Going to and from work, I pass a number of Protestant churches whose street-side signage declares—usually in bright colors and in various size fonts—“all are welcome here.” I recently wrote about how three on my path home outdo each other to proclaim their woke welcomes. I contrasted it to the signboard outside my parish, which simply lists times for Mass and confessions.
All those signs have been around for a while, though they proliferated during the previous presidential administration (as if national politics should have anything to do with a church’s openness). They’ve remained, although their faithful’s counterpart—lawn signs declaring the residents’ profession of faith, “in this house, we believe …”—seem to be on the wane.
While it is tempting to dismiss all this as so much secular virtue signaling we shouldn’t, for two reasons: this secular virtue signaling is being proclaimed by religious institutions and there’s no lack of people who want to bring it to the Catholic Church. Each of those phenomena deserves comment.
What is the point of “church”?
First, however, let’s ask ourselves: what is the raison d’être of a Christian church?
A Christian church is an institution there to proclaim the Good News of redemption in Jesus Christ. That is its purpose, its sole reason for existence. That purpose is unique: its mission is its own and not institutionally transferrable.
One senses that the current obsession with “welcoming” is a bad reincarnation of Thomas Anthony Harris’s 1967 book, I’m OK, You’re OK. Churches seem to be tripping over themselves to send that OK message. The only problem is: it’s not the Christian message.
Pace Dr. Harris, I’m not OK, and neither are you. We are both flawed as a result of original sin, whose baneful effects are compounded by our own personal sins. Because neither of us is OK, both of us need redemption.
“I’m OK, You’re OK” thinking leeched from one school of psychoanalysis to a jejune view of life at-large. A year after Harris’s book hit The New York Times’ best sellers list, Karl Menninger published in his 1973 book, Whatever Became of Sin? It was hardly coincidence: I’m OK-ism as a worldview minimized not the problem but rather the discussion of what makes us not OK, i.e., sin. Counselors replaced confessors as the new Lambs of God taking away the sin of the world, with many clergymen—particularly on the Protestant side of the aisle—shifting their ministerial focus from the latter to the former.
Such cheap grace dovetailed well with secular Enlightenment thought which, from Rousseau forward, sought to convince people that they were basically OK but for the baleful consequences of social “repression,” particularly in the sexual area. Such thinking obviously leads in a straight line to isolated individualism and letting a thousand libertine lifestyles bloom.
(Mary Eberstadt documents the human tragedy that followed in her 2013 book Adam and Eve, after the Pill and her new Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited, but those are separate stories from ours. Suffice it to say that Jean-Jacques shed his repression by using his lover and leaving from one to five of his children—it’s not clear how many he had—in a foundling home.)
Distinguishing sinners from sin
What followed was the eclipse of speaking about sin and redemption, particularly in the Protestant mainline, though it echoed in Catholic circles, too. In its place, the church was to be a place of “welcome.”
Now, if by “welcome,” that meant a church was supposed to welcome sinners without judging them, that’s true. That’s also what churches were always supposed to do and generally did. After all, sinners are the only kind of potential congregants any church has, at least in the roughly 2,000 years since the Assumption of the Virgin.
But welcoming sinners without judging them is distinct from welcome sin without judging it. That critical conceptual distinction came wrongly to be conflated, the upshot being that the church became impotent to perform its mission, i.e., to judge sin so as to offer redemption (see John 16:8).
Jesus’s first command at the beginning of His public ministry is “repent” (Mk 1:15). μετανοεῖτε—“repent.” Metanoiete literally means “to change one’s mind” or “to change one’s way of thinking.” Jesus’s public ministry was preceded by John the Baptist’s, who likewise preached repentance. It followed His baptism, which is a sign of His solidarity with sinners and by His temptations in the desert. Even in John’s Gospel, Jesus’s first welcome to John’s two inquiring disciples—“come and see!” (John 1:39)—cannot be abstracted from that call to repentance, because the two disciples are John’s disciples and Jesus had just praised John for testifying to His sin-forgiving mission.
There will be critics who undoubtedly brand this line-of-thought as all too “negative” and “unwelcoming.” Who wants to inquire about, much less join, a group whose message is such a downer?
