On prophets, the dictatorship of relativism, and where it's all leading us...

Deacon Tom McDonnell is a prophet and prophets usually aren't welcome. Why? This article explains very nicely: http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=172&id=7614&t=Why+prophets+aren

We are all called to be prophets. We are all called by the Lord Jesus to confront evil and to publically oppose sinful structures. Sin has become institutionalized. This because of a secularism which is rooted in atheistic philosophy. Pope Benedict XVI, in a homily at the Conclave's Opening Mass, said that:

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tosed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

In fact, in its June 26, 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the "Supreme Court" effectively denied the existence of God's Eternal Law and Natural Law, and established its own atheistic and anarchic "morality," a "morality" which had been formulated by the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804):

"A person is properly subject to no other laws than those he lays down himself, either alone or in conjunction with others." (Immanual Kant, 'Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals," source: http://ethics.acusd.edu/Books/Kant/MetaMorals/NS/Kant_MM_NS.htm

The "Supreme Court," with a 6-3 majority, recognized liberty as the supreme norm of human thought and action:

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." (Lawrence, p. 13).

But, as Pope John John Paul II noted:

"The attempt to set freedom in opposition to truth, and indeed to separate them radically, is the consequence, manifestation and consummation of another more serious and destructive dichotomy that separates faith from morality....This separation represents one of the most acute pastoral concerns of the Church amid today's growing secularism, wherein indeed, too many people think and live 'as if God did not exist.'" (Veritatis Splendor, No. 88).

This disturbing trend is now affecting the very life of the Church. Again, Pope John Paul II had warned that:

"Even in the field of the thought and life of the Church certain trends inevitably favor the decline of the sense of sin. For example, some are inclined to replace exaggerated attitudes of the past with other exaggerations: From seeing sin everywhere they pass to not recognizing it anywhere; from too much emphasis on the fear of eternal punishment [here the Holy Father is speaking of Jansenism] they pass to preaching a love of God that excludes any punishment deserved by sin; from severity in trying to correct erroneous consciences they pass to a kind of respect for conscience which excludes the duty of telling the truth." (Reconciliatio et poenitentia, No. 18).

This is why Deacon Tom McDonnell has been publically criticized by his Bishop and the pastor of his parish for publically taking to task a pro-abortion politician. Where will this disturbing trend lead us? What is the end result of the dictatorship of relativism? The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides us with the disturbing answer to that question:

"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (No. 675).

Paul Anthony Melanson