by Pauly Fongemie
January 6, 2015
The Epiphany of Our Lord
In the brilliant analysis of the sweeping crisis in the Church, that has misguidedly embraced modernity, THE GREAT FACADE [Woods and Ferrara, 2002], Christopher Ferrara writes:
For those who now govern the Church have renounced the divine aloofness which makes Our Lord Himself, and thus His Church, so attractive to the world-weary soul in search of the narrow road that leads away from this place to eternal beatitude. Yes, Our Lord entered the world to be a friend to His fellow man, a friend par excellence. But that friendship is premised on obedience to Him who is our King as well as our friend. And who would dare to slap this Friend on the back as one would some merely earthly companion!
The postconciliar program of "openness to the world" is an invitation to backslapping familiarity with the Bride of Christ: See? The Church is your friend. The Church can speak your language, after all. After so many centuries of preaching to you, the Church now wishes to dialogue with you and understand you. The Church has come to recognize your good faith, even if, in the exercise of your religious liberty, you choose not to believe. The Church no longer wishes to address you from on high or to frighten you with the prospect of God's eternal punishment. ...
After some forty years of ecclesial innovations that have exceeded the worst nightmares of the great preconciliar Popes, the Roman liturgy is in ruins, the missions are practically extinct, conversions and vocations have dwindled at the same time Islam has become the fastest growing religion in former Christendom, contemporary churchmen have de facto embraced the errors of liberalism condemned in the Syllabus, and the average Catholic in the pew no longer considers himself bound to follow any teaching on faith or morals which impairs his chosen "lifestyle." [pp. 391-392]
In the diocese of Portland, Maine, this pestilence is accomplished in sundry ways, generally through patronizing neglect. Another method of de-evangelization is through the "Parish Bulletin" wherein columnists of dubious credentials are given space to implant erroneous ideas within a loose presentation of doctrine. The St. Michael's [Augusta-Winthrop] bulletin of January 4, 2015 contained this nugget of manipulation, as usual, with a distortion of history and then the leap to modern theologians, as if they are the Magisterium alone. Read the following carefully to decipher how clever the writer is when supplanting the faith through innovation: [Emphasis in bold added by me.]
WHY IS MARRIAGE A SACRAMENT? [The column is titled, QUESTIONS CATHOLICS ASK]
"ONE MIGHT SAY marriage grew into sacramentality along the way of church [sic] history. In the time of Jesus, Roman law pronounced people married by mutual consent, eventually integrating the northern European view that marriage was inaugurated by sexual intercourse. All agreed that children were the purpose and goal of the institution. The early church embraced Jewish and Roman philosophies of marriage and added its own rituals.
"Saint Augustine of Hippo (fourth century) first called marriage a sacrament with three "goods": offspring, fidelity, and the sacrament itself. Thomas Aquinas (13th century) radically declared a marriage "in the Lord" as much a sacrament as Baptism and Eucharist. By the Middle Ages marriage was considered one of seven sacraments.
"A theology evolved as the church [sic] considered what makes marriage sacramental, who its rightful ministers are, and how grace might come from an institution centered on human sexuality.
"Theologians of the 20th century moved toward an increasingly biblical understanding of marriage rooted in human sexual nature. The desire for union and the benefits of mutual self-giving took on the gravity of biblical covenant."
Alice L. Camille, Prepare The Word.com
My goodness! First, dogma does not evolve, opinions and ideas do. Dogma is steadfast through the ages and cannot evolve by definition as it is revealed Truth. St. Augustine was not the first to name matrimony as a Sacrament. We know from Apostolic Tradition and 2000 years of Church teaching in fidelity to that Tradition [until recently, that is] that Christ Himself instituted the Seven Sacraments, Signs that confer the grace they signify. St. Paul, ever faithful to Apostolic Tradition instructs us in Ephesians 5: 31-32 thusly:
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.
This is a great sacrament but I speak in Christ and in the Church.
He preaches marriage is a Sacrament, a great Sacrament! No need for evolution, not at all.
Moreover the dogmatic Council of Trent, Session XXIV, declares anathema anyone who would deny that Christ did not institute Marriage as one of the Seven Sacraments! No need for the Church to "grow in sacramentality". Whenever the moderns use the term "grow" or "evolve", what they really mean is that the Church was ignorant of Christ's intentions, that the Apostles by whom His teaching was passed down whole and entire did not understand all of human nature related to the marriage privilege. It is only now in the 19th and more significantly in the 21st century that man can grasp the fundamental nature of human sexuality. Translation, modern man has no use of self-sacrifice in marriage, that is, a generosity that is open to large families for the glory of God and in union with the Social Reign of Christ the King - that his venereal pleasure is first and that if children stand in the way of what he desires, well, contraception is his right. No matter what the modernist denies, when push comes to shove, he invariably ends up admitting to this in one way or another. Or as a holy priest once told me, "Pauly, when you see mischief with doctrine, look below the belt. I do not need to elaborate, I know you know what I mean." I will never forget this insight of his. As events unfolded over the years, I now realize the truth of it as a human given when dealing with the likes of modernists, especially the feminist breed.