Let’s be honest. A church is not just another “group” and, religious illiteracy notwithstanding, people who poke their head into a church are generally not unaware of the Christian message about sin and redemption, at least in its broad strokes. And make no mistake about it: that message is Gospel, εὐαγγέλιον, “good news.” A diagnosis of illness is not good news. The possibility of its cure is.
A church which confuses diagnosis with cure, dissembling about the latter so as not to address the former, shouldn’t “welcome” anybody. It should close its doors to avoid spiritual malpractice.
Likewise, despite the external bravado about “well-formed individual conscience” that insists two thousand years of Christian tradition might be wrong but it right, it’s likely that most of those inquirers poking their head into the church’s door viscerally do so because they recognize “I’m not OK.” A true church would offer diagnosis and cure—of whatever sin, sexual and/or otherwise—that ails the inquirer.
When, however, a church displaces the primacy of that mission with the “welcome” of affiliation to a social community, it has become an ersatz church, trading a counterfeit εὐαγγέλιον for the Lord’s own word to “change your way of thinking.” What is especially paradoxical is when Protestants participate in this Gospel bait-and-switch, because it essentially renders them Pelagian: if “I’m OK” as I am and the Church’s mission is instead to “welcome me,” then I hardly need Jesus Christ as my “personal Lord and Savior.” There’s nothing I need saving from. In a sense, it’s all my good works: I just need to keep on doing and being what I do and am.
Which is why I recognized the eloquence of my parish’s signboard. A special “welcome” is redundant. This is a Catholic church, meaning it is for all peoples of all times. It is specifically for all sinners, because there’s nobody else signing up, at least in the Church Militant. And it tells inquirers when this church does the things that are necessary to redemption: forgiving sins and offering Communion based on that shared forgiveness of sins.
Authentic inclusion and real discipleship
It is this insight that Cardinal Robert McElroy in his various appeals for greater “inclusion” in the Catholic Church misses. McElroy repeatedly attacks the vision just sketched out as too “sin-centric” (opining that he especially thinks it is fixated on sexual sins). Instead, he argues for a “wider tent” that starts from inclusive participation derived from Baptism, and that this suffices for admission to the Eucharist.
Let’s follow McElroy’s logic. Baptism is the sacrament of inclusion in the Church. It entitles one to participation in the Church’s sacramental life.
Christ Himself instructed His apostles to proclaim his Gospel to the ends of the earth. He enjoined them in His pre-Ascension mandate to them to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And, behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world” (Mt 28:19-20).
Baptism itself is, however, the primordial sacrament of conversion: its purpose is to turn a man from sin and to God. Paul is clear that baptism is a death to the old man and the putting on of a new man in Christ (Rom 6:6-7), a crucifixion of the old man (Gal 2:20). Paul’ is hardly the message of “take me as I am” or even “take me as you made me,” aware that all creation has since Eden until the Parousia groans under sinful bondage (Rm 8:21).
But let’s also consider the baptismal mandate in Matthew carefully.
Jesus commands the making of “disciples” by baptism. Disciples necessarily live by a discipline: there are no autonomous “disciples.” Discipleship implies submission to a discipline which, in the case of baptism as sacrament of conversion, requires “changing one’s mind” about one’s “way, the truth, and the life” to adopt Him who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (J 14:6), i.e., renouncing a worldly vision of living in favor of Christ’s.
But Matthew’s Christ does not make that “Christ life” one of one’s own design or of alleged inspiration by some “spirit.” Christ’s criterion is to teach “them to observe all that I have commanded you,” a teaching presence that did not cease a few minutes later when “a cloud hid Him from their sight” (Acts 1:9). The same sentence makes clear Christ’s teaching presence in the Church remains uninterrupted: “I am with you always, until the end of the world.”
Synodal secularism?
This vision is profoundly at variance with the theological caricature promoted by various synodal participants, who imagine some inchoate “Christ life” among a particular swath of uniquely Spirit-enlightened “disciples,” from whose illumination the teaching Church has somehow apparently been consistently shielded or – more contemptuously because of its underlying prideful temerity – she has consistently denied. This is the ecclesiology that must flow from this vision. That it is alien to any the Church has ever recognized should be apparent.
