Pope Francis: Doctrine is cold and leads to an abstract world without faith, hope and love

The assault on doctrine continues as Rome disintegrates.

Vatican Radio:

"It is not 'cold doctrine' that brings joy, but faith, and the hope of meeting Jesus. He who cannot rejoice is an unhappy believer: that’s what Pope Francis said in his homily at Thursday morning’s Mass in Santa Marta in the Vatican:
Abraham’s joy upon hearing that as God promised, he may become a father inspired Pope Francis’ reflection Thursday.  Commenting on the day’s readings, Pope Francis remarked that Abraham is old, as well as his wife Sara, but he believes and opens 'his heart to hope' and is 'full of consolation.' Jesus reminds the doctors of the law that Abraham 'rejoiced' to see his day 'and was full of joy':

"And that's what these doctors of the law did not understand. They did not understand the joy of promise; they did not understand the joy of hope; they did not understand the joy of the alliance. They did not understand! They did not know how to rejoice, because they had lost the sense of joy that only comes from faith. Our father Abraham was able to rejoice because he had faith; he was justified in the faith. These others had lost faith. They were doctors of the law, but without faith! But what’s more: they had lost the law! Because the center of the law is love, love for God and neighbor. "

The Pope then continued:

"It’s only that they had a system of precise doctrines and that they clarified each and every day that no one touch them. Men without faith, without law, attached to doctrines that also become an attitude of casuistry: you can pay the tax to Caesar, can you not? This woman, who has been married seven times: when she goes to Heaven will she be the bride of those seven men? This casuistry… This was their world, an abstract world, a world without love, a world without faith, a world without hope, a world without trust, a world without God. And for this, they could not rejoice!"

Perhaps, the doctors of the law - the Pope observes ironically - could also have fun, "but without joy," indeed "with fear." "This is life without faith in God, without trust in God, without hope in God." And "their heart was petrified." It's sad, the Pope stressed, to be a believer without joy - and  joy is not there when there is no faith, when there is no hope, when there is no law - but only the regulations, cold doctrine":
"The joy of faith, the joy of the Gospel is the touchstone of the faith of a person. Without joy that person is not a true believer. Let's go home, but before that, we celebrate here with these words of Jesus: 'Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.' And ask the Lord for the grace to be rejoicing in hope, for the grace to see the day of Jesus when we will be with Him and for the grace of joy."

So, according to Pope Francis, the believer is hindered by dogma.  Dogma is portrayed by the Pontiff as a danger to faith, as something which leads to coldness and the death of faith, hope and love-  the Theological Virtues.

Where is Francis going with this? Is there really any doubt? Where does a religion without dogma lead? Archbishop Fulton John Sheen, in an Essay which may be found in his book The Electronic Christian, tells us:


"The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded. 

The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'

The simple map is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'

Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.

It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes. When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas. (pp. 74-74).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that, "The Church's Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these." (CCC, 88).

How critical is dogma to one's faith life?  Again the Catechism explains, "There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas.  Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure.  Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith." (CCC, 89).

Pope Francis would have us believe that dogma leads us away from compassion and to a cold Pharisaism. But as far as compassion is concerned, we must define our terms.

Because of human frailty, every sinner deserves both pity and compassion. However, vice and sin must be excluded from this compassion. This because sin can never be the proper object of compassion. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 1).

It is a false compassion which supplies the sinner with the means to remain attached to sin. Such "compassion" provides an assistance (whether material or moral) which actually enables the sinner to remain firmly attached to his evil ways. By contrast, true compassion leads the sinner away from vice and back to virtue. As Thomas Aquinas explains:

"We love sinners out of charity, not so as to will what they will, or to rejoice in what gives them joy, but so as to make them will what we will, and rejoice in what rejoices us. Hence it is written: 'They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.'" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.6, ad 4, citing Jeremiah 15:19).

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the sentiment of compassion only becomes a virtue when it is guided by reason, since "it is essential to human virtue that the movements of the soul should be regulated by reason." (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, c.3). Without such regulation, compassion is merely a passion. A false compassion is a compassion not regulated and tempered by reason and is, therefore, a potentially dangerous inclination. This because it is subject to favoring not only that which is good but also that which is evil (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 3).

An authentic compassion always stems from charity. True compassion is an effect of charity (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.3, ad 3). But it must be remembered that the object of this virtue is God, whose love extends to His creatures. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.3). Therefore, the virtue of compassion seeks to bring God to the one who suffers so that he may thereby participate in the infinite love of God. As St. Augustine explains:

"'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Now, you love yourself suitably when you love God better than yourself. What, then, you aim at in yourself you must aim at in your neighbor, namely, that he may love God with a perfect affection." (St. Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, No. 49).

Related reading here.

Wild Bill on the Cult of Softness...

