{"id":5903,"date":"2015-11-02T16:47:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T21:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=5903"},"modified":"2015-11-02T16:54:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T21:54:36","slug":"the-path-of-truth-isnt-a-bowling-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=5903","title":{"rendered":"The Path of Truth Isn’t a Bowling Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Z who, like Cardinals Burke and Pell, usually says things which are faithful, helpful, and brilliant, has today, not unlike those two cardinals occasionally, written something discouraging<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While praising the Ancient Mass a few months ago Cardinal Pell added that there was ‘no future in it’, as if the way forward must be with the new Mass.\u00a0 Here the Cardinal in his thoughtful way was trying to lend faithful Catholics some insight into the mind of the Church leaders, but nevertheless it’s a great leap to assume that there is a hopeful future for the Church the way it’s currently operating.\u00a0 On the one hand, we have thousands of years of a Church only really checked through fear and violence.\u00a0 On the other, we have a Church set decisively to auto-destruct in a short fifty years.<\/p>\n

There is a proven formula.\u00a0 It’s called Faith.\u00a0 Why do our best and brightest lights fall down and fold in the clutch?<\/p>\n

In response to a reader question about sedevacantists (those who believe we live in a time of false popes) Fr. Z writes:<\/p>\n

Following the path of orthodoxy means avoiding the ditches that yawn on the left as well as on the right. \u00a0My old, late, pastor, Msgr. Schuler used to say, you can go into the ditch on either side of the road.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If truth is ‘apolitical’ as our wise, wise middle-of the road sensible friends love to repeat, then why must it be guided by two ‘political’ markers?\u00a0 What is this path of Christ?\u00a0 It’s a razor thin line equidistant between Barbara Streisand and Timothy McVeigh.\u00a0 Only those skillful enough to tread upon the razor can know of it.<\/p>\n

That razor-fine blade of truth which we have to tread at times cuts through the jungles of doubt and error.<\/p>\n

It is the narrow\u00a0path which\u00a0Our Lord spoke of.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wrong.\u00a0 Staying on the Michael Voris<\/a> side of Francis is not Our Lord’s narrow Catholic path.\u00a0 There are times in history when the Pope steps off the path himself.\u00a0 That doesn’t mean we need to turn the corner and smash our trombones into the wall like the marching band when Animal House hijacked the parade.<\/p>\n

This is a leadership vacuum and it requires faith and action to resolve, the sort of thing so deftly performed at the Synod last month, not the low bleating of peaceful sheep.<\/p>\n

In clinging to the Truth, we\u00a0find great assurance in Our Lord\u2019s promise that He will always remain with\u00a0His Church. The Holy Spirit continues to (and always will) protect the Church from error.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While this is true, you sure read it a lot in Patheos these days.\u00a0 It’s no excuse to stand there gazing in some useless ‘we are not worthy’ trance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Father! But Father!\u201d, some of you will say, \u201cThat\u2019s all very grand,\u00a0but what do we do here\u00a0on the ground? \u00a0There are\u00a0radical divisions in the Church! \u00a0Instead of being the beacon of light, truth, and clarity that Christ wants her\u00a0to be, we are in a morass of confusion and contradictions?\u201d<\/p>\n

It has ever\u00a0been thus in the history of the Church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No again.\u00a0 It has never<\/em> been thus in the Church.\u00a0 There has never been a time where such an enormous ratio of those calling themselves ‘catholic’ were in fact heretics and apostates.\u00a0 There has never been this level confusion among that ‘sensus fidei.’\u00a0 There has never been a time when the Catholic communities around the world were so ruthlessly suffocated and morbid, left dying and scattered in a single generation.\u00a0 There has never been so much evil in what was called the civilized world, and there has never been a pope so unfaithful as Francis.<\/p>\n

