Montesquieu: "The Catholic religion will destroy the Protestant religion and then the Catholics will become Protestants."

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, May 27, 2018):

Many, Many years back, I would say in the 1970s, I read something that so shocked me that I never forgot it, and from time to time would quote it in my teaching. Admitting the possibility of the memory's paraphrasing it a bit, it asserted: 'Protestantism has within it the germ of its own destruction. But by the time it destroys itself Catholicism will have become Protestant.' I wish I had noted who said that but I had not -- a fact I greatly regretted. The statement The statement shook me greatly as I had been -- even way back then -- witnessing both the disintegration of Protestantism and the temporizing of much of the religion in which I had been reared. I knew then, and I still affirm that the Catholic Church cannot ever be extinguished. Yet there is no divine guarantee that the true faith will be preserved intact everywhere until time's end. The prophecy of doom contained in that forbidding dictum may not have been entirely accurate but it contained a truth that experience could not deny Something was going wrong with the Catholic Church.

During the past week I was overjoyed after so many years, to have alighted upon that quotation once again, at least substantially. It reads somewhat variously fro the form preserved in my memory but conveys essentially its core. "The Catholic religion will destroy the Protestant religion, and then the Catholics will become Protestants." The source cited is the (Baron de) Montesquieu in a work of his titled, Spirit of the Laws (1748-50). This writing was condemned by the Church and put on her Index of Forbidden Books, yet it proved to be very influential in forming American political theory.

My purpose here is not to advance the writings of this or any other philosopher but to refer to Montesquieu's frightening prediction as an impetus for us to remain solidly grounded in the true Catholic faith which admits of no compromise with error. The Author of the Church and of her doctrines is none other than the Son of God, He who can neither deceive nor be deceived. And where this bears particular relevance is in the affirmation of profession of the Creed.

There's a corrosive tendency in our anti-intellectual times to denigrate creedal formulas (by which I mean here the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds as the prime examples). A vaguely formulated biblical creed (essentially a protestant postulate) is admired as presented as the ideal, for it shrinks from making apodictic [indisputably certain] affirmations of belief. In order to bring down the whole edifice of the Catholic Church, one need not begin at the periphery, dismantling brick by brick, but only to dislodge its foundation of stones. Such are the articles of faith enshrined in the various Creeds of the Catholic Church, first and foremost being those articles that refer to God Himself. "I believe in one God" is not an idle opening statement having little or no bearing on what follows. It is rather that without which nothing else can be asserted as true. From the "unity" of God (that is, the one God) follows the trinity of God (His threeness), and from there all the rest: the incarnation, redemption, the Church, the scaraments, grace, eternal life.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the liturgically ideal day for the priest to assert and explain to the people the foundational beliefs of the Church in the whole truth about God. That most parish priests will probably avoid delivering a dogmatic sermon for this day is as sure as the aforementioned dire prediction of Montesquieu, for many priests lead their charges away from that indispensable doctrine which alone identifies them as Catholics. An amorphous belief in Jesus, or in "the bible" is regarded as all-sufficient, even though nothing can be therein asserted as positively binding beyond barebones statements. It is this minimalism, this reductionism which is uprooting the Catholic religion from the minds of men and leaving them, at best, as Protestants.

Today when you stand up to sing or recite the Credo (Creed), do it with confidence and with an awareness of being a faithful witness to the whole edifice of that Catholic truth in which you have been baptized as Christians. It is, may I say, your moment of glory, of greatness. And, while I'm at it, I'd like to propose thatyou revive the age-old Catholic devotional practice of reciting the Creed with your daily morning prayers. Such starts the day off with that solid affirmation of truth that will steady the course of the rest of your day.

"This is our faith: it is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in Christ Jesus our Lord" (from the Rite of Baptism).

Fr. Perrone

An important footnote: Next Sunday is Corpus Christi Sunday (either a replication, in the Tridentine calendar, or a transfer in the new calendar), a feast which more properly belongs to this Thursday. The Latin Tridentine Mass net Sunday will not be at the 9:30 but at noon where it will be followed by the Eucharistic Procession, that splendid demonstration of Catholic belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Our fearsome ushers will be at the ready to offer you, for a nominal price, a light lunch after the Procession (weather permitting).

Fr. George Rutler on the Resurrection, a "curious absurdity" to the pagans

Fr. Rutler's Weekly Column

April 1, 2018
We know directly from Saint Paul that Greek philosophers thought the Resurrection was a curious absurdity. Politicians more pragmatically feared that it would upset the whole social order. One of the earliest Christian “apologists,” or explainers, was Saint Justin Martyr who tried to persuade the emperor Antoninus Pius that Christianity is the fulfillment of the best intuitions of classical philosophers like Socrates and Plato.

Justin was reared in an erudite pagan family in Samaria, in the land of Israel just about one lifetime from the Resurrection. Justin studied hard and accepted Christ as his Savior, probably in Ephesus, and then set up his own philosophical school in Rome to explain the sound logic of the Divine Logos. Refusing to worship the Roman gods, and threatened with torture by the Prefect Rusticus, he said: “You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us.” Then he was beheaded.

Fast forward almost exactly a thousand years, and another philosopher, Bernard of Chartres, also admired the best of the Greek philosophers and coined the phrase “We are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants.” There had been long centuries without much effort to explain the mystery of the Resurrection with luminous intelligence. In the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton would describe himself the same way. Being intellectual dwarfs may sound pessimistic, but there was also optimism in the fact that, lifted on the shoulders of giants, they could see even farther than the giants themselves. In witness to that, less than fifty years after Bernard died, building began on the great cathedral of Chartres. The magnificent rose window in the south transept depicts the evangelists as small men on the shoulders of the tall prophets. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are closer to Christ in the center of the window, than Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel who lift them up, seeing in fact what the prophets had longed for in hope.

The Risen Christ is neither a ghost nor a mere mortal. Ancient philosophies could be vague about things supernatural, and ancient cults could be distant from personal conduct. The Resurrection unites ethics and worship. The famous letter of an anonymous contemporary of Justin Martyr, meant to be read by the emperor Marcus Aurelius, said that the way Christians live “has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines.”

The Resurrection was the greatest event in history, and unlike other events that affect life in subsequent generations in different degrees by sequential cause and effect, the Resurrection is a living force for all time, making Christ present both objectively in the Sacraments, and personally in those who accept him. Thus, indifference to the Resurrection is not an option. The future life of each one of us depends on a willingness to be saved from eternal death.

Fr. Perrone on the ground of our hope and certitude

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, December 18, 2017)

No matter what some people might think of our parish, there is no regnant idea here of being the sole surviving remnant of true Catholicism, the last of the hardliners on Church doctrine -- theological and moral -- or on the liturgy. The truth is that we try merely to be faithful, as our Lord demands His disciples to be, of all He has given us. I like to think of this kind of conservatism as 'preservatism,' an appreciation and custody of what is most to be valued, rather than a stiff, desperate inflexibility. In fact, those who fit the ideal I believe directed by our faith are often (not always) the most reasonable, understanding, gracious, tolerant, and -- within limits -- accommodating people there are, liberal-minded people of a kind fast fading from the scene. There are, on the other hand, sternly rigid and harshly restrictive, dogmatically closed-minded folk of political correctness for whom there must be unbending conformity to the prevailing opinions of those who set the standard for culturally accepted norms. Those norms -- decidedly leftist -- will not admit disavowal by those upholding the perennial validity of an inherited body of intellectual truths and moral precepts.

