Saturday, February 3, 2018

If the Catholic Church is going to change we must get rid of that lousy Bible rubbish

That thought kept going through my mind as I read this.  I must say, having lost almost everything we had to become Catholic, I'm shocked and a bit nauseated to see how quickly it is crumbling before the post-modernist, leftist assault.

Granted, I'm a little sympathetic.  The Church is being assaulted like it has never been assaulted before.  From almost every side, every aspect of Church teaching is being challenged and attacked.  The Church's understanding of the cosmos, of the world, of history, the worth and accuracy of the Holy Scriptures; the Faith's teachings on humanity, the nature of human beings, human relations and morality, the family and its role in society; human sexuality and procreation; the ideals of the faithful living in the material world; the nature of revelation, salvation, redemption; the importance of eternity vs. the primacy of the material existence, the superiority of the individual vs. community; the Truth of the Incarnation, Resurrection, the exclusive claims of the Gospel - why the list goes on and on.

It reminds me of that scene at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.  Luke is fighting Darth Vader in the climatic duel, when suddenly Vader begins using a little bit of the ol'telekinesis against him.  One huge piece of metal after another is hurled at Luke who, at first, defends himself against the pieces, but soon begins to succumb to being hit from one side here, the other side there.  Eventually, out the window he goes.  That's what I think of as I watch the Church, and the Faith in general, seem to wobble at the knees as they attempt to stand their ground against multiple attacks from all sides.

What's worse, the attacks don't just come from without, but from within.  As I said here, there are now Catholic blogs on Patheos that are playgrounds for those who wish to advocate for late term abortions, gay marriage, gender obscurity, sex, drugs, Communism, Marxism, anti-Catholicism, radical feminism, anti-white racism, Hitler's Pope theories, and just about anything else, all without too much worry about being called out by the Catholic bloggers in question.  And those are just the blogs on Patheos. It can get crazier as we move on.

Nonetheless, much of this is far beyond where all but the most radical liberal Protestant denominations I knew of were back in the day.  Instead of the Barq of Peter, the Church increasingly acts like the Titanic.  It's as if it's going down fast, and Catholics - and Catholic leaders - are scrambling to find whatever convenient life boat happens to be available.  And the best ship they have found is the good ship S.S. Secular Marxism with a drug induced porn party on board.

It makes you wonder if the Church has gone through this in the past, and we just never really read it that way.  After all, there wasn't much in Jesus' teachings that suggested torturing and launching crusades was the better way to make disciples of the nations.  And yet there was a time - a significant period of time - when the Church did just that.

Could it be we're heading into another period that will require endless counter reformations and councils to get things right?  Are we going into an era over which future Catholics will hang their heads in shame?  I don't know.  I'm no prophet.  I can just tell a train wreck when I see it.  And the unraveling of the Church before this sustained assault, and the growing number of Catholics who seem absolutely delighted at the developments, however understandable, makes me sometimes lament the decision we made.

But then I look at the same problem across Evangelicalism and Protestantism and am reminded that the Church is not alone, either in giving way before the storm, or having those brave souls willing to sound the alarms and stand firm on the Rock once and for all.  It's just that the Church, above all other Christian traditions, is supposed to be the Rock against which the storms of the latest are bound to break, not the other way around.

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