Does being more radical make you more holy?

[Henri_Searcher]

Dear “Latinmass” and all other contributors,
I stand by what I have written up until now. I am not a relativist. I am a member of the R.C. Church with the pope as its head. I am against blind Authoritarianism per-se as a method to explain and adhere to the faith. I have accepted the Church’s Magisterial Authority by study, prayer and the grace of God…not by threats, by force or by anyones condemnations. Truth is beautiful, even in its exigency.
I love the Latin mass: especially when celebrated by Roman Catholic Priests in communion plena with Rome! If not…I’ll remain with my local parish rabble thanks!!! As for the rest lets give up judging each others virtues on these threads, what do you say? It’s so rash, for one thing. As we judge, we stand to be judged. Those who believe that our Eucharistic is only acceptable when a latin tongue offers it up…what can I say, if you won’t listen to the Church, to Pope Benedict, to Saints like Padre Pio (who celebrated the novis ordo mass), to the Catholic theologians who have tried to win you back to the Truth, what can I hope to achieve? Good luck, and be true to your conscience, but inform it, study, pray and be open.
Radicalism when it is ill informed ends in schism and separation. This has been my thesis from page one. Humbly…Henri!

 

[Henri_Searcher]

Note: when addressing “Latinmass and all other participants” I am not infering that you yourself are not a Roman Catholic in full communion with Christ’s Church. I am merely following a line of argument. Each one of us is free to decide and I mean no offence to anyone.

 

[SFD]

Dear “Latinmass” and all other contributors,
I stand by what I have written up until now. I am not a relativist.

You don’t think nor admit you’re a relativist.
Henri Searcher:

I am a member of the R.C. Church with the pope as its head. I am against blind Authoritarianism per-se as a method to explain and adhere to the faith. I have accepted the Church’s Magisterial Authority by study, prayer and the grace of God…not by threats, by force or by anyones condemnations. Truth is beautiful, even in its exigency.

"I am against blind Authoritarianism per-se as a method to explain and adhere to the faith."

Herein lies the irony of your comments. The conciliar church demands blind authoritarianism to enforce what it did after Vatican II. Any doctrinal question is eventually (if not immediately) reduced to an issue of obedience to their authority…some of them know nothing else.

I have said many times here that obedience is a moral virtue and, as such, it is always subordinate the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Obedience must have a proper object…and those of us who are merely following Our Lord’s Own admonition to be wary of false prophets…ravening wolves dressed in shepherd’s clothing…and to look at their fruits…will not be bullied by false shepherds by a call to blind obedience.

SFD

 

[Auntie_M]

to SFD

You really MEAN Pope Pius X posted here? wow, now that’s a miracle.

Why is everything referred to the Pascendi, he made others also, why just that one is referred to? Is that the only one you know about?

(ahhh, course not, you’re sooo learned)

 

[Auntie_M]

Blind Authoritarianism…

Pope Pius taught this, He ruled that no one should question the Pope. But isn’t that what people of today are doing.

Oh well, believe some, not believe some, a pick and choose society.

 

[Henri_Searcher]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Search,

Can I respond briefly to the challenge of our brother the other day that seemed to think that somehow I was less than free in my Christian faith because of my allegiance to the Pope? Screeds have been written on this subject, I don’t propose to say anything new of course and I don’t have time to be writing cyber books either! Check out what apologists like Dr Scott Hahn (a convert from traditional Lutheran/Calvinist Christianity to the Catholic Church) have said on this matter. In his book “Rome Sweet Home” he intelligently and enthusiastically tells of all his searching’s (intellectual, familial and spiritual) to come into communion with the Church (Unam, Sanctam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam). Man the dude didn’t want to go there…his family were staunch protestants, his wife Kimberly almost left him…he had to leave his job as a theology prof. and as a Minister. However the light of the evidence was such…the Bible, the earliest Church Fathers, the Saints…lots and lots of stuff…called out to him and he was consequent with his findings. A true Searcher…he sought- he found.
This in a lesser way is what I have done in my life. I was no cradle Catholic (and by the way no one is born a Christian: they have to be baptized…). Evidence of a Biblical, Patristical and of a experiential-personal nature led me to become a Catholic. The bonds that drew me were the sweet bonds of reason, of beauty that all men recognise in their soul: like a fine composition of Mozart, like a sunrise over an oak wooded lakeside. Hic est veritas et splendor. Here is Truth and Splendor!
The choice was mine, the coercion was zero. Many have recoiled away from the idea of Authority in the Church because of the “abuses” real or imagined. But what then are we advocating in the Church? Anarchy? An invisible Church like some surreal ideal spaceship? We need contact (Houston to Ground control!) God became Man, fully with us: he didn’t abandon ship after the Ascension. The Church his bride is visible too and just as effective as when He first established her and structured her with the twelve apostles at her head and with all the others called to minister and aid the Apostles. That structure came from Christ not from the Church per-se. It was Christ who set Peter in his place and who chose his twelve. When Judas came a cropper what did the 11 do? They chose another! They recognised that this visible structure was necessary, it was from the Lord. Well dudes if that’s what the Lord wanted- replacing Judas with Mathias, how much more do you think He wanted a successor to Peter?
In this way what we read in the Gospels and in Acts etc. is not just History. It’s alive and relevant to us today. The same Mysteries are Actualised and lived out in our lives and Churches too. Tradition is not a grabbing on to the dead past but is alive with the life blood of the Spirit and is lived out in each one of us: as we plug into the Sacred Mysteries of our Faith. “Do this in Memory of me (Anamnesis).” A “Memory” that is like plugging a T.V. into a wall: we plug our hearts into the Traditio (that which is handed down) we experience it. “This is my Body do this in Memory of me.”
The Apostles just as they were the guardians of the visible Assembly (Ecclesia) of believers and the Guardians of the Faith: of what was transmitted and passed on (Traditio) so too now are their successors: the Bishops and their collaborators the presbyters or priests.

 

[Auntie_M]

Blind Authoritianism is exactly what Pope Pius X taught. He even went so far as enlisting his own “little armry” against anyone not adherring to “HIS” views. Read about the “Sapiniere” , code name for his little army of PAID informants. (Paid from the Church’s funds, even)

Pius X believed that “Moderism” was not limited to Biblical matters. Students of Priesthoods were forbidden to read secular newspapers and magazines…“lest they become infected”

Lecturers had to submit notes for approval, only to have them confisgated if they didn’t say what Pius X wanted them to say.
(he was totally against education as far as anything “new” being learned. What would our world look like if that were the case now?)

I quote Pius X, “Love of the popes was an important means of achieving holiness, and love put into practice was expressed in OBEDIENCE to the pope’s instructions”.

Now, will the real authoritarian please stand up…

One must understand, the “Moderism” in Pius X’s time had more to do with politics, than with church matters. (France, Italy, Germany and others all trying to seige power from the popes)