I stopped publishing the comments of the Errormite last week when I realized I was wasting valuable time he could be spending convincing people at Commonweal and Fr. Martin's to join his intelligent hypotheses that Christ and the Apostles repressed the instincts to avoid temptation and reject sin.
This is something the readers here are simply too dim-witted to swallow and there may be people who need his valuable insight to hop from sack to sack all the way to their salvation. Who are we to keep him captivated here?
My return to blogging and my decision to write about the threat to the Church from the theological and political right wing were both occasioned by my growing awareness of the extensive right-wing Catholic blogosphere.What exactly does 'the right wing of the Church" mean?
I understand using the term left wing and right wing when you're talking about political philosophy. The right wing is the conservatives and the left wing are the liberals. Each of these wings begins with the fringe and ideology crosses to meet in the middle. There's really no head of these wings, it's just lateral spectrum of dueling philosophy.
But the Catholic Church is not lateral. It is perpendicular and transcending. There is a Head. God is at the Head and the devil is at the opposite end. Down by the feet, where the snake is swirling around waiting to gobble you up. You have your back to one and your face to the other and you are traveling towards a destination -Heaven/purgatory or hell. All of the people in Christ's Church are supposed to be heading in a unilateral direction - subjecting themselves to the opinion of the Head with the faith of a child. Following the Pope ascending to the top. People with opinions that oppose the head of Christ's Church and his Vicar on Earth are going to hell in a handbasket and they're inviting you to listen to the logic that has them heading that way so you will join them on that journey instead.
Who are the dolts are a matter of opinion that seems simple enough for this simpleton.
Congratulations to Jerry who gets highlighted in Mr Errormite's post.
Mr Errormite goes on to imply that the faithful do not have rights to have a scandalizer of children or the faith removed. His opinion conflicts with Canon Law. It also conflicts with Scripture. Christ did not round up people who were in error and ask them to preach in His Name. He did not subject his followers to Judas. Judas was permitted to be in the crowd but not in a teaching role. Christ in fact did not use the priests and Bishops in the temple because they were leading people astray. Since Canon Law and Scipture at the Head of Christ's Church, I will leave it to your imagination where the substance of old Errormite's opinion is coming from. It's an other old fella. An ancient one.
At the end of the day, people teaching errors to children are going to be grinding and gnashing their teeth about the new breed of Catholics arising from church milquetoast.
Knock yourselves out.
[n.b. - Jerry - do not waste your precious time over there. Mr Errormite, you will not get a podium in my comments section. Stick to the comments section of Commonweal, the National Catholic Reporter and Fr. Martin and the followers of thinkers with their backs turned from the Head of Christ's Church. It would be hypocrisy for me to advocate for the Bishops to stop Saul and Judas from preaching in the Name of Christ and then giving you a platform here. There are plenty of Catholic sites who will host whatever it is your teaching. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and His Church and His Vicar on Earth - You have my prayers.]
4 comments:
Hi Carol,
I was wondering what happened to Old Errormite. I figured the Fr. Martin thread just got buried by the election posts. Thanks for the advice to avoid taking the bait from Old E. I had no interest in even looking at the site. But it's nice to know that I'm getting airplay.
I avoid posting because it's disquieting to my soul. I've been getting worse with the ascendancy of the blogging fury here in Boston because it seems to be having a good effect. By the way, you're the one who paved the way for this movement with the CeltiCare coverage, and even back to the VOTF days.
Getting into a spitting match with those who hate pure doctrine is a waste of time, especially on the web. Especially on their turf. It reminds me of an old Jacques Cousteau show where they caught a giant octopus. They tied a rope to a diver who agitated the 'pus and drew it into a fight. Slowly they pulled the rope and caught the dumb animal because it followed the diver all the way back. I'm not quite that dumb.
Jerry,
You are an icon and we need your voice here on our turf in whatever ways you can spare. You add tremendous value to our apostolates.
I will sometimes go over to the poor sites to correct errors in case somebody there is on the verge of a conversion and sane logic disquiets their conscience. I think you can tell when somebody is just baiting you so they hijack your time.
Good analogy with the diver and the pus. It reminded me of Moby Dick, Aheb pursuing the great white whale. You go over there and you see all the corpses of the Fedallahs harpooned to the whale as it submerges and emerges. A pathetic and heartbreaking sight. you feel compelled to prophecy. But when they throw you off the Pequod, me thinks its time to call yourself Ishmael, blow them kisses and wave goodbye.
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep.” (2 Peter 2:1-3)
You know, Carol, it is really very simple for us as Catholics - we are to follow *the Church* completely on issues of faith and morals, and we are to be obedient to her disciplines as well (please see CCC 892, 2518, 2037).
Theological *speculation* and *nuancing* (read: B-S-ing) has run amok for well over 50 years in so-called Catholic circles (universities, seminaries, "religious ed" programs, and yes - sad to say - parish pulpits).
While it is true that Mother Church encourages theologians and exegetes to "push the envelope" of the understanding of Divine Revelation (see V2's Gaudium et Spes - no. 63), she also has put *limits* to pushing the envelope (see V2's Dei Verbum nos. 10-12).
To say/teach some of the things that I have heard (and thousands of other faithful Catholics have heard) in these so-called "Catholic" circles has *nothing* to do with the Truths of the faith.
* Jesus did not know He was God
* Jesus did not teach anything about sexuality
* There are errors and contradictions in the Bible
* The Church has changed her doctrines throughout the centuries
* Jesus did not really physically raise from the dead
...on and on ad nauseum!
This garbage has nothing to do with "right-wing" or "left-wing" - but it has everything to do with correct Catholic teaching!
In other words - is it the Truth? Is it a part of Divine Revelation? Can it be traced back to the Apostles through the early Church Fathers? And so on.
[shaking head]
It boggles my mind the way these dissenters and heretics paint broad terms upon those of us who are loyal to Holy Mother Church and her teachings. (BTW, for an excellent definition of "heresy" see CCC 2088-9).
When we call them on their heresy/dissent - suddenly we are "rigid, right-wing, pharisaical fundamentalists"!
As one of the Fathers of Mercy priests told me once after I complained to him about the above names I was being called - he said, "That's all right, Kevin. They're rigid in their heresy."
True dat!
Catechist Kevin
Kevin,
As usual, very well said.
The free will to choose is a gift or a curse. It Is life or it is death. It is turning to truth or from it.
On one end of the perpendicular, you have Christ and Mary who accepted what God asked them to do in faith, even if it meant being an unmarried poor woman pregnant with a child she had no means to care for and ran the risk of losing Joseph and the respect of her community.
On the other end of the perpendicular, you have Adam and Eve, who approach what God asks of them by thinking of reasons why it is okay to eat the apple or hop in the sack, or use contraception or abort their child. God uses the apple as the symbol of sin and teaches us how the temptor works, always convincing you there is no harm in what you want to do. Once you fall to the temptor, and you eat the apple which tastes good, you go and convince others. The temptor doesn't even have to work on each of us directly. Those who reject a life of trusting God and His Church know best will offer the advice of the temptor and the temptor's temptor and so on and so forth.
How can they not see what they have become, you wonder. God's lessons are so clear and simple.
When you fall to temptation, but are still surrending that God knows best, you can still see who you are, what you have become. When you begin to believe the temptor or temptor's temptor and you begin to tempt others, your soul and mind is under the spell of the temptor.
The Errormites and Fr Martin and Commonweal and the National Catholic Reporter and sadly even First Things have fallen from Grace and they will rise to defend the temptor, some of them disgused as angels of light.
Choose wisely.
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