We depend on our Priests and Religious to guide us in the way of Divine Truth revealed through Scripture and the Teachings of the Catholic Church through the Pope and the Magisterium. In many cases Priests and Nuns are placed in charge to teach our children the Faith through various Catholic schools, but are they teaching our children the valid Teachings of the Church or their particular version of what they perceive should be taught?
Many are also raised within Catholic families to never question the Priest's authority when it pertains to teaching our Faith, but what happens when this spirit of obedience is misguided as the very people we trust our Priests and Nuns decide to bring their own personal agenda's within their parishes?
We must also realise that Priests and Religious are not perfect nor should we expect them to be, that would be unjust and unfair to them and to us. This is not to say that we should accept what a Priest or nun says if it is against Church Doctrine. There have been occasions where both Priests and Religious have strayed from what the Catholic Church Teaches in order to push forth their own provocative ideas in an attempt to make the Church more relevant in today's society. They then continue to spin the faith to suit their own personal belief system which has little to do with obeying The Church's Authority.
In order to further this cause even Bishops have bought into this line of thinking that in order to gain more Church attendance we need to water down the truths of our Church to suit the modern era. This is not so! What is needed within our Church is sincere Reverence and not irrelevance, this is where many Priests and Nuns are making their biggest mistake, by trying to make Mass more 'entertaining' they instead butcher the reason why we attend Mass and that is to worship God and God alone!
The role of the Priesthood and Religious are to teach the Truths of the Church as revealed in Holy Doctrine and to be obedient to these very Teachings under the guidance of the Vicar of Christ in whom they are in communion with. Priests are not to dissent from the Traditional Teachings of the Church which has been passed down through the generations for all revealed Dogma's and Doctrines are to be accepted as God's Truth and not to be despised. The role of the laity is to pray for our Priests, Religious and to learn, obey and defend the Truths of the Church as we give our allegiance to the Vicar of Christ. This position is also supported by Scripture for as the Word reveals to us, 'We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you (both) are doing and will continue to do. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ. We instruct you, brothers, in the name of (our) Lord Jesus Christ,to shun any brother who conducts himself in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us.' For those who dissent against Church Teachings have become Apostates within the flock, who corrupt the body from within. This also supported in Canon Law as it states, Can. 273 Clerics have a special obligation to show reverence and obedience to the Supreme Pontiff and to their own Ordinary.
Though many Priests and Religious are faithful to our Supreme Pontiff and to the Magisterium as they live out the Truths of the Church and lead the faithful in following the precepts of the Church. Still there is cause for concern for a small minority who feel that dissension is healthy and so set out to bring discord to the accepted Truths Revealed to the Church through the Sacred Word and the eternal guidance of the Holy Spirit within the Magisterium. There is a difference between discourse over differences of opinion and open dissent which brings disunion to the Body of Christ. The Roman Catholic Church is never in error therefore its Teachings are to be obeyed without questioning it's integrity!
Many witnessed the debacle caused by Priests and Religious who embraced the liberation theology which was being propagated throughout South America in the 1980's. This revolutionary Priesthood instead of uniting with the poor against injustice chose instead to become fighters, it is a contradiction to pray the Rosary with one hand and support the machine gun with the other. Even though the late Pope John Paul II admonished the Priests involved still many chose to leave rather than remain faithful to the Pontiff! The Pope by remonstrating with the renegade Priests chose to discipline them by reminding them of their obligation to teach the Truths of the Church rather than their version of it. As Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, " first prevent those who teach error, then prevent the people from paying attention to those who teach error."This attempt at freedom only caused the Faithful to become disillusioned with the Church and many chose to embrace other denominations.
This is why our Priests and Religious must remain loyal sons and daughters of the Church for through their teaching we learn the rudimentaries of these very Truths. When both Priests and Nuns stray from this Vow of obedience they then are liable to bring scandal upon the Church and its body. The then Cardinal Ratzinger warned of this movement away from Revealed Truth to any 'truths' in this manner, "A dictatorship of relativism is being formed, one that recognizes nothing as definitive and that has as its measure only the self and its desires." One form of this is already appearing within the Church in the form of the New Age Movement which encourages Catholics to flirt with enneagrams, to worship within Mass the elements of earth, fire and water rather than the Creator of the elements. The emphasis is placed on worshipping the created in place of the Creator, as many Priests and Nuns encourage this movement of 'spirit earth' and teach this erroneous theology to the faithful.
