False Shepherds

Surveys of American Catholics and our views on Church teachings often reveal disturbing results. For instance, in an April 2008 survey conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) entitled, “Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice Among U.S. Catholics”, only 37% of American Catholics responded “Very Strongly” when asked to respond to the statement that “Living my life consistent with Church teachings” is an important factor in “my sense of what it means to be a Catholic.” (http://cara.georgetown.edu/beliefattitude.pdf) Similarly, only 18% “Agreed Strongly” with the statement, “In deciding what is morally acceptable, I look to Catholic Church teachings and statements made by the Pope and Bishops to form my conscience.” A Dec 2008 survey completed by the PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life declared that 84% of White American Catholics believe “that many religions can lead to eternal life.” (http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=380)

Why this growing rejection of Church teachings among U.S. Catholics? Much of the blame lies with the episcopate and with the heretics in their midst. For example, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the chairman of the Catholic bishops' conference of Germany, recently stated during an interview with a German television network that Christ “did not die for the sins of the people as if God had provided a sacrificial offering, like a scapegoat.” (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042107.html).

Oh, really.

According to Zollitsch Christ’s crucifixion was merely a sign of solidarity with the human race. Christ had “taken up what I have been blamed for, including the evil that I have caused, and also to take it back into the world of God and hence to show me the way out of sin, guilt and from death to life.” Zollitsch’s defective view is contrary to Church teaching:

Christ's death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world", and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the "blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins".

(Article 613 - Catechism of the Catholic Church- http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a4p2.htm)

When false shepherds like Zollitsch are allowed to lead the flock astray, why are we surprised when we discover the sheep are lost?

Religious leaders who ignore Church doctrine and teach others to do similarly must be purged from the Church. Those in the Church hierarchy who allow religious heretics like Zollitsch to continue their assault on the tenets of Christendom should remember our Lord’s warning:

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)

Donald Tremblay

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown

Last night I watched my favorite Christmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, for the third time this year. As I listened to Charlie Brown rail against the commercialization of Christmas while pleading for someone–anyone–to explain “what Christmas is all about”, I realized that our national economic crisis has forced many Americans to confront the Truth of “what Christmas is all about”. Below is an example.

Each year St. Ephrem’s Church in Brooklyn, NY, decorates Christmas trees with cards containing the age and gender of a poor child who will have no gifts to open on Christmas morning. Some are orphans; others have families but no money. Parishioners who would like to help these children can take a card and buy an appropriate gift for that child. The gifts are collected and held on the Church’s altar. Last Sunday as I entered the Church for Sunday mass, I noticed that despite the current economic turmoil there were as many gifts on the altar as there had been in years past. It was comforting to see that although people may be hurting financially, they still want to thank God for giving Himself as a gift to Man. And what better way to repay that gift than by giving gifts to the less fortunate.

Keep in mind that these Catholics who donated are not people who have “of their abundance cast into the offerings of God” (Luke 21:4). They are Catholics who have donated despite having lost their jobs or watched their savings plummet because of the tanking stock market. As members of Christ’s flock they know it is their responsibility to take care of the less fortunate sheep.

Maybe it’s naive but based on the outpouring of help that I’ve witnessed, the next time Americans are asked to explain the true meaning of Christmas, I believe more of us–Catholic and otherwise–will respond as Linus did to Charlie Brown:
“And there were in the same country shepherds watching, and keeping the night watches over their flock. 9 And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared with a great fear. 10 And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people:

For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.”
Luke 2: 8-14)

Donald Tremblay

Time to De-Frock

Can someone explain this to me?

Why are members of the clergy who preach against Church doctrine allowed to continue wearing their collars? Why are these heretics not tossed out into the streets? Have we forgotten Christ’s proscription: “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) If these men want to follow the broad road “that leadeth to destruction”, that is their business. But must we stand by and watch them serve as malevolent Pied Pipers, leading the Faithful into the abyss? It is time for the Vatican to get rid of these wayward priests, and the first cleric they can start with is Australian Father Peter Dresser:

“This whole matter regarding Jesus being God ... not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point for millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion ... No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that. "(http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=9772)

Dresser furthers his blasphemy by asserting that “Mary had as many as six children, Joseph was the father of Jesus and the bodily Resurrection is not to be taken literally.”

Explain to me why we need this man serving the flock?

