THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Pascal and the Jesuits

by David Carlin
DECEMBER 1, 2017

Editor's Note: Our politician-professor-pundit friend David Carlin makes a crucial distinction this morning. There is a difference between the older tolerance and patience with Catholic misbehavior, and the newer situation in which an alternative – and quite militant – religion is growing under the canopy of tolerance.

That is why at The Catholic Thing we have always believed that the very survival of the Church in the West depends on what Pope Benedict XVI has called “creative minorities.” At the same time, we must not only maintain but grow those minorities so that it becomes impossible even for the cynical politicians to ignore us. I’ve said it before: there are at least 20 million Catholics in America who agree with us. So far, only 30,000 subscribe to The Catholic Thing. But that means we have an unlimited future ahead of us. If you wish to help shape that future – and have not already contributed – what are you waiting for? We know that the immediate future is going to be quite challenging for real Catholics. But what better time to go on the offensive? The other side, as I’m convinced will soon be clear, has no future. Now’s the time to bet on the future of Christ’s Church. Help us help that future. Make your contribution to TCT. Now.

It seems to me (I’m hardly alone in this) that many clerical leaders (priests and bishops) are relatively 'soft' on matters related to sexual sin – fornication, unmarried cohabitation, abortion, and homosexuality. It’s not that they approve of these things; they just don’t go out of their way to condemn them.

If someone were challenged to write in defense of this clerical 'softness', I think the argument would go like this:

At least since the time of Emperor Constantine, the Church has realized that there are three main classes of Christians.

Class 1: an elite minority of “real” Christians: those who are deadly serious about their religion; who believe all the official doctrines; who try hard (though never quite succeeding) to obey all the commandments all the time; who spend much of their time and energy at Mass and in prayer.

Class 2: those who are “ordinary” Christians, the great majority of all Christians. They honestly believe in their religion, but they are decidedly lukewarm. When it comes to doctrine, their willingness to recite the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed doesn’t imply that they agree with all the articles. And it certainly doesn’t even imply that they understand all the articles; they don’t, and they are not troubled by their lack of understanding.

As for the rules of Christian morality, not only do they habitually violate many of them, except for the really big ones – e.g., murder and adultery – they barely notice them. They usually say prayers, especially in moments of trouble; and they attend Mass on a fairly regular basis. They are for the most part “decent” people, and hope to go to Heaven someday.

Class 3: this is made up of ne’er-do-wells who habitually and conspicuously fall below the level of ordinary decency. They are robbers, gangsters, prostitutes, drunks, drug addicts, wife-beaters, etc. They rarely attend church. And except when they’re standing before a judge waiting for him to pronounce sentence, they rarely pray. Apart from the existence of God (who, they hope, will someday rescue them from their sea of troubles), the dogmas of the religion mean little to them. And occasionally, in their moments of despair, they doubt even God’s existence. But they never sever their formal connection with the Church.

Members of this third class aren’t a threat to the Church. They are even, in a perverse way, allies. For one thing, they verify by their horrid examples what the Church teaches about sin, that it will have bad consequences, both spiritual and temporal. For another, they provide opportunities for Class 1 Catholics to show compassion to the “least of these,” easing their pain, showing them the right path. Further, they occasionally supply edifying examples of late-in-life conversions to righteousness.

But Class 2 Catholics are always a potential threat to the Church. For if the Church were to insist that all Catholics must be of the Class 1 type, that all must strive for sainthood on a daily and even hourly basis, most Class 2 (“ordinary” or “decent”) Catholics would bid farewell. “I see this is not a religion for me,” they would say. “It demands too much. It is unrealistic. It is fanatical. Au revoir.”

And so, to make sure that these folks, the great majority of Catholics, don’t leave the Church, thereby not only damaging the religion but endangering their own salvation, the Church loosens the reins on these people.
- If they don’t believe everything the Church believes, oh well, let’s not make a fuss about it.
- And if they have incorrigible habits of sin, well, let’s not make them feel uncomfortable by publicly condemning the sins they’re prone to; and
- let’s tell them that God is forgiving and tolerant; and
- let’s remind them that all sins can be instantaneously wiped away in the confessional or on a good deathbed.
- Above all, let’s tell them that, practically speaking, the goal of this life (except for a rare few) is not Heaven but Purgatory; in other words, you don’t have to get an A-plus in sanctity, a C-minus will do just fine.

In his Provincial Letters, Blaise Pascal (a Class 1 Catholic if ever there was one) finds fault with the Jesuits of his day for bending Catholicism so that it will accommodate the un-Christian code of honor that was then typical of upper-class gentlemen. In one of the more hilarious letters, Pascal tells of a Jesuit casuist (some things never change) who figured out a way for a gentleman to participate in a duel while not, technically speaking, violating the Catholic rule that dueling is a mortal sin.