There need not be an apology for wholeheartedly embracing the tradition of religious, philosophic, and moral truth. It is a precious inheritance which has been entrusted to our care, to be preserved for successive generations -- to Christians in particular. This legacy obliges those who recognize its worth to safeguard it from any who may dilute or abolish it. With regard to our parish, this means that we continue to teach doctrinal truths, that we covetously preserve our liturgical tradition, and that we insist on enduring moral truths (especially with regard to marriage and sexuality) which are of divine origin and which, for that reason, are irreformable.

What is it that is hapening in our beloved Catholic Church where many of our brethren seem eager to bow to the spirit of a rebellious age, dismissing past beliefs and ways as no longer tenable? More distressing perhaps is their silence in the face of creeping doctrinal novelties and liturgical caprice. Should there not be in a time of great confusion and moral obscurity, manifest clarity about what's true and right and decisive means put forth to preserve it? The mind and heart crave surety and stability rather than vagueness and diffidence, especially from our pope, bishops, and priests, those official guardians and expositors of the deposit of faith and heralds of Christ's Gospel.

There ought not to be doubt about the truths of faith, moral conduct, liturgical propriety and the worth of the apostolic tradition that has been bequeathed to us. It is a cause of wonderment that these certainties can be so readily discarded or adjusted to the spirit of the time -- a restless, ever shifting spirit which must soon forsake its devoted adherents for faddish novelties it has yet to propose.

In the meantime, while temporizing is condoned, those who insist on perennial truth and on tradition are dismissed, ridiculed, or hatefully regarded as enemies of progress. They ought not, however, to entertain doubts about what is right, good, true and beautiful. Confidence comes not from an egotistical estimation of being the measure of truth, but from Christ's indefectible Church which has weathered centuries of stormy controversy over what is true. It is the abiding presence in her of the divinely promised Spirit of Truth that is the foundation of certitude.

"God is our refuge and strength. Therefore we shall not fear even should the mountains tremble. The Lord of Hosts is with us" (Psalm 46). Being sure of God and of His promised fidelity is an anchoring, stabilizing, and healthy way of being a Catholic Christian. Saint Paul sounded a word of admonition to the Ephesians that would well be heeded in our day: "Be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the Head, into Christ" (4:14). I wish our parishioners to persevere in this age of anxiety and uncertainty as people who steadfastly 'speak the truth in love.' May you ive tranquilly in this often disconcerting, sometimes exasperating, manifestly troubled age.

Fr. Perrone

After Vatican II [1975-2050]

Just discovered (from a reader) this website with an abundance of research and writing on it about the Church. I still haven't "vetted" it for content (though I already see some things with which I disagree), and I don't know much about the author, Fr. Tom Richstatter, O.F.M., beyond what is published in this short bio (though it looks like he teaches classes on this material), In any case, it looks interesting. There's doubtless a lot here worth reading and knowing.

The "Index Page" for the website alone shows the extent of research and writing the site offers. Below are a couple of charts and commentary displayed under a tab somewhere on his website entitled "Chapter d30 After Vatican II [1975-2050 CE]":

Cultural and Theological Context

James D. Davidson (in an article "Alienation in the Catholic Church Today" p 22 in Robert J. Kennedy'sReconciling Embrace [Liturgy Training Publications, 1998]) states that Catholics who experienced their formative years during the 1950's and 1960's witnessed the following changes:

Item	Pre-Vatican II	Post-Vatican II
Liturgical Language	Latin	English
Liturgical Music	Gregorian chant	Folk
Liturgical Instruments	Organ	Guitar
Morality	Emphasis on Sexual Purity	Emphasis on Peace and justice
Ethics	Natural Law Ethics	Consequentialism (An emphasis on the context and consequences of behavior)
Faith	Faith is obligation	Faith is personal choice
The World	Other-worldliness	This-worldliness
Catholic Identity	Particularism (the superiority of Catholicism)	Ecumenism (an emphasis on how much Catholicism has in common with Protestant denominations)

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Moving the Furniture

At a gathering of parish leaders on January 19, 2002 from St. Mary's Parish, Evansville (one of the parishes mentioned in Excellent Catholic Parishes by Paul Wilkes) we discussed the metaphor of "moving the furniture."  The theological concepts we hold are something like furniture in a room.  Sometimes when we introduce a new piece of furniture, the old ones need to be rearranged.  Applying this to the arrangement of our "theological furniture" before and after the Second Vatican Council we found several key items have been "moved."  These changes are summarized in the the following table:

Item	Pre-Vatican II	Post-Vatican II
Jesus	Divine	Divine and Human
God	Transcendent	Transcendent and Immanent
Grace	Thing / Quantitative	Personal Relationship, Process
Sacrament	Thing Administered Received Gives Grace	Celebration Act of Worship Reveals who God is Builds Church
Baptism	Takes away original sin	Makes one "Another Christ" Makes Church Makes Disciples/Ministers
Church	Institution Pope, Bishops, etc. Them	Body of Christ People of God Us
Bible	Protestant Book	Our story Faith witness
Eucharist	Sacrifice Good Friday	Meal Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday Meal : Sacrifice :: Sacrament : Union with God
Sin	Breaking the law Disobedience	Not loving God & neighbor Failure to grow
Confession	Telling sins to the priest	Reconciliation Public act Worship and Praise Celebration of God's Mercy Aid in human forgiveness and reconciliation
Priest	One set apart from	One in the midst of
Earth	Exile Boot camp	Incarnational Theology - The place of our salvation - God's dream for a harmonious, reconciled garden

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Sacraments Yesterday and Today

How is our thinking about sacrament and sacraments different than it was 50 years ago (pre Vatican II)?  What are the principal changes in sacramental theology during the past 50 years?  Once again I refer to the "tip of the pistol" metaphor.  What are those often unseen changes that have big implications.  Often the really important changes are not the most noticeable, not the things that the people in the pew would name as the "big changes."   I list what I have come to consider the 10 most important.  The following list is not in any particular "order of importance." 

1.  Anabatic / Katabatic   Before the Constitution on the Liturgy the anabatic dimension of the sacraments was not emphasized; the sacraments were primarily to "give grace" (the Katabatic movement) rather than considered primarily as acts of worship by the community.  The primary thing is not what we get, but what we give:  worship, praise, and thanksgiving to God.

2. Private to corporate and personal.  When the emphasis is on "what I get" from the sacraments, it's easy to think of sacraments as something administered to an individual. When we think of sacraments primarily as acts of corporate worship, liturgical worship is the act of the entire Body of Christ. This is why sacraments are always (ideally) celebrated by the worshiping community (at Sunday Eucharist).

Eucharist, at least the celebration of the Eucharist (1) when not separated from merely "receiving Holy Communion" is usually seen as a public act. The (2) Sacrament of Holy Orders and the(3) Sacrament of Confirmation are, with increasing frequency, celebrated in the midst of the Sunday worshiping community. The initiation of adults takes place at the Easter (Vigil) with the worshiping community. More and more, infant (4) Baptism and the (5) Anointing of the Sick are celebrated at Sunday Mass.  (6) Marriage is celebrated during the Eucharist, but is often not with the worshiping community but with the circle of friends who often are there not to worship God but only as friends, honoring the couple.   (7) Reconciliation seems to be the last sacrament to find its a public context.

3. Anamnesis   Anamnesis is another fundamental tip of the pistol change. Eucharist no longer "repeats"  or "re-presents" or "reminds" us of the passion death and resurrection of the Lord, but through anamnesis -- Liturgical Remembering we become mystically present to these events. This mystery of presence is one of the fundamental changes that is not been preached or taught sufficiently during the past 50 years.

4. Mysterion    The metaphor of the seven Shoeboxes. Another "invisible" but very important change has come in seeing sacraments not so much as seven distinct actions, but as the manifestation of God's loving plan for creation, beginning with Christ himself, the body of Christ, the Church, gathered to celebrate Eucharist, the other sacraments, the liturgical year and liturgy of the hours, indeed all of creation is sacrament of -- revelation of -- God's Trinitarian love. Key to this understanding is the Primacy of Christ.