If you do not recognize Christ’s divinity, then you are not a Christian. Go join a New Age movement if you believe that the Lord was merely an archetype, one of many men in history who accessed the “divinity within every person”. As Anthony Robbie, Sydney lecturer in Church History, argues in the above-mentioned article, “The Council of Nicaea settled the question that Christ was God in 325, so he [Dresser] is 1,700 years out of date. The rest is a regurgitation of every discredited 19th century liberal Protestant German cliche in the book."

Get rid of Dresser and others like him. The last thing Christians need on their journey to the Beatific Vision is a defective compass.

P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum was right: there is a sucker born every minute. And this past weekend many of them could be found at the Newlife Expo in the New Yorker Hotel. New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly described some of the “services” offered to attendees:
“The expo is a veritable convention of charlatans, including numerous purveyors of healing stones and anti-aging elixirs, as well as an ‘aura photographer,’ a celebrity pet psychic, and a ‘light doctor’ selling instant transportation to an all-healing ‘lightship.’ (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/columnists/daly/index.html)

This is an ideal time to ply a pagan trade since a growing number of Americans are embracing New Age religions. Generation Hex: Understanding the Subtle Dangers of Wicca claims that “Wicca is America’s fastest growing religion. By the year 2012, it’s projected to be the third largest religion in the United States.” (http://www.zimbio.com/Wicca/articles/36/America+fastest+growing+religion+Wicca+Welcome)

But what is it about these occultic practices that attract people?

Secret knowledge.

What we are witnessing is the return of Gnosticism—a general term used to explain the centuries-old heresy committed by numerous sects that emphasized “secret and pseudo-mystical knowledge.” (The Fathers of the Church, Expanded Edition - Mike Aquilina, Our Sunday Visitor, 2006, p 42) It is this “secret knowledge” that NewLife Expo demonstrators and New Age religions like Wicca claim to possess. Want holistic health? Use these healing stones or allow someone to massage your aura. Want to live forever? Talk to the reps at People Unlimited whose literature states, “’Physical immortality now! Fee $150.’" (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/columnists/daly/index.html).

Gnosticism has existed since biblical times. In fact, according to The Fathers of the Church (cited above), 1 Tim 6: 20-21 is a warning “against emerging Christian Gnosticism” (p 25). St. Paul Instructs Timothy to “keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. Which some promising, have erred concerning the faith.”

There is no secret knowledge. Christ is God made Man, and thus the ultimate revelation: “No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day . . . Not that any man hath seen the Father; but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father.” (John 6: 44, 46)
So do yourself a favor. If someone offers you secret knowledge about God, imitate Lot by walking away and not looking back.

Donald Tremblay

What Makes a Saint?

What Makes a Saint?

At the age of three Audrey Santo nearly drowned. Although saved she would spend the next 20 years of her life “kept alive by machines and unable to speak or move”. (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/10/13/bid_to_canonize_girl_draws_mixed_reaction/) Since her death in April 2007, Audrey’s supporters have lobbied Rome to consider her for sainthood. The request has touched off a debate as to what makes a saint.

Generally, in order for a candidate to be canonized or beatified, he/she must have lived a life “marked by the exercise of heroic virtue, and only after this has been proved by common repute for sanctity and by conclusive arguments.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm) As explained by Monsignor F. Stephen Pedone in the above-mentioned Boston Globe column, the problem with Audrey’s case is that there are no examples of this heroic virtue: “They might be hard pressed to prove that she had this will to embrace Christian virtues and to live them . . . She probably didn't even know what they were."

Yet, one could argue that ultimately a saint is one who draws others to Christ and His Church. If that’s the case, then Audrey’s supporters believe she is more-than-deserving:

“Over the next 14 years [after her near-drowning], the bed-ridden girl, Audrey, became an object of intense devotion for thousands who came to peer through a window cut into her bedroom and pray. Time and again, they reported seeing miracles in her presence: hosts bled, oil formed in a priest's cup, the sick were healed. In 1998, 10,000 people celebrated Mass in a stadium in Worcester with Audrey, who was brought there by ambulance.”

Audrey’s mother believes her daughter was a victim soul—“someone chosen by God to accept the suffering of others”. Perhaps that is true, but even this assessment is problematic because in Catholic literature victim souls choose to suffer for others, such as Sister Josefa Menendez does in The Way of Divine Love. There is no proof that Audrey viewed her sufferings as a sacrifice for others.

Tough call.

Donald Tremblay