Indeed, one must ask, given this ecclesiastical version of the baptized’s right (ostensibly under the “Spirit’s” tutelage) to “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning … and of the mystery of human life” while calling it Catholic, why anybody should join the Church. If, after all, their “Spirit”-inspired vision of Catholicism is so utterly at odds with the teaching Church’s, why be or want to be part of an institution so completely mistaken and perhaps contumaciously resistant to the “Spirit”?
Against this (at least German) synodal parody, baptism as the Church understands it makes a disciple who has “changed his mind” about his former way of life, renouncing it in favor of a different one which the ecclesial community has taught and continues to teach. Only on the basis of that fundamental “life swap” does baptism entitle one to participation in ecclesial life.
But because, as the Church has always taught, Christians can lose their baptismal innocence by postbaptismal grave sin—sexual or otherwise—the sacrament of Penance is as necessary to salvation in such circumstances after baptism as Baptism had been prior to its reception.
McElroy’s radical Eucharistic access, therefore, is unrooted in Catholic tradition. The primary purpose of the Eucharist is not healing. That is the work of Baptism and Penance. The Eucharist presupposes the common graced life of discipleship those two other sacraments establish or restore. The same principle is true, congruo congruis referendo, of ecclesial participation and inclusion.
A final observation: one who looks at the vision of “inclusive discipleship” being pushed in various synodal circles might note not just its dissimilarities with preceding visions of Christian discipleship but its uncanny resemblance to contemporary secular nostrums. A distinguishing feature of Catholic spirituality has always been its prophetic, counter-cultural witness, qualities lacking in “inclusive discipleship’s” rather flat succumbing to immanence, arguably of the secular kind.
In the run up to this fall’s Synod, “welcoming inclusion” is likely to sound like a drumbeat to silence criticism and bludgeon ecclesial dogma and discipline, i.e., discipleship. Refuting such forged Catholicism requires going back clearly to the Church’s true mission of welcome, based on the truth of the post-lapsarian human condition, for which a welcoming Church offers, as her Good News, authentic diagnosis and cure.
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I can only hope that pastors reading this most excellent piece will obtain permission to reprint it and insert a copy of it in every copy of the parish Sunday bulletin. If it’s good enough for CWR Catholics to read and understand, it’s good enough for ALL Catholics.
Good, but a bit lengthy and verbose for the average church attendee dont you think? Just consider how long the insert would be.
Yes, and more…
FIRST, an anecdote. A few years ago an “I’m OK you’re OK” sorta narcissist ambled into our parish Church not long before Mass, and sauntered up to the organ and began fondling a tune on the organ keyboard. Quite good, actually. Yours truly suggested politely that he not. After some resistance he offered his cold shoulder and left the Church to do its thing, snorting back “this isn’t a very welcoming Church!”
No doormat Church, regardless of the McElroy self-invitees with a song in their hearts, butt who apparently were turned away at the seminary door.
SECOND, the unread Hans Urs von Balthasar (an ex-Jesuit!) spoke to our moment in a short essay entitled (horrors!) “Drawing the Line” (included in—McElroy’s inclusivity!–“A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen,” Ignatius, 1985):
“If the Church (corresponding to the Incarnation of the Word) is something visible, she must also have visible limits. This says nothing about the final salvation of those who stand outside her boundaries; God wills ‘that all men be saved’ (1 Tim 2:4). But it is also written that Peter should not be concerned with what remains unknown to him but with the flock appointed to him. ‘If I wish him to remain, of what concern is that to you? You follow me’ (Jn 21:23).
THIRD, the real theologian then goes on to comment on those who EXCLUDE THEMSELVES from the Church, and when Paul “has to draw a line and excommunicate a previous member for the sake of the Church’s integrity (cf. 1 Cor 5:3-5, 9-13; 2 Cor 2:5-11).” Also, 2 Cor 10:6. John, he says, “speaks even more severely” about fallen-aways (1 Jn 5:16), and of distancing from those who “do not recognize the Son of the Father in Jesus” (1 Jn 2:16, 2 Jn 10, Jude 22-23). As to the disobedient–2 Th 3:14, or those who do not remain in the tradition handed down–2 Th 3:6, or disregard warnings–2 Th 3:6, Titus 3:10, 1 Tim 1:20. And of those who do not listen–Mt 18:15-17.
