Noel prayer poem by Tolkien

 “Noel is a beautiful and unusual take on the Christmas story, set in a wintry landscape. The focus is on Mary, which may be why Tolkien wrote the poem for the school magazine, given that we are dedicated to Our Lady.”

Read the beautiful Christmas prayer to Virgin Mary, Noel, by J. R. R. Tolkien below:

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale.
The world was blind, the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come. 

The Remarks of Pope Francis on the Legal Recognition of Homosexual Unions

NOVEMBER 13, 2020 BY DCN. TRACY JAMISON, OCDS 2 COMMENTS

In the documentary “Francesco,” which premiered on October 21, 2020, Pope Francis is recorded in an interview as arguing for the legal recognition of homosexual civil unions:

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable because of it.”

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”

The following day there were news reports that these remarks were originally made in an interview recorded on May 19, 2019, and then edited out by the Vatican. The director of the documentary denied that report and claimed that the comments were made directly to him. But the footage is clearly from 2019, and the remarks are taken out of context and pieced together in an artificial order for greater effect to suit a personal agenda.

In 2010, before being elected to the papal office, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio did in fact propose a limited form of legal recognition of homosexual civil unions as an alternative to the political movement in Argentina to approve homosexual marriage and conduct, to which he firmly and publicly objected. Legal recognition of homosexual couples may be made in two essentially different forms.One form simply grants legal rights to any given couple, regardless of sex, to make a contract in which one party designates the other party as his or her “significant other,” allowing them to share their earnings, to file their taxes jointly, to have access to each other’s personal records, to be covered under each other’s insurance, to inherit a preferential portion of the other’s estate, and the like. The other form of recognition is more radical and specifically permits homosexual couples to make a contract which is legally equivalent to marriage and grants legal rights which are proper only to marriage, such as the right for couples to practice sexual intimacy legally as spouses, or the right to adopt children. The latter form of legal recognition treats homosexual civil unions as equivalent to marriage and is clearly immoral and harmful to society, and Cardinal Bergoglio always opposed it.

Cardinal Bergoglio in Argentina explicitly and publicly taught that homosexual practices are intrinsically evil, and that as a matter of moral necessity homosexual friendships and all other friendships outside of true heterosexual marriage must remain chaste. He recognized that the Catholic Church’s position that homosexual conduct is intrinsically evil is not revisable or changeable. Any proposal or endorsement of a limited legal recognition of homosexual civil unions can be controversial for Catholics because it appears to contradict the authentic teaching of the Church. The Church has consistently opposed all proposals of nations to grant legal recognition to homosexual civil unions, but without making any distinction between the two forms of legal recognition. The bishops of Argentina, invoking the authentic teaching of the Church and John Paul II, understandably rejected Cardinal Bergoglio’s suggestion in 2010 to endorse the more limited form of legal recognition in the attempt to avoid the legal approval of same-sex marriage.

In 2003 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and with the express approval of Pope St. John Paul II, had published the document “Considerations regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons.” The language used against all such proposals is very strong. The bishops of Argentina carefully considered the papal guidance given this document. It is important to be aware of what the document actually says, so we should take time to review some of its relevant guidelines:

“[A]ccording to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies ‘must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.’ They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is, however, ‘objectively disordered,’ and homosexual practices are ‘sins gravely contrary to chastity’.” (4)

“[R]espect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behavior, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.” (11)

“As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.” (7)

“Not even in a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions fulfill the purpose for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition. On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their impact on society were to increase.” (4)

“When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.” (10)

“When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, ‘could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality,’ on condition that his ‘absolute personal opposition’ to such laws was clear and well known and that the danger of scandal was avoided. This does not mean that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment.” (10)

“Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil. In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.” (5)1

It is apparent from this document that St. John Paul II in his authentic papal Magisterium (his authority to teach and interpret the deposit of divine revelation as a successor of St Peter) taught that the legal recognition of homosexual unions is not morally justifiable as material cooperation in evil. And he reaffirmed that we have a moral duty to practice conscientious objection with regard to all unjust laws. Whenever a CDF document carries the express approval of the pope, as this one does, it participates in the ordinary Magisterium of the pope and is therefore authentic teaching.