There have been some cases where Wiccan elements were brought into the Mass so as to be inclusive of all spiritualities. This is little more than outright heresy which cannot and should not be supported by the laity no matter that the Priest or Nun expound its 'virtues' for as St. Augustine wrote, "who is worse, the murderer who kills the body, or the heretic who kills the soul?" It is a good thing to be respectful of other beliefs and to give them their due honour it is not a good thing to try and amalgamate these beliefs into the solid Teachings and Traditions of the Catholic Church. No matter how delightful these new ideas may sound to the ears, heresy remains just that heresy! This is not to say that all Catholics are robots and should obey as such for in the words of Pope John Paul II, "constructive criticism is useful for the Church, but it should never be made with disrespect or bitterness." The Church has no need for 'new idea's however novel they may sound as the Revelation of God's Word provides the Body of the Church with the nourishment it needs to flourish and thrive.
In recent years there has also been a movement for the Ordination of women into the Priesthood within the Catholic Church. Rather than honouring women this negates their very essence as women seek to become superior to men, thereby disowning the feminine qualities that is needed by the Church to help nurture and bring into fruition the Gifts that lay within the role of women who serve the Church whether as Religious or laity. Every Priest within the Church was born of a woman, what an honour that through their hands the mother can receive Jesus in the Eucharist. The role of women within the Church is unique and to be treasured as women serve the Church in the capacity and station of life. We must also take as an example our Holy Mother who sought no honour for herself except to do the Will of the Father, but still our lady will remain throughout the ages, Blessed.
The Priests and Religious who seek to impose their own personal beliefs onto the laity do so at their own peril. For if God had wished for women to become Priests then our Holy Mother would have been the first woman Priest. As it is when the betrayer Judas hung himself the Apostles sought with prayer to replace him with Mathias, and through the decision of the Holy Spirit neither the Blessed Mother nor Mary Magdalene were chosen and neither did they promote themselves to such perceived advancement.
Many Priests and Nuns use such words and descriptions of God as 'the feminine spirit' or the 'goddess spirit' both these concepts are not what the Church teaches, therefore why do they promote what is essentially heresy for a cause that has no validity within the Church? Our late Pope John Paul II stated equivocally when he declared openly, "I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." Yet upon this statement the feminists elements within the Catholic Church reproved the Pope for his 'dictatorial' role! As has been stated before the Catholic Church is not a democracy!
Not all the blame must be leveled at the Priesthood nor the Religious when at times the laity in an effort to maintain their popularity both with their Parish Priests and Religious embrace the 'feminist agenda' in hopes of gaining the approval of their Parish Priests. When a Priest is known to be in serious and willful error in a spirit of obstinacy the laity is to maintain its loyalty to Rome and the Vicar of Christ, irrespective of personal consequences to themselves. Heresy as defined in Canon Law, Can. 1325 'Any baptized person who, while retaining the name of Christian, obstinately denies or doubts any of the truths proposed for belief by the Divine and Catholic Faith'. To expound further as Pope Paul IV declared, 'Should it happen that a bishop, cardinal, legate...had deviated from the Catholic Faith or had fallen into some heresy..."Persons promoted or called in this way lose, by that very fact, and without further declaration, their dignity, position, honor, title, authority, function, and power all at the same time. To all persons promoted or called in this way - all the members or the secular clergy, all religious clerics, laymen, and also the cardinals who have participated in the ejection or a pope who already deviates from the Catholic Faith, have the right to refuse obedience and veneration towards these people thus promoted or called, and with impunity. They have the right to avoid them like warlocks, pagans, publicans and heresiarchs.." Once again Canon Law states, Canon 1935 'Any member of the faithful may at all times denounce the offence of another, and the obligation of denouncing another becomes urgent... when one is obliged to do so in virtue of the natural law where there is danger to faith or religion or other imminent public evil.'
So in accordance with the Teachings of the Church it is our duty to report an act of willful and obstinate refusal by a Priest to teach what the Church holds to be True and inviolate towards Sacred Tradition to the respective authorities and then prayerfully leave it in their capable hands as we pray for the soul of the heretical Priest or Religious.
For it is a serious matter indeed when our Priests willfully stray from the Proper and rightful Teachings of the Church and then misalign their loyalties not to the Vicar of Christ but instead they rely on their own knowledge and reasoning to justify their faulty and heretical beliefs.
In the end they are more than wolves in sheep's clothing they are devouring wolves bent upon the destruction of the Church instituted by Christ Himself.
They have indeed become Apostates within the ranks which tries to corrupt the body within, as Scripture warns us, 'Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.'
To finish in the words of St. Augustine that great man of the Church, "Rome has spoken; the case is closed."
Peace of Christ to ALL
Copyright © 2006 Marie Smith. All rights reserved.
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