The real theologian does not recommend the ancient social practice of shunning, but does insist on protecting “the communion within the Church, above all sacramental communion [….] The freedom of religion was solemnly proclaimed by the last Council. If someone cannot identify himself with the apostolic faith of the Catholic Church, NOBODY HINDERS [caps added] him from distancing himself from it.”
FOURTH, De Lubac, S.J. [a real Jesuit!], found it “disconcerting” and even “humiliating” that von Balthasar was not invited as a peritus to the Council—but then concludes that it was better that he be left free to do his writing…Is it even providential, now, that Von Balthasar’s writing is available at this moment? Perhaps only to alert a synodalized Church to actually think less as a doormat and more ecumenically?
As with the Protestant martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer–that “STUPIDITY IS A MORE DANGEROUS ENEMY OF THE GOOD THAN MALICE!”
My parish’s front sign is like yours but 2 blocks away they have a sign directing to the church with the the “All Welcome” attached. Even worse are the other parishes I’ve attended which before mass starts proclaims that all are welcome. Sure anyone can come but will they authentic Catholic teaching?
While I do not intend to address every point the author makes, I would take issue with what I see as a blind spot, both in him and in the Church itself, or at least in many parishes. He writes at one point, “A Christian church is an institution there to proclaim the Good News of redemption in Jesus Christ. That is its purpose, its sole reason for existence.” Well, who can argue with that as far as it goes? But if he means to imply that such a church cannot and should not do more than that and even do so as part of and in support of its mission, then I must disagree.
He continues, “When, however, a church displaces the primacy of that mission with the ‘welcome’ of affiliation to a social community, it has become an ersatz church, trading a counterfeit εὐαγγέλιον for the Lord’s own word to ‘change your way of thinking.'” Again, I generally agree. But his key phrase, “displaces the primacy of that mission,” requires commentary. Again, I mostly agree, but what is evoked by that sentence, and perhaps the piece as a whole, is, perhaps, a false dilemma.
In other words, we cannot, the logic seems to run, have both an orthodox, Gospel-centered faith community AND a welcoming community, because to be a “welcoming” one is to engage in wokeness and ersatz-ness.
Now, granted he may not mean to suggest that that is the case. Fair enough. My point, however, is that one can indee have both–and should! But it is not likely that one can have both in the Catholic Church, or more precisely in many Catholic parishes. This is especially true in the larger ones, the “mega” and “corporate” size ones.
I am currently a member of one such in the town in which I currently reside. I have found it to be the most impersonal and impenetrable parish I have ever encountered.
Lately I have also affiliated with a “reformed” church which is most welcoming, but I have seen no hard evidence that it is “soft on sin.” Our fallen state is a given. Now, many in this parish may not focus on it with requisite seriousness. I don’t know. And some members are “conservative,” some are “liberal.” Personally I don’t care. They are what they are, and I am what I am. We are all sinners who look, not to ourselves, but to the crucified, incarnate Word for redemption.
Also, I have lost count of the people I have come to know in this parish. In the Catholic parish with which I am affiliated, I did not even need one hand to count them.
The Catholic Church as a whole and individual parishes also would do well to imitate this model.
I neither think nor argue the Church should be gratuitously alienating, and we’ve had our share of clergy (I can think of some confessors) whose personalities drove people away. I am not providing a recipe for how to “welcome” today, except insofar as ANY model of welcome must reckon with the Church’s primary mission, which is “for us and for our salvation,” and if it diverges or dilutes that, the model is false. My fear is that such a false model could be institutionalized if some at the Synod have their way.
You are so right. We should address these questions more often in this forum, do some mea culpa and try to improve the human relations in our parishes. I am portuguese and I know exactly what you mean. It’s not a either-or question. It’s about being faithful AND welcoming.
Sin-centric or Hell Bent. A Welcoming church compromises to remain welcoming. A salvific church holds fast to unchanging truth in order to save souls from the hard fact of eternal damnation, and to proclaim Christ’s revelation, the exclusive, rough and challenging means to attain eternal happiness.
Grondelski perfectly describes the lapsing of the one true Church into heresy. Not Magisterial, definitive error, which God will not allow, rather as Card McElroy and a host of others including our Holy Father mistakenly opine is the solvent for our troubled era.
Mitigation into pablum of the steel nature of truth is what’s afflicted Christianity not simply Protestant denominations, but inclusive of Catholicism, the cowardice of clergy to challenge laity for fear of repercussion becoming the equivalent of flight attendants.