On April 6, 1941, Bishop Fulton John Sheen gave a sermon on his radio show "The Catholic Hour" in which he reminded listeners that, "The basic spirit of the modern world for the last century has been a determination to escape the Cross." He told his audience as well that, "There is no such thing as living without a cross. We are free only to choose between crosses." And then he asked them: "Will it be the Cross of Christ which redeems us from our sins, or will it be the double cross, the swastika, the hammer and sickle, the fasces"?

Bishop Sheen believed, as I do, that America is at a crossroads. In his own words, "We in America are now faced with the threat of that double cross...Our choice is not: Will we or will we not have more discipline, more respect for law, more order, more sacrifice; but, where will we get it? Will we get it from without, or from within, Will it be inspired by Sparta or Calvary? By Valhalla or Gethsemane? By militarism or religion? By the double cross or the Cross? By Caesar or by God? That is the choice facing America today. The hour of false freedom is past. No longer can we have education without discipline, family life without sacrifice, individual existence without moral responsibility, economics and politics without subservience to the common good. We are now only free to say whence it shall come. We will have a sword. Shall it be only the sword that thrusts outward to cut off the ears of our enemies, or the sword that pierces inward to cut out our own selfish pride"?

Thus far, America has chosen the double cross. Fleeing from the Cross of Christ and the supernatural kingdom established by the Son of God; one of sacrifice and sanctity, America has chosen to pursue a terrestrial kingdom of pleasure and power founded upon a distorted idea of what constitutes liberty or freedom. But this city of man, which has certainly achieved astounding advancements in various spheres while increasing the affluence of some, has also contributed to a climate where men are regarded as mere machines whose only value is to be found in what they produce or consume. This in turn destroys the individual’s sense of personal dignity and responsibility.

Americans, in their tragic desire to flee from the Cross of Christ, have rushed to embrace this distorted notion of "freedom" and have forgotten that, as created beings, they only possess contingent rights. That is to say, rights which are accorded by Almighty God. Consequently, in their zeal to promote the fallacious idea that the basis of public morality should be whatever the majority of citizens are prepared to accept, they have also forgotten that man does not possess, and never will possess, the right to perform or engage in any act which is displeasing to God.

And where has this flight from the Cross of Christ led us up to this point? Was Bishop Sheen being an alarmist? In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, taken from his Commencement Address at Harvard University entitled "A World Split Apart": "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young peoples’ right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil."

Getting back to Bishop Sheen. What did he mean when he said that, "Our choice is not: Will we or will we not have more discipline, more respect for law, more order, more sacrifice; but, where will we get it"? I believe Pope Benedict XVI was providing us with a hint toward an answer when he spoke of the "dictatorship of relativism." Americans who have gleefully embraced the tenets of liberalism have not learned the lesson the concentration camp and the gulag. These unfortunate souls refuse to acknowledge that atheistic ideology (and make no mistake, the current idea of "freedom" which has taken root in America is itself rooted in atheistic ideology) always, and without exception, gives birth to sheer violence. This is the lesson of atheistic humanism. A lesson which the majority of Americans would rather not think about.

Who would deny that Bishop Sheen’s warning, issued some 64 years ago, was highly prophetic? America, and the West in general, is at a crossroads. We have before us two crosses: The Cross of Christ and the double cross (which may also be referred to today as the "dictatorship of relativism"). Which will we choose in the end? Will we continue on our present course or change direction and finally come to embrace the Cross of Christ? Will we embrace Christ and His kingdom of sacrifice and sanctity or continue to rush headlong into the idolatry of unbridled hedonism while declaring ourselves, albeit tacitly, to be God?

If we continue to choose the latter, then we should remember the words of Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., "When man becomes God, history testifies that then millions of men become imprisoned slaves, terrified automatons and murdered corpses. Society, in the words of Gabriel Marcel, becomes a ‘termite colony.’" (The Gods of Atheism, p. 463).

America and the rest of the world have opted for Sparta over Calvary. Blood will soon flow in our streets.

One of my favorite poets, who was also a great prophetic author, is James Dickey. In his book Deliverance, which was made into a film starring Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight, he writes about the system failing. Years later, a policeman told me something I already knew for myself: that the day was fast approaching when people wouldn't be able to rely on the police and we would be reduced to a fight for survival.

I realize for some of you, this will just sound like doom and gloom. But believe it. We are already seeing mob violence and the targeting of police.

Prepare now. Both spiritually and physically.




It can no longer be denied that America has become a "seething cesspool of filth and corruption."  America has become a haunt of demons and of every foul spirit.  Today, even those who present themselves as "Catholic" have lost the sense of sin.  Archbishop Fulton Sheen warned that, "Man is powerless to resist evil if he does not recognize it as such, and deceives himself when he becomes indifferent to evil; his whole personality immediately begins to dissolve, for the power of conscience is inseparably bound up with the denunciation of evil. And this is precisely what our world is doing today; the very beliefs on which the best culture of the world was built are now called in question.  Even the distinction between good and evil is lost, and now only a sense of civic loyalty remains.  The prophet Isaias sounded such a decadence in his day: 'Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.'  If we called sin by its name it would lose all of its seductiveness.  Hell can be made attractive, only by surfacing it with the gold of Paradise." (Essay entitled The Sense of Sin).