The modern world with its depraved attachment to a debased human sexuality, disregarding the natural law and the reason man was created by God in His likeness and image, has decided that the purpose of marriage which the Church has continually taught is not first and foremost, offspring as St. Augustine taught in fidelity to Tradition. Anyone who does not at least approve of contraception is considered an anachronism at the very least and more than likely guilty of harboring hatred toward women.
Note that Alice Camille does not omit this fact [offspring as the first purpose according to St. Augustine], but she implies that it can change because modern theologians have decided that it must in keeping with the disbelief of the last two centuries. She does not say so but 20th century theologians, who are not the Magisterium, are not Tradition, are not the Bible, are code for modernists, whom Pope St. Pius X decimated scathingly in his encyclical Pascendi.
Further note her use of the phrase, "increasingly biblical understanding". This is one of the pet ideas of modernists - that the Bible evolves. They attempted this with some success in the matter of Original Sin and our first parents, Adam and Eve during the papacy of Pope St. Pius X and before that Bl. Pope Pius IX. The Church responded that the Biblical account of the Fall is not allegorical but historical and is to be understood as the Church has traditionally defined, period. Denzinger, the Sources of Catholic Dogma are replete with references to the same. While we can grow in our appreciation and grasp of doctrine it must always be taught with the same meaning and the same context, from age to age. St. Pius X was very clear about this.
And I hold it not with the understanding that a thing can be held which seems better and more suited to the culture of a certain age, but in such a way that nothing else is to be believed than by the words; and I hold that this absolute and unchangeable truth preached by the Apostles from the earliest times is to be understood in no way other than by the words.
Pope Pius X, Oath Against Modernism
Pope St. Pius X reiterated this age old safeguard of the truth by stating in regard to doctrine and any supposed change: "same sense and with the same interpretation."
No evolution! period!
By suggesting that we can follow modern theologians, we are free to embrace sexual pleasure as the first blessing of marriage. This is what the modern Church with its heretical priests and bishops have taught by impression and even outright lies.
I was present at a meeting held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception [no less], the Bishop's parish, where the priest, a modernist in good standing with the diocese as he was then its rector, taught the assembled parishioners that marriage as perennially defined by the Church has changed. I am not kidding. I interjected the word change in order to establish he was specifically and intentionally teaching this and he replied, yes the doctrine was changed at Vatican II - his recollection. Wrong! doctrine cannot change!
He went on to explain that in the past offspring or the begetting of children used to be the primary or first purpose of marriage and the secondary was the mutual giving of love [sexuality]. He said that these two had been switched and that "now the secondary was the primary"! An exact quote.
This was several years ago, so the Camille standard is not so surprising, she is just following all her modern mentors. Now, I have no way of knowing if she is a dupe or an actual dissenter by intent. This is for Christ to judge. However I must judge in the objective, and objectively she has stated a grave error and taught it with subtlety to the parishioners in the pew who are bombarded with these little bombs of evil thought. A bit of poison at a time over time eventually kills.
Denzinger has the citations from Bl. Pope Pius IX on the condemned errors of marriage, one of which is this:
65. In no way can it be asserted that Christ raised matrimony to the dignity of a Sacrament. [Den. 1765]
This statement as written is false and condemned; in other words Christ did raise marriage to a Sacrament. So much for the need of evolution in the understanding of matrimony as a Sacrament per Camille. Her modernist masters have always believed the error that children are not the primary purpose of marriage but have used the progressive method of indoctrination so as to allay any suspicions of the Catholic in the pew who might be alerted by a more frontal attack. Modernists did not arrive at a progressive view of marriage itself, only used the evolutionary method of instilling it into the faithful. Until the re-orientation of the Church ala Vatican II the layman was not so vulnerable. He knew the Faith. No longer and he is often easy prey. The New Mass of Pope Paul VI was the means for inoculating the masses against Tradition and traditional teaching. How you pray is what you come to believe.
The defining modern encyclical on Marriage as a Sacrament remains Pope Pius XI's ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE, Casti Connubii, 1930.