5. Grace   I believe another major change comes in the understanding of grace: the movement from grace as a thing which can be quantified and classified, to the understanding of grace as God's love, God's Holy Spirit. This change is multiple implications which are important for our spiritual life and for our theological understanding.

6. The role of the community   Another fundamental tip of the pistol change is our understanding of who administers, or better, who celebrates the sacraments. Formerly the priest administered, performed, the sacramental act. Today, we understand that the worshiping community is the primary celebrant of the sacraments. The community is led, coached, by the presiding minister, who therefore always praise in the first person plural, "we", to which we give our consent, our Amen. I often think of this basic change as: Formerly I said Mass for the people, now I say Mass with the people. A tiny change, a preposition grammatically, but this tiny change represents an entirely new orientation on my part when I am leading the congregation. Until this change is more widely understood (which today it is not) people will still wonder why we are baptizing an infant during the Sunday Eucharist. "I don't even know that baby. What does the baptism have to do with me?" It has everything to do with you. The sacrament is not merely "for" the baby; it is for the entire community.

7. Mind/Body/Spirit   A new understanding of the human person. My former sacramental theology viewed the human person in more static, Aristotelian categories. The human being was composed of body and soul. The body came and went; the soul was immortal and consequently the soul was the important part. Ministry was about saving souls. And the soul was viewed in more static categories. You were either Catholic or you weren't. You were in the state of grace, or out of it. You were either married or you weren't. Today I view the person as an integral composite of mind body and spirit. Faith is a journey. Conversion is a process. These are very important tip of the pistol changes.

8. Minister of the Sacraments   Sacramental roles formerly sacraments were administered usually by the priest and received, by an individual. Now we see that the sacraments are celebrations of the community, the minister-celebrant is the parish, coached by the priest. In the recipient is also the parish.  I'm reminded of the description of sacrament by Soren Kierkegaard:  "Many Christians tend to view the minister/priest as the actor, God as the prompter, and the congregation as the audience. But actually, the congregation is the actor, the minister/priest merely the prompter, and God the audience." (Soren Kierkegaard. Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, New York: Harper & Row, 1956, pp 180-181. Quoted in Erickson, "Liturgical Participation" Worship 59 (1985) p 232.)

9. Sacred Scripture Another element which I believe is very important is the realization of the role played by sacred Scripture in our understanding of sacrament. Formerly Scripture and sacrament seemed unrelated. Sacrosanctum Concilium stress the importance that sacred Scripture plays in the liturgy. 

SC #24. Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning. Thus to achieve the restoration, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, it is essential to promote that warm and living love for scripture to which the venerable tradition of both eastern and western rites gives testimony.

SC 51 (Cp 2 Eucharist). The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that a richer share in God's word may be provided for the faithful.  [Flannery's translation:  "... so that a richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word."]  In this way a more representative portion of holy Scripture will be read to the people in the course of a prescribed number of years. 

Our current Lectionary for Mass contains 14% of the Old Testament and 71% of the New Testament (85% of the Bible); whereas the Missal of 1963 (the Missal in use before our current Lectionary) contained only 01% of the Old Testament and 17% of the New Testament (18% of the Bible).   Often when people speak of the Ordinary Form of Mass and the Extraordinary Form of Mass they say "The difference is that the one is Mass in English and the other is Mass in Latin" without realizing that there are deeper, but less noticeable, changes also.

10. Viewpoint   A very far reaching change has occurred "under the iceberg" regarding what the very word "sacrament" implies. Formerly it referred to "something we receive" now it refers to "something we are" (to use a phrase I learned from Prof. Ken Himes).  I am reminded of the article by the President-Rector in The Raven last week. Speaking of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament he remarked that we are each a monstrance.  "We are monstrances too. We share the task, like the vessel, of bringing the face of Christ to bear upon a world so in need of his visage."  We are visible signs of invisible grace, signs of God, Doors to the Sacred.

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To Think About

Do you think the spirit of the Second Vatican Council is being implemented today? Why or why not?   [A participant in this class once wrote:   "Thank you, Holy Spirit, for the Second Vatican Council.  But where is the next step, Spirit? Your gentle breeze isn't moving on to gale force winds. This freshness is rapidly becoming stagnant air.  Soon the smog will cover us all and we won't remember why we got into this boat to begin with. Some will hide in the bottom of the boat and construct a plan to build a more seaworthy vessel. Some will look to the sky and begin to cry. Some will curse you for meddling in a situation where you don't belong. Some will become paralyzed and do nothing. But the remainder will leap overboard, put their foot into the water and start walking toward the shore.  Please be ready with breakfast."  [R. Cavanaugh, summer 1993]

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Copyright: Tom Richstatter.  All Rights Reserved.  This page was created by Fr. Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M.  Every effort has been, and is being made to acknowledge sources when the ideas are not my own.  Any failure to comply with the United States Copyright Act (Title 17, United States Code) will be corrected immediately should I become aware of it.  This site was updated on 11/11/10 .  Your comments on this site are welcome at  trichstatter@franciscan.org

Fr. Perrone:The treasury of merit, and a marital analogy

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, November 26, 2017)

Today I am constrained to compose in one week another pastor's column -- along with last week's -- to satisfy an early deadline for the church paper on account of Thanksgiving week, wherein the printers take their vacation time. Lacking another idea to write about, I offer the following, something that I have always been curious about.

Catholic theology recognizes that we can offer to God, over and against the sins we have committed, the merits of Christ and the saints. The Mass itself is the offering of Christ to God the Father, a renewal of the sacrifice Christ once made on the cross. But how is it that this can be done by us? My puzzlement has been to try to undersand how we can satisfy, or pay off, the debt our sins had incurred by drawing from the merits, or the credit, of someone else. Imagine, if you will, that you who are in debt of a sum of money to another person pay for it by drawing from the credit account of some other person! This would not be deemed lawful according to the terms of human justice. And yet, we assert that we can do a like thing with God by taking from the merits of Christ and the saints and applying them in compensation for the debt our sins had incurred. As an example of this, think of the prayer in the Divine Mercy Chaplet, "Eternal Father, I offer You the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord Jesus, in atonement for our sins...." There we have that idea expressed. We offer God what is in truth Christ's.

In trying to understand how this can be so, I realize that whenever I pray I am doing a "good work." That expression in quotation marks indicates the Catholic theological truth about the supernatural value that my prayers, willed desires, and deeds can have. Thus at Mass when you co-offer with the priest the sacrifice of Christ which He once made on Calvary, you and the priest are performing a new act of sacrificing that one-time sacrifice of Christ on Good Friday. We renew it. At Mas we are not, as a perceptive inquirer brought up the matter in my class last week, "going back in time" as if in a kind of sci-fi time-machine and thus somehow made 'present' the moment Christ died for us. Rather, we are making a new offering of that same and singular sacrificial act of Christ, but here at the altar in an "unbloody" manner, as the Church says.

In searching to understand this I thought of a possible analogy in marriage. As I remind my couples preparing for matrimony, the precise moment when the marriage "happens" is when the couple has exchanged their mutual consent. This is the "I do" formula they recite before the priest. What is said in the words is then consummated in the physical act of marital love which is to follow. Each subsequent act of the marital embrace of that couple is in a manner a renewal in act of the verbal marital consent that they expressed in their marriage vows. Thus there is each time a new instance of what was commenced in that initial "I do." I see a possible analogy in this for understanding how each Mass can be a new offering of the one and only sacrifice Christ offered on the cross. It is not an imaginary 'going back in time' but a real and present act of Christ made through the willed offering of the priest. (And the people join with him in this corporate willed act because they have been incorporated into Christ, in His body.) And so it is that you and I can claim as our own, something which is not ours -- namely, Christ's merits -- and offer them in compensation for our sins. His offering becomes ours because we have been enabled to lay claim to it by being baptized (members of Christ) and by being ordained (in the case of the priest).