It is also apparent from this document that St. John Paul II believed that whenever material cooperation in evil cannot be justified by the principle of double-effect and a reasonable estimation of the proportion of the good intended to the evil tolerated, the act of cooperation is morally wrong and must not be committed. Unjustified material cooperation in evil, like formal cooperation in evil, must always be opposed on the grounds that it is morally evil, not merely imprudent. A morally unjustified act of cooperation in evil is objectively evil in virtue of its circumstances, even though its species and motive may be good. This is a basic principle of natural moral law. We therefore ought not to excuse such cooperation as merely imprudent. If we deliberate carefully but make an honest mistake in thinking an act is permissible when it is actually evil, and we go ahead and do it, then subjectively we are not culpable since no evil was intended, but objectively we have nevertheless committed an evil act.

In the 2003 CDF document it appears that St John Paul II believed and intended to teach that no legal recognition of homosexual unions is ever morally justified, and therefore that no nation state is ever morally permitted to grant any legal recognition to homosexual unions whatsoever. Discerning the specific intention of St John Paul II in the document, however, is complicated by its puzzling terminology. It is clear that the practice of same-sex marriage is intrinsically evil. The legal rights proper to marriage (e.g. sexual intimacy, adoption of children) must be granted only to heterosexual couples. The principle of double-effect and the proportion of the intended good to the tolerated evil cannot morally justify the kind of legal recognition of same-sex marriage as material cooperation in evil. Such unjustified cooperation in evil is morally wrong.

But did St John Paul II intend to require conscientious objection not just to same-sex marriage but also to allowing same-sex couples to enter into non-marital contracts in which one citizen designates another citizen as his or her “significant other”? Canonists who are faithful to the Magisterium think not. Dr. Edward Peters, for example, has cogently argued that the terminology in the 2003 CDF document is problematic.2 Indeed, if a state has civil laws which permit non-marital contracts to designate a “significant other,” then it would seem to be a form of unjust discrimination to prohibit same-sex couples from entering into such non-marital contracts. Every citizen has the moral right to form legal contracts with other people for various purposes other than sexual intimacy and the procreation and nurturing of children. There are moral grounds to restrict marital contracts to adult heterosexual couples, but it was not the intent of the 2003 CDF document to require conscientious objection to same-sex couples forming any contracts whatsoever. The intent was only to require conscientious objection to same-sex marriage, where the legal rights proper to marriage are extended to couples naturally incapable of being married, and thus legal approval is given to immoral conduct. The use of the term “homosexual unions” in an unqualified manner is confusing.

The teaching of the Church in general that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage is gravely immoral is authentic interpretation of natural law. So is the teaching of the Church that all people of good will have a moral duty to oppose unjust civil laws. The authentic (third-level) teaching of the Church, however, is somewhat reformable by the Magisterium itself. It is admittedly not infallible. Only first-and-second-level doctrines (the deposit of faith and morals and all Catholic truths which follow from that divinely revealed deposit by logical and historical necessity) have been infallibly taught. But even though authentic (third-level) interpretations of the deposit of faith and morals could contain errors, every legitimate exercise of the authentic papal Magisterium must be interpreted with a hermeneutic of continuity and a principle of charity. Even though it is possible for a legitimate exercise of the authentic papal Magisterium to be in error, it is nevertheless not probable for it to be in error unless the authentic papal Magisterium itself acknowledges that it made a mistake. The faithful owe every exercise of authentic Magisterium an internal assent of mind and heart, even though the teaching is not infallible. Many Catholics nowadays need to be informed or reminded of that obligation.

It should be clear that a pope’s casual public remarks have no authority in Church teaching. Such remarks are often taken out of context and badly distorted in public media. The Church teaches authoritatively at various levels, but the remarks of Pope Francis or any other pope in an interview are not even Church teaching at all. Even if Pope Francis is again suggesting that a more limited legal recognition of homosexual civil unions is a social structure that is a justifiable material cooperation in evil, as he suggested previously in Argentina before accepting the papal office, he is not imposing this opinion on us as a matter of doctrine. The faithful do not owe any kind of assent to such non-magisterial remarks. Furthermore, the non-magisterial interpretations and comments of any pope or bishop on existing magisterial teaching, even his own, are often in error and are not a reliable guide to the authentic Magisterium of the Church. So we are free to disagree with the casual remarks and opinions of the Pope Francis, just as we are free to disagree with the exegetical opinions offered by Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) in his Jesus of Nazareth books.

