The current crisis in the Church proves
that Cultural Catholicism is dead. Good. About time.
What sustained the Church
– at least in the U.S. – was the cultural habit of “being a
Catholic.” Whatever that means in the end, “being Catholic” was
simply a matter of dropping into the scripted practices and attitudes
of what one's community required in order to be considered a member.
No sacrifice required. No surrender. No commitment. And we were told
over and over again that we could be good Catholics while dissenting
from the fundamentals of the faith. Contraception. Abortion. Same-sex
“marriage,” the fatherhood of God Himself.
The rot that set in and
metastasized post-VC2 is the result of our Church leaders (clergy and
lay theologians) abandoning the apostolic faith in favor of a
modernist view of the human person and God that leaves us bereft of
any transcendental hope. The human person is a near-infinitely
malleable creature defined wholly by the will of individual
(Nietzsche), and God is a Cosmic Therapist who affirms us in our
choices and rewards us for being “true to ourselves” (Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism).
According to this view,
we are merely “thinking animals,” looking for acceptance and
community. To be accepting and communal is what it means to be
pastoral. We are forbidden – by the Modernist Orthodoxy – to
question personal choices, evaluate behavior according to objective
standards, or in any way note that rational creatures have a designed
end in God that requires repentance. What matters is an “open mind”
and an “accepting heart” for whatever choices we make.
This is nothing more than
an ego-stroking ideology that makes us feel good about our own sin,
and inoculates us against the necessity of repentance and the reality
of Divine Mercy.
This is NOT the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. Nor is it the apostolic faith handed on to the Church.
Cultural Catholicism has
made us complacent and weak. It has led us to compromise,
accommodate, and otherwise adopt the standards of the Age, and we are
no longer able to evangelize the world from a position of true
humility or love. Without an objective, transcendental referent the
Church is nothing more than a charitable relief organization in
ecclesiastical drag.
The Son became Man and
died on the Cross so that he might reveal in word and deed how God
the Father loves us. Not to affirm us in our choices but to point us
to the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Our true home is the Beatific
Vision. And for this reason, God loves us to change us.
The death of Cultural
Catholicism is a gift straight from the Holy Spirit!
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ReplyDeleteHello, I came across your blog through some research on Facebook about Catholicism. Here you talk about the death of Catholicism now and how it is a good thing. I think that you are wrong and right at thee same time. Catholicism change us as an individual, to become devoted to god, to pray, to commit ourself to our lord, but it does not make us weak. I know people who rised from very difficult situations by finding peace with jesus. Being Catholic is not only about ‘dropping into the scripted practices’, it forms part of the daily life of any catholic. From the day you are born, you let jesus enter your life and be part of it through baptism, later on when growing up, you make the choice to connect yourself more with him, by the holy communion. Do not only evocate a negative aspect of a religion, no religion is perfect. But Catholicism is a life choice, and that was my choice, I respect you point, and it is nice to see how people now downgrade religious believes. I am not saying that I am very religious, I believe and pray god, not every day but I do.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment! I'm a Catholic priest and a Dominican friar. In this post I am celebrating the death of Cultural Catholicism not Catholicism itself. Cultural Catholicism is what 80% of Catholics practice; that is, "I am Catholic b/c I was born into it." Not all cradle Catholics are Cultural Catholics but most are. My point is that being Catholic requires more than just "being born into the faith." Saying "I'm Catholic" isn't enough to actually live out the faith daily.
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