By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
I am currently working my way through a sociological and psychological work entitled The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. In this academic pursuit of over 400 pages, a Christian professor by the name of Carl R. Trueman attempts to explain, among other things, why so many people are no longer Christian. Or, rather, why a significant number of people who describe themselves as Christian have in fact ceased to assent fully with intellect and will to all that the Church teaches in matters of faith and morals.
We’ve seen recently the evidence of the crisis in Eucharistic belief among practicing Catholics. A Pew Research survey found that a mere one-third of Catholics believe Transubstantiation takes place at Holy Mass so that, as a result, the host and the wine become the true, Real and substantial Presence of Jesus Christ.
At their November meeting, the bishops hoped to tackle both that and the scandal of public sinners, including the current president and the speaker of the House, receiving Communion while at the same time aggressively promoting the legal slaughter of human babies in the womb.
Add to this the moral crisis of the LGBTQ+ morass embroiling many Catholic families and you’ve got quite a challenge to the impetus of evangelization.
Trueman analyzes the “Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution,” as the book’s subtitle describes the current social condition. One of the reasons for the breakdown between church and society is what Trueman describes as a shift in understanding of the self.
There has occurred a shift from mimesis, as he calls it, wherein an individual conforms himself or herself to align with creation, religion, and morality as received through tradition, family, and society to a contrary system. Now instead there is a dominant phenomenon described as poiesis, whereby the individual instead decides, based on feelings and personal proclivity, to seek that the outer world be conformed to the inner, felt reality.
Hence, the lawsuits brought by sodomites against bakers and florists. And the complete surrender to subjectivism and moral relativism on the part of purported Catholic Justice Anthony Kennedy who came up with this zinger in the court’s Casey decision: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
Kennedy’s intellectual acrobatics in Casey were the melodramatic attempt to support continuation of a constitutional “right” to legally murder millions of preborn children annually.
There is perhaps no more potent example or description of the triumph of the concept of poiesis at the very highest levels of power. Kennedy confirms what Trueman describes as the complete disconnect today between the laws of nature and of God and the inner psyche of many modern individuals.
There is no issue more important in our day than the sanctity of human life. Our bishops crossed swords publicly over the issue last spring and only after a struggle did they successfully as a group agree to designate the fight for life from womb to tomb as the “preeminent” issue, to use their descriptive.
In times of confusion and disarray such as our own, with the swirl of agendas to include the COVID vaccine mandates, the crisis of belief in basic doctrines and plummeting Sunday Mass attendance, only leadership can provide the answer. The crisis of leadership is the crisis of our times. As long as Biden and Pelosi are setting the agenda, poiesis will continue to roil the Church and war against reception of the truth that comes by means of Scripture and tradition for the salvation of souls.
The recent polite statement, The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church, by the USCCB, extolling the glories of the Eucharist and calling us to Catholic faith in the Eucharistic presence of our Lord, is lovely in many ways, but does not accomplish the primary task of leadership. Only leaders can make the individual interventions necessary to stem heresy and correct erring sheep.
All the beautiful words about the Eucharist mean nothing if, in the end, the truth they express is not defended against the wolves who demoralize and scatter the flock, against evil men and women like Biden and Pelosi who scandalize and undermine the faith of millions.
The bishops answer to the Lord above all others for defending the truth, both to save the souls who hold the truth and call to repentance those who do not. As long as the bishops reward with public political support the aggressively pro-child killing officials by giving them Communion, and ordering priests also to do so, they betray Christ and souls.
Canon 915 would not exist if the above were not true. As well, no good shepherd ever actively assists in the damnation of another soul, as happens in the case of reception of Communion by pro-abort pols.
Bishop Strickland expressed regret via Twitter for not speaking out with greater force or effectiveness in the face of sacrilegious politicians:
“Jesus forgive me for being a weak bishop and failing to speak more boldly and lovingly to President Biden who promotes the slaughter of unborn children & still receives the Body of Christ in Communion. Jesus give me the grace to speak more boldly against the sacrilege he is committing.”
Bishop Strickland’s touching apology remains as the testimony of a minority voice.
The public face of the Church becomes increasingly one of heresy and apostasy: that the faith is formless, and that each of us are to define for ourselves what to believe and whether or not to receive Communion. See Amoris Laetitia for more details.
In the Church reception of Communion is an empty act, devoid of meaning, having no connection to what one believes or even if one believes