A very good article here. I don't agree with all that is said but I seldom do agree entirely with the articles penned by others - even articles written by me, when read back to myself years from the first writing.
My own view on this matter is uncompromising. The Roman Catholic church is without final hope. It is corrupt and riddled with corruption. It is irrevocably divorced from its once venerable tradition and you are wasting your time hoping, praying, even slaving away, as I once did, trying to change it. Its people, from the hierarchy to the laity, are ignorant, obtuse, apathetic and obstinate; its constitution is rotten to the core and it has nothing worthwhile to offer, be that aesthetic, moral or liturgical. And that goes for all the members, traditionalist, neo-conservative, sedevacantist, conclavist, liberal, progressive, modernist, lapsed, the bloody lot of them; all pigs feeding at the same trough. Rome has ostensibly lost any credible claim to apostolicity and therefore to be a true church; there are no valid sacraments, and even if there were, can anybody see them working? Look at any random parish noticeboard and there you will read, Mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass, mass ad nauseum, but no Office, You'd think, judging by Rome's own logic, that the superabundance of grace procured by all these masses would make a difference and that there'd be no crisis. But there is no difference and none is to be expected. Not one of the abovesaid groups would change that noticeboard because none of them see it as wrong; the people would be just as coarse and ignorant as ever, whichever is ascendant, with all the chaplets, medals and novenas washed down with Lourdes water.
But they err who say that I attribute all the failure of modern Roman Catholicism to the lack of office in parish churches (not that you find anything different in cathedrals). There is the unholy trinity of the wafer, the blue dolly, and the pope to deal with; the Holy Trinity being a doctrine just as irrelevant as any mediaeval synod ascribed ecumenical status, not to mention the inherently bad canonization business.
Just give up!
We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country, Jeremiah 51:9.
As I was discussing with my Bishop a little while ago, we all have our inner demons and our own work to do. That being said, I would feel the same if I were a Roman Catholic layman. You can give up - or find another philosophy of life and stick with it. I have no advice to give, because we all have to find our own way.
ReplyDeleteI, too, realized the sacraments are not working. I was hoping to find a better situation elsewhere, but it doesn't necessarily seem to be just in the RC. Rather, I think it may be the myopia of the baby boomers- who then taught all the rest of us. There are grave inter-generational sins of the sort that destroy our ability to form families, that lead us on down paths of foolishness dressed up as education/career paths, and their claims of authority and their exhortations of sacrifice- when they overtly show no capability of authority and are precisely the ones who should sacrifice so that there could be a next generation. Instead, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are bastards, suffering at the hands of ignorant and often tattooed barbarians, otherwise known as their mothers.
ReplyDeleteI know of old men who rightfully should not be making communion, but rather be making repairs to me, for wasting my time, for lying, for foolish pretense to authority and not being able to take correction- yet, I am reasonably sure their confession includes no mention of me, and to them the greatest sin is not being happy.
Your opinion of the Papal Whore of Babylon is spot on. The thing which frightens me more than any other is the current "coziness" which the Orthodox are displaying toward Rome. I am afraid in a few years Constantinople and Moscow may head down the same Hell-ward path. The Old Besotted Whore is turning her last trick, God help us all!
ReplyDeleteDear Prior, don't be too sure of that. Many of us Easterners sniff the stench of satan when we get near the west. Constantinople does not trump Moscow. Not to say that Rome isn't better than Mecca. by far!
ReplyDeleterdr James Morgan