So can it be argued that the 'softness' with regard to sex-related sins that we find today among many bishops and priests is just one more example of what has been an all-too-human Catholic practice since at least the fourth century, the practice of – not exactly consenting to – but tolerating the many imperfections of Class 2 Catholics?

No, I don’t think so. When the Jesuits tolerated, say, the morality of 17th century French gentlemen – a morality that included dueling and 'gallantry' (as upper-class adultery was euphemistically called) – they were not tolerating a non- or anti-Catholic religion. They were tolerating – however much we may laugh about it – an un-Catholic code of manners and morals, quite a different thing.

But when today’s Jesuits (and other Catholic clerics) are 'soft' on sex-related sins, including homosexuality, they are doing much more than making a calculated accommodation to an un-Christian code of manners. They are tolerating a sexual ethic that is part and parcel of an increasingly militant anti-Catholic religion. [Thank you for using that very appropriate word for much that is going on in the church of Bergoglio - anti-Catholic, in the image and likeness of its founding leader.]

What religion is that? Secular humanism, a comprehensive worldview that is tantamount to a (God-less) religion. Dueling in 17th century upper-class Paris was bad, but it was not an affirmation of an anti-Catholic religion. By contrast, abortion and homosexuality in 21st century America truly are affirmations of a growing and decidedly anti-Catholic quasi-religion.

Catholic leaders from the pope on down need to wake up to the nature of that new mortal threat. [But the new mortal threat is coming precisely 'from the pope on down'!]



An odd address by Cardinal Parolin

December 1, 2017

Speaking at an organisation called the Catholic University of America, Cardinal Parolin, Secretary of State, recently gave a lecture which seemed to me to have some distinctly dubious implications ... to which I hope to return later in the week. Just for today, however, a couple of weeny details.

His Eminence based the mission of Episcopal Conferences in the sacramental origin of the episcopal ministry: "in other words, these conferences are really 'episcopal': they have their raison d'etre not in a sociological principle of collaboration, but in the implementation of the ministry conferred on each bishop with episcopal consecration".

Interestingly, this appears to run contrary to PF's 'ecumenical' practice. PF meets ministers who are called 'bishops' but who belong to sects which do not possess or claim the Apostolic Succession and do not regard episcopal (or any) ordination as a sacrament. And he makes clear that he regards them as truly bishops. "We bishops", PF pointedly says to them in between the hugs.

Clearly, Parolin is on a divergence course from PF in this matter. It is remarkable that he has chosen to make his disagreement so public, especially considering the symptoms of paranoia in PF revealed recently in an interview given by Cardinal Mueller (PF: "They tell me you're my enemy").

Secondly: Latin Catholicism has tended to have an immensely juridical style to it. Sacramental 'consecration' is not enough; a man must also have a missio canonica before he (lawfully) goes bishopping. He needs to have been given jurisdiction in a canonical way which may accompany, but is distinct from, his Consecration. This attitude lay behind the insistence that when Pope Ratzinger remitted the excommunications incurred latae sententiae by the SSPX bishops, they still possess no licit ministry whatsoever in the Church Militant.

Parolin, in so exclusively emphasising the sacramental rather than the canonical or juridical, clearly implies that if his Excellency Bishop Fellay were to knock on the door of the Swiss Episcopal Conference, their excellencies would welcome him warmly. "My dear fellow", una voce they would cry, "do come in and implement together with us the ministry conferred on you in your episcopal consecration".

Furthermore, if Cardinal Mueller is right in his fear that PF might be leading the Church Militant into schism and division, it will, given Cardinal Parolin's ecclesiology, be pretty unproblematic if, a decade or two down the road, some orthodox bishops consecrate more bishops sine mandato Apostolico. So there may come a time when this ... von Schoenborn would call it "this development" ... might come in useful.

Could it be that Cardinal Parolin is be one of these crypto-Lefebvreists whom we are sometimes warned to avoid?

If anyone ever doubted that Parolin is a trueblue Bergoglian acolyte, think again! Of course, some Vaticanistas like Magister and Allen have been puffing him up by claiming that he seems to be the most papabile successor to Bergoglio, and that therefore by word and deed, he has been trying to court cardinals other than the avowed Bergoglians to his side. Bosh and balderdash! With Bergoglio-named cardinals now making up almost half the cardinal electors, and the other half avowed Bergoglians and unavowed because approving-by-their-silence Bergoglians, he doesn't have to court anybody. All he has to do is look out for number-1, himself.