Today, evil is called good and good is called evil.  Catholics faithful to the Magisterium are portrayed as "divisive" and "offensive" even as active homosexuals are celebrated and told to have "pride" in their behaviors.

On April 6, 1941, Bishop Fulton John Sheen gave a sermon on his radio show "The Catholic Hour" in which he reminded listeners that, "The basic spirit of the modern world for the last century has been a determination to escape the Cross." He told his audience as well that, "There is no such thing as living without a cross. We are free only to choose between crosses." And then he asked them: "Will it be the Cross of Christ which redeems us from our sins, or will it be the double cross, the swastika, the hammer and sickle, the fasces"? Bishop Sheen believed, as I do, that America is at a crossroads. In his own words, "We in America are now faced with the threat of that double cross...Our choice is not: Will we or will we not have more discipline, more respect for law, more order, more sacrifice; but, where will we get it? Will we get it from without, or from within, Will it be inspired by Sparta or Calvary? By Valhalla or Gethsemane? By militarism or religion? By the double cross or the Cross? By Caesar or by God? That is the choice facing America today.


The hour of false freedom is past. No longer can we have education without discipline, family life without sacrifice, individual existence without moral responsibility, economics and politics without subservience to the common good. We are now only free to say whence it shall come. We will have a sword. Shall it be only the sword that thrusts outward to cut off the ears of our enemies, or the sword that pierces inward to cut out our own selfish pride"?

Thus far, America has chosen the double cross. Fleeing from the Cross of Christ and the supernatural kingdom established by the Son of God; one of sacrifice and sanctity, America has chosen to pursue a terrestrial kingdom of pleasure and power founded upon a distorted idea of what constitutes liberty or freedom. But this city of man, which has certainly achieved astounding advancements in various spheres while increasing the affluence of some, has also contributed to a climate where men are regarded as mere machines whose only value is to be found in what they produce or consume. This in turn destroys the individual’s sense of personal dignity and responsibility. Americans, in their tragic desire to flee from the Cross of Christ, have rushed to embrace this distorted notion of "freedom" and have forgotten that, as created beings, they only possess contingent rights. That is to say, rights which are accorded by Almighty God. Consequently, in their zeal to promote the fallacious idea that the basis of public morality should be whatever the majority of citizens are prepared to accept, they have also forgotten that man does not possess, and never will possess, the right to perform or engage in any act which is displeasing to God.

And where has this flight from the Cross of Christ led us up to this point? Was Bishop Sheen being an alarmist? In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, taken from his Commencement Address at Harvard University entitled "A World Split Apart": "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young peoples’ right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil."

Getting back to Bishop Sheen. What did he mean when he said that, "Our choice is not: Will we or will we not have more discipline, more respect for law, more order, more sacrifice; but, where will we get it"? I believe Pope Benedict XVI was providing us with a hint toward an answer when he spoke of the "dictatorship of relativism." Americans who have gleefully embraced the tenets of liberalism have not learned the lesson the concentration camp and the gulag. These unfortunate souls refuse to acknowledge that atheistic ideology (and make no mistake, the current idea of "freedom" which has taken root in America is itself rooted in atheistic ideology) always, and without exception, gives birth to sheer violence. This is the lesson of atheistic humanism. A lesson which the majority of Americans would rather not think about.

Thomas Groome, former priest and heretic, is anxiously awaiting Pope Francis' "Major reforms."

Father Malachi Martin, a Jesuit scholar who served as a member of the Vatican Advisory Council as well as personal secretary to Cardinal Augustin Bea, was known to be in possession of detailed information pertaining to the Third Secret of Fatima, which he said addressed a plan to install the False Prophet during a "Final Conclave."





Is it just a coincidence that the current Pontiff took the name Francis - after Saint Francis of Assisi - when the same saint was given a prophecy which enabled him to prophesy that, "...a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death.....some preachers will keep silence about the truth, an others will trample it under foot and deny it....for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer."





This prophecy of an anti-pope seizing papal authority and the faithful remnant of the Church being subjected to persecution like never before in history has been spoken of by many seers.  Blessed Joachim prophesied that, "Toward the end of the world, Antichrist will overthrow the pope and usurp his See."  Malvenda says that, "...Rome itself in the last times of the world will return to its ancient idolatry, power and imperial greatness.  It will cast out its Pontiff, altogether apostasize from the Christian faith, terribly persecute the Church, shed the blood of martyrs more cruelly than ever, and will recover its former state of abundant wealth, or even greater than it had under its first rulers."