Unfortunately, the author of I’m OK, You’re OK, the welcoming approach rather than conversion church Thomas Harris committed suicide. When inherent moral principles are glossed over despite our troubling knowledge of the truth, we place ourselves at the cliff’s edge. Reason why suicides are higher in amoral societies [See Durkheim Suicide].
Conversely, the Church that is rapidly growing, has by far the best statistics for church attendance, refusal to repudiate the faith when threatened by adversaries [largely Muslims], the highest rate of deaths inflicted by adversaries – is the heroic, Apostolic Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria. The Church Card Walter Kasper repudiated as not worth listening to. Kasper, the herald of the changeable god so well endorsed by McElroy, Hollerich et al.
It’s becoming apparent we in America will soon undergo persecution for a faith political adversaries consider radical traditionalist, terrorist in nature. Perhaps the impending trial will firm our faith, or for the welcoming type dissolve it.
I thought Thomas Anthony Harris died of an heart attack at he age of 85.
Johannes. Thanks. You’re correct.
“Tomczak said, Years ago there was a book on the market called ‘I’m OK — You’re OK.’ People said that’s a wonderful book, new psychology, new things to follow. Most people today don’t know the author of that book committed suicide about two years ago, and yet people are still practicing some of his philosophies” (Lay minister Larry Tomczak June 15, 1979 in Wash Post Bradford Fish February 12, 1981).
Tomczak made a false accusation [which I read in another account as a Harris suicide] and was sued by Harris. Larry Tomczak made the false allegation in a speech. He said a fellow evangelist had told him during a private conversation in August 1978 that Harris had committed suicide.
Fr. Morello writes, “A Welcoming church compromises to remain welcoming.” Perhaps we mean two different things by “welcoming.” What I mean is simply that the people in a parish are friendly toward you, open to your presence, glad you are there without–and I stress without–knowing really who you are. That comes later, gradually, in good time, as in all relationships.
Given the fact that we are in an organization representing Christ’s Body (if always imperfectly), it is understood that we are all sinners in need of salvation by an agency and an agent–Christ–not of our making and beyond our control.
One means of that salvation, one mode, of course, is the Eucharist. But whatever the form of worship and whatever its validity may be construed to be, that worship must be conjoined with a social component that is not a part of the act of worship itself but comes before or after or both. Otherwise, what you have is simply an assembly line, a factory supposedly producing saved souls who do not know and do not really care in any real or personal way about their fellow communicants. (And the question might be put: do they really care about any of God’s other creatures, or it is just “me and God”?)
Does that not seem exceedingly strange to anyone else besides me? Only too often, we come into a church not knowing who is sitting next to us on either side, in front or back, and we leave the same way. At least that is the way it is in many parishes. Granted, for some that seems to be enough.
My point is that it does not have to be that way and should not be that way. It just is, in innumerable instances. That it is so is one reason that the Catholic Church loses members, probably more than it knows or cares to admit. I know some of them who were in fact members of the Catholic parish of which I am still a member. And I know exactly why they left and also happen to know where they went.
To boil my argument down to simplest terms: both communion and community are vital. We do not have to choose between them. Indeed, combining them would be the most Catholic
thing we could do.
Thomas I agree with your understanding of a welcoming Church, which the Catholic Church has been in regards to sinners albeit requiring repentance. My reference above is to Card McElroy’s perception of a welcoming Church. But for McElroy welcoming means radical inclusion, that is, receiving the sacraments without the requirement of repentance.
You come into a church for months or years and still do not know the names of that family who always sits next to or in front of you? What is stopping YOU from introducing yourself? Who says THEY have to make the first move? Here is what I can say. Catholic parishes are largeer than most Protestant ones. Hence it is a tad more difficult to get to know people unless a LITTLE effort is expended. I go to daily Mass, where attendance is MUCH smaller. Maybe 35 to 50 people at any given Mass. I can tell you that many of us most certainly DO know each other. Not always by name but certainly enough to wave when a familiar face walks through the church door, pass a pleasantry about the weather, wish a happy holiday if appropriate or offer someone a nice day while leaving. A small start like a smile and a wave of acknowledgement goes a long way and leads eventually to conversation and possibly a friendship. You have nothing to lose!! Most of those who leave Catholicism have never really tried it.