I'm positively elated when I think that I am able to say to God: "I offer You, O God, all the merits of Christ, and those of the Blessed Mother and the saints, for all the sins I have committed." I want to say this often, frequently drawing out of Christ's (and Mary's and the saints') storehouse of spiritual treasure (merits) and apply it, in whatever measure I can claim it, against my own sins and those of all humanity.

Your pastor is not a theologian but merely a parish priest who is trying to grasp something that has always been perplexing to him about our faith. Perhaps these musings can easily be shot down by a theologian as wrong. In such case I would readily surrender to his just judgment and critique. But at least, for the moment, I think I have a glimpse of what I am able to do to make up for sin [...?] my being a member of the Church. It makes me glad to think that I can collaborate with Christ to help heal the wounds He suffers on account of our ongoing sins.

Fr. Perrone

New interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Steve Skojec, "Video: New Interview With Bishop Schneider" (1P5, November 20, 2017):

Fr. Perrone: a father's worry over his children's spiritual future

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, October 29, 2017):

A priest is rightly called father because he has a spiritual progeny, his people, a family he was given through mother Church. Being a parent of sorts, the priest has duties toward his children, to provide for them in the things of the spirit. Dispensing the sacraments and imparting instruction through preaching and teaching are the most necessary of his duties. As parenting in its ordinary sense entials more than ensuring that basic necessities are met, so the priest-father has more to do than fulfillment of the fundamentals of pastoral care. Among these extras is his parental duty to worry. No parent worthy of the name passes his days without anxiety for the welfare of his children. Their good health, proper education, safety, and that personal security which makes for happiness are surely among things parents often worry about in regard to their children.

So do I, a spiritual father, worry about my parishioners' spiritual welfare. In particular, I have spiritual concern over what may happen to them in the times ahead. The present moment may be secure enough, but the prognosis is not good. Every good parent does his best to get his children off to a good start in the early years of his children's lives. The time inevitably comes when children become young adults and must fend for themselves in a highly troubled world and amidst "a crooked and perverse generation" (Phil 2:15). Looking ahead I do not see good days for the Church. While there are some signs of betterment for Christians in American society, these are tenuous and fragile. In our beloved Church, signs are less promising for a restoration of stability and clear doctrine. Moral permissiveness and equivocation in teaching seem to be getting the upper hand as the pope and many bishops, theologians, and a number of priests teach ambiguously or even outright falsely, giving grave scandal. It pains me even to mention this yet I'm aware that my people cannot be unmindful of at least some of what's been said and done due to professional and social media. Best efforts have been made to 'put a good spin' on what's been happening from the highest to the local parish levels of the Church. A time comes, however, when the obvious conclusions must be drawn and one must come to grips with the harsh reality of a Church already sharply divided over what is authentic Catholic teaching on moral living and ecclesiastical discipline. And here my parental worry kicks in. How will my parishioners fare if and when a schism (rupture) breaks out in the Church and one must make a declaration of where one stands? What principles will be employed in making that decision? Social pressure to conform? The measure of one's own evil tendencies? The bad example of some of the hierarchy? I think of the heartbreak of Christ when He asked: "Will you also leave Me?" or the foreboding in His rhetorical question: "When the Son of Man comes again will He find faith on earth?" Sadness grips me when I hear the blatant lies being spread about doctrine and right morals. My predecessors in this parish and I have tried to do our paternal duty towards our spiritual children in teaching the truth and encouraging our people to live by it. This must be an ongoing task for the priest, especially in view of the mighty leftist propaganda. The natural tendency in nature is towards dissolution rather than towards betterment, unless a counterforce is exerted. In other words, things by themselves don't get better and better but rather progressively worse when unattended. With the present weak leadership in the Church and the corruptive influence of the media, that needed force is not to be presumed.

The disciples once asked our Lord, "Will only few be saved?" Divine Wisdom did not give a direct answer. The incertitude over the outcome of salvation ought to stir up some salutary worry. While the true Church cannot die and while Christ will ever remain with it until time's end, there is no surety of any particular person being among the saved. And so, I will worry and pray for my parishioners.

I must set aside these dark ruminations to speak of some upcoming dates. Wednesday this week will be All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation. Masses will e at 6:30, 9:30, noon, and 7:00 p.m. Thursday is All Souls Day. Masses will be offered in the morning at 7:30, 8:15, 8:00, 10:00, 11:00, 11:30 and 7:00 p.m. Everybody should participate at Mass on that day -- or better, at several Masses, praying for the dead. (Communion may only be received up to two times per day, but one may assist at Mass without any limit.) Visits to the cemetery with prayers for the dead during the first eight days of November may gain aa plenary indulgence for them.

Get yourselves ready to engage in the annual parish Forty Hours Devotion,a time for the whole parish to adore the Blessed Sacrament. Every individual in the parish ought to spend at least an hour in the church during the time of November 10-11. More on this next week.

Fr. Perrone: Divorce

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, October 22, 2017):

This week's subject matter raised another issue upon examination of my relatives in terms of adherence to the Catholic faith. It has to do with the failure of marriages, what we have called, perhaps somewhat euphemistically, divorce. Once a rarely uttered word, like abortion in that remote past time of my life, divorce has inflicted my extended family as it has the general population. While I had intended to make a count of the number of divorces among my relatives I failed to do the needed calculations. Doesn't matter, really. The point is that this cancer has done its share of damage and created an uncomfortable family tension. There are "ex-" husbands and wives and their children who have suffered the consequences of their separated parents. There is the awkwardness of family gatherings, either on account of the missing spouse or else upon his unexpected presence. Most of all for me, there is the matter of the Catholic faith. For us, marriage is not only a lifelong pledged agreement of fidelity and commitment to a life lived in common, it is also a sacrament, a sacred union that derives its lifeblood from Christ. Every Catholic marriage failure is a manifestation of some personal sins, that is, of offenses against God's laws. To glibly ascribe divorce to 'irreconcilable differences' masks the transcendental meaning of divorce as sin. Unlike a so-called private sin, failed marriage does harm to at least one other person, and often to more, and this in the wider family relationships, in society generally, and in the Church specifically. We are a weaker, restive Church for prevalence of divorce since marriage is symbolically a reflection of the undivorceable marriage of Christ and the Church. Our Lord is always the faithful groom, and His people are collectively His bride. He pledged His life in sacrifice to win this spouse for Himself by His meritorious death. He will never retract His marital vows to her. The fidelity of the Church espoused to Christ is expressed in her adhesion to His teachings and in the refusal to prefer sin to His grace. The high incidence of divorce among Catholic spouses is symptomatic of the infidelity of many Catholic people to their baptismal marriage "vows" to Christ. Their total acceptance of Catholic belief (doctrine) and their determined abstention from a sinful manner of life have too often been set aside either for some other religion or for some other way of life. Divorce is only the outward sign of the internal marital infidelity of the Church membership to Christ.

Our familiarity with divorce can inure us to being mindful and sensitive to it symbolic significance in terms of the faith. The response to divorce among Catholic people must always be fidelity to Christ's doctrines and to His commandments. Instead of this only permissible solution, proposals to accommodate our Lord's teachings and His laws are being seriously considered by the pope, some bishops and priests, and by some desperately but deludedly hopeful divorced and re0cohabitating couples (I say not "remarried"). Behind this scandalous suggestion is the idea that if one cannot abide by the law (in this case, divine law) then the law itself should be abrogated, or at least adjusted to present circumstances. This is the most pernicious aspect of what's being advocated by the allowing divorced and re-"married" people (without Church annulment) to receive the sacraments without the necessary requirement of total continence (the non-use of the marital act). The reason why this is so grievous is that, if admitted, it would unravel the whole moral law of God and all the Church discipline concerning what is sacred. In brief, by it the whole Catholic and Christian faith would be cast away. All would be remade or readjusted, as if to force God into submission to man's weaknesses rather than insist on wek man's obedience to God. Thus one would have the triumph of man over God. The great 'divorce' would have been achieved and God's marriage to the church would be undone.

