A harmless religion which offends no one....

It was John Henry Cardinal Newman who wrote, "What is Satan's device in this day?...He has taken the brighter side of the Gospel - its tidings of comfort, its precepts of love; all darker, deeper views of man's condition and prospects being comparitively forgotten. This is the religion natural to a civilized age, and well has Satan dressed and completed it into an idol of the Truth...Religion is pleasant and easy; benevolence is the chief virtue; intolerance, bigotry, excess of zeal, are the first of sins." (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 1, sermon 24).

Dr. von Hildebrand notes how, "burning zeal for the truth, for God, for Christ and His holy Church, is looked on as fanatical, intolerant, and incompatible with charity. Of this burning holy zeal, which every true Christian necessarily possesses, Newman says: 'Now I fear we lack altogether....firmness, manliness, godly severity. We are ever-tender in dealing with sin and sinners. We are deficient in the jealous custody of the revealed Truths which Christ has left us. We allow men to speak against the Church, its ordinances, or its teaching, without remonstrating with them. We do not separate from heretics, nay, we object to the word as if uncharitable....' In the saints we find..union of burning zeal and triumphant love of neighbor - one has only to think of the Apostles, of St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, or of St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Francis de Sales, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, and countless others....But today we find a twofold evil: harmlessness and loss of holy fear, as well as loss of burning zeal for supernatural things..."

We congratulate ourselves on how "civilized" we've become. How tolerant. But we forget that lukewarness is the Devil in disguise. Do we hate sin and error? If not, then we do not really love God. Our love of God is a sham, a counterfeit, a fraud. It is not without reason that God will say to the lukewarm: "I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3: 16).

Which will we embrace: a harmless religion which makes no demands (a natural religion which prepares the way for the Man of Sin) or a supernatural faith which unites burning zeal for truth with love of neighbor? Do we even understand what charity consists of? If not, we should reflect very carefully on 1822 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Natural religion, harmless religion, is the religion of Antichrist. This is the seduction of our time: we are overwhelmed by a culture which exhorts us to be "reasonable." To be "tolerant." But, as Pope Benedict XVI writes (in his book Jesus of Nazareth): "If we had to choose today, would Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, the son of the Father, have a chance? Do we really know Jesus at all? Do we understand him? Do we not perhaps have to make an effort, today as always, to get to know him all over again? The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes..." (p. 41).

"Be reasonable," our culture says: "Don't rock the boat, what do you care if a woman wants to have an abortion? After all, that's her affair. You should stop being so fanatical and intolerant. You believe life is sacred? Good, but keep your beliefs in your Church." And: "Why shouldn't people of the same sex be married? Stop denying them their civil rights. You are being judgmental. After all, God is love."

The Pope has said it. The Devil merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision. But we do so at the price of apostasy.

Father John Dietzen gets it wrong...

Father John Dietzen, in a Catholic News Service article entitled "Can Jews, Muslims be saved"* (the answer, of course, is yes), writes, "..we pray constantly in our liturgy that all people will be saved...It is possible, therefore, and something we hope for and desire."

But will everyone be saved? Sacred Scripture, which is interpreted authoritatively by the Church's teaching (a teaching which Fr. Dietzen is obviously unfamiliar with) tells us that not all will be saved. For example, Vatican II teaches that, "Indeed, since we know neither the day nor the hour, it is necessary, as the Lord has warned, to keep watch constantly, so that, having completed the one course of our earthly life (see Heb 9: 27), we may merit to enter the marriage banquet with him and be counted among the blessed (see Mt 25: 31-46) and not be ordered, as bad and lazy servants (see Mt 25: 26), to go down into eternal fire (see Mt 25: 41), into the exterior darkness where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mt 22: 13; 25: 30). For, before we reign gloriously with Christ, all of us will appear "before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Cor 5: 10), and at the end of the world "those who have done good will go to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil will go to the resurrection of condemnation" (Jn 5: 29; cf. Mt 25: 46)." (Lumen Gentium, No. 48).

In a bit of sarcasm, Fr. Dietzen - responding to Catholics who would object to his idiotic assertion that we may rightfully hope that all are saved by pointing to the private revelation of Fatima where Our Lady showed the children souls suffering in Hell - writes, "Some Catholics point to certain private revelations, such as the apparitions at Fatima, to 'prove' that many people are in hell. That must be right, they claim, because the Church has approved many such revelations. When the Church sanctions private revelations, it is simply saying that there is nothing heretical in them...this does not, however, anoint the content of the revelations as Catholic teaching or doctrine."

This betrays a poor attitude toward private revelation. When it comes to approved private revelation, Pope Benedict XVI said, "..they help us to understand the signs of the times and to respond to them rightly in faith." (Message of Fatima, Theological Commentary, http://www.vatican.va/.)

Our Lady told the children at Fatima, "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace..." Although strictly speaking, we are not bound as Catholics to accept private revelation (even when the Church has approved of it, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 67), still, it would be foolish to reject what the Church has approved. But if Fr. Dietzen cannot bring himself to accept this private revelation, then let him accept the Public Revelation of Sacred Scripture and the Church's authoritative interpretation of that Revelation.

The task of authentically interpreting the Word of God belongs exclusively to the Magisterium of the Church. Not Fr. John Dietzen. Perhaps Father should pray for a little more humility?


* This article may be found on page 5 of The Catholic Free Press.