We need more fellowship opportunities though. If we’re reminded properly to maintain reverent silence inside church and a parish offers no coffee and doughnuts after Mass how do we get to know other parishioners? Surely not in the parking lot.
The only opportunity I’ve found in our area is the local TLM community who share a fellowship meal after Mass in the parish hall.
Fellowship is something we need to work on. It’s not just a Catholic problem but a societal one too. People are becoming isolated and discontented from each other. It’s not a good thing for mental health nor for the Body of Christ.
Sorry, typo. I should have wrote “disconnected”. But I suppose not a few of us are discontented also.
🙂
A belated follow-up after my returning from a road trip:
In the first place, it is rare that the same people sit in the same area I do. So there is no family or individual “who always sits next to or in front of [me].”
I have been in other (and smaller) parishes, in various parts of the country, where I have gotten to know and become friends with a lot of folks. It takes time, of course, as well as initiative. And as you say, attendance at daily mass
assures that the group is smaller and fairly regular. That has not worked, at least for me, at the larger current parish that I referenced.
The sorts of solutions you cite I have cited myself and indeed might work well in some places. My recent experience has been analogous to encountering large numbers of people while walking on a busy, large city sidewalk. Everyone avoids eye contact, not to mention physical contact, which latter would really be anathema.
Moreover, you say, “Most of those who leave Catholicism have never really tried it.” In some cases, maybe so; that’s easy to say about others from the outside. But I must say that after more than 40 years in the Church I have indeed tried it, and it has tried me in return. Whatever my own failings–of which there are many–the Church, or really I should say, some parishes have been found wanting in regard to creating an atmosphere of fellowship. Some don’t even try or apparently care to and, what’s more, don’t see the need to.
The author of the article can speak of watering down “ecclesial witness” and “equivocating what ‘welcoming’ is,” and the search for what is true till the cows come home (or don’t), but until the Catholic parish learns how to welcome fellow sinners into the congregation, it will not and cannot be a true Christian community motivated by love above judgment.
As regards a newcomer entering a parish for the first time AND the issue of repentance is concerned, that person who does not on the front end find welcoming people, will perhaps not stick around long enough to engage in metanoia, conversion, and a new life in that place but will seek it elsewhere and eventually find it. That he/she did not find it in a Catholic parish is not
perhaps his/her loss but that of the parish itself.
That said, I can hardly take issue with Fr. Morello’s point that true repentance must precede the reception of the sacraments.
And finally, Leslie writes, “So what have you done to help? Introduced yourself? Joined an already existing group or society or club? Looked into starting one? Or just complained?” I have indeed done the first two but not the latter. The first has met with some success, the latter not so much. My point has more to do with the experience encountered at a Saturday or Sunday mass and the sense of fellowship or its lack on those occasions.
REPLY
This thread is indicative of how those who would water down ecclesial witness trade on equivocating what “welcoming” is. The problem is people will naturally gravitate to the easier, not necessarily the truer, nor are likely to follow these threads to see where they lead (and where they ultimately may not want to go).
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. It was ever thus…
Meanwhile the 99% non-synod-omites seem to be voting with their feet. In the past ten years, weekly Mass attendance in the U.S. is down from 25% to 17%. The new walk-away-together “periphery”!
We hear, too, that even Putin “feels unwelcome,” in Kiev ever since he invaded Ukraine.
Repentance is vital to communion. The church is made up of sinners who wish to honour God. Some enter the church unrepentant, wanting to conform the church into their own set of beliefs. This will not do and those not willing to be conformed into the image of Christ must be warned three times and if still unashamed, be put out of the church.
The church is the most exclusive club there is and yet, the easiest to join. As with all clubs, there are rules of decorum and those who will not abide and try to lead others astray, have no standing in the church.
Putting Christ first is problematic for man. For all of us pride needs to be subdued, a difficult task. Only with Christ can true progress be made.
Acts 3:19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Matthew 3:8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
Blessings
PROTESTANT Brian Young: “those not willing to be conformed into the image of Christ must be warned three times and if still unashamed, be put out of the church.”
A Catholic Response: Is this Catholic teaching? If so, where does it come from? If it is not Catholic teaching, what is the purpose of submitting it here in a Catholic Journal that has a stated mission to promote Catholicism; not heresies like Protestantism.
