"Catholicism is the law of life, the life of the intelligence, the solution of all problems. Catholicism is the truth, and everything that departs from it one iota, is disorder, deception, and error."
-- Juan Donoso Cortés, Marquis of Valdegamas (1809-1843)in
Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism (PDF 2010)
[Hat tip to M. Voris]
2 comments:
Pelagian heresy. The Catholic Church no longer believes she is exclusively the Church of Christ, although she does meekly suggest that His Church sub-something-exists in her but also in a bunch of other Churches and Communities too.
Now, if you are a man of a certain age you may have been wrongly taught that The Catholic Church IS the sole Church Jesus established and that all other Churches are not real Churches but, rather, a community of those who had fallen away from the One True Church outside of which there is no salvation.
Poor Juan Donoso Cortes. He can not be blamed for believing what he was taught during a time of aggressive Triumphalism and meanness and uncharitableness but now we are a Church of dialogue and ecumenism and poorness and humility and social work and equality and being nice and we worship the same G-d as do the Jews of today and we worship the same God as do the Mahometans and what not.
And during this epoch of Passing on Tradition, we note with sorrow that back in the days of the very angry and boastful Juan Donoso Cortes (wouldn't you know it, he is a man, prolly even a Spanish one; and we all know the endless problems they caused in the past), back when the Popes and Bishops boastfully Passed on Tradition that there were many wars and Catholics refused to pray together with heretics and would not even consider freely letting, say, Mahometans, use their Holy Consecrated Churches for the false worship of their pretend God who ordered them to kill those who did not worship their fake God.
And so, it is all good now and while there are some who lament that there is not visibilium within the Magisterium even one Prelate who embodies Tradition and which Tradition could be applied as a force against our Inertia into Indifferentism, it must be admitted that one is not without opportunities to derive wry pleasure out of watching the catholic conservative collective follow the modern newchurch as it, with the rictus of a smiley face, processes into ecclesiological evanescence chanting the love song of love songs, Everything is different, nothing has changed
Dang. It turns out that Cortes is right after all -
Nobody will certainly be able to doubt or deny that this Jesus Christ, to the end that the fruits of His Redemption might be applied to all the race of men, has built here on earth, upon Peter, the only Church, which is one, holy, catholic and apostolic; and that He has conferred upon her the power necessary to preserve whole and inviolate the deposit of faith; to transmit this same faith to all peoples, tribes, and nations; to call [elect] to unity in this Mystical Body, through baptism, all men, for the purpose of preserving in them, and perfecting, that new life of grace, without which no one can merit and obtain eternal life; wherefore this Church, which constitutes the Mystical Body, will persist and prosper in her own stable and indefectible nature until the end of the ages, and offer to all Her sons the means of salvation.
Whoever thus gives proper attention and reflection to the situation which surrounds the various religious societies, divided amongst themselves and separated from the Catholic Church - which, without interruption, from the time of Christ the Lord and of His Apostles, by means of her legitimate sacred Shepherds, has always exercised, and exercises still, the divine power conferred upon Her by the Lord - it will be easy to convince [them] that in none of these societies, and not even in all of them taken together, can in some way be seen the one and Catholic Church which Christ the Lord built, constituted, and willed to exist. Neither will it ever be able to be said that they are members and part of that Church as long as they remain visibly separated from Catholic unity. It follows that such societies, lacking that living authority established by God, which instructs men in the things of the faith and in the discipline of the customs, directing and governing them in all that concerns eternal salvation, they continuously mutate in their doctrines without that mobility and the instability they find one end. Everyone therefore can easily comprehend and fully reckon that this is absolutely in contrast with the Church instituted by Christ the Lord, in which the truth must always remain constant and never subject to change whatsoever, deposited as if it were into a warehouse, entrusted to be guarded perfectly whole. To this purpose, it has received the promise of the perpetual presence and the aid of the Holy Spirit. No one then ignores that from these dissentions [disagreements] in doctrines and opinions derive social divisions, which find their origin in these innumerable communions and which are always and increasingly diffused with grave damage[s] to the Christian and civil society.
...
It is for this reason that so many who do not share “the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church” must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. ...
http://tinyurl.com/ll64oa
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