The priest-mystic Father Herman Bernard Kramer, in his classic work "The Book of Destiny," interprets the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation thusly: "The 'sign' in heaven is that of a woman with child crying out in travail and anguish of delivery.  In that travail, she gives birth to some definite 'person' who is to rule the Church with a rod of iron (verse 5).  It then points to a conflict-waged within the Church to elect one who was to 'rule all nations' in the manner clearly stated.  In accord with the text this is unmistakably a papal election, for only Christ and His Vicar have the divine right to rule all nations.....But at this time the great powers may take a menacing attitude to hinder the election of  the logical and expected candidate...."





What else does this describe but a revolution in the Church?





At La Salette, the Blessed Mother told Melanie Calvat that the time was coming when, "Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.  For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.  The Church will be in eclipse, the worl will be in ismay....Now is the time; the abyss is opening.  Here is the king of kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the savior of the world."



Bear in mind that little Melanie Calvat was a simple peasant girl.  She was not what the world considers to be "sophisticated."  She wasn't given to flights of fancy.  There was no malice in her.  No deceit.  Otherwise the La Salette apparition would not have been approved.



Things appear to be escalating quickly now.




In an article entitled "New role shows pope's esteem for O'Malley," Thomas Groome, a former priest who is nothing less than a heretic, and who serves as a professor of theology at Boston College, assures us that Pope Francis will depend on Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley's advice to lead "major Church reforms."




Readers of this Blog will recall how Cardinal O'Malley was prepared to allow a "Gay Pride Mass" in his Archdiocese (at Saint Cecilia's Parish in the Back Bay) until faithful Catholics such as yours truly exposed the whole affair (see here).  What sort of "advice" will Francis receive from the Cardinal?


And what does Groome mean by "major Church reforms"?  Doctrinal changes on the way?  That a heretic would be looking forward to "major reforms" from Francis is, to say the least, extremely unnerving.




Archbishop Fulton John Sheen warned us years ago that a False Prophet would be chosen from among the Bishops and that he would advance "a religion without a cross."


Watch and pray.




Related reading here and here.

The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers..."

In his book entitled Communism and the Conscience of the West, Fulton John Sheen warned that, "The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himsel as "I am Who am," and the Devil as "I am who am not."


Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first "red." Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the Prince of this world," whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect--and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .

. . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion--one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. . . .

. . . But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism. (Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West [Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948], pp. 24-25).

A false prophet, a Pope who is controlled by Satan, will prepare the world for the appearance of the Man of Sin.  Saint Francis (from whom the current pope took his name) prophesied shortly before his death that, "At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death...Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it...for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer." (Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, Washburne, p. 248).

In his classic work entitled "The Book of Destiny," Father Herman Bernard Kramer, a priest-mystic, prophesied that, "The 'sign' [in the book of Revelation] in heaven is that of a woman with child crying out in her travail and anguish of delivery.  In that travail, she gives birth to some definite 'person' who is to rule the Church with a rod of iron (Apoc 12: 5).  It then points to a conflict waged within the Church to elect one who was to 'rule all nations' in the manner clearly stated.  In accord with the text this is unmistakably a papal election, for only Christ and His Vicar have the divine right to rule all nations..." (p. 480).

The course has been set.  The signs of the times constitute a warning to the remnant Church.

A new form of atheism....have we succumbed to it?

"I had a little tea party this afternoon at three.
Twas very small - three guests in all - just I, myself and me.
Myself ate all the sandwiches, while I drank all the tea.
Twas also I who ate the pie, and passed the cake to me."

                                   - Author unknown.


In his January 19th audience with workers and leaders of Catholic charities and members of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, Pope Benedict XVI warned that while there is "a growing consensus today about the inalienable dignity of the human being" and people's interdependence and responsibilities toward others, there are also many "dark spots" that are obscuring God's plan.

The Holy Father warned of a new form of atheism which views people as independent and autonomous with happiness lying solely in realizing one's own self.  Here the Pope is referring to those who are crippled by the sin of selfishness, a sin as old as humanity which has taken deep root in the heart of "modern man."  As Archbishop Fulton John Sheen reminded us, "Selfishness does not mean that there is not to be a proper love of self.  Our Blessed Lord told us: 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' (Mt 19: 19).  God made 'self' the standard by which the neighbor is to be loved.  This could not be, if love of self did not have a legitimate basis.  Selfishness, is the love of the wrong self; that is, the self that is indifferent to the feeling and the interest and the safety of others.  People are not selfish because they wish to earn enough to raise a family, but they are selfish if they consult only their own gains regardless of the losses that they may bring on others." (Essay entitled Selfishness).

The Lord Jesus has put us here on earth to serve Him and not ourselves.  Many today, and sadly even within the Church, have succumbed to a philosophy of self-indulgence which is often indicative of pride and may even represent a failure to trust in the Lord, a practical atheism which renders others invisible and irrelevant.