PROTESTANT Brian Young: “The church is the most exclusive club there is and yet, the easiest to join. As with all clubs, there are rules of decorum and those who will not abide and try to lead others astray, have no standing in the church.”
A Catholic Response: The One True Church, which is the Catholic Church, is the most exclusive club and fairly easy to join provided one sincerely wishes to belong to Christ’s only Church, which is the Catholic Church. Heretical churches, like the Protestant churches are even easier to join and they do not require what Christ requires to belong to His One True Church.
As for leading others astray, Protestant Brian Young prefers to do that in the CWR comboxes, but, thankfully, more and more good Catholics are seeing through his snake oil. Because of his ongoing mission (which he always dishonestly denies), he shouldn’t have any standing in the CWR comboxes, and lest anyone think me too harsh in this assessment, note that many people have tried to ‘ecumenically’ engage Protestant Brian Young to get him to be more honest and also consider the truths of the Catholic Faith only to be shot down by him because he presumptuously and proudly believes that he is providing we Catholics with “edification in a spirit of godliness” (which is rubbish, of course) while calling on Catholics to give up some of our cherished doctrines.
PROTESTANT Brian Young: “Putting Christ first is problematic for man. For all of us pride needs to be subdued, a difficult task. Only with Christ can true progress be made.”
A Catholic Response: Putting Christ first is only problematic for proud people who do not have sufficient faith in Christ to put Him first. Such people reject Christ’s One True Church, proudly believing that they can dictate to Christ how they will serve Him. Moreover, many such people declare themselves to be already saved with an unbreakable reservation in Heaven, and so what Jesus says about salvation that does not square with the galactically ignorant ‘once saved, always saved’ claptrap featured in much of Protestantism can be proudly ignored, and ignore it they do.
The only substantial progress in pursuit of the fulness of the truth that is made with Christ requires also being part of His Catholic Church, and not part of any other denomination that He never set up. All such churches are the inadequate works of men. Only the Catholic Church has Christ as its founder.
Now for a few insightful Catholic Biblical Quotations from the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition:
2 Maccabees 12:43-45: 43 He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. 44 For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. 45 But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.
(Note: This passage, of course, contains some of the beautiful Bible verses that lend great support to the Church’s true teaching on Purgatory that Protestants reject because this particular passage comes from the legitimate deutero-canonical books that Protestants unjustly and flat out ignorantly reject for lame reasons.)
Matthew 16: 17-19: 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
(Note: This passage presents that most profound moment when Our Lord appointed Peter as the First Pope of the Church, and it also laid out the basics of what that power would be. It is indeed a Divine Commission only to Peter and His successors, yet Protestant Brian Young, repeatedly in these CWR comboxes, calls for faithful Catholics to give up the doctrines of the Papacy that can never be given up if one wishes to remain faithful to Jesus Christ.)
So my last contribution got “moderated” out of existence, did it? Did it hit too close to the bull’s-eye?
Because comments are moderated, there is sometimes a delay. And WordPress can also cause delays, for technical reasons I don’t completely understand (servers, etc.).
All the comments are moderated. Says so right above the comment box.
” I have found it to be the most impersonal and impenetrable parish I have ever encountered.”
So what have you done to help? Introduced yourself? Joined an already existing group or society or club? Looked into starting one? Or just complained?
Would Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Blessed Mother be welcome in a ‘woke’ Christian Church?
Luke 3:17
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.
Matthew 4:17
From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 11:20 Reproaches to Unrepentant Towns.
Then he began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.’ For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.
Revelation 2:22
“I mean to cast her down on a bed of pain; her companions in sin I will plunge into intense suffering unless they repent of their sins with her, and her children I will put to death. Thus shall all the churches come to know that I am the searcher of hearts and minds, and that I will give each of you what your conduct deserves.”
Divine Mercy in my Soul, 635, The Blessed Virgin Mary :
you have to speak to the world about His great mercy and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Him who will come, not as a merciful Savior, but as a just Judge. Oh, how terrible is that day! Determined is the day of justice, the day of divine wrath. The angels tremble before it. Speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for [granting] mercy. If you keep silent now, you will be answering for a great number of souls on that terrible day
As I perceive the strength of the African Church it’s the newness of faith born by the efforts of missionaries, heroic, willing to die for the faith as were the two French Missionaries of Africa [White Fathers] who died of malaria a year apart shortly upon arrival at Mchinji where I taught years past before ordination.
