I think, as it is always the case, you have a vast number of useful fools. But there is no doubt in my mind that many, many, especially at the very top, know exactly what they are doing and are perfectly aware of all its implications.
This is exactly why so called traditionalists are vilified and despised even within the Church, precisely because it is they which speak unchanging Truth. The very people they speak God's truth with are the ones which wish to destroy them.
You're not naive, you're charitable and rightly refuse to put the worst construct on things without adequate evidence. On the other hand, I have a tendency to be perhaps too cynical. I would say that the majority of those you mention have been deceived and 'swept up'. However, there are those directing all this with great and deliberate skill, themselves being directed by a being with superhuman, but satanic skills. The whole is too perfect (not really the right word in one sense, but it is in another) a storm to be anything other than a knowing and predetermined assault on all that is good.
It really astonishes me how quickly and openly all of this has come out from wherever it was hiding. I don't see how they square all of these "new" ideas with constant Catholic teaching going back to the early Church Fathers. It really floors me when I stop and think about it. The Church seems to be doing a 180 on the most ingrained teachings for the past 2,000 years. How little backlash there is to all of this is also amazing. I suppose that is because most Catholics today have no real catechesis or even a desire to know the truth. Where is the Church from just 2 years ago? It is divided in two. This must be rectified...soon!
You are right. So sudden and all encompassing but I think it is like carpenter ants. They work silently for years eating away at the structure unbeknown to those who dwell within and then suddenly a whole wall comes down. This alone minus any other proof is enough to indicate that Serious Prophetic Times are upon us. But concurrent with this sudden internal rot in the Church we have massive world wide natural disasters and NK shooting missiles and Russia parking subs off shore in the Atlantic and many other harbingers. Now the Great Sign--potentially. So I look around and say you have to be blind not to see an unfolding. A showdown. A Reckoning. Everyone here sees it. But if the secular folks around me see it they ain't sayin' nuthin' Rosaries!! Adoration. Daily Mass. sacrifice and mortification. That is what we can do in the face of these horrors. Fight on the spiritual plane with everything we have got. And in the temporal speak or act as the Holy Spirit directs.
From the Catholic laity that I've been around , most of them are too busy with the gym, Facebook, instagram, kids sporting events, etc. (secular pursuits) to care about what is going on in the church. The priests don't talk about it in their Sunday homilies, so how would they know? In one church group that my husband and I have been members of for 12 years, I brought up concerns about something the pope had done and was quickly treated as an apostate Catholic. No one had any knowledge about what was going on, and no one wanted to know. I've tried to share different articles with this group, but might as well be hitting my head against a brick wall! From my own personal experience, most people just don't care. None of this is relevant to them.....yet.
Yes. You are right. They choose to be oblivious. Like people in Noah's time. They didn't believe and didn't listen to the warnings and mocked Noah for building the ark. "Until the flood came and swept them all away." Today at Adoration I opened the scriptures intending to read Luke's telling of the Presentation. Instead it opened to the first chapter of Nahum. I have never read this prophet. But it sure got my attention. It could be describing the what is going on right now. I read it over a few times and prayed on it. How how how can any Catholic ignore what is going on all around us in the Church and in the world. It boggles the mind.
It was hiding in plain sight. There's a youtube video of Fr. James Martin giving a talk at the Thomas Moore Centre in Yale University. It's his standard depiction of Jesus as fully human. On the face of it the talk is quite orthodox except that he very cleverly slips in a little bit of heresy here or there to illustrate his point. For example, the part about the woman teaching Jesus that His mission wasn't just for the Jews is slipped in. He goes the Sola Scriptura route to underscore his point about the man Jesus not having all the insights of the divine Jesus. He's very persuasive and I can understand why he is in great demand, especially in universities staffed by cafeteria or apostate Catholics. There's a question and answer session towards the end of the video. If you haven't time to watch the whole video, go to about the 1:01 mark on the video. I hope that David and others who are adamant that Pope Francis is defending the Deposit of Faith will also pay attention to Fr. Martin's responses to the questions about the Church's attitude to homosexual unions. Remember that Pope Francis appointed this man to the Vatican's Communications Department, hence his confidence that what he is saying is what the Pope would say. Could I claim Ignatian spirituality if I were to say that listening to Fr. Martin tell that man to push the same agenda as the militant LGBT crowd only to use more persuasive tactics, I could hear Satan tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden? Here's a link to the video. If this is an example of the Holy Spirit at work, and if Pope Francis gets away with what this man says is on the cards, it brings into question the very validity of the Catholic Church.
This really needs to be said again; Rosaries!! Adoration. Daily Mass. sacrifice and mortification. That is what we can do in the face of these horrors. Fight on the spiritual plane with everything we have got. And in the temporal speak or act as the Holy Spirit directs AMEN!!!!
Here is how I as an outsider see it; the Catholic Church alone preserves the indissolubility of a Christian marriage, and is truly Catholic as opposed to national or ethnic. It has the Sacraments, Saints, and a beautiful and authentic, Holy Tradition of love for Christ and virtue. That is awesome!
Going........going........soon to be gone and replaced by with pastoral practice AKA whatever version of marriage sits well with the local bishop until all faithful bishops have been replaced by Pope Mercy.
Truth doesn't change but, as one priest told me, our "understanding" of truth "develops". So, after 2,000 years of believing marriage to be one thing and having that belief reiterated by a Pope only a few decades ago, our understanding of truth has developed to mean the exact opposite of what it meant prior to 2013 when Pope Francis was elected. We will be required to park our reason at the Church door when we are told that what Jesus said about marriage is an unchangeable truth which we are bound to believe under pain of losing our salvation but that our understanding of that truth has developed to mean that we don't have to practice what we profess to believe. The Magisterium is the Pope in union with the Bishops, Sacred Scripture and Tradition. What happens when the Pope in union with the Bishops diverges from Sacred Scripture and introduces a new Tradition? Where, then, will be the Church? How can we have a Church with a divergent Magisterium? Will we profess to believe what we always believed and what the Church always taught and practiced while professing obedience to the Pope and the Bishops in union with him who are telling us that Jesus wants us to pretend that the practice contradicting the faith isn't really a contradiction but a "development in our understanding of truth"?
I don't really have an answer for you.... But I do know that there is a growing number of faithful Catholics who hypothesise that Francis is, in fact, essentially an anti-Pope, and that Benedict is still essentially the legitimate Pope.
A growing number of faithful Catholics is still a minority of Catholics in the pews, the vast majority of whom receive Communion every time they attend Mass but rarely if ever go to Confession. A sizeable proportion of them likely support gay marriage, divorce and limited abortion. A majority reject Church teaching on contraception. Then there are Catholics like David who is willing to believe that it's God who needs us rather than vice versa just because Pope Francis said so. Add to that baptised Catholics who wouldn't darken the door of a church other than for weddings and funerals but call themselves Catholic when it suits them. Then there's the clergy. Some estimate the number of homosexuals in the priesthood to be way higher than the average in society - maybe as high as one-third. While that appears to be exaggerated, bear in mind the whispers about straight students or those not supporting the homosexual agenda being hounded out of seminaries. If the nuns on the bus are an example of the female religious we can group them with the homosexual priests. And what about the Bishops? Only four Cardinals stepped up to defend the faith. A few interpreted AL in line with Church teaching but most have the Pope's measure and will avoid the mercy axe and Catholic Spring hassle by keeping shtum. We must pray that there won't be a schism but if there is, all the Church's resources will be put behind Pope Francis and anyone supporting him. Bearing in mind that the number of faithful choosing to follow Christ will be a tiny remnant, how will they counter the propaganda emanating from the Vatican and supported by the Francis loving media? Not knowing which way to turn, most ordinary Catholics will likely follow their local priest or bishop. How many priests or bishops do you think will choose the faith when it means losing their guaranteed income and roof over their heads? Considering how few have been preaching the faith when they were free to do so, don't rely on a better show from them in times of actual persecution. Did you take note of Fr. Martin's condescending references to faithful Catholics when responding to the "educated" people in Yale whom he treated like equals or enlightened kindred spirits? That's how the people running Christ's Church regard us. We're merely backward, slow learners in their view. Some day there will be a remnant Church rescued by Jesus and that remnant won't be welcome in places like Yale. I asked on another thread whether it is possible that a Pope could be the False Prophet of Revelation. I don't know the answer. Do you? Bear in mind that by the time he dies, Pope Francis will have appointed a majority of Bishops and Cardinals who will choose his successor from among their ranks. It's even possible that he will change the rules to permit selected lay women have a vote in the Conclave - people like Emma Bonino.
Modernist priest in action. Simple as that. Avoid at all costs. Imagine the number of souls he is is going to confuse because he is in the Vatican Communications Department. Under the present leadership the Church is not so much a 'field-hospital' for the wounded but an irrelevant NGO with no distinct mission, no passion because it has become so worldly!! More concerned with climate change and immigration than souls. One prophetic word - lukewarm!!
He's not your average lukewarm Catholic. What he was talking about at the end of that video was the Catholic Spring agenda being implemented by Pope Francis.