The rebellion against the traditional biblical and ecclesiastical understanding of marriage and the sacraments has seeds in the souls of everyone who regrets the binding force that God's natural law has upon him. It expresses an old resentment that God should make demands upon humanity, demands that defy man's beastly craving for limitless freedom from strictures. Those who decry the outrageous proposals for change in the church's laws governing marriage and the sacraments are those who are themselves beset with the disorder of original sin's residue; yet they rightly insist that God's laws are irrevocable, unreformable by anyone: pope, bishop, layman. In the still raging controversy over Catholic re-"marriage" and reception of the sacraments one ought to take a more inclusive, panoramic view of what this means. It is the preamble to a declaration of war of man against God, of human willfulness over obedience to Him, of a divorce and a riddance of the divine Groom who ever remains faithful despite His spouses' menacing threats of desertion.

Fr. Perrone

Truth Decay

Yet another angst-ridden message from our underground correspondent, Guy Noir - Private Eye, this time arriving by bicycle courier in a large envelope. The hand-written message, with splotches of ink, made me wonder if Guy had used a quill pen to compose the missive. In the envelope I also found a pack of four Havana cigars. Nice.

Guy's message referenced a piece by Sandro Magister entitled "World's End Update ..." (Settimo Cielo, October 20, 2017), which I tracked down on the internet. Then followed his brief comments:

It's getting old. This new universalism has by now been so often suggested and homaged by so many recent popes that one could honestly argue it's part of the postconciliar development of doctrine. I no longer know what to say. Ralph Martin's "Who Will Be Saved?" offered a complete, Catholic, and biblical response to it. Trouble being, though, as Bishop Barron pointed out in his online debate over Martin's corrective, the conservatives' ballyhoooed Benedict XVI himself seems to support some sort of universalism in his encyclical on hope. We can laud tradition all we want, but at some point have to admit that postconciliarism is often an apology for, versus a friend of, Tradition. When the Four Last Things are shined up with new porcelain theological caps after receiving a Balthasarian root canal, Developmentalism is becoming the new orthodoxy, no matter how hard the forced smile from places like First Things. We are all Mormons now.

So it goes ...

Fr. Perrone: without an intense, devout life, Catholics will not survive the age

Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, October 15, 2017):

The saintly priest, learned theologian, and catechist extraordinaire, Fr. John A. Hardon, was fond of saying that without an intense, devout life Catholics will not survive the age. I admit that at the time I thought this a ruse to shock his audience into taking their faith seriously. The longer I live in this age, however, the more I become convinced that this priest got it right. In recent decades we've seen great numbers of Catholics cease to practice their faith while others have exited the Church for small community non-denominational churches or trendy mega-churches that offer swingin' and swayin' worship services with an appealing "prosperity" message. I've heard many a sorrow-laden complaint from Catholics who have lost family members or relatives to such groups. It seems that no family has been wholly exempt from the defection. I did a little checking among my own family and close relatives to see how things stacked up in this regard. In a fast count from a pool of 52 family members and close relatives on my mother's side only (my siblings and their children, uncles, aunts, and first cousins), there were only 20 out of 52 still practicing the Catholic faith in which they were reared and living in a Christian manner.

These facts may make us wonder about many things. First, of the necessity of faith in Christ and of keeping His commandments. Without whole-hearted acceptance of all that Christ has revealed by His Church and without a state of grace, one cannot hope to be saved. Then, about the Church. It is by definition one, founded by our Lord: "Upon this rock I will build My Church" with Peter as its rock foundation (Mt 16:18). It is this Church which holds the true doctrine of Christ since it alone is "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Christ's apostles and their line of successors were handlers-on (transmitters) of 'tradition,' that is, of their authority, powers, the truth and the practices they received from Christ. Efforts to deviate from that apostolic inheritance were made from the earliest days of the Church. Thus were the faithful flock warned of those who would deceive and mislead the flock, false teachers and false prophets (Mt 24:24; 2 Tim 4:3-4), those "even of your own number" who would "draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). On account of the ever present danger of being misled and of departing from truth, Saint Paul admonished succeeding generations of the Church to "guard the truth that has been entrusted to you" (2 Tim 1:14) and to "hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth of by [written] letter" (2 Thes 2:15).

The Catholic Church is the only Church which has existed uninterruptedly from apostolic times, unbroken in historical continuity. This is an indisputable fact. You will find the Catholic Church in every year since the first day of the Christian era. While the church as Christ's body has matured and organically grown in acquiring a greater clarity in its beliefs (the creed), in a more developed way of celebrating the Christian "mysteries" (the liturgy and the sacraments), and in a worldwide institutional expansion, yet she has remained true to her divine charter, being essentially as she has always been from the beginning and as she is destined to remain until the Lord returns.

The claim is made, of course, that the Catholic Church at some point erred and went astray from what Christ had intended from the beginning. [But] with the publication and now easy availability of the Fathers of the Church (and especially of the Apostolic Fathers -- those who immediately succeeded the apostles) and other early Church writings, it is clear for anyone who would care to investigate the matter that the early Church is the same Catholic Church we know today in all essential aspects. From these documents we learn many things: how Mass was said and the sacraments celebrated; the deeper theological understanding of the faith revealed in time by the Holy Spirit (who "will teach you all things, and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you" (Jn 14:26) and which was formulated in the ancient creedal statements; how holy orders were transmitted from bishop to bishop, and from bishop to priest; etc. Only the Catholic Church did all these things from the beginning of the Christian era and only she continues to do them faithfully.

The problem of defection from the true Church and from its faith plagued the Church from its earliest days. Already in the Book of Revelation we find mention of a sect known as the Nicolaitans (e.g. 2:6). St. Paul wrote against the beliefs of the Gnostics. Aberrant sects claiming to be some manner or other of 'church' apart from the unique historical body of the Catholic Church are fraudulent. There can't be a 'spontaneous generation' of a new Christian body claiming to be in any sense authentic. There must be, and is, but 'one body, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism, one God' (cf. Eph 4:4-5).

Of course, in our families there are those who are simply non-practitioners, those who still regard themselves as Catholics but who can't be bothered going to Sunday Mass or to Confession. Our Lord warned that the way to salvation was a narrow one, that few would find it (Mt 7:14), and that when He would return to earth there might be but a few who would have kept the faith (cf. Lk 18:8).

there are many diverse reasons why people cease to practice the Catholic faith or who leave holy Church for something other. The lure of sensuality and worldliness -- always a powerful force -- is not to be discounted. There's also the scandalous lives of bad Catholics which are discouraging; the incredible permissive things we now hear coming from Rome, from certain bishops, "theologians," and priests; the fallout from the clergy scandals of recent times; the enormous ignorance of Catholics about their faith and their history; the irreverent way priests and laity deport themselves at Mass such as to belie the doctrines of the Real Presence and the sacrificial nature of the Mass; the great number of divorces with remarriages of Catholics outside the Church; the Church's condemnation of all forms of artificial birth control; the circulation of the pernicious teaching that "one religion is as good as another" (indifferentism). Take all these things together and ... voilà! ... you have all that's needed for a great exodus from the true Church.

