Hard Truths

Hard truths.

In one of his last homilies, Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, said: "A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens -- as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper -- that is the preaching of Christ, calling, "wake up! Be converted!" this is the church's authentic preaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted. It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin."

We've had enough of a preaching which leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death.  We've had enough of a Cotton-Candy Catholicism which offers Chicken-Soup Homilies and asinine theatrics rather than the solid meat of sound preaching and liturgical reverence.  Sadly, so many of our priests haven't caught on to this.  And so they continue to spoon-feed us the unsatisfying pablum.

The time for lying is over.  I have been saying this for years.  Back in 2009, Archbishop Charles Chaput noted that, "40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected...We can't talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we've allowed ourselves to become.  We need to stop lying to each other..." 

The lying must stop.  For this to happen, we need priests and Bishops who fear God more than they do men.  Cowards will not lead us out of the valley of death.  Only shepherds who have the spiritual strength, the Cardinal Gift of Fortitude, to brave the risk of worldly criticism, will be able to lead the American Catholic Church out of the valley of the Culture of Death and back on the road to the Civilization of Love which Pope John Paul II spoke of so often.

Why have so many priests succumbed to fear?  Why is it that their preaching no longer points out sin?  Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange provides us with an answer:

"The reason for this is not difficult to find.  A sermon is the result of the combined effort of all the priest's powers; it reveals his entire person; it is his struggle against the vices of the surrounding world."  In other words, if the preaching is unsound, it is because the priest's spiritual life is unsound.  Fr. Lagrange continues, "Everything in the priest cooperates in his preaching - study, reflection, his powers to compose and revise, the activity of his intellect, his imagination, his memory, his feelings, his voice.  Therefore, when he preaches, the priest stands exposed for all to study; some will be attracted, others will not.  Some will accept what he says, others will simply criticize.  So if the priest approaches his task from the human angle, he will say to himself: 'I cannot afford to lose my reputation; people of weight in the parish who take offense easily must be spared their feelings and not provoked; I must proceed warily so as not to incur criticism.'  In that way Christian eloquence is invaded by a profane eloquence in which the preacher looks after his own interests, not the glory of God or the saving of souls." (The Priest In Union With Christ, p. 156).

I've never been a fan of lying.  And this because Our Lord tells us that the Devil is the Father of all lies (John 8:44),  If it's lying you want, this Blog is not for you.  Forty years of lying [over 50 years now] has wrought so much damage to the American Catholic Church.  Archbishop Chaput is right, we are merely reaping the fruit of what we've planted.  St. Paul tells us that, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.." (Galatians 5: 22).  But what fruit have we witnessed in the American Catholic Church?  The Church has been infected with dry-rot as so many Catholics have succumbed to the works of the flesh.

We need heroic shepherds.  Men who, like Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., are willing to give their very lives for the Catholic Church and her teaching.

This is not a time for cowards.  We need men of holy stubborness which, in spiritual terms, is called perseverance.

Related reading here

Pope Francis: Shouldn't it be a welcoming Church for all?

It was the philosopher George Santayana who described Modernism thusly: "Modernism...is the love of all Christianity in those who perceive that it is all a fable. It is the historic attachment to his Church of a Catholic who has discovered that he is a pagan...The Modernists are men of the Renaissance, pagan, pantheistic in their profounder sentiment, to whom the hard and narrow realism of official Christianity is offensive just because it presupposes that Christianity is true...As for Modernism, it is suicide. It is the last of those concessions to the spirit of the world which half-believers and double-minded prophets have always been found making; but it is a mortal concession. It concedes everything; for it concedes that everything in Christianity, as Christians hold it, is an illusion." But because the Magisterium faithfully passes down the Tradition of Catholic Teaching received from the Apostles, Santayana, commenting on the modernists' opposition to Rome, notes, "The modernist feels himself full of love for everybody...except for the Pope."

And one might add: those Catholics who are faithful to the Tradition of Catholic teaching.

In an essay on the meaning of evangelization, Father Vincent Miceli, S.J. wrote, "Being the work of God and man in cooperation, it must ever be a thrilling and awesome adventure. We can say, however, that this sanctifying activity proclaims Christ to those who do not know Him, preaches the Gospel to them through catechesis and missionary sermons, confers Baptism and other sacraments and tirelessly exhorts converts to scale the heights of sanctity. Jesus Christ, Himself, the Good News of God, was the very first and greatest evangelizer. He proclaimed an absolute Kingdom of God, making everything else relative. He proclaimed salvation, namely liberation from sin, Satan, death, a liberation that bestowed upon sinners returned to God grace, resurrection in immortality and glorification in the triune God. He proclaimed the price man must pay for his salvation, namely that men must gain Heaven by violence, i.e., through a life of penance, toil, and suffering accepted in the spirit of the Suffering Servant of God. And above all He proclaimed that man must undergo that interior renewal which the Gospel calls metanoia, that is the radical change of heart and mind which destroys 'the old man of sin' and creates 'the new man of grace.'"

Fr. Miceli then explains that there are obstacles to evangelization. He writes, "St Thomas Aquinas teaches that three things are necessary for a soul to find, follow and embrace Christ. First, a person must know what he ought to believe. Second, he must know what he ought to desire. Third, he must know what he ought to do. Now ignorance is the first great obstacle to evangelization. Catholics, therefore, should grow in a profound knowledge of their Faith through a constant reading and reflection on the Gospels and a faithful following of the teachings of the Magisterium. Only thus will they come to appreciate the Catholic Faith as a gift of God that is true, good and beautiful. They then will be moved by the Holy Spirit to bring non-Catholics to share this gift from God with them..."

Finally, surveying the Catholic Church in the United States, Fr. Miceli writes, "Unfortunately, the fact is that the Church in the United States, instead of being the crusading, courageous, evangelizing society Christ founded it to be, has become a cream-puff chaplaincy to the converted - and because of this attitude is failing to hold on even to these...How are we to stir up again the spirit of evangelization? Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi gives us our marching orders:

'On us particularly, the pastors of the Church, rests the responsibility for reshaping with boldness and wisdom, but in complete fidelity to the content of evangelization, the means that are most suitable and effective for communicating the Gospel message to the men and women of our times.'" (Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, citing Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi, No. 40).

Note this passage. What does Pope Paul VI mean by "complete fidelity to the content of evangelization"? The Holy Father means that pastors of the Church must offer the men and women of our times what Pope Benedict XVI has said is the entire plan of God. That is to say, the full content of Catholic teaching - including, and especially, those hard truths which the world does not want to hear but which faithful Catholics must share with hurting souls who wander about without a shepherd. This is what evangelization is all about!

And because I insist upon preaching these hard truths, I am shunned at my own parish and not even permitted to apply for the diocesan priesthood!  Just recently, Pope Francis said that, "In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them."

It's good to see that the Holy Father is concerned for homosexual persons who have not always been treated with "respect, compassion, and sensitivity" as the Catechism calls for (2358).  But what about faithful Catholics whose vocation is rejected outright simply because they preach the hard truths - what Pope Benedict XVI referred to as "the entire plan of God" - and who also insist, along with the Catechism, that homosexual persons (like everyone else) "are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition"?

Not long ago, I was part of a group of Catholic bloggers accused by the Boston Archdiocese of "harming community" by opposing dissent from revealed Catholic teaching as well as a "Gay Pride" Mass.  See here.   How much longer must faithful Catholics tolerate such nonsense?