The ‘sit there and do nothing putting your ‘faith in the Francis’ because the Holy Spirit’ advice is wearing thin.\u00a0 By the way, I see Columba Bush<\/a> has visited Ave Maria University in Florida recently.\u00a0 How very Republican and ‘catholic.’\u00a0 Well, we must respect the process.<\/p>\n

Imagine the difficulty of a good and faithful\u00a0Catholic, in the 14th\u00a0 and 15th centuries, when three men appeared to have legitimate claim to the Papacy. \u00a0Whom was one to believe?<\/p>\n

Good men and women made different choices. For example, St. Vincent Ferrer,\u00a0a brilliant man of great faith, a Dominican, followed the antipopes Clement VII (Robert of Geneva \u2013 the first antipope of the Western Schism) and Benedict XIII (Pedro Mart\u00ednez de Luna y P\u00e9rez de Gotor). \u00a0On the other hand, St. Catherine of Siena, also a Dominican, followed Pope Urban\u00a0VI. \u00a0Both St. Vincent and St. Catherine are great saints.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve never read that any of these anti-popes were heretics.\u00a0 Have you?\u00a0 There may have been confusion among the hierarchy, but I think most people knew both when to go to Communion and how to get to Hell.<\/p>\n

In time, Our Lord \u2013 having allowed us to screw things up \u2013 eventually guided things back to where they needed to be.<\/p>\n

In regard to the papacy<\/em>, at least, our times, while difficult, are not as murky\u00a0as those days. There is no rival to Pope Francis with even the slightest\u00a0whiff of legitimacy. Those who claim that the See of Peter is vacant are hard pressed to explain just how that happened. Benedict XVI\u2019s abdication was\u00a0definitive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Benedict appears, under pressure, to have resigned voluntarily.\u00a0 What his options were we don’t know.\u00a0 What does it say about the Francis papacy?\u00a0\u00a0 I’d say it’s pretty much what we should have expected under the circumstances.\u00a0 Is Francis Pope?\u00a0 Well he’s the only one claiming to be.\u00a0 Is he someone a Catholic should look to for faithful guidance?\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

The sedevacantist\u00a0train of thought goes down deep dark caverns of ever-more bizarre conspiracy theories. None have provided clear claimants or, were the See of Peter to be empty, a rational explanation of how legitimacy could be restored to some future claimant.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, good\u00a0people who\u00a0follow unreasonable claims and theories. \u00a0In the words of the immortal Gracie Allen, people are funnier than anyone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And you don’t want to be one of those ‘funny people’ do you, or perhaps one of those ‘unqualified name-callers<\/a>‘:\u00a0 impatient, hysterical, and so right-wing you’ve forgotten about that sacred balancing act that is the path to Christ.<\/p>\n

In the post-Enlightenment world we see things as Right or Left, but these are not the margins of some path to God.\u00a0 They are a lie told to a darkened culture.\u00a0 Truth is a person.\u00a0 He walks ahead of us and we follow Him.\u00a0 Along this path conservatives are closer to the truth than liberals who are pointed backward and walking in the wrong direction entirely.\u00a0 Liberal ‘catholics’ are hypocrites whether their liberalism is religious or<\/em> political.<\/p>\n

Faithful Catholics follow Christ on His path.\u00a0 People call us ‘conservative,’ but if you listen to Fr. Z you might think there were bomb-throwing nuts out ahead of us!<\/p>\n

Don’t let disorienting diagrams bend the truth for you, and don’t blame Francis on the Holy Spirit, expecting Him to clean up all the FrancisMesses while your head spins.<\/p>\n

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Fr. Z who, like Cardinals Burke and Pell, usually says things which are faithful, helpful, and brilliant, has today, not unlike those two cardinals occasionally, written something discouraging. While praising the Ancient Mass a few months ago Cardinal Pell added that there was ‘no future in it’, as if the way forward must be with …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[543,717,542,19,718],"class_list":["post-5903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conservative","tag-fr-z","tag-liberal","tag-pope-francis","tag-sedevacantism"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5903"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5952,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903\/revisions\/5952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}