Christ is not indifferent about truth, about fidelity to the practice of the faith, or about His Church. The only Church which has perdured through the centuries since the time of its founding is the one, true Church of Christ: the Catholic Church, a truth "which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny."

Fr. Perrone

P.S. Today, Sunday, marks the fourth anniversary of my Mother's death. Mom and Dad were devout believers both. How profoundly grateful I am for the faith my parents passed on to me! I pray for them and I pray to them for the return of our family members who have strayed from the one truth Catholic Church.

In Cupichianity, Love means never having to say "I believe you [God] exist"!!!

"I can see lots of great Christians with my new glasses!"
Bruvver Eccles, "Do atheists make the best Christians?" (Eccles is saved, August 26, 2017).

Commenting, of course, on the statement in the Chicago Sun Times (August 24, 2017) by Cardinal Cupich, who wrote:

Some of the greatest Christians I know are people who don't actually have a kind of faith system that they believe in. But, in their activity, the way they conduct themselves, there's a goodness there. It might not be articulated in a faith context like my own, but there's a goodness there that is a witness that encourages me.

[Hat tip to JM]

"Still a bulwark of sanity in our big and zany Church"?

Those, paraphrased, are the words of Guy Noir - Private Eye in a recent message to me via carrier pigeon, as per usual lately. He was commenting on an article by Thomas Joseph White, "Catholicism in the Modern World" (First Things, August 25, 2017), which is, indeed, reassuringly sane.

After linking to this other article and remarking, "much as I've carped over JPII’s TOB overreach or Jos. Ratzinger’s exegesis of Genesis, more than a little do I miss them," he then turned to White's article, saying about it (his actual words):

There is also this fascinatingly fusionary list, with Newman, Garrigou-Lagrange (!) and Ratzinger too. Somehow reassures me there is still a bulwark of sanity in our big and… being kind, zany… Church.

Fr. Hunwicke on why Pope Francis is not a heretic

Some interesting reasoning here. [Advisory: Rules ##7-9]

Essentially, Fr. John Hunwicke seems to be suggesting that, whatever the material content of the Holy Father's locutions, they lack sufficient theological sobriety and propositional restraint to rise to the level of formal heresy. Here's the first of four posts he has on the topic: "Is the Pope a heretic? (1)" (Fr. Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, May 18, 2017):

To this question there can only be one answer: NO. And NO means, as Mrs Brexiteer May might put it, NO. Pope Bergoglio has NEVER, to my knowledge, formally enunciated doctrines which are unambiguously heretical. The claim one sometimes hears, to the effect that he has formally, as if from his chair, made doctrinal assertions which the Church has formally defined as heretical, is NONSENSE. When such assertions tip over further, into the idea that he has ceased to be pope because of his alleged errors, the mistake is even more grievously EVIL because it runs the risk of detaching souls for whom Christ died from the Ark of Salvation, from the One Fold of the Redeemer.

One easy reason for being confident that the Sovereign Pontiff has not formally taught heresy is the simple fact, confirmed pretty well every time he opens his mouth, that he despises theology and holds doctrine in not-even-barely-concealed contempt. To be a heretic, or, more precisely, to be a formal heretic, it is in practical terms necessary to operate within the respectable constraints of propositional discourse. The fact that Bergoglio does not do this is proved by the fact, written large over this whole pontificate, that nobody ever quite seems to be sure what he means. The DUBIA which the four Cardinals put forward provide a good example of this. Four men of erudition (not to mention seniority) thought they needed to ask the Bishop of Rome what he meant. His tardiness, so far, in exercising the Petrine Ministry of Confirming his Brethren demonstrates his resolute determination not to be tied down by propositions. I do not believe that it is possible to convict such a man, operating such a policy, of being a formal heretic. Those who wish to do this are walking up quite the wrong garden path. And I will argue that they are guilty of a genre-error.

Further parts will follow. No comments will be enabled until they are all finished.

Here are the subsequent posts: Part 2; Part 3; Part 4. In Part 4 he concludes: "Is this a dangerous pontificate? Not nearly as much as panicky people fearfully imagine. Come off it! And cheer up! The ease with which Pope Francis and his associated ideologues, while studiously "not changing doctrine", in fact over-ride and ignore the Magisterium of his predecessors, will make it pitifully easy for his successors to dump his 'teaching' with only the most perfunctory of formalities, and then to restore the simple lucidities of the Tradition handed down through the Apostles, the Deposit of Faith.... Just hold tight whenever the roller-coaster seems to be going dangerously fast, and remember that her Immaculate Heart will prevail. This is Fatima Year!"

[Hat tip to L.S.]

When an Oxford Don goes rogue and comes out in support of traditional marriage and family values

I understand Oxford Don Richard Swinburne created quite a stir when he addressed the Midwest meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers last fall. "The difficulty," according to The Editors of First Things, was that in the course of exploring these topics, Swinburne characterized homosexuality as a “disability” and a condition that, while sometimes “to a considerable extent reversible,” in many instances is “incurable,” given the present state of medical research.

The Editors continue:

Given the current state of public life and the stringency of academic moral codes in favor of diversity and tolerance, it will be no surprise to our readers that the president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, Michael Rea, subsequently expressed his “regret regarding the hurt caused by” Swinburne’s paper, suggesting that Swinburne’s ideas were inconsistent with the Society’s “values of diversity and inclusion.”

Rea’s message has triggered a reaction on the other side. So far the situation has been commented on by Joseph Shaw, Edward Feser, and Rod Dreher, along with eighty-seven philosophers who signed a letter of protest against the principles implied in Rea’s apology. We at First Things were curious about the paper that prompted all the to-do, and so we asked Professor Swinburne whether he would be willing to let us make his paper available. He has generously agreed.

You can read it here [PDF download].

Here is a video of Swinburne's live presentation:

Sandro Magister: "After Four Cardinals, Six Laymen Speak. Who Knows If the Pope May At Least Listen To Them"

Sandro Magister, "After Four Cardinals, Six Laymen Speak. Who Knows If the Pope May At Least Listen To Them" (L'Espresso, April 22, 2017):

The four cardinals have never been alone with their “dubia.” Proof of this comes from what happened in Rome on April 22 in an auditorium of the Hotel Columbus, a short walk from Saint Peter’s Square, where six renowned lay scholars came together from as many countries of the world to give voice to an appeal that is being raised from a large part of the “people of God” so that clarity may be brought to the confusion raised by “Amoris Laetitia.”

Anna M. Silvas came from Australia, Claudio Pierantoni from Chile, Jürgen Liminski from Germany, Douglas Farrow from Canada, Jean Paul Messina from Cameroon, Thibaud Collin from France. And one after the other, over the span of one day took stock of the crisis that the document of Pope Francis has produced in the Church, one year after its publication.

Settimo Cielo offers its readers the complete texts of the six presentations, in the languages in which they were delivered. But it calls special attention to the one by Claudio Pierantoni, a scholar of patristics and professor of medieval philosophy at the Universidad de Chile, in Santiago, an abridgment of which is provided below.

Pierantoni brings up again the cases of two popes who fell into error during the first Christian centuries, the one condemned “post mortem” by an ecumenical council and the other induced to correct himself during his lifetime.

But also today - he argues - there is a pope who is “victim,” although “hardly aware of it,” of a widespread tendency to error that undermines the foundations of the Church’s faith. And he too is in need of a charitable correction that may bring splendor back to the truth.

Pierantoni is not the only one among the six to have recalled the lessons of the past, ancient and recent.

Thibaud Collin, a professor of moral philosophy and politics at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, recalled for example the opposition of numerous theologians and entire episcopates to the encyclical of Paul VI “Humanae Vitae,” which was downgraded to purely “ideal” and thereby made inoperative. And he showed how this deleterious “pastoral” logic has come back into vogue with “Amoris Laetitia,” concerning indissoluble marriage and soon also concerning homosexual amours.