He ratifies the perennial teaching of the Church, which cannot change the definition of any Sacrament in this case - that the first blessing of Marriage is:
9. Therefore the sacred partnership of true marriage is constituted both by the will of God and the will of man. From God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it; while man, through generous surrender of his own person made to another for the whole span of life, becomes, with the help and cooperation of God, the author of each particular marriage, with the duties and blessings annexed thereto from Divine institution.
10. Now when We come to explain, Venerable Brethren, what are the blessings that God has attached to true matrimony, and how great they are, there occur to Us the words of that illustrious Doctor of the Church whom We commemorated recently in Our Encyclical Ad salutem on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of his death: "These," says St. Augustine, "are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; offspring, conjugal faith and the sacrament." And how under these three heads is contained a splendid summary of the whole doctrine of Christian marriage, the holy Doctor himself expressly declares when he said: "By conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This we regard as the law of marriage by which the fruitfulness of nature is adorned and the evil of incontinence is restrained."
11. Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place. And indeed the Creator of the human race Himself, Who in His goodness wishes to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth."He elaborates:
16. The blessing of offspring, however, is not completed by the mere begetting of them, but something else must be added, namely the proper education of the offspring. For the most wise God would have failed to make sufficient provision for children that had been born, and so for the whole human race, if He had not given to those to whom He had entrusted the power and right to beget them, the power also and the right to educate them. For no one can fail to see that children are incapable of providing wholly for themselves, even in matters pertaining to their natural life, and much less in those pertaining to the supernatural, but require for many years to be helped, instructed, and educated by others. Now it is certain that both by the law of nature and of God this right and duty of educating their offspring belongs in the first place to those who began the work of nature by giving them birth, and they are indeed forbidden to leave unfinished this work and so expose it to certain ruin. But in matrimony provision has been made in the best possible way for this education of children that is so necessary, for, since the parents are bound together by an indissoluble bond, the care and mutual help of each is always at hand.
17. Since, however, We have spoken fully elsewhere on the Christian education of youth, let Us sum it all up by quoting once more the words of St. Augustine: "As regards the offspring it is provided that they should be begotten lovingly and educated religiously," ----- and this is also expressed succinctly in the Code of Canon Law ----- "The primary end of marriage is the procreation and the education of children."
18. Nor must We omit to remark, in fine, that since the duty entrusted to parents for the good of their children is of such high dignity and of such great importance, every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state.
19. The second blessing of
matrimony which We said was mentioned by
St. Augustine, is the blessing of conjugal honor which consists in the
mutual fidelity of
the spouses in fulfilling the marriage contract, so that what belongs
to one of the parties by reason
of this contract sanctioned by Divine law, may not be denied to him or
permitted to
any third person; nor may there be conceded to one of the parties
anything which, being contrary
to the rights and laws of God and entirely opposed to matrimonial
faith, can never be
conceded. [Emphasis in bold added by me.]
I won't hold my breath for he is enthralled with modern ideas and never more so than when uttered by Bishop of Rome, Francis, who decimated his diocese in Argentina. Francis is a man of contradictions; a broken clock is correct on occasion, for which we are grateful, but these serve to accentuate all the absurdities. The times are dire for the collapse of the "conciliar" Church continues without surcease, a virtual love affair with novelty and the copious pronouncement of words signifying nothing about salvation, the primary purpose of Peter, to save souls from Hell.
Instead of saving the earth and pursuing a false peace that is not founded on Christ, the Roman Pontiff would do well to remember why Peter is and what the Church is for. Like Camille, Francis has inverted first things with the secondary and even the illusionary, such as declaring that the Koran is a book about peace. We are stewards of the earth, but if souls were truly being saved as they ought, there would be far less need to pontificate about climate change etc., as if mankind has much to do or say about natural forces in cyclical determination. Holy souls filled with supernatural charity also possess natural charity or fraternal charity to a high degree, each according to his state in life. That charity naturally includes stewardship as it is the home in which man temporarily dwells. Souls filled with supernatural zeal and emboldened by courage and fortitude, who take up the banner of Christ the King would not need to be enslaved by government bureaucracy that controls everything for the sake of a grand deception perpetrated by the Evil One - that man is in charge - not God. Our downfall, such hubris and willful blindness! Islam will fill the void, for although it is a great heresy and a system of brute force, the Islamists are not stupid! If Russia - an ally of Iran - is not consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Francis, Bishop of Rome, will soon see just how peaceful the Koran and its adherents really are, not that is!
Western societies are weak because the Church has allowed itself to "auto-destruct" [Pope Paul VI]. The East suffers no such delusion. The Moslem world is not contracepting itself into oblivion!
I need say no more.
www.catholictradition.org/marriage.htm