Clarifying the actual intent of the 2003 CDF document through a legitimate exercise of the authentic papal Magisterium could be very helpful, however, though many people might be inclined to misinterpret and condemn any such qualification, especially if it were made by Pope Francis, whose acts are frequently and unfairly interpreted as advancing a progressive agenda. It is true that the Catholic faithful have an obligation to assent to the approved teaching of St John Paul II in the 2003 CDF document on the legal recognition of homosexual unions, but Francis or another pope could decide to revise and clarify it. Any such revision would merely qualify and essentialize the teaching it by an authoritative interpretation. The Church’s position is not that any legal recognition of homosexual unions is intrinsically evil, but that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage would be a material cooperation in evil that cannot satisfy the principle of double-effect because the overall harm that it does is proportionately greater than the overall good that it does.

Those who do not understand the difference between intrinsically evil acts and acts which materially cooperate in intrinsically evil acts find this confusing. The confusion can only be eliminated by good moral catechesis and better education. And the more limited form of legal recognition, which simply grants legal rights to any given couple, regardless of sex, to make a contract in which one party designates the other party as his or her “significant other” for non-marital purposes, is a remote material cooperation in evil that is morally justifiable because it can in fact satisfy the principle of double-effect. The intent is not to approve of homosexual conduct but only to avoid unjust discrimination with regard to unmarried persons, including people who have a homosexual orientation and a same-sex “significant other.” As Pope Francis has emphasized on many occasions, the real world is morally messy, and the real world is getting messier everyday as the infallible moral teaching of Christ and his Church is rejected.

On various occasions, Pope Francis has in fact publicly practiced conscientious objection to legalizing same-sex marriage. It should be clear at the very least that he firmly upholds the infallible moral teaching of the Church. Nothing in his authentic papal Magisterium even comes close to suggesting that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage is morally justifiable. The principle of charity demands that we interpret the comments of Pope Francis with a hermeneutic of continuity. Pope Francis thus in fact believes that true marriage is inherently heterosexual and procreative, that sexual intimacy is moral only in the context of the proper marital act within a true marriage, that homosexual civil unions are not true marriages, that homosexual unions ought to be chaste friendships, that abortion and contraception are intrinsically evil, that we have a moral duty to oppose civil laws which are contrary to the common good, that every person needs a male father and a female mother to help them shape their identity, and the like. None of these moral doctrines is in question or changeable. Catholics who want these doctrines to change are either ignorant or living in denial. Dissenters ignore the inherent conservative dynamic of the Magisterium and unreasonably expect the Catholic Church to reverse its infallible moral doctrines. The Catholic Church will never make any such changes. That which is intrinsically evil will be always be regarded by the Catholic Church as intrinsically evil, even though the secular world will often disagree and attempt to rationalize immoral conduct.

Pope Francis’ primary concern seems to be with material cooperation in evil, which he thinks is morally justifiable in certain legal, political, and pastoral contexts. The conditions under which material cooperation in evil is morally justifiable are sometimes difficult to judge, and Catholic bishops sometimes disagree on how to make particular applications. We might consider for example the recent disagreement over whether voting for political candidates who have a pro-abortion platform is morally justifiable. In my opinion, it is not morally justifiable. But with regard to the legal recognition of homosexual couples, we need to be careful not to become so concerned to avoid material cooperation in evil that we fall into an unjust form of discrimination.

Those who are conservative in their estimation of the respective proportion naturally regard any legal recognition of homosexual unions as imprudent and inexcusable. Those who are more liberal in their estimation of the respective proportion naturally regard the absolute refusal to grant any legal recognition of homosexual unions whatsoever as rigid and intolerant. If Pope Francis were to clarify the authentic teaching of St. John Paul II magisterially and grant that we can tolerate and materially cooperate with the legal recognition of homosexual non-marital civil unions but must resist and conscientiously object to the legal recognition of homosexual civil unions which pretend to be marriages and which unjustly demand legal rights which are proper to true marriage, then there would be a path of reconciliation open between the two opposing positions.

We must keep in mind that since 2003, most of the Western world has rejected Catholic moral teaching on the issue of homosexual unions and has in fact radically legalized them as if they were marriages, as it previously legalized abortion and other evils. Such legalizations are scandalous and morally corrupting of society. They are unjust civil laws which must be opposed and reversed if possible. The most pressing question now is how to help the faithful to function and maintain employment and raise families in societies which are increasingly secularized and immoral. We need more guidance on this issue, and the authentic teaching of the Church on the issue must continue to undergo legitimate development. Pope Francis and his successors must guide us in how to practice conscientious objection to evil, as well as in how to judge correctly the conditions under which material cooperation in evil is morally permissible. Both of these practical judgments are currently unavoidable, and we need pastoral guidance in both. Like it or not, additional pastoral guidance from Pope Francis is probably coming soon. The teaching of St John Paul II might be slightly revised. But the doctrine that homosexual behavior is intrinsically evil is not changeable. Neither is the doctrine that contraception is intrinsically evil. Those who compromise the doctrine against contraception within true marriage inevitably compromise the doctrine against same-sex marriage. Pope Francis, as a disciple of St Paul VI, understands that dynamic and will not compromise the Church’s moral teaching on human sexuality.

