By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of the book Call to Action or Call to Apostasy, consisting of a detailed description of the current forms of dissent and how to fight them, e-mail him at bclowes@
hli.org.)
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“They condemn themselves. We don’t have to judge them. They are going to Hell and they are taking others with them. . . . I think one of the problems is that we do not talk about Hell today, and I think that is one of the reasons why so many Catholics are leaving the Church. . . . St. Paul said the dissenters were puffed up with vanity, and spoke only for money, out of their twisted minds. The dissenters have already been condemned” — Edouard Cardinal Gagnon (1918-2007).
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What It Means
To Be Apostolic
One Church With One Mission: The Church remains built on the “foundation of the apostles” and their teachings communicated by Christ, and continues to be guided by them, through their successors in pastoral office (the bishops), until the Second Coming of Christ.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 863) says: “The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin: And in that she is ‘sent out’ into the whole world. All members of the Church share in this mission, though in various ways.”
Every Catholic has been commanded by Christ Himself to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). We, as members of the Church Militant, do this by confronting and defeating the Culture of Death, not only in front of abortion clinics, but with those we know and, most importantly, within ourselves.
The modernist virus, however, has penetrated far into the Roman Catholic Church, and the three most serious symptoms crippling her ability to carry out her apostolic mission are: 1) an inappropriate and broadly applied tolerance of evil, 2) a false and enervating dialogue meant to disarm Catholics, and 3) Call to Action-style small faith communities, or SFCs.
The Role Of “Tolerance.” The Culture of Death, through all of the anti-life and dissenting groups, works perniciously by telling people that they are “fine just the way they are.” Thus, dissenters prize nonjudgmentalism and tolerance above all other virtues.
Tolerance of diversity can be good, but only if the diversity conforms to the will of God. Tolerance of “diversity” in the form of such mortal sins as contraception, abortion, adultery, fornication, euthanasia, pornography, and homosexual acts is a false compassion that can only lead to condemnation, as Prov. 14:12 tells us: “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
The authentically Christian and truly loving course of action is not to be blindly tolerant of everyone’s “lifestyles,” but to decide in line with Catholic teaching what behavior to tolerate and what behavior not to tolerate. The members of the Church Militant must learn the difference between virtuous intolerance and non-virtuous tolerance, because the latter is antithetical to the apostolic mission of the Church.
It may be difficult to confront a friend, relative, or acquaintance about the sinfulness of, say, abortion or homosexual activity. However, we should ask ourselves this question: Do we want to avoid conflict and allow those participating in these activities to comfortably go to Hell, or do we want to take a risk and attempt to put them on the road to Heaven, where they can share eternal happiness with us?
If there is any doubt, just ask yourself honestly: “What is Jesus going to say about this particular situation at my particular judgment?”
As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen warned:
“America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded. . . . In face of this broadmindedness, what the world needs is intolerance.”
If such steadfast resistance sounds harsh or “intolerant,” just remember that intolerance of evil is never wrong. Besides, dissenting and anti-life organizations never tolerate dissenting views among their own members. There are several prominent examples of members of dissenting and anti-life groups who dared to think differently from the rest (i.e., expressed an orthodox or slightly pro-life thought), and were publicly castigated and ejected from their organizations.
The authentic Catholic must always be intolerant toward sin in himself and in others. It is not enough that we not practice evil ourselves; we have a God-given duty toward others to warn them of their sin. In Ezek. 3:18-19, God tells us:
“If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. . . . But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life.”
The rot of non-virtuous (i.e., cowardly) tolerance has spread far in our churches, striking even at the heart of our liturgies. This decay is already far advanced in mainline Protestant denominations, and has been threatening the Catholic Church for 30 years.
We have seen that many Protestant denominations have jettisoned from their hymnals such great traditional hymns as God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, Faith of Our Fathers, and Once to Every Man and Nation, claiming that they are “sexist.” They did not want to seem “militaristic,” so they dumped Onward, Christian Soldiers and even The Battle Hymn of the Republic. And, in order to avoid offending the handicapped, they even went so far as to discard Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus!
Just because we are Catholic, we should not congratulate ourselves on having successfully resisted such nonsense for the most part. Just a quick glance through the hymnals of most Catholic churches will dispel this misconception.
Music has always stirred our souls. But in many Catholic churches, all that remains is a hymnal packed with inclusive, non-sexist, non-militaristic, non-homophobic elevator Muzak that will stir absolutely nobody to authentic Christian evangelism or action. And this, of course, is exactly the result the modernists desire.
Sr. Deirdre Brown of Australia wrote such a hymn entitled Come as You Are, which heavily stresses tolerance and illustrates this principle:
“Come as you are, that’s how I want you/ Come as you are, being quite at home./ Close to my heart, loved and forgiven,/ Come as you are, why stand alone?/ Don’t run away, shamed and forgotten,/ Rest in my love, trust me again./ I came to call sinners, not just the virtuous,/ I came to bring peace, not to condemn.”
This hymn is fine as far as it goes, but it possesses no second stanza that speaks of turning away from our sins and repenting of them. The message is: “Just come as you are, with all of your sins, and we will be loving, tolerant, and accepting of you just the way you are.” There is no mention of change, no hint of pursuing holiness at all.
Needless to say, if Catholics are tolerant of sin and perverse “lifestyles,” the apostolic mission of the Church will be crippled.
The modernist dissenters know this, and have produced two other weapons designed to blunt the authentic evangelical message of the Church and replace it with a false compassion: “Dialogue” and CTA-style small-faith communities.
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