These founder missionaries, unlike many of the modern enlightened, taught the faith precisely as the Apostles. Africans, saddled with animism, witchcraft, the darkness of pre-evangelization took strongly to a believable, comprehensive faith that was a marked deliverance. When there among them, the ‘bush’ and all its evils were close by in time and space. Reason why Card Kasper and some other modernists considered the African bishops unlettered, theological Neanderthals. Africans were uncompromising regarding homosexuality, the absolute need to repent of our sins as Christ taught. What can be clearer?
In America we’re subject to suspicion, now FBI surveillance because we, at least on doctrinal paper [referring to the many Catholics laity and clergy who don’t give a hoot about the perversity of LGBT, although a perhaps only a minority still are traditionally Apostolic] are considered White supremacists, who are anti right to change sex, have sex with one’s own sex, against abortion, against communion sans repentance, against adultery, opposed to lies and fabrication.
Adversity for the Christian brings the blessed opportunity to align with the blessed in the heavenly kingdom who were martyred for what we believe – the ineffable blood witness of the martyrs. We are assured of their support. We are assured if we resist abdication we will be among the blessed.
Recently, I went back to the “Ratzinger Report”, published in 1985 of the late Pope Benedict XVI – of beloved memory – and in chapter 3 entitled: AT THE ROOT OF THE CRISIS: THE IDEA OF CHURCH, he elaborates in certain detail that the church was suffering from an identify crisis post V2, more precisely, “a crisis in ecclesiology” or, of “what it means to be a church”. This analysis, coming from a notably prescient man, who at the time, was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. How I would have loved a follow-up on this Report when Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had stepped down from the papacy and away from sight. Would he have given us an update? Would he have offered us new insights? We’ll never know at this point; but, one can only imagine that not much has changed anent this article, its insights and implications.
Maybe Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI would have asked a broad cultural question:
“When the Eucharistic Church transitions (!) into an only “welcoming” and open Church, how does it differ, if at all, from a welcoming and “open marriage”?
Benedict was a man of faith and greatness. Let us all learn from him, his work on paper will continue to enlighten us.
If a one looks to Holy Scripture as a proper guide can that person do better? The bible is God speaking to His creation and He would not lead the seeker astray.
Matthew 18:15-17 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
1 Peter 4:12-19 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. …
1 Peter 2:19-25 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. …
1 Peter 2:1-10 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. …
What does it profit any man to speak falsehood?
Psalm 25:5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
Psalm 43:3-4 Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
When we read the epistles of Peter or his words in Acts, we find a godly man transformed by the power and love of Jesus Christ. Is this not noble and the highest pursuit to be sough?
How can we know Christ if we don’t know His words? To exalt Him ought we not rejoice in His sayings?
Romans 15:4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Peter was a man born again by the Holy Spirit. His words come to us as a blessing, let us reflect on them as we do Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome.
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
1 Peter 1:23 Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
blessings to all who rejoice in the name of Jesus Christ.
To Protestant Brian Young:
Actually, Pope Benedict XVI was a man of great Catholic faith and intellect. His work provides superior insights into how all can most faithfully follow Christ by being part of His One True Church with Peter as the head, and embracing all of the truths of the Catholic Church while rejecting all heresies.
If one reads the two superb letters Peter wrote to the church, we might ask ourselves,, are we following the godly counsel therein? Peter put forth truth and guidance!
Necessary corrections to Protestant Brian Young:
First, Peter wrote to and on behalf of the Church, not just a church, and of course this Church is the One True Church founded by Jesus: The Catholic Church.
Second, since scripture from legitimate Catholic Bibles is divinely inspired, any counsel found therein is Godly counsel, and, to be sure, faithful Catholics do indeed follow such counsel. Protestants follow some Godly counsel, but they also ignore lots of Godly counsel in the teaching and practice of their heresies.
Lastly, the Catholic Church, inspired further by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, brilliantly recognizes that truth and guidance can also be provided by the teaching Magisterium and is not limited only to what is found in scripture, which is the ignorant approach of Protestants.