10 October 2018

Cultural Catholicism is Dead. Good.

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!


___________________
 
Follow HancAquam or Subscribe ----->

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:41 PM

    Hello, I log on to your new stuff on a regular basis. Your writing style
    is awesome, keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4:31 PM

    Hi i am kavin, its my first occasion to commenting anywhere, when i read this article i thought i could also create comment due to this good
    piece of writing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:34 PM

    Good article. I will be experiencing a few of these
    issues as well..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10:06 PM

    Thankfulness to my father who shared with me on the topic
    of this website, this weblog is in fact amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous12:23 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello, 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank 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.

      Delete