Damien Fisher, writing for The Gardner News, relates the story of Vietnam veteran Jesse Stallings, a soldier who became invisible and irrelevant to those around him who should have welcomed him.  Mr. Fisher writes, "Jesse Stallings served in Vietnam, and then came home to a difficult life.  His trouble coming back and becoming part of society again was partly because of the negative attitudes many had about the Vietnam War, and by extension, the men who fought it.  Mr. Stallings' troubles also stemmed from post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition not widely understood at the time, and not well-treated either...Mr. Stallings was proud to put on his uniform to march in the parade in Fitchburg, one of the first in the region to welcome Vietnam vets....But his long hair and beard did not mesh with how the other, older veterans wanted him to look.  He was sent away.  Dejected after leaving the parade ground, Mr. Stallings went home and killed himself." (MVOC opens new Winchendon campus, January 26-27 edition of The Gardner News).

Have we become so self-indulgent that others have practically become invisible to us?  We can answer this question only through honest self-examination.  Hence the need for frequent sacramental confession.  Self-deception is so very easy.  As Saint Francis de Sales noted, "Self-love is cunning; it pushes and insinuates itself into everything, while making us believe it is not there at all."

If we wish to deepen our relationship with the Lord Jesus and to be of genuine service to Him, then we must struggle against self-deception and be completely honest with ourselves, petitioning the Lord to reveal to us our hidden motives and attachments.  And then we must, with the help of His grace (without which nothing is possible), reorder our priorities.

Related meditation here.

Bill Tammeus and the National "Catholic" Reporter: Dogma stands in the way of our relationship with Christ Jesus

There is an all out assault on dogma in our modern world.  And I've been documenting that fact at this Blog for years.  Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former columnist for The Kansas City Star, isn't too crazy about dogma either.  Writing for the National Catholic Reporter online, Mr. Tammeus complains, "Ultimately, truth in Christianity is not a doctrine, not a dogma, not a creed, not a papal bull, not what's said in a sermon, not even the words in the Bible.  Rather, truth in Christianity is a person, Christ Jesus...We prefer to nail down our truths, to measure our reality in meters and pounds, light years and ohms.  But when we do that, we miss the scenery and the breath-taking cosmos found along the path of those meters and light years, the complexity of life that makes up those pounds, the power and light resulting from those ohms.  In Christian terms, we miss the living Lord."

What of this?  Does dogma really stand in the way of our relationship with Christ Jesus?  Do we really "miss the scenery" in our spiritual journey when we embrace dogmas?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that, "The Church's Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these." (CCC, 88).


In his book entitled The Electronic Christian, Archbishop Fulton John Sheen so eloquently warned that, "The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded.


The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'

The simple map is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'

Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.

It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes. When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas." (pp. 74-75).

The dogma is the drama as Dorothy Sayers reminded us.  We have two roads before us: Creed or Chaos.  And I think we all know which road the National Catholic Reporter and the LCWR have chosen.

Steve Jobs on dogma...

Our Lady told Father Gobbi on July 4, 1986 that, "In the darkness which has come down upon the world and is spreading throughout the Church, how many minds are becoming obscured by errors and dried up by the ever widening spread of doubts; how many intellects are being contaminated with error which leads many to become lost and to stray from the way of the true faith....If you look to my Immaculate Heart and allow yourselves to be penetrated by the ray of my light, your minds will obtain the gift of divine wisdom and will be drawn by the beauty of the truth which Jesus has revealed to you."

I am struck by how many people - Catholics included - are eulogizing Steve Jobs at the moment.  Many revere the inventor and innovator as some sort of "Tech God."  There are endless testimonials for this man.  Many of my friends on Facebook have been singing his praises.

I don't pretend to know everything about Steve Jobs.  And I have no interest in speaking ill of him.  But there is something which concerns me about his thought.  And it is this: Mr. Jobs has been widely quoted as having said: "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."  See here. These words have received much play in the liberal mainstream media. 


Now here we encounter a problem.  If Mr. Jobs had simply said, "Don't be trapped by other people's ideology," or "Think outside the box," or "Don't let others define who you are or what your goals are," I wouln't be concerned.  But he specifically used the word "dogma," which primarily refers to religious doctrine. In his book entitled The Electronic Christian, Archbishop Fulton John Sheen so eloquently warned that, "The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded.

The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'


The simple map is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'

Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.

It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes. When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas." (pp. 74-75).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that, "The Church's Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these." (CCC, 88).

How critical is dogma to one's faith life? Again the Catechism explains, "There is an organic connection between our spiritual life and the dogmas. Dogmas are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure. Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith." (CCC, 89).

