Archbishop Chaput Thunders: Complacency and pride within the Church are the enemy of Faith

My good friend Deacon Nick Donnelly is reporting that:

"In his latest pastoral letter Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia has written that complacency and pride within the Church are the enemy of Faith.


'Advent is a season of self-examination in the light of God’s word;a season of conversion and looking forward in hope to the birth of a Savior at Christmas. There is no better time to speak frankly about the conditions we now face as a community of believers.’

‘Complacency is the enemy of faith. To whatever degree complacency and pride once had a home in our local Church,events in the coming year will burn them out. The process will be painful. But going through it is the only way to renew the witness of the Church;to clear away the debris of human failure from the beauty of God’s word and to restore the joy and zeal of our Catholic discipleship.’

These words may sound sobering,but they are spoken with love as a father and a brother. They are a plea to take our baptism seriously;and to renew our local Church with Christian charity,justice and zeal. As Scripture reminds us so frequently: Do not be afraid. God uses poor clay to create grandeur and beauty. He can certainly use us to renew and advance the work of the Church —and he will.

Protect the Pope comment: We would do well to remember that Jesus longed to bring fire upon the world, the fire of the Holy Spirit. Complacency and pride, particularly among those called to act in persona Christi Capitis, damps down the fire of faith,hope and love as sure as an ocean of tepid water.

The wreckage that we see around us since the Second Vatican Council is the consequence of complacency and pride. The only antidote to this is humiliation,and its fruit,humility.

Until the majority of the Catholic leaders of our country, bishops, priests, deacons, theologians, catechists, truly feels the bitter pain of humiliation as a result of the appalling failures of the past, such as clergy sexual abuse, the collapse of Catholic education in our schools, the wholesale abandonment of Catholic doctrine by Diocesan catechetical teams and the majority of Catholic institutes of education, for example, then complacency and pride will continue to rule our local church;and the fire will continue to splutter out.

http://www.stbl.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Pastorallet_IC.pdf

Well said Deacon Nick. I have been saying this for many years now. Just recently, I found it necessary to inform my parish priest that his promotion of CCHD in the parish bulletin was most unfortunate as the organization promotes abortion, homosexuality and so-called same-sex "marriage."  Just yesterday, at Holy Mass honoring the Immaculate Conception, this same priest told the faithful present that they should not genuflect on one knee during Eucharistic Adoration and that doing so is a sign of irreverence.  He asserted that Catholics must genuflect on both knees.

Straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel?

I wrote this priest an email in which I said: "During Holy Mass today, the people present were told that they should genuflect on both knees during Eucharistic Adoration. Actually, in 1993 the USCC/NCCB Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy published the Order for the Solemn Exposition of the Holy Eucharist, a resource collection of rites and texts for use by those planning annual solemn exposition. In #9 of that document it states, "Genuflection in the presence of the blessed sacrament, whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed for public adoration, is on one knee." The footnote references the Vatican document of 1973: the Roman Ritual: Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass (HCWEOM.) In #84 of that document is the identical wording.


Father Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., in his Catholic Dictionary, notes that, "..genuflection in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed for public adoration, is on one knee" (General Instruction on Holy Communion and the Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass, n. 84).

The faithful should not be made to feel guilty for genuflecting on one knee when the Church proscribes doing just that: "Genuflection in the presence of the blessed sacrament, whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed for public adoration, is on one knee." (See No. 84 here)."

This same priest had nothing to say about the woman and her several children who disrupted the Holy Mass this past Sunday, screaming and jumping up and down and running through the church.  He didn't speak of this as irreverence.  He kept that accusation for the faithful and devout Catholics - what few there are - who actually go to Eucharistic Adoration and who genuflect on one knee.

God preserve us from such nonsense!