MODERNISM ON PARADE

"The simple truth is that there is no litmus test for being Catholic. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “All men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God . . . And to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation.” (CCC 836) There is room for everyone under that umbrella. There are many ways of living out the Catholic faith. When we disagree with how someone is living out their faith, our best recourse is to pray for them and for ourselves. We are called to love one another. That is the mark of a true Christian. We are all sinners in need of God’s mercy. None of us fully live up to the Christian ideal. Our place is not to judge our Catholic brethren."
Catholic Exchange

It appears that our modernist friend above neglected those paragraphs in the Catechism that put the lie to her assertion; you know, the ones that directly follow the paragraph she quoted:

837 "Fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept all the means of salvation given to the Church together with her entire organization, and who - by the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, the sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion - are joined in the visible structure of the Church of Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. Even though incorporated into the Church, one who does not however persevere in charity is not saved. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but 'in body' not 'in heart.'"

838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."

So how many exclusions to the modernist's washed out, gray and meaningless version of catholicism can we find in these two paragraphs?

1. To be a Catholic you must be baptized in the proper form and matter.
2. You must accept all means of salvation given to the Church. No doubts about the real presence on the altar or the efficacy of confession will be allowed.
3. You must accept the authority of the Pope and the Bishops, acting through the Magisterium.
4. Catholics are bound by the profession of faith; the Nicene Creed. You must believe that every word spoken in the Creed is true. No wiggle room is allowed.
5. Even if you have been baptized in the proper form and matter by another church you are not considered Catholic. Your Christian faith is imperfect and will need to be reconciled to the Catholic faith before you can receive the benefits of Christ's salvific action.

While number 5 may seem, I don't know, so unnecessarily divisive to the modernist mind it is after all taught in the Catechism. Unfortunately, our author above overlooked that, too.

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

So what is modernism? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The general idea of modernism may be best expressed in the words of Abbate Cavallanti, though even here there is a little vagueness: "Modernism is modern in a false sense of the word; it is a morbid state of conscience among Catholics, and especially young Catholics, that professes manifold ideals, opinions, and tendencies. From time to time these tendencies work out into systems, that are to renew the basis and superstructure of society, politics, philosophy, theology, of the Church herself and of the Christian religion".

In other words, to the modernist there are no absolutes. One idea is as good as the next and to judge a belief system against the wisdom of the past is archaic and irrelevant. God is not what he is, the eternal "I am who am", but instead is held hostage to the personal beliefs and values of the individual. Modernism is the root of modern liberalism, a system of beliefs that holds the individual has primacy over everything, that he is a free agent with no restraint against his actions or understandings of the world around him.

To the modernist there is only emotion and personal desire. Right and wrong can only be defined in how they work to either restrain or advance the needs of the individual, regardless of the cost to society. Modernism and narcissism share the same basic flaws in their self centered destructive blindness to the truth.

Modernism is a lie and as a lie it is evil. It has infected the Church to such an extent that we now have the homosexual abuse crisis and the USCCB supporting Marxist government initiatives against the clear and consistent teachings of Holy Mother Church. The pews have become empty and why shouldn't they be. So many of the priests of the Church are Modernists at heart and don't believe that what they are teaching is any more true that what the Baptist preacher or Buddhist monk down the street believe. And if the priests don't believe it, them why should the parishioner?

America and the world need to divorce themselves from this fallacy. Truth exists and it IS knowable. We must honestly search to find it and accept it, following it wherever it leads us. Until mankind realizes that there is one greater than themselves and accepts the fact He has created rules that we must follow we will continue to wallow in a cesspool of moral ambiguity and vain-glorious self destruction. Modernism plays to the goals of Satan and those that follow him in designing our "New World Order". Because we no longer believe in objective truth we cannot recognize destructive evil.

We are beginning to reap the crops sown by Modernism. Pray for all of us.