There are many voices out there which seek to paint the Church as "rigid," "reactionary," "tradition-bound," "out-of-date," and "archaic" because she refuses to abandon divine Revelation in order to accommodate "modern man."  But the words of the Catechism are our sure guide: "if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith."  And if our lives are not upright...

Sonja Corbitt wants to convince us that Antichrist is not near

In an article for Catholic Online, Sonja Corbitt acknowledges that, "We know to watch for particular signs, and the signs of the times are not good."  She then asks "Could Antichrist be iminent?" while citing the words of Our Lord, "No man knows the day or hour."  But after acknowledging Our Lord's warning, she writes: "Uprising after uprising in the Middle East; sexual and intellectual scandal in the Church; earthquakes in Chile and Haiti; tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan; and financial collapse in almost every market: given the startling increase in the frequency of global crises - political, religious, financial, natural - one is tempted to begin looking for Antichrist and despair for the future.


The pervading anxiety and fear is exacerbated by non-Catholic proliferation of end times fiction and even some Catholics who erroneously promote the imminent arrival of the Antichrist and the Second Coming. This idea has distinct emotional appeal in our troubled times, since one way or another, it would all end soon, and possibly without our having to "do" anything.

Although the prospect relieves us of our sense of personal responsibility to become or remain involved in an immoral world which despises a Christian moral message, according to the historic Tradition of the Church and the direction of her leadership, it would be a tragic error for several reasons. First, the Antichrist is not here, or even just around the corner..."

But not everyone shares Ms. Corbitt's view.  For example, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi has warned that the Antichrist is already among us.  And the late (great) Archbishop Fulton John Sheen said, shortly before he died, that, "We are living in the days of the Apocalypse - the last days of our era...The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest."


With all due respect for Ms. Corbitt, she's no Fulton Sheen.  And never will be.  While the idea that Antichrist is imminent may have emotional appeal for some who wish to evade "personal responsibility to become or remain involved in an immoral world which despises a Christian moral message," it may also be said that there is emotional appeal for others in believing that the Antichrist is not near.  For, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:

"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." (675).

The idea that such a persecution may be close at hand is disturbing.  But the answer is not to be found by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that "all is well."  The message that Antichrist is near need not fill us with dread or despair.  For again the Catechism explains that, "The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world." (677).

Does that sound like a message of despair?  Or could it just be that Sonja Corbitt's faith in the Lord Jesus is not very strong?  The Church assures us that God's victory over the final unleashing of evil will result in a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is at home.  How is this a message of despair?  We have a courageous example given to us in Sacred Scripture as to how to face persecution even unto death.  And this from a mother and her seven sons.  See here.

Read this passage from Maccabees and ask yourself, "Did these people of faith despair?"  Or did they believe in the Lord's promises?

At any rate, getting back to Ms. Corbitt's assertion that the Antichrist is not near, let's hear from Father Charles Arminjon in his book "The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life":

"It is undeniable that all governments at the present time are at work accomplishing this abominable operation of apostasy, and that they are striving to banish Jesus Christ from the school, the army, and from the very abode of justice!  Are not His Cross and His adorable name blasphemed and held up as a symbol of ignorance and fanaticism?  Has not the Church been outlawed and excluded from the councils of governments and deliberative assemblies?  Are not all the laws that are formulated marked with the seal of odious intolerance toward her, and have they any other purpose than to diminish her authority and influence?  Blasphemy is raised to the level of a privilege and a right.  Parallel with the destruction of Christianity, we see the reappearance of paganism, in the form of base materialism, marked by the exaltation of all that flatters the senses, and the glorification of the basest and most brutish instincts; a paganism that pervades industry, the arts, and literature, and predominates in all public institutions.  Christianity is declared to be the enemy, and at the same time, materialism is presented to the aspirations of peoples as the moving force of progress, and the god of the future.  Now, if the extremes of evil do not meet with a prompt and vigorous response, if the defection continues on its course, it may be predicted that this war on God must inevitably end in total, consummated apostasy.  It is but a small step from the cult of the state - that is, the utilitarian spirit and the worship of the god-state which is the religion of our time, to the worship of the individual man.  We have almost reached that point...and, proceeding from these facts and observations, we must conclude that the hypothesis of the proximity of the Antichrist's coming is more probable than the hypothesis that considers his coming as remote." (pp. 71-72).

"Will we be inspired by Sparta or Calvary? By Valhalla or Gethsemane?"

On April 6, 1941, Bishop Fulton John Sheen gave a sermon on his radio show "The Catholic Hour" in which he reminded listeners that, "The basic spirit of the modern world for the last century has been a determination to escape the Cross." He told his audience as well that, "There is no such thing as living without a cross. We are free only to choose between crosses." And then he asked them: "Will it be the Cross of Christ which redeems us from our sins, or will it be the double cross, the swastika, the hammer and sickle, the fasces"?Bishop Sheen believed, as I do, that America is at a crossroads. In his own words, "We in America are now faced with the threat of that double cross...Our choice is not: Will we or will we not have more discipline, more respect for law, more order, more sacrifice; but, where will we get it? Will we get it from without, or from within, Will it be inspired by Sparta or Calvary? By Valhalla or Gethsemane? By militarism or religion? By the double cross or the Cross? By Caesar or by God? That is the choice facing America today.