Anna M. Silvas, an Australian of the Eastern rite, a scholar of the Fathers of the Church, and a professor at the University of New England, instead emphasized the danger that the Catholic Church might also go down the road already traveled centuries ago by the Protestants and Orthodox toward divorce and remarriage: just when - she surprisingly added - the Coptic Church is returning to the indissolubility of Christian marriage, without exception.

On a response from Pope Francis to the “dubia,” as also on the possibility of a “correction” from him, Anna M. Silvas expressed skepticism. She instead proposes a “Benedict option” for the current post-Christian era, inspired by the monasticism at the collapse of the ancient era, a humble and communal “dwelling” with Jesus and the Father “Jn 14:23) in the faithful expectation, made up of prayer and work, that the tempest shaking the world and the Church today may cease.

Six voices, six different interpretations. All profound and nourished by “caritas in veritate.” Who knows if Pope Francis may at least listen to them.

• Claudio Pierantoni, "La necessaria coerenza del magistero con la Tradizione. Gli esempi della storia" - translation provided under the title of "THE NECESSARY CONSISTENCY OF THE MAGISTERIUM WITH TRADITION. THE EXAMPLES OF HISTORY" [scroll down]
• Anna M. Silvas, "A Year After Amoris Laetitia: A Timely Word"
• Douglas Farrow, "The Roots of the Present Crisis"
• Thibaud Collin, "Discerner en conscience?"
• Jürgen Liminski, "'Co-créé avec l’Homme.' Pourquoi l'indissolubilité du mariage est une bonne chose pour la société"
• Jean Paul Messina, "Lecture d’Amoris Laetitia pour l’Afrique et les Églises d’Afrique"

More light on a persistent confusion

Mats Wahlberg,"The Two Faces of Amoris Laetitia" (First Things, April 4, 2017), writes:

Two completely different—and logically incompatible—arguments in favor of communion for the divorced and remarried have figured in the synodal process that led up to Amoris Laetitia. Despite their incompatibility, both arguments can be found in Amoris itself, at least according to many of the document’s interpreters. Here is one of the arguments:

A) Living in a new sexual relationship after a divorce from a valid marriage can in some cases be objectively morally good or at least morally acceptable, namely in cases where the new relationship is so established that the well-being of children and other innocent persons would be jeopardized if the couple were to separate or attempt to live as “brother and sister.” Jeopardizing the well-being of innocent persons would be unjust, which is to say immoral, and this means that the morally right course of action is to preserve and nurture the new relationship. This is why persons who are in this kind of situation can receive communion.

Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, has no doubt that this is how Pope Francis reasons: “Francis would be sympathetic to the woman who put her husband through law school waiting tables but then got dumped for a pretty, younger associate. She is now married to a loving plumber who is a good father to the children from both marriages. Telling her to abandon her new husband or live as brother and sister is not only absurd, it is unjust” (National Catholic Reporter, Dec 8 2016, my emphasis). However, some other commentators who embrace communion for the divorced and remarried reject this argument out of hand. According to them, the pope reasons like this:

B) Living in a sexual relationship after a divorce from a valid marriage is always objectively gravely immoral, but various factors can diminish or even remove subjective guilt. So while the situation itself is gravely sinful, the persons involved in it need not be in a state of mortal sin. This is why some of them can receive communion.

The philosopher Rocco Buttiglione advances this interpretation. “Sexual relations outside of marriage are without doubt gravely contrary to the moral law. This was the case before Amoris Laetitia, this is still the case in Amoris Laetitia. … Again, there is no doubt as to whether [the divorced and remarried person] is living in an objective situation of grave sin, except in the limited case of an invalid marriage. Whether he or she is carrying the full subjective responsibility and is at fault remains to be seen” (L’Osservatore Romano, July 19 2016).

Then, skipping ahead to the conclusion, we read:

Since Argument A is very persuasive, taken on its own terms, it is no wonder that intelligent and faithful Catholics feel its pull and are moved to advocate what they see as a merciful pastoral solution for people in difficult marriage situations. And it is no wonder that faithful Catholics prefer to defend this pastoral solution in terms of another, incompatible argument—the arguably orthodox Argument B—that allows them to claim that no doctrine has changed. However, this double play can only go on for so long in “good faith.” And the time when Arguments A and B could be innocently confused is over.

Now, go back and read the detailed argument in between at the original source.g

Fr. Perrone: can Pope Francis change immutable truths?

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, March 26, 2017):

The greatest intellectual deception is to subvert the natural gravitation of the mind towards truth to admit falsehood. There are many ways to swindle people's thinking -- and -- with their consent. Bad philosophy is replete with errors of such kind. That's the "high end" of this strange but not uncommon phenomenon. The willful succumbing to untruth is more ubiquitous in the area of morals. Many want to believe that what is not true would be true. A sinner may wish to justify himself in his own eyes, to convince himself that he acts well, that his conscience is giving him leave to commit his sins.

Pope Francis has raised quite a ruckus in the Church with his proposals that some couples in invalid marriages (or even in none at all, as cohabitors) be permitted while in such states to receive the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion. I have refrained from writing on this because the matter is such an embarrassment. I decided however to reverse this blithe turning aside from the subject simply because the issue is, regrettably, public news, and because there is as yet no official resolution to the dilemmas it poses for the Church or for the minds and manners of of our people. So here come I, foolish and consciously incompetent, who dare to make commentary. I do so only for the care I have for what I believe to be troubled minds beset by confusion and for concern that scandal may lead you to sin.

All the years of my rational life I have believed that truth is immutable, unchangeable. As a Christian I have believed that the word of God contained in the Church's teaching authority and in the Holy Scriptures contains that truth so that it can be known and accepted by mankind. Moreover, I find therein such phrases: "thou shalt not commit adultery"; "whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery"; "what partnership have righteousness and iniquity?" "neither the immoral nor adulterers will inherit the kingdom of God"; "whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup unworthily will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord." Those words (others might be brought forth as well) are to me crystal clear. When however I hear the Pope's suggestions I am put into confusion. It's not only that what is proffered there is in conflict with what I read in the scriptures and the magisterium but that the same issues from a pope. Do we Catholics not believe that, besides being infallible in matters of faith and morals when he teaches in a solemn and public manner, the pope may also be infallible in his ordinary teaching under certain conditions (such being the doctrine enunciated by Pope Pius XII)? Even more, is not every Catholic obliged to show deference to papal teaching even in non-infallible matters since he is the Church's universal teacher and guardian of the deposit of faith which Christ bequeathed to the Church through His apostles? Can the pope be in error not merely as a private individual but in his public teaching. I am conflicted. Perhaps you are as well.

Self doubt ensues. Have I been wrong all my life to believe that what was taught me as truth and what my reason readily asserts to as being truth has been wrong all along? Or, perhaps was it right in the time past but that God now, without changing truth, is accommodating Himself to these evil times -- lowering the bar, so to speak -- to allow a more generous salvation for unrepentant sinners? Further, would this new leniency, if it be admitted, not dispense from moral laws more widely, permitting transgressors full access to the Communion? I'm thinking of murderers, abortionists, torturers, sodomites, self-abusers, prostitutes and pornographers among others who could Confess without an intention of amendment, be absolved, and Communicate? Can there in fact be any limits to a newfound exemption from the moral law? Will then all be saved, without moral obligations, even against their wills?

Such are my thoughts until I'm reminded of a wily voice once heard in the garden. "Did God really say not to eat of the forbidden fruit?" No. I can't submit the judgment of conscience in what is certainly the truth to anything contrary to it no matter who may propose it. Of course, I can be in error on many things, and if I do err, either in principles or in the logic of my thought, I need to be corrected for the amendment of my life and for the salvation of my soul. Yet, if I'm right ...

Kindly understand. I do not think I'm the Pope's judge. God is. The change in pastoral practice being suggested by Pope Francis and others needs to be worked out in the great areana of theological debate by those competent by dint of their position in the Church and their erudition. It's unfortunate, in my view, that these matters were made public and not brought to resolution behind closed doors. Since the media have spared neither you nor me the anguish of airing (and erring) of them we must wait patiently for the truth to surface. In the meantime, I write to you out of care for this little flock entrusted to me to remind you of the inflexibility of God's word -- of the word of Him who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

My parting word. Love the Pope and pray for him. Even if he be in error (as once was the first pope Saint Peter when he made pretense in refusing to take meals with Gentiles) Pope Francis is yet the holy father, the lawfully elected head of the Church. He intends good, not evil. We owe him respect. Pray also for the good of the Church and the triumph of the truth. Our Lord promised to be with us all days, even unto the consummation of the world.

Fr. Perrone

P.S. Laetare Sunday reminds us to be joyful, even in the midst of Lent.

Fr. Perrone: How to rid yourself of sins this Lent

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, March 12, 2017):

Lent is a time for self-reflection on our sins: how we got into committing them, how we rid ourselves of them, and -- this is important -- how we can compensate for them. Perhaps we think little of that latter thing. We have more often in mind our sins as transgressions of reason and God's laws and we feel the need to be freed of them through Confession. Yet we should also recognize that our sins have disrupted the objective moral order, causing external damage, so to say, as well as the interior harm done to ourselves. This needs to be redressed. The scales of justice have to be balanced after the objective order has been disturbed.

The Church and sacred scripture borrow the language of commerce to explain sin and its redress as a kind of spiritual transaction. (God's side is another matter. His it is to pardon, to forgive as He pleases, usually through absolution of the priest.) On our part, sin has contracted a debt owed to the offended majesty of God. This is the objective 'damage' done to Him by our sins. Such debts incurred through our misdeeds demand repayment, satisfaction. We must have some means of paying this debt; hence the necessity to do good works: prayer,d enial of the use of some good things, giving alms to the needy, etc. Of ourselves we are unable to make full repayment for sin to the all-holy God. While He may have written off the debt of sin without requiring any satisfaction, He did not do this. He asks, demands compensation from us, even though He substantially paid the whole debt Himself by becoming man and by suffering and dying for our justification and salvation. That redemptive act of Christ more than compensated for all the offenses contracted against God. Yet, out of justice, He expects satisfaction to be made also by the offenders, each one contributing some part. Through belonging to the great society oand union of the Church we are able to offer God Christ's acquired sum of good works He did for us as payment for the debts of our own sins. (An aside: This seems unfair. How is it that we can borrow from another's accumulated 'treasure,' appropriate it to ourselves and use it in payment for our sins? A mystery!) We know that we can indeed offer from the pool of wealth that is the merit of our Lord's Passion and death, and the added sum of merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, against our indebtedness to God for our sins. One draws from this 'bank account' when gaining indulgences (grants given through the Church) and when one offers Christ's sacrifice of Himself in the Mass, in union with the priest; or when one says, in the chaplet of Divine Mercy, "Eternal Father, I offer You the body, blood ... of Jesus." We offer God a sum not our own. This is possible through our incorporation into the Church by which we have, so to speak, a joint bank account of the merits of christ, Our Lady, and the saints.

We should all want to leave this life, when we die, debt free. Otherwise, we shall remain in purgatory until we will have "paid the last penny" in payment of the whole amount of our debt to God (cf. the servant in the parable threatened with being sold in payment of a debt). Only when it will be fully paid will the scale of justice in our regard be rightly balanced and we will become justly fit for heaven where "nothing defiled" can enter.

Lent is now here. We ought to do two things: 1) pay off the debt of our sins by works of penance; 2) draw upon the merits of Christ and the saints by our prayers, the co-offerings of Mass, and gaining the Church's indulgences for ourselves and for the souls in purgatory -- helping them pay their debts out of our love for them.

Do as much good as you can while you have time for yourselves and for others. "Now is the acceptable time." This is the reason we have Lent.

P.S. James Likoudis will be here today after the 9:30 Mass for a book-signing. Jim is an outstanding layman -- he would no doubt blush to hear his praises -- author and lecturer, defender of the faith. Onetime national president of Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) which in a time of terrible confusion and revolution in the Church fought to preserve our Catholic patrimony in doctrine, worship, and catechesis. (Believe it or not, there was a time in recent history when things were worse than they now are. CUF is one of the reasons for the betterment of the present state of the Church in this country. I welcome Mr. Likoudis, who has written compellingly about the rapprochement of the Orthodox Churches with the Catholic church. We wish him much added grace and rich blessings.

Fr. Perrone

Is Cardinal Müller censuring himself?

 Christopher A. Ferrara, "Cardinal Müller Covers His Eyes" (CFN, January 9, 2017): 

According to Stanze Vaticane, the blog for the Italian TV channel TGCom24, Card. Gerhard Ludwig Müller has rejected any correction of Pope Francis concerning those explosive sections of Amoris Laetitia (especially Chapter 8, ¶¶ 302-305) which prompted the four cardinals to present their dubia to Pope Francis. Those passages of Amoris clearly open the door to Holy Communion for the divorced and “remarried” in “certain cases” — as bishop after bishop is now declaring — while appearing to reduce exceptionless negative precepts of the natural law (including “Thou shalt not commit adultery”) to “general rules” and mere “objective ideals” rather than divine commands from which no one can claim an exemption.

But Müller’s choice of words is very curious.  As reported by Stanze Vaticane, during an interview with TGCom 24 (translations mine), Müller stated:

“Everyone, above all the cardinals of the Roman Church [sic], have the right to write a letter to the Pope. I was astonished, however, that this became public, almost constraining the Pope to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I do not like this. Also, a possible fraternal correction of the Pope seems to me very far off. It is not possible at this moment because it does not involve a danger to the faith as Saint Thomas has said. We are very far from a correction and I say that it harms the Church to discuss these things publicly.

“Amoris Laetitia is very clear in its doctrine, and we can make out the whole doctrine of the Church on matrimony, all the doctrine of the Church in 2000 years of history. Pope Francis asks for discernment of the situation of those persons who live in an irregular union, that is, not according to the doctrine of the Church on matrimony, and he asks for aid of these persons to find a path for a new integration in the Church according to the conditions of the Sacraments, of the Christian message on matrimony. But I do not see any contraposition: on the one hand we have the clear doctrine on matrimony, and on the other the obligation of the Church to concern herself with these persons in difficulty.”

First of all, why is Müller “astonished” that the dubia became public?  The four cardinals state clearly in their accompanying letter that while their dubia were first submitted privately to Francis, “The Holy Father has decided not to respond. We have interpreted his sovereign decision as an invitation to continue the reflection, and the discussion, calmly and with respect. And so we are informing the entire people of God about our initiative, offering all of the documentation.”

That is their right as cardinals, and indeed it is the right of any member of the faithful:

“According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.”  (Canon 212, § 3)

Secondly, why is a “possible fraternal correction” deemed “very far off” — meaning that there is a potential for one — when Müller says at one and the same time that Amoris presents the Catholic doctrine on matrimony and that there is no opposition to that doctrine in the call for “discernment” of the situation of people in “irregular unions”? If Amoris were really so clear, and there were really no contradiction between Catholic doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage and Francis’ call for “discernment,” Müller would say simply that a correction of Francis is unnecessary. He would not say a correction is “not possible at this moment…”

I am afraid Müller’s statement falls into the category of so much of what has come out of the Vatican over the past fifty years: artfully worded doubletalk that tries to have it both ways.