A smaller Church

"Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death."

Michael Voris has been warning us for some time about the crisis in the Church. We seem to be at a pivotal moment with the current papal conclave. Will our prayers be answered by God? Or perhaps I should ask, what will be God's answer to our prayers?

One of the main points that Michael V. has been consistently hammering home is that the Church needs to confront the culture rather than trying to accommodate it by being "nice" or "charitable". This point never really hit home for me until I came upon the interpretation that the post Vatican II crisis is due to a reversal of Truth and Charity. (See my article on "Iota unum".) The leadership of the Church of today often sacrifices Truth in the name of Charity. The result is what Michael V. often describes as "the Church of Nice".

But in sacrificing the Truth, they are nailing Christ to the Cross again -- whether it is their intention or not. Because Christ is the Truth.

The "smaller Church" which Michael mentions in this Vortex episode below would be welcome if it is also a Church that is totally dedicated to the Truth of Jesus Christ.

 

Today I happened to hear some secular news reports about the papal conclave. (Normally, I don't get any of the news from secular sources.) The report was fixated on pushing for "women priests". Do you think that this is being pushed for the good of the Church/ I doubt that the ones preparing these reports have any interest in the good of the Church. They are simply pushing their social agenda and if this results in the total collapse of the Church, so much the better.

What good is a Church that looks exactly like secular society? The Church then becomes useless and is quickly discarded. The role of the Church is to transform secular society, not to conform to secular society.

Without the Church to guide her, society loses its moral compass as we have seen. And this is just the beginning. We are approaching a state of total moral anarchy -- this is what the poll numbers which Michael V. quoted reveal.

Our bishops need to impose their moral authority on priests and the laity in conformance with the Church's timeless teachings. We can only hope and pray for a Pope that will begin this process of moral imposition in the name of the Holy Spirit -- in the name of a truly new Catholic evangelization. Certainly this will immediately result in a "smaller Church", but the resulting Church will be more vibrant and full of the Holy Spirit.

It is time to clear the Church of the "smoke of Satan" which Pope Paul VI referred to.

 -------------

One last thought. It is interesting that the papal conclave is happening with the backdrop of the report of the Vatileaks scandal which was submitted to Benedict before he abdicated. He ordered that the report be locked up and only revealed to the next pope. During the prelude to the conclave there were a number of cardinals that were calling publicly for the release of the report to them. It seems as if the American cardinals were particularly vocal in this matter. But this was not done. It would seem that this leaves the 3 cardinals that prepared the report with a sort of veto power over possible candidates. They would not have to give any specifics, but would only need to suggest that certain candidates might not be appropriate.

CORRECTION: The names of the cardinals that prepared the report are Julián Herranz, Salvatore De Giorgi and Jozef Tomko. They are all non-voting cardinals. As best as I can figure out, non-voting cardinals do not even participate in the conclave. (Do any readers know for sure?) That means that if they were going to somehow influence the conclave, they would have had to have done it through their interactions with their fellow cardinals prior to the conclave. Which is still not beyond the realm of possibility.

 -------------

UPDATE; As I was searching for information on the conclave I came across the homily that Cardinal Sodano gave  at the Mass at St. Peter's in preparation for the conclave. The title given to the homily in the Vatican Information Service (VIS) press release was “May God grant us a Pontiff who will embrace charity”. But what we really need is "a Pontiff who will embrace Truth". (...and true Charity, but not the false charity that is so abundant in the Church today.)