by:

 Dom Basilio Magno

The Hemorrhaging of the Catholic Church

A.    How is the Catholic Church

Host:         How is the Catholic Church, Guardian?

Guardian: As Christ, Himself, had prophesied, even if you looked for her with a lamp, you won’t find her.  

Host:         Now, wait a minute, there are millions of Catholics and it is hard to find the Catholic Church?  

Guardian: True Catholics are very few and hard to find.  

Host:         And what do you call the others?  

Guardian: I guess heresiarchs and schismatics.  

Host:         Heresiarchs and schismatics?  Why I thought they existed only in the middle ages?  

Guardian: Sadly, there are more today, and they exist in a more vicious form.  

B.    Heresy and Schism

Host:         What is heresy?  

Guardian: The rejection or exclusion of a truth revealed by God and proposed by the Church...usually one-half of the whole truth.  

Host:         Can you illustrate this?  

Guardian: You see, the Catholic Religion has many apparent contradictions.  You have to have a deep understanding of her for the contradictions to disappear.  Unable to reconcile the contradictions, Catholics embrace what suits them and reject what does not suit them.  For instance, Christ is God and also man.  Heretics, like the Arians, believe one-half -- that Christ is God...in this they are Catholic; but they deny the other half -- that He is man...in this they are heretics.  

Host:         How does one become a heretic?  

Guardian: Heresy begins in morals, not in dogma.  The error is first in the person’s way of life, not in the truths.  Then it is translated to dogma.  

Host:         Would you say, therefore, that the rejection of a truth is just a symptom...?  

Guardian: ...of an immoral life.  So Henry VIII was first immoral in having committed adultery before his break with Rome.  

Host:         I am sure you are familiar with St. Gregory’s “Heretica.”  

Guardian: A little.  There, if I remember right, he described a heretic as one who imposed upon Holy Mother the Church his own opinions, presenting them as solutions to comfort the Church.  They are enemies who present themselves as friends.  

Host:         How do you explain the Church’s almost hostile attitude towards heretics?  

Guardian: Heretics mix good with evil that they may easily deceive others.  They tone down their evil with good, and with good, they conceal their evil, like a cup of poison whose brim is honeyed sweet.  And heretics don’t just sit down;  they go out of their way to corrupt others, they propagate their errors.  And they always speak in the name of God.  

                   It is a cardinal rule that no one should proselytize where the Christian foundation has been established, precisely because the foundation has been established.  And Catholics usually observe this.  

                   But why do other Christian sects proselytize among Catholics?  Surely, not to establish the foundation of Christ since it is already established; it is in order to deceive, to steal the sheep from the, unfortunately, sleeping shepherd or hireling.  

                   In a situation where Protestants and Catholics live together side-by-side, the Catholics tend more to become Protestants than vice versa.  So, in Ecumenism, Catholics become Protestants.  

Host:         And which is the most insidious of all heresies?  

Guardian: Still Modernism, which suggests that Truth can be adjusted to fit the temper of the times.  

Host:         The few priests I know speak this way.  

Guardian: They are usually priests who want to try something new but have never tried the old...the Gospel.  

                   Theologians forget that their role is to go deep into the deposits of Faith and not “create” new faiths.  

C.    Root Cause of All Evils in the Church

Host:         What is the source of all evils?  

Guardian: From the beginning of time the cause of evil is in the free will and not in the intellect.  It is a problem wherein dialogue or discussions or explanations are impotent.  This is what caused original sin.  There was no original sin when the angels and our first parents sinned.  

Host:         Was this the cause of the fall of the angels and of our parents?  

Guardian: Exactly.  They were very intelligent; their problem was in their free will.  It is the eternal problem of choosing between God’s will and man’s will, and the eternal tragedy of God’s creatures always choosing their will.  

Host:         And when man begins choosing his will over God’s will...

Guardian: ...then he is easily led to errors.  An immoral bishop will reject the infallibility of the Pope; an immoral priest will reject the need for celibacy; an immoral layman will reject the sanctity of life.  Aggravated by the effects of original sin, man is condemned to choose always his will over God’s will.  

Host:         Who are the likely candidates for heresy?  

Guardian: All men...specially sensual-living men of the world who feel that the Church’s requirements for the proper amendment of their lives are too burdensome; they quickly follow after heresies and fiercely support them.  These men think that those heresies will lead them to a smoother path than what Holy Mother the Church proposes.  

Host:         What do we do to protect ourselves?  How do we free ourselves from this tendency?  

Guardian: Live a holy life and have nothing to do with heretics.  Don’t even try to recall them back to the faith for “whoever touches pitch will be defiled by it.  For while you labor to rescue them from the errors, they might drag you into the abyss of error,” says St. Isidore.  

Host:         Would you say, therefore, that ignorance of the way to holiness or the refusal to take the narrow way is the reason for all the problems in the Church?  

Guardian: For us today, yes.  God became man to give us the prescription for holiness; without the proper prescription, that is, Christian living, the vices and the passions will dominate the free will.  

                   In any language, this is a formula for disaster, whether for the family, for society or for the Church -- man insisting on his own prescription rather than God’s.  He hasn’t learned from Eden that his own choices are wrong.  

                   The crisis in the Church is tantamount to saying that Christian living is not reasonable and, therefore, impossible to practice today.  This thinking is what emptied the seminaries and convents.  

Host:         How long will it take me to learn Christian living?  

Guardian: There is no end to learning virtuous living.  

Host:         I am afraid to ask this question, but... to whom must the finger be pointed as the one responsible for this state of the Church?  

Guardian: The priests, the bishops, the religious superiors and the parents, because they are the shepherds.  

D.    Contributing Causes

Seminaries, Convents and Catholic Schools.  

Host:         Man’s free will, before the fall, was already self-centered rather than God-centered.  This became more so after the fall, i.e., with original sin.  Would there be more contributing causes to this state of affairs?  

Guardian: Seminaries, convents and Catholic schools are worsening the state of men by teaching a Catholicism which appears only as a catalogue of uncertainties designed to keep as many Catholics within the fold; and these uncertainties are mostly an adulteration or a rejection of Catholic teaching.  We are producing priests who are not sure of the things they say and laymen who are so sure of what they are doing.  The priest and the family have sacral roles, that’s why Holy Orders and Matrimony are Sacraments;  today they have been reduced to social roles.  

                   All curricula on catechesis present a shattered catechesis:  you cannot find the whole teaching of Christ in even a three-inch book on catechism.  Yet Christ’s teaching can be presented in five pages.  

Host:         And this happens in seminaries and convents?  

Guardian: The theological curriculum in the seminaries that I know have no semblance, whatsoever, of the Catholicism Christ preached.  

                   Then there is the entrance in convents and monasteries of unexamined, untested, and untried psychological and social tendencies, purely human conjectures which are totally incapable of satisfying man’s longing for God or solving the problems of man’s fallen nature.  Then there are the convents of nuns who greet the morning sun with some Asiatic tradition of pagan origin.  

                   The stricter orders suffered minor damages due to their austere life.  The spirituality of the less strict convents simply hemorrhaged to death.  

Host:         How about in Catholic schools?  

Guardian: Catholic schools are a complete disaster when teaching Christian Living.  In fact, they don’t teach it at all.  They have a subject called religion but teach loudly that sex, good food, trendy clothes, a nice house, a fine car, and a weekend home in the mountains are the primary goals of life.  They teach sex education but do not teach chastity.  

Host:         I am really appalled at the products of the Catholic schools.  

Guardian: Catholic schools no longer teach the commands of Christ nor the glories of the Faith.  Before, priests and nuns taught religion, even if not so well.  At least that was the only contact children had with religion.  Now, the teachers of religion are ex-priests, ex-nuns, feminists, lay theologians steeped in heresies, divorced or adulterous lay teachers, and, in one college, an avowed atheist.  

Host:         Where are the priests and nuns?  

Guardian: In Business Management and other unheavenly fields.  

Within the Family

Host:         And within the Christian family, what would aggravate this crisis?  

Guardian: Parents have absolutely no hand in the training of their children and, as such, have no control over their children.  Their so-called quality time is just a nice label for no time.  Besides, parents are not trained to train even themselves in the Catholic religion.  The mother working outside the home is the greatest single factor that has caused the downfall of the Catholic family.  

Host:         She abandoned her role . . .?  

Guardian: The most important role in the formation of the Christian family...the formation of the conscience and character of her children.  Father and mother have God-given spiritual roles;  today their roles have been reduced to functionality in a social context with no spiritual advantage for either family or Church.  

Catechesis and Sex Education

Host:         You mentioned sex education . . .

Guardian: Teaching sex education in Catholic schools violates all rules of catechesis and all the rules in teaching Christian Living.  It is an ascetic rule of teaching that you teach the virtues, like chastity, and never the vices like lust;  because if you teach the vices, considering that man has a fallen nature, he will choose the vice.  Also, the moment they learn the vice first, like lust, they will reject all teachings about the opposite virtue, like chastity, because it is contrary to what fallen man likes.  

                   Catechesis is no longer a comprehensive, all-embracing formation in the Faith.  Christ commanded, “teach MY commands,” . . . Christ’s commands.  Christ’s commands are nowhere in any catechism, not even in the New Catechism...leaving all Catholics without a comprehensive view of their religion.  

                   Sex, apart from motherhood and procreation, is as meaningless as puffing a cigarette; it becomes a mere gratification of one’s desire which is insatiable -- this is the universal right to do what I want even if it hurts everyone... the wife, the children, etc.  

From Society

Host:         And from society?  

Guardian: Society’s concept of human rights has long crossed the boundaries of pure stupidity.  Now there are rights to sin, rights to become perverts, rights to do what you want, and even rights to spread Aids.  In short, society’s list of rights is portraying that the Catholic religion is unbelievable and that there is no God:  “what I like is what is right”.  And Christian living is a threat to these rights.  

                   Wealth and power, the goals of a westernized society, is the worst ambiance for growth in the spiritual life; opulence makes people spiritually dumb.  

The Youth

Host:         How about the statement that the youth is the future of the Church?  

Guardian: With the factors we mention above, we have the formula for mass destruction.  Our youth are lost.  Only by God’s direct intervention can a few youths be raised for the service of the Church.  The rest will be fighting against the destruction of the corals, of the forests, of the tigers, but none against the destruction of the soul.  A few will clap their hands and sing their alleluias, a gasping gesture to save souls but their efforts are ineffective because their doctrines are incomplete:  “Woe to you who add or subtract from what I have taught . . .”  

Host:         The authority of the Catholic Church and the truth she defends and teaches are threatened both from within and from without, and, unlike the early times, there are hardly any champions today standing up for her cause.  What else contributes to this crisis?  

Guardian: We have no champions that would speak clearly.  The way people speak is full of deceit.  The murdering of babies is called family planning; the killing of patients is called the movement against suffering.  

Conscience

Host:         And how about the much-used phrase:  follow your conscience?  

Guardian: With the consciences of some people, they don't need the devil.  Pope Pius XII reminded us that conscience is not a teacher but a pupil.  

Host:         You don't follow your conscience; you first teach it...  

Guardian: Yes -- with the commands of Christ; then you follow it.  What is right and wrong, what is good and evil, is God’s decision, not ours.  But man desires only one thing:  to be his own master and own creator, deciding what is right and wrong.  

The Youth

Host:         Robert McNamara, in a speech describing the future of civilization, groaned, “Our children...”  What do you think he was trying to say?  

Guardian: The Church has lost the youth by default.  She has lost the youth because her hierarchy did nothing to win them.  We have not attracted them to any ideals they can die for, like the ideals of the Catholic Church. Youth programs are mainly worldly programs; thus the youth was lost to the world, not won to the Faith that offers only a life of crucifixion.  

Host:         Is this the reason why, in Catholic countries like Italy, Poland, and Ireland, abortion and divorce have become government policies?  

Guardian: Yes, it is the supreme proof of a Catholic Church that is completely leaderless and inutile.  

E.    Christ’s Remedy for all the Evils

Host:         I guess there is a remedy for all these evils because there are good angels and many holy saints.  

Guardian: Pinpointing the problem in the Church is easy, and pinpointing the solution is also easy.  Christ established the Church for all, not merely for theologians.  So His teachings -- the remedy -- ought to be simple, not complex.  

Host:         The remedy is simple?  

Guardian: Yes.  Christ came to teach us a way of life, not a set of dogmas...though dogmas were part of His teachings.  And this way of life is embodied in a set of commands.  To subtract from or disobey one of these commands is moral heresy.  

 Host:        And what is the remedy for all the evils?  

Guardian: Obedience to Christ’s commands...Christ’s.  It is by obedience to His commands that man is saved, and not his visible membership in the Catholic Church.  

Host:         And what is the cause of all these evils?  

Guardian: Disobedience to Christ’s commands.  In the case of the angels and our first parents, it was pure disobedience because they were imbued with wisdom.  For most of us, it is ignorance of His commands, which also leads to disobedience.  Since ambiguity is the mark of the demon, all of Christ’s teachings must be learned with absolute clarity, and this is attained only through humility.  

Host:         Is this why Christ, in His apostolic commission, commanded His apostles, first, to teach ALL His commands to remove ignorance and foster obedience?  

Guardian: Ignorance of the Christian way of life is the devil’s most primitive but most effective weapon for the destruction of souls.  If you are ignorant, the devil doesn’t bother destroying your soul because, anyway, you are on the way to self-destruction.  If you are lucky to overcome this ignorance and learn the commands of Christ, there is still the more difficult task of obeying them, like the angels and our first parents who were both given wisdom; they fell, not because of ignorance but, because of disobedience.  

Host:         Ignorance seems to be an intellectual problem.  

Guardian: Yes -- and the easier problem to solve.  Disobedience is a problem of the free will, and herein is the big problem -- the freedom of the free will, which, because of fallen nature, tends to make man choose himself over God.  

Host:         Now that you mention it, there seem to be no dogmas involved in the fall of the angels and of our first parents.  

Guardian: Indeed.  It was a matter of creatures saying:  I know better than God . . .which, of course, is a heresy.  

Host:         How pervasive is this sad state of affairs in the Church?  

Guardian: It is so pervasive it makes her seem like the largest among the Protestant sects.  

Host:         How come so few know the commands of Christ?  

Guardian: Because knowledge of these commands is given to a few; this knowledge is not taught “by the flesh and blood but by the Father in heaven,” and He gives it only to the humble.  

Host:         No wonder Christ insisted that we learn humility from Him, and, am I right -- and nothing else?  Not Canon Law, not Church history, not...  

Guardian: This is unnerving, but you are right; the only things Christ wanted us to learn are humility and meekness...and from HIM, not from anybody else.  

Host:         To be humble is an effort beyond human nature?  

Guardian: In fact, contrary to human nature, humility is knowing our inability to remedy our situation.  We are born opposed to the love of God; that’s why we are born guilty.  

Host:         Is this crisis threatening the stability of the Church?  

Guardian: No, no crisis can threaten the Church because it is built on rock.  It is the individual souls of both the lay and the cleric that are being lost -- that is the problem.  Any crisis in the Church begins with “the men in the Church” -- the bishops, the priests and the religious orders.  

                   The traditional religious orders, which were pillars of the Church, have completely crumbled under the onslaught of modernism; they have forgotten who they are and why they were founded.  And the more erudite orders have fallen into the trap of Eve, putting more trust in knowledge than in the commands of God.  

                   And the entrance of democracy, the rule by consensus or, as Pascal described it, the rule of the dumb majority, a practice so alien to the monarchical Church, transformed religious houses into new religions.  

                   And so the priest, the symbol of strength, resisting the tendencies of the world, has become a sign of weakness succumbing to the “reasonable” realities of today; the crucifixion of Christ, meant to be a privilege, has become a burden.  

                   But the Catholic Church has the power within herself to convert others and renew herself.  Because of this inherent power, she does not need arguments to convince, unlike other religions that need powerful arguments or even physical force; since they have no strength of their own...their beliefs are imposed.  

Host:         Why is humility central in our religion?  

Guardian: Because Divine knowledge, required for the attainment of virtues, is given only to the humble.  Without this knowledge, man tends to go into excesses.  On one hand, he thinks his nature is perfect; he believes in his excellence and sinks into devilish pride.  On the other hand, he may feel himself hopeless and sink into despair and cowardice.  Catholicism helps us avoid both extremes.  

F.    Vatican II

Host:         This problem seems to disturb you.  

Guardian: Yes, it is sad to see that Christ’s actions within the Church does not guarantee the salvation of man because of man’s lack of cooperation.  

Host:         Are you referring to the saying that God will not save man against