The hour of false freedom is past. No longer can we have education without discipline, family life without sacrifice, individual existence without moral responsibility, economics and politics without subservience to the common good. We are now only free to say whence it shall come. We will have a sword. Shall it be only the sword that thrusts outward to cut off the ears of our enemies, or the sword that pierces inward to cut out our own selfish pride"?

Thus far, America has chosen the double cross. Fleeing from the Cross of Christ and the supernatural kingdom established by the Son of God; one of sacrifice and sanctity, America has chosen to pursue a terrestrial kingdom of pleasure and power founded upon a distorted idea of what constitutes liberty or freedom. But this city of man, which has certainly achieved astounding advancements in various spheres while increasing the affluence of some, has also contributed to a climate where men are regarded as mere machines whose only value is to be found in what they produce or consume. This in turn destroys the individual’s sense of personal dignity and responsibility.Americans, in their tragic desire to flee from the Cross of Christ, have rushed to embrace this distorted notion of "freedom" and have forgotten that, as created beings, they only possess contingent rights. That is to say, rights which are accorded by Almighty God. Consequently, in their zeal to promote the fallacious idea that the basis of public morality should be whatever the majority of citizens are prepared to accept, they have also forgotten that man does not possess, and never will possess, the right to perform or engage in any act which is displeasing to God.

And where has this flight from the Cross of Christ led us up to this point? Was Bishop Sheen being an alarmist? In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, taken from his Commencement Address at Harvard University entitled "A World Split Apart": "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young peoples’ right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil."

Getting back to Bishop Sheen. What did he mean when he said that, "Our choice is not: Will we or will we not have more discipline, more respect for law, more order, more sacrifice; but, where will we get it"? I believe Pope Benedict XVI was providing us with a hint toward an answer when he spoke of the "dictatorship of relativism." Americans who have gleefully embraced the tenets of liberalism have not learned the lesson the concentration camp and the gulag. These unfortunate souls refuse to acknowledge that atheistic ideology (and make no mistake, the current idea of "freedom" which has taken root in America is itself rooted in atheistic ideology) always, and without exception, gives birth to sheer violence. This is the lesson of atheistic humanism. A lesson which the majority of Americans would rather not think about.

Who would deny that Bishop Sheen’s warning, issued some 70 years ago, was highly prophetic? America, and the West in general, is at a crossroads. We have before us two crosses: The Cross of Christ and the double cross (which may also be referred to today as the "dictatorship of relativism"). Which will we choose in the end? Will we continue on our present course or change direction and finally come to embrace the Cross of Christ? Will we embrace Christ and His kingdom of sacrifice and sanctity or continue to rush headlong into the idolatry of unbridled hedonism while declaring ourselves, albeit tacitly, to be God?

If we continue to choose the latter, then we should remember the words of Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., "When man becomes God, history testifies that then millions of men become imprisoned slaves, terrified automatons and murdered corpses. Society, in the words of Gabriel Marcel, becomes a ‘termite colony.’" (The Gods of Atheism, p. 463).

"I love you means you shall not die."

"I love you means you shall not die." - Gabriel Marcel.

"How life changes its meaning when we see the love of the flesh as the reflection of the Eternal Light shot through the prism of time! They who would separate the earthly sound from the heavenly harp can have no music; they who believe that love is only the body's breath soon find love breathes its last and they have made a covenant with death. But they who see in all earthly beauty the faint copy of Divine loveliness, they who see in fidelity to every vow, even when the other is untrue, a proof that God loves us who are so unlovable, they who, in the face of their trials, see that God's love ended on a cross, they who allow the river of their rapture to broaden out the blended channels of prayer and worship - these will, even on earth, learn that love was made flesh and dwelled amongst us. Thus Love becomes an ascension toward that blessed day when the limitless depths of our souls will be filled with the boundless giving, in one eternal now, where love is life's eternity and God is Love." - Fulton John Sheen.

Battle lines are being drawn....

It was Archbishop Fulton John Sheen who remarked, "We are living in the days of the Apocalypse - the last days of our era...The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest."

One of the clearest signs that this contest is upon us is hatred for the crucifix. In Brazil, an anti-Catholic Socialist dictatorship wants to sanitize the public square of crucifixes. See here. One of the clearest signs of demonic possession is an aversion for holy objects. See here. In the new humanitarian religion of Antichrist, the crucifix will have to go. Those who revere the crucifix must be labelled as being somehow psychologically disturbed. Think of little Jalen Cromwell in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Even in the Church, there is division and battle lines have been formed. Again, it was Archbishop Sheen who prophesied that: "Satan will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Catholic Church. . . . It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content."

