits “civic heresy” (to coin a phrase) by attacking central tenets of America’s “civil religion” such as the Rule of Law and the independence of the judiciary).
And yet some who post on this Blog would leap to defend Trump against such a charge (or perhaps better said, despite such a charge), for he can do no wrong in their eyes (or any wrong can be easily excused or overlooked), while unhesitatingly accepting the charge when leveled against Pope Francis. This seems exactly backwards to me, for doesn’t the Holy Father deserve greater deference from Catholics than the unholy president? Please note that I do not include John Nolan among this number; although I cannot speak for him, I suspect his English sensibility is just as affronted by Trump’s brash antics and vices as mine is.
And TJM: You are probably correct about Trump living rent free in our heads, which includes yours too by the way.
Anon 2 - I have given up trying to find acceptable reasons for the continued support the President receives. I had hoped that his words and actions would lead people back to their senses, that his daily multiple lies would convince them he was untrustworthy, that his bluster and bravado would lead them to conclude that he is a dangerous narcissist, and/or that his multiple broken "promises" would reveal to all that he is a populist who will say anything to anyone to gain a vote.
My hopes are not going to be fulfilled.
At this point I can only conclude that people continue to support him because they like his words and actions, they like his lies, they like his bluster and bravado, and they like having the wool pulled over their eyes.
And they want to be just like him.
What this portends I am not certain, but it will not be a benefit to our nation or to the world.
I don't comment on Trump because although he is leader of what we used to call the 'free world' but which is looking less and less free these days, he is not the elected Head of State of my country (which does not have an elected Head of State, thank God). I do comment on PF, not on the basis of one or two comments, but on his overall track record. I wish I could be more positive.
The 'civil religion' of western democracies has more to do with 'political correctness' than the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. I am indeed a heretic, and a dangerous one, since I deplore the nanny State, multiculturalism, feminism and the LGBT agenda.
The fact that some conservatives in Britain saw Hitler in the early years of his Chancellorship as someone who might restore order to Germany does not make Hitler a conservative. His aggressive foreign policy alienated most conservatives, long before he embarked on mass murder. In contrast, the Left kow-towed to Stalin, despite the fact that he had liquidated millions before Hitler came to power in Germany. As late as the 1980s I was coming across university post-graduate students who were self-confessed Maoists, despite the fact that the old monster had accounted for more people than Stalin and Hitler put together.
The only dictator I have any time for is Francisco Franco, who saved Spain from anarchy, kept her out of the Second World War, and gave her thirty-seven years of stability, without which the transition to constitutional monarchy in the 1970s would scarcely have been possible. He was too much of a conservative to be a fascist.
Father Kavanaugh:
I do understand the temptation to despair in this particular matter, but Don Quixote is one of my heroes. -:)
The Obama worshipers who post here must have missed their Messiah’s puerile rant in Chicago the other day when he accused Trump of many nasty things, including Trump has “mommy issues, a particularly bizarre statement coming from someone whose mother abandoned him and dumped him on her parents. Obama showed himself to be the classless posuer that those of us who are not enamoured with symbols and identity politics already knew. Without a teleprompter he sounds like a blithering idiot.
John Nolan:
I certainly understand and respect your reluctance to comment on Trump, although arguably those living outside the United States might legitimately comment on the international effects of the Trump presidency. However, as a transplanted Englishman and enfranchised American who is now directly subject to the domestic effects of that presidency, I have no such reluctance.
I would submit that your depiction of the “‘civil religion’ of western democracies” only captures one version of this religion, that is, the “liberal” version, or perhaps even only one particular expression of the liberal version, at least insofar as the United States is concerned. I would also contend that certain bedrock principles, such as the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, are fundamental to any version and that someone such as Donald Trump, who attacks a given judge because he or she embodies the “wrong” version in a particular decision, does so at his peril and, even more worryingly, at our peril.
The topic of America’s “civil religion,” a concept Robert Bellah developed in its modern form in 1967, is a fascinating one; and indeed the exchange on this thread has piqued my interest in studying it further (one reason I like Father McDonald’s Blog is that it stimulates such further inquiry and reflection). One can begin, perhaps, by identifying different possible versions of America's “civil religion.” For example, the following article distinguishes between a conservative version and a liberal version:
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1034&context=ltc
I am quite attracted by a third version that emphasizes “the vital center,” in which we engage in serious dialogue with one another that seeks to persuade. Here are two reviews of a book that makes the case for this version:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/gorski-civil-religion/521751/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-truth-about-americas-civil-religion/
My attraction to this version is rooted not only in my own general preference for bridges rather than walls between people, but also in my conviction that, in a pluralistic and diverse society such as the United States has become, ultimately we have no choice, at least not if we want to preserve the Republic, and that sooner or later most of us will realize this and put an end to the current nonsense.
Anonymous 2
Had I been an American elector in 2016, faced with the choice between a crook (Hillary) and a buffoon (Donald), I would probably have stayed at home.
With Trump you are never sure what he is going to say or do next. The similarity between him and PF, the 'pope of surprises', is striking.
In my opinion the idea of a 'civil religion' comes about when abstract principles supplant Divine revelation. This happened in the age of the Enlightenment, and is exemplified in the American and French Revolutions, although the results of the former were largely positive, and those of the latter largely negative.
Another 'civil religion' was of course Marxism and its variants (call them heresies if you like) - Bolshevism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism.
'We hold these Truths to be self-evident ...' Actually, they're not, and it can be argued that the philosophical justification for revolution which follows this famous opening is seriously flawed from a Christian point of view. Add to this that the grievances referred to were a) of recent origin and b) grossly exaggerated for political ends, and it is hard to escape the conclusion that the success of the United States lies in the fact that its founders were conservative-minded Englishmen respectful of the rule of law, and not hot-headed Frenchmen full of abstract notions of liberty and equality.
TJM:
A word: Golf (as a telling illustration).
Another word: Consistency (as in consistent application of principle).
A third word: Hypocrisy (as reflected in failure to apply the second word when discussing the first).
Think about it, and about countless additional instances of the same humbug.
John Nolan:
I certainly agree that the ideological –isms you mention (and indeed most such –isms) have a religious or quasi-religious character. I suspect, however, that the term “civil religion” is being used as a very specific term of art over here in reference to the American “civil religion.”
As for the American Revolution, there is of course a very respectable view that it was more of a conservative revolution (oxymoronic as that might sound), asserting the traditional rights of Englishmen, rather than a radical revolution à la French Revolution. This certainly seems to have been Edmund Burke’s considered view. The late Russell Kirk was very good on this point and the Russell Kirk Center continues this tradition:
https://kirkcenter.org/edmund-burke-society/edmund-burke/
On a less serious note, a couple of years ago when someone was distributing copies of a little booklet with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to everyone at a gathering, I could not resist the temptation to open it up to the “the long train of abuses” and observe: “Look at this, King George did this, King George did that, moan, moan, moan.” I suspect that my interlocutor did not share my (English?) sense of humor about the matter despite the passage of two centuries or more.
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