- Saints were not heretics. That’s absurd. As someone already said, they may have been heretics before conversion or before really becoming authentic Catholics and not “American Catholics”, cafeteria Catholics, or lip-service Catholics. A saint cannot by definition be a heretic. Sounds to me like some of you want to glorify rebelliousness against the Church while remaining Catholic. It’s not possible. No saint was a dissenter for as long as he was a saint.
- The reason one should pay more attention to the Catholicity of Colbert is because he thrusts his claims to Catholicism into the spotlight. He make it a point to announce his Catholicism and to confront in one way or another Catholic teachings or issues. That’s why. And the way to evaluate his Catholicism is by what he says. If he supports gay marriage, contraception, and so on, if he waters down the authority of the Church and sends the message, in all his ambiguity, that leads to confusion and lack of clarity about what he truly represents, he is acting in a manner that places people in grave spiritual danger. Calling it “satire” is no excuse if its effects are to undermine the Church. Now, I don’t know him well enough to judge his Catholicism. I don’t know what effect he’s having. However, a having watched about 10 ep. of his show, I feel that it doesn’t actually affirm Catholic teaching. His satire doesn’t ridicule anti-Catholicism (either conservative or liberal). Indeed, he tends to be your average member of the American National Church with its excessive interesting in poverty and social justice, it’s naive, Rousseauian understanding of human nature, and its dismissal of the pope and Church teachings on things far graver to the human spirit than poverty or even death (such as contraception, abortion, gay ideology, and generally the whole synthesis of heresies known as Modernism, a condemnation of which you can find in the papal encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis). This is not Catholicism.
I know many like to rationalize any anti-Catholicism because they’re cowards. The experience of many Catholics is that they’re on the defensive. They’ve been taught to feel apologetic for their beliefs, but frankly, those who feel apologetic don’t really belief these beliefs. Think about it: why would you believe something you find worth an apology when belief can be easily changed? There is nothing to apologize for, and the world isnt right, it it’s more sane or certain about what it believes. The world is just a collection of people like you who live their entire lives believing stupid, foolish things, unexamined things, blindly going where he media steer them. The world is just people like anyone else. The craftier find ways to manipulate their brothers into believing stupid things that benefit them, and let me tell you, the lies go deep.
If you think following Church teachings gets you in trouble, then you are NOT Catholic. After all, the Church is what defines Catholicism. If you depart from the definition, then you are not what that definition describes. It’s a bit like saying you’re a gay rights activist when you’re a homophobe in practice. It makes no sense to make either of these claims. YOU don’t get to define what it means to be Catholic. You can define what it means to be a member of the Church of Joe if you’re name is Joe, but not the Roman Catholic Church. It’s not a democratic process and THANK GOD because democracy is the tyranny of the mob. And the mob is a mindless, stupid bunch who are easily swayed and made to believe whatever pleases those in power.
Now, this may be hard for some of you to swallow because you, just as I, were raised in an atmosphere where being Catholic was taught in this and that way, but really try to understand you faith. Most Catholics don’t even know the basics found in their Cathecism and the Cathecism is THE source of Catholic teaching. The last three generations have had poor cathechesis. You may be surprised what is demanded of you, but it’s the only way to be an honest Catholic. If you refuse, have the decency to either understand the teachings, truly, or to walk away. Don’t try to change teachings which cannot be changed. They aren’t social contracts or arbitrary laws, they’re statements about reality and reality is non-negotiable. Don’t confuse others by claiming to be Catholic when you are in fact in a huge state of dissent. Have the decency to take an honest and a hard look at your actual beliefs and the actual teachings of the Church. Don’t believe very priest as the priesthood is filled with heretics these days (Colbert defends some of these, including the radical feminist nuns who are so wrapped up in sentimental and sappy dissent they likely don’t even see how far off the mark they are). All major heresies were the products of the clergy, promulgated by bishops, as it were. Fr. Nice isn’t your friend.
Personally, I wouldn’t waste my time watching Colbert. Like most of television, it’s filler for groundings. It can be funny at times, certainly, but in terms of actual intellectual merit (and there’s a difference between shallow cleverness and intellectual substance), it’s worthless. Sell your TV. At least on the internet, you have the power to select news sources that don’t insult your intelligence, that actually lend themselves to developing possible pictures about the state of affairs of the world. TV almost guarantees mindless conformity to the brainless status quo.
Alas, most people are never true individuals. Most never think for themselves. Most are never humble enough to be individuals.