Our only hope is in supernatural love...

When the economy of the West collapses and we find ourselves amidst the ruins of a once-great society (and make no mistake about it, that day is coming), we will all be forced to face a reality which so many of us have chosen to ignore. And it is just this: that our only hope is in supernatural love. At the moment, there are still many across the length and breadth of this nation who seek solutions to economic problems and disparities from society. But socialism simply does not work. It was Archbishop Fulton John Sheen, in an essay entitled "Brotherhood," who made the following profound observation:

"It should be evident that the sharing of economic wealth will not make us brothers, but becoming brothers will make us share our economic wealth. The early Christians were not one because they pooled their wealth; they pooled their wealth because they were Christians. The rich young man went to Our Lord asking: 'What shall I do?' The Socialist asks: 'What will society do?' It is man who makes society and not society that makes man. That is why all the economic schemes from Marx's communism to the latest form of democratic collectivism will never unite men until they have first learned to burn, purge, and cut away their own selfishness.

The 'one world' will not come at the end of an ascending line of progress, but as the Resurrection from a tomb of a thousand crucified egotisms. The reason Christianity lives and Socialist theories perish is that Socialism makes no provision for getting rid of selfishness, but Our Lord did: 'Sell all whatever thou hast and give to the poor' (Luke 18: 22).

The only place in the world where communism works is in a convent, for there the basis of having everything in common is that no one wants anything. Communism has not worked in Moscow, but it does work in a monastery.

All that economic and political revolutions do is to shift booty and loot from one party's pocket to another. For that reason, none of them is really revolutionary; they all leave greed in the heart of man. The true inspiration for fellowship is not law but love. Law is negative: 'thou shalt not.' Love is positive: 'Love God and love neighbor.' Law is concerned with the minimum: 'Speed limit, 55 miles.' Love is concerned with the maximum: 'Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

Law is for moderation; love is generous: 'And if a man will contend with thee in judgment and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him. And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him another two' (Matthew 5: 40-41).

Natural generosity is limited by circumstances and relations within our own circle and, outside of these, is often vindictive. Love ignores all limits, by forgiveness. 'Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?....I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times' (Matthew 18: 21-22). By moving from a little metaphor to a big one, Our Lord implies that precision in forgiveness is impossible. Leave it to love, and it is not likely to err on the lower side.

The love of which we speak is not natural, but supernatural. By faith and good works under God's grace, nourished by prayer and the Sacraments, we are led into intimate union with Christ - but this love we have toward Him must redound to all His creatures."

And so we can now understand why Pope John Paul II called Maximilian Kolbe a prophet pointing toward the Civilization of Love. The saintly friar, his body racked with pain brought on by tuberculosis, saw to all the spiritual needs of those who were, like him, dying a slow death in the death camp. He knew hunger as few ever will. But would give his small ration to others and would do without. In the end, he offered to take the place of a young man who had a wife and two children and who had been sentenced to death by starvation.

I'll say it again. When the economy of the West collapses, we will be forced to make a choice between supernatural love and a generosity which knows no limits and the greed and egotism which brought on the crisis to begin with.

The photograph above was taken during The Great Depression. It brings to mind the words which Cain spoke to God after he murdered his brother: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Related meditation here.

"Satan will appear without the Cross, as the Great Philanthropist and Social Reformer.."

In his Life of Christ (Image Books, 1977, p. 10), Archbishop Fulton John Sheen wrote, "We do know that at the end of time, when the great conflict between the forces of good and evil takes place, Satan will appear without the Cross, as the Great Philanthropist and Social Reformer to become the final temptation of mankind." Indeed, Paul Henri-Spaak, who served as Belgian Prime Minister and gained international prominence in 1945 when he was elected chairman of the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, had called for such a "Great Philanthropist and Social Reformer":

"We do not want another committee, we have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people, and to lift us out of the economic morass in which we are sinking. Send us such a man* and be he God or the Devil, we will receive him."

It would seem that the world is ready to receive such a man. Read this article and watch the commercials which have appeared on CNN.

* St. John of the Cleft Rock (14th century): "It is said that twenty centuries after the Incarnation of the Word, the Beast in its turn shall become man. About the year 2000 A.D., Antichrist will reveal himself to the world."

Related reading here and here.

CCC, 675.

Religion without dogma

There are many who would prefer a religion without dogma. A religion made in the image and likeness of man. You know, a religion where you wet your finger and stick it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. A religion where one might roll the dice or take a vote to determine whether or not one believes, say, in the Trinity or that Jesus Christ is Lord.

This is really the choice "modern man" (talk about a chimera) must make. As Archbishop Fulton John Sheen explained so many years ago: "The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded. The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'

The simple road is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'

Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.

It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes. When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas."