A friend sent to me this morning a commentary on the exhortation by Robert Royal. I link to it here. In his article, he starts off by lauding the thing for the "positive" restatement of various points of Catholic teaching. I've seen in Facebook many Francis-groupees taking faithful Catholics to task for pointing out only the "controversial" parts. I responded to one of them by asking why on God's green earth should a Church document ever contain "controversial" elements as they should always be the epitomes of the defense of Christ and His Church's teachings.
Let's look at the matter from another angle, and I'll use an analogy I've used before to deal with this "positive versus negative" nonsensical paradigm. Say there's a lovely meal set before you. The food is healthy, delicious and visually appealing. There's just one teensy little problem. You've received credible information that this lovely meal is laced with a bit of deadly poison. It's not enough to cause the meal to lose its sensory appeals but it's there. Who in their right mind would take one bite of that otherwise healthy, delicious and visually appealing meal?
What is happening with Amoris Laetitia is exactly what I just described. The only difference is that we aren't talking of bodily nourishment versus poisoning, but rather spiritual nourishment versus poisoning. The latter is far more serious for that comes with eternal consequences.
"But does that discount the good in the exhortation?", I can hear the groupees whine. Well, yes. In fact, the so-called "good" in the exhortation becomes much less than good. In the meal example, the offering of the otherwise healthy food becomes an evil act because of the evil motive of camouflaging the poison. Recall from Catholic moral theology that an act that is of itself good or neutral can be rendered evil if the motive behind it is evil.
Therefore I put forth the very real probability that all the "positive" statements towards the beginning were done with less-than-noble intents. It's quite probable that they were placed there in order to disarm the readers' critical thinking processes so that they would unwittingly swallow the spiritual poison that this exhortation does contain. That in fact renders the presence of the so-called "positives" evil in and of itself.
So that is why we "mean-spirited", "rad-trad" bloggers focus on the "negative" in proclamations coming from the Church. They should contain not one scintilla of "negative" (meaning variance and dissidence from Church Teaching) whatsoever. Look at it this way. If there was no "negative" in fact, you wouldn't have to hear from us meanies! If what we tell gets under your skin, go to the source of the problem versus the ones who merely inform you of the problem.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Our response to this document should be scorn. Round-file it. It is not Catholc. Treat it as such.
ReplyDeleteLaugh at them and their worthless 260 page exhortation on "love". Burn it.
The Bear was thinking, as he crawled like a snail on the edge of a razor blade through the first 30 paragraphs, (the Bear is beginning to feel like Captain Kurtz going deeper into madness) that the scriptural paragraphs on the family were very good. So, yes, the Bear supposes there are "good parts." But are they new? Are these good parts things we need the Pope to tell the Church, like families are nice? Of course we are focusing on the controversial parts, because those are the game-changers, the threats. The Bear remembers one thing from the 1985 Worlds Series -- Don Denkinger's blown call at first cost the St. Louis Cardinals the game. So, no, no one is going to talk about the Game 6 of the 1985 World's Series and go on about the good things. The news (at least to Cardinals fans) is the famous blown call. Now we have Pope Denkinger.
ReplyDeleteYes Brian it should be 'scorned' and treated as a confusing danger to the Church. The problem will be with the clergy that are praising it for it's MERCY. The laity will HAVE TO in one way or another, step up to the bat.....and, I suspect the battles may be only with particular Diocese depending on how faithful your Bishop is to the true teaching of the Church, because Francis is allowing the Bishops to call the shots according to the 'cultural make up' of their flock. So we are ONE UNIVERSAL?......not so much. Yes, the USCCB will be generally calling the shots, but......who in the world trusts them???? And what kind of grief will a Bishop endure that is trying to faithfully guide his flock according to the true teaching of the Church??
ReplyDeleteThis thing is a nightmare, and even more of a nightmare than I envisioned!
I am reminded of the faithful Catholics, 1,500 years ago, forced to travel into the desert to worship while the Arians worshiped freely in all the Churches with their Priests and Bishops. It did not remain so. The Holy Spirit of God made sure of that.
DeleteIt begins for us, me and my family, today. I will insist on knowing how my Priest deals with this thing. For the sake of our salvation, I have a right to know,