In authentic Church teaching there are clear limits on what is reformable. The point is not to undermine what St John Paul II taught about homosexual civil unions, but to adapt it to the present circumstances, bringing out what is essential in it. As a successor of St. Peter and St. John Paul II, Pope Francis has the authority and power to reform that teaching, but he has not yet done so. Perhaps he is indicating that he intends to do so; perhaps not. If he does decide to qualify the 2003 CDF document on the legal recognition of homosexual unions, he will need to give papal approval to some new CDF document or other teaching instrument which would clearly state the conditions under which legal recognition to non-marital civil unions could morally be given. Many ecclesiastical leaders hope that he will allow the 2003 CDF document to stand unqualified, while others regard this attitude as scrupulous. But the document does need clarification. The concern to avoid being too rigid and the concern to avoid being too lax are equally legitimate and fundamental to having a mature Catholic attitude about material cooperation in evil. Toleration of evil is often morally necessary, but approval of evil is never morally permitted.

In the face of public episcopal disagreement about what the pope should do with regard to legitimate development of Catholic doctrine, every Catholic should recognize and affirm that no infallibly taught moral doctrines can ever lose their doctrinal weight or be changed. We must trust the Holy Spirit and not be alarmed. The devil often uses fear in his attempt to undermine divine authority and encourage rebellion. We should reassure the faithful that the moral teaching of the Church is permanent and will not be compromised. At the same time, following the example of St Francis of Assisi, we should help the faithful to maintain due obedience and reverence to Pope Francis, who stands in continuity with Vatican II, St. John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. To abandon the hermeneutic of continuity is to move in the direction of schism. To understand the actions and intentions of Pope Francis correctly requires us to exercise charity and patience. There are many people nowadays who either intentionally or unintentionally misinterpret his actions and intentions to suit their own agenda either to the political right or to the political left. Pope Francis has a difficult job and must maintain a delicate balance. Let us pray for him.

https://www.hprweb.com/2020/11/the-remarks-of-pope-francis-on-the-legal-recognition-of-homosexual-unions/

Dangerous, Creeping Globalism in the World and in the Church

NOVEMBER 13, 2020 BY R. THOMAS RICHARD, PHD 3 COMMENTS

Part One: The Crisis Grows Closer

This is a very dangerous age we live in. The danger is existential, because the forces at work today ultimately threaten the temporal lives of us all, so boldly and arrogantly do they deny and insult God, and human nature, and the foundations of true virtue and goodness. The enemy of God and man has been at work since the very beginning, in the Garden, of course. The “Tower of Babel” (Gen. 11) was his initial drive for a global city of all mankind working together with one purpose, a “brotherhood,” a “fellowship,” but it was an impossible contradiction because it was apart from God. Indeed it was a reach of man to become “god” unto himself. That is what was then, and it has not changed. Man today is seeking and driving and working toward “a new world order” of one government, embraced by one common religion formed by all religions in mutual accord with one common belief system, all ruled by an elite ruling class headed of course by one, an elite few who know better than the masses of common men, what is good for them and what is best for all, or so they actually believe.

Servants, whether knowing or unknowing, of the enemy today have a new, cleaned-up banner to gather under: “the progressives.” There are progressives in Western governments today, and in Western Christian churches, including the Catholic Church. Progressives are found at all levels of secular government and politics, and at all levels of the Church — our Catholic Church. Progressives’ concerns are temporal, not eternal; material and natural, not spiritual and supernatural; guided not by divine revelation and the indwelling Holy Spirit, but by human reasoning, human learning, human ambitions, cultural formation and finally, the “political correctness” decided by the elite few for their godless self-benefit.

This essay is an attempt to express, as I see it, this grave problem — and to point to the only solution that is true: to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Crisis in the Secular World

Bishop Athanasius Schneider describes the general ideological problem the whole world is facing very well, in his book Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age. He is asked by his interviewer, and he answers:

Montagna: Which ideological and political powers in the current historical moment do you consider the most dangerous for Christianity?

Bp. Schneider: There is ever more evidence of the establishment of a One World Government by the United Nations and ultimately by powerful Masonic organizations, which act behind the scenes in order politically to implement the “novus ordo saeculorum,” the New World Order, the atheist One World Government. This One World Government reveals a clear ideological program which is essentially atheist, materialist, anti-Christian, and even blasphemous, with the totalitarian imposition of abortion “rights,” homosexual indoctrination, the climate change myth and the destruction of national identities through events like the “The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration,” or the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum of Davos, for instance. In its program, the latter promotes the “global order” — as they call it — of “gender equality” under the acronym of “LGBT.”

We know from recent history that interference and manipulation of language is part of the repertoire of authoritarian regimes. Such a recognizably Masonic and atheistic One World Government is in the process of realizing the final Way of the Marxist-Communist plan. Against this real danger of a neo-Marxist and Masonic One World Government, those social and political organizations which have not yet been brought into line with the uniform thinking of the neo-Marxist and Masonic World Ideology, and have therefore retained their freedom of thought and action, should ring the alarm and start to organize a coalition of legitimate resistance, comprising all people with common sense in both East and West and also in Africa and South Asia. The world urgently needs heroic and noble resistance fighters against the world dictatorship which enslaves people through the absurdity of gender ideology, the moral corruption of innocent children, and the genocide of unborn children.1

Crisis in the Religious World, Even the Catholic Church

Quoting Bishop Fulton Sheen, Bishop Schneider points to the foreseen infiltration of this very ideology into religions of the world, including even our Catholic Church. Bp. Schneider continues:2

When Christ was crucified, there remained only one faithful Apostle at His side, St. John, together with Our Lady and the other holy women. From the circumstances of Christ’s Passion, we can better understand the spiritual and even mystical sense of the suffering of Christ’s Bride, the Church. The current crisis within the Church represents the deepest form of suffering, since the Church is now persecuted, scourged, stripped, and derided not by her enemies but to a large extent by her Shepherds, by many of those who are successors of the Apostles, by many traitors in the clerical ranks who are the new Judases.

Here I cannot fail to quote the following words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, which he wrote in 1948 and which are strikingly relevant and significant for the current situation:

“[Satan] will set up a Counter-church, which will be the ape of the Church. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content…. The False Prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit Church. Christ’s Church will be one, and the False Prophet will create the other. The false Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association, a world parliament of Churches. It will be emptied of all divine content; it will be the mystical body of the Antichrist. The Mystical Body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the False Prophet. Satan will recruit him from our bishops.”3

We Catholics have a very special responsibility – to be, to remain, faithful! The responsibility is laid upon the souls of all the baptized, clergy and laity, to remain faithful to our Lord, and to the Holy Faith He has entrusted to us! Cardinal Robert Sarah, faithful Bishop and Cardinal in the Church, serving now in the Vatican, co-authored a book recently of the dangers we face, with co-author Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. The cardinal was interviewed concerning their book, by Edward Pentin:

Pentin: Your Eminence, why did you want to write this book?

Sarah: Because the Christian priesthood is in mortal danger! It’s going through a major crisis.

The discovery of the great number of sexual abuses committed by priests, and even bishops, is an indisputable symptom of this. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had already spoken out strongly on this subject. But then his thinking was distorted and ignored. Just like today, attempts have been made to silence him. And like today, diversionary maneuvers were mounted to divert attention from his prophetic message. Yet I am convinced that he has told us the essential — what no one wants to hear. He has shown that at the root of the abuses committed by clerics, there is a deep flaw in their formation. The priest is a man set apart for the service of God and the Church. He is a consecrated person. His whole life is set apart for God. And yet they wanted to desacralize priestly life. They wanted to trivialize it, to render it profane, to secularize it. They wanted to make the priest a man like any other. Some priests were formed without putting God, prayer, the celebration of Mass, the ardent search for holiness at the center of their lives.

As Benedict XVI said, “Why has pedophilia reached such proportions? In the final analysis, the reason is the absence of God. It is only where Faith no longer determines man’s actions that such crimes are possible.”

Pentin: Precisely how poor has this formation been that you mention, and what have been the effects?

Sarah: Priests have been formed without teaching them that God is the only point of support for their lives, without making them experience that their lives only have meaning through God and for him. Deprived of God, they were left with nothing but power. Some have fallen into the diabolical logic of abuse of authority and sexual crimes. If a priest doesn’t daily experience he is only an instrument in God’s hands, if he doesn’t stand constantly before God to serve him with all his heart, then he risks becoming intoxicated with a sense of power. If a priest’s life is not a consecrated life, then he is in great danger of illusion and diversion.4

The world is in crisis and is approaching an even deeper one. The world needs, by God’s design, His supernatural and saving light in order for humanity to find truth! Thus, He created and formed His Church. His light was intended to shine in the world through His Church; the Church was sent to be His witness to the one Truth we human persons need: Christ Jesus, Son of the only God.

But the Church now, in our day, is stumbling. What are we to do?

Part Two: What Are We To Do?

So what are we to do, Catholic laity and clergy? Laity and clergy, at all levels, must first recognize that a real, grave, urgent crisis has come upon us. As citizens of a nation and as members of His Church, we must become alert and aware of the creeping intrusion of “progressivism” in our ranks. False leaders would guide us away from common sense, confusing our natural human rights, blurring the assurances of baptismal grace and the traditional teachings of our Church — our Sacred Tradition. Some would guide us away from holiness and light and toward ever-darkening ambiguity and imprecision, smearing our understanding by spreading shades of gray where simple clarity once prevailed — the clarity of Truth passed on to us from the beginning. What to do? Cardinal Sarah was asked for his solution:5

Diat: You paint a very somber picture of the state of the world and of the Church. How can we pave the way for a renewal? What program would you propose following?

Card. Sarah: I have no program. When you have a program, it is because you want to achieve a human project. The Church is not an institution that we have to achieve or fashion with our ideas. It is simply necessary to receive from God what he wants to give us. John Paul II already warned us against this tendency to develop Church programs in his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte:

“It is not therefore a matter of inventing a ‘new program.’ The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This program for all times is our program for the Third Millennium.”

Make Disciples!

The way forward really is that simple. We the Church must begin anew to do what Christians have been called to do from the beginning — first become disciples, then, in time, make disciples. First of all, in the formation of priests, and deacons, and bishops, we the Church must make disciples of them. First of all, in the formation and life of the laity in our parishes, we the Church must make disciples of them all. And how can that be done with the laity, if it is not done first with the priests? We the Church must reform the formation of the clergy! It is not enough to teach them how to act out the motions, do the rituals, use the language and explain the doctrines. They must be formed and conformed within, in their interior lives, in their hearts, as men in the image of Christ the High Priest.

This sounds so obvious; how could it be overlooked? But because it is so obvious, no one has taken it seriously for a very long time. Cardinal Sarah said of the formation of priests in the recent past, “Some priests were formed without putting God, prayer, the celebration of Mass, the ardent search for holiness at the center of their lives.” And the result? “Deprived of God, they were left with nothing but power. Some have fallen into the diabolical logic of abuse of authority and sexual crimes.”

Such men as these, left “with nothing but power,” having no vibrant supernatural life within them, define the modern aberration of clericalism. Clericalists are ordained men who are not priests and pastors but professional “hired hands,” managers, CEOs of religious institutions and organizations — not shepherds of His sheep, not servants of the servants of God. They love the pomp and ceremony with themselves as the center of attention, they love the titles and deference paid to them, and the fact that theirs is the last word in any question or conversation of decision. Such men are the kind who love to rule for the sake of ruling; thus, when they are given authority to rule over a parish or a diocese or more, they are happy not to serve but to exercise power. And very sadly, they abuse the power to their own advantage, and continue to pursue their carnal ambitions, having no real, self-sacrificial care for those placed under their rule. Thus, Benedict XVI sees the roots of the modern crisis of homosexual abuse of those under their power: “Why has pedophilia reached such proportions? In the final analysis, the reason is the absence of God. It is only where Faith no longer determines man’s actions that such crimes are possible.”

Consequences of an absence of God in the hearts of some Catholic clergy are carried into all the actions and ministries of these men. Their homilies and teachings, counseling and pastoral planning, administration of the sacraments — all that they do is thin and hollow, lacking in spiritual unction and in the all-important supernatural dimension which is the very essence of all things of God. A man can learn to perform duties, but to bring God into those duties requires God’s gift of Himself to the man, and the man’s reception of God’s Presence and vital grace, habitually. Men can be trained and can learn to deal with supernaturalrealities merely on the natural level, but the result is shallow and barren. To be formed, to embrace and walk in authentic supernatural realities requires — demands — the supernatural virtues and gifts given by the Holy Spirit, abiding alive and active in the man.

Spiritual Formation for Formators

Spiritual formation, and an acceptable level of maturation in the Faith, and in the interior life of prayer, is urgently needed today among many of our priests, our deacons, our bishops and our pope. Only then can they be capable of leading and teaching others to authentically become disciples. Only men so grounded, mature, experienced in the spiritual life can lead parishes, dioceses and the whole Church to our common vocation to holiness. Pope St. John Paul II wrote, in anticipation of the coming millennium:

First of all, I have no hesitation in saying that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness. . . .

It is necessary therefore to rediscover the full practical significance of Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, dedicated to the “universal call to holiness.” The Council Fathers laid such stress on this point, not just to embellish ecclesiology with a kind of spiritual veneer, but to make the call to holiness an intrinsic and essential aspect of their teaching on the Church. The rediscovery of the Church as “mystery,” or as a people “gathered together by the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” (ref. 15) was bound to bring with it a rediscovery of the Church’s “holiness,” understood in the basic sense of belonging to him who is in essence the Holy One, the “thrice Holy” (cf. Isa 6:3). To profess the Church as holy means to point to her as the Bride of Christ, for whom he gave himself precisely in order to make her holy (cf. Eph 5:25-26). This as it were objective gift of holiness is offered to all the baptized.

But the gift in turn becomes a task, which must shape the whole of Christian life: “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Th 4:3). It is a duty which concerns not only certain Christians: “All the Christian faithful, of whatever state or rank, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”6

Traditional Catholic spirituality gives us a name to characterize those we need, urgently, among our clergy and laity today who could lead and guide us all toward this common call to holiness: we need men and women illuminated in the Holy Spirit. We need Catholic leaders and teachers who are in “the Illuminative Way.” Spiritual theology describes the three stages, or ages, or “ways” of the interior life of God in the souls of believers: those in the Beginners or Purgative Way, those in the Progressing or Illuminative Way, and those in the Perfect or Unitive Way.

The religious life of the beginner in the Purgative Way is one confined to what we can do (with the ordinary graces of Baptism) to grow toward God; our prayer life includes first formula prayers and spontaneous spoken prayers, which is intended to expand into discursive meditation or mental prayer, which is intended to develop into a growing simplification of such ascetical prayers, to what is called the prayer of simplicity — the “highest form” of ascetical prayer — sometimes also called “acquired contemplation.” This first beginning Way appears to characterize the usual prayer life of many if not most Catholics, laity and clergy, excluding (I hope) those in religious orders who have progressed to infused contemplation (a higher form of prayer integral to the journey to holiness).

If the generous soul is graced by God to grow beyond ascetical prayer and into mystical prayer of the Illuminative Way, spiritual life becomes radically different – and more and more so, if and as the soul more generously cooperates with God in these new graces given him here. In the Illuminative Way, in the prayer of infused contemplation, God — not the man — is the primary and active agent. The man must become not “passive” but an active responder and cooperator. This Way is first entered in darkness and trial, the Dark Night of the Senses. But after persevering through this darkness, the dawn brings new and supernatural lights and virtues and intimacy with the Lord, and the Blessed Presence of the Holy Spirit. Here, the disciple’s walk enters into the supernatural dimension, and the supernatural realities of the Faith become illuminated in clarities impossible to fully describe to those not yet having experienced it. The final Stage, the Unitive Way, ought to be our goal! Discussion of that blessed place is beyond the scope of this essay.

Here, in the Illuminative Way, is found the present and the abiding Holy Spirit, with His gifts, and His guidance, and His supernatural light and life. This describes a needed qualification to possess, for a teacher or formator of Catholic clergy or laity who are all called to strive for holiness: persons come into the Illuminative Way of the interior life. We the Church cannot continue to settle for less, in the teachers and formators of clergy and laity. Teachers cannot give what they do not have. Such teachers cannot even understand what they do not have and many of such teachers (likely) have never even heard of these things! Carnal, natural men cannot form anyone into the supernatural reality of holiness. Such a condition in the Church, where the blind are leading the blind, can only spiral down from worse to worse, and end badly.

The Church needs to recognize the affliction of our times, and begin to take the danger seriously. If we will begin, we can progress; if we head toward the light, we can begin to see. If we listen to our Tradition, and to the saints, and to our Lord! we can begin to correct a long-traveled path to mediocrity, and return to God His due: our humble hearts, our willing souls, our humble discipleship in His Truth.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., wrote beautifully of the Illuminative Way, including the very relevant place that such believers, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, have in the apostolate of the Church. Where Beginners may be hard to recruit and slow to enter the rightful works and ministry of a parish, those in the Illuminative Way are seeking with zeal to work the works of the One who sent them, in His Church:

Consequently, good works, even monumental ones, become the hallmark of the illuminative way. Dom Chautard in The Soul of the Apostolate suggests that the effectiveness of the Church’s apostolate is directly related to the number of Christians who have entered the illuminative way.

Charity, creativity, zeal are no longer seen as responsibilities as they had been in the last movements of the purgative way. They are a response that brings some peace and balance to one who has begun to understand St. Francis when, in tears, he went banging on the doors of Assisi, rousing the sleeping townsfolk with his cry: “Love is not loved.”

The prayer life of those in the illuminative way is much changed. It flows like a God-given spring from the earth rather than through the valves and pumps of a human-made fountain, says St. Teresa. It has a gentle joy and release in it. God is everywhere. Christ shows Himself in the good and the beautiful and His Cross is seen in the ugly and the terrifying. The mind is filled with images; the heart greatly overflows and is set on fire. Techniques are discarded, they become “excess baggage” because He is there.

The Christian in the illuminative way lives on Scripture and is fed on the writings of the saints. Reverence and awe are growing in his inner life and the soul is now seen not so much as a shadow being but as the inner place where the Trinity abides in glory. The liturgy of the Church on earth is a vital link with the heavenly liturgy for which one longs. The moral life of the individual is epitomized by Our Lady whose prayerful life becomes the model of response. An arc of flame reaches from earth to heaven and back again. Although one suffers, at times intensely, for the Church, for the human race, for the young, the old, and the dying, the pain is at least in some way united with the Incarnate Word in the mystery of divine love.

As the illuminative way proceeds, a silence and calm envelop the individual. This is reflected mostly in prayer — “the prayer of quiet” — wherein listening brings more answers than speaking.7

A specific blessing that those in the Illuminative Way can bring to the Church, and a parish, is a fervent and true devotion to Mary, our mother in Christ. The increase and deepening of Marian devotion among these believers, is a crucial need in the Church in our time — a need which is supernaturally provided in the light of the Illuminative Way. Mary is greatly neglected, even marginalized, in many parishes today. This is a profound poverty in the heart of today’s Church, a poverty that effects every aspect of the Church: her interior life of prayer, her evangelistic outreach (where one exists), her programs and parish initiatives, her worship, everything in the parish. She is our Mother in Christ! And the family without the mother is far from God’s intention. Pope St. John Paul II in an address to the Legion of Mary on Oct. 30, 1982, said:

“Where the Mother is, there too is the Son. When one moves away from the Mother, sooner or later he ends up keeping distant from the Son as well. It is no wonder that today, in various sectors of secularised society, we note a widespread crisis of faith in God, preceded by a drop in devotion to the Virgin Mother.”8

Thus the significance of Mary’s presence in the Church — or her absence — in the hearts of Catholics and in the apostolate, is immense. I pointed this out, also, in my book, The Ordinary Path to Holiness:9

The relationship of a Christian with Jesus Christ changes radically in the illuminative stage: he comes to know the Risen Lord! There is another radical change which often occurs in this stage, in the relationship of the Christian with Mary. This is a subject worthy of much attention, but for now we can note that in the illuminative stage, Mary also is known in a new and more intimate way. From the foot of the cross the words of Jesus become piercing and personal. Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19:27) The personal experience of the cross, which ushers in the illuminative stage and relationship with the Risen Christ, reveals the great dignity of Mary. Before the cross, she was the mother of Jesus, certainly worthy of respect and love. But in the illuminative stage a previously hidden glory begins to emanate from this woman. She is my mother! She is the Mother of all the Church! And I take her into my “own home.”

Conclusion

The world needs the Church — and the Church needs her Lord, and all that her Lord entrusted to her. We need our Mother. We need the Sacraments. We need all that He revealed, and all that has been authentically developed through the work of the Spirit. We need the spiritual theology discerned through the Spirit by the holy saints. Through His gifts, we need to live in His grace.

We cannot live with one foot in the godless secular culture, and one foot on the threshold of His Church! We cannot live in the contradiction of a Church without supernatural dimension, without mystical prayer, without the active Presence of the Holy Spirit — a mere natural organization of two-dimensional human fellowship, perhaps with social good works, using the language of things supernatural, but moved in natural ways for natural ends. No man can serve two masters, nor continue in two minds and with two hearts. Duplicity is deadly — fatal — for persons called into the supernatural truth and life of the only true God. Church, repent! While it is still day, return to your Lord! It’s not dark yet, but we are getting there. The answer to all the dangers of these days is Christ in the life and power of His Holy Spirit.

https://www.hprweb.com/2020/11/dangerous-creeping-globalism-in-the-world-and-in-the-church/