Brad:
I don’t even care that much who honors me now but I really won’t care once I’m dead.
Whew. buffalo and I have been fighting over who would honour you. He insists he should be the one to honour you because he thought of it
first. I insist it should be me who honours you because it’s
my turn. The following tome – tome, not a tomb! – is for you. I hope you find it practical:
The “Talents” and Our Testing
The turmoil, confusion and conflicting forces that currently exist in the Roman Catholic Church in America have led to an instability of the faithful that is unprecedented in its history. The devastation is brought to the utmost by the very fact that the disrupters are within and very often are not only the ordained but members of the Church hierarchy itself. A deadly combination indeed! We cannot beguile ourselves, however, in thinking we were not forewarned because the New Testament writers gave extensive and specific warnings of these times and the nature of its leaders.
These days, then, have brought demands upon the individual faithful that are unique and which do not allow, in many instances, the conventional institutional remedies of the past. We shall here speak specifically of the ecclesial (Church)) authority and teaching of faith and morals. One finds themselves in the midst of a maelstrom of opinions concerning teaching and dissent from those teachings. In what we would call normal times, dissent (heresy, schism, apostasy, etc.) was quickly disproved and suppressed by the legitimate governing authority of the Church. Such acts of governance provide real charity to those that are venturing into error, and its subsequent loss of faith, while at the same time sparing the faithful from being led down deadly paths.
Otherwise, governing is an absolutely essential function in maintaining union/unity in the Church. Law, any law, is of no significance if it is not, or cannot, be enforced. Without governance, you have anarchy, which is another word for chaos, a condition that exists in many areas of the American sector of the Church today. It is significant to note that even with all the lather whipped up by the infallible imbeciles demanding changes (corruption) of faith and morals, the Church’s official teachings have not bent at all in acceding to these demands. It must be acknowledged, however painful as it may be, that governance in the Catholic Church (beginning with Rome and the Vatican itself) has for all practical purposes come to naught in recent times. This is often referred to as the “pastoral” approach, but that disastrous policy is a subject for another page. Still, the Law is intact and in place but the lack of resolve to govern renders the Law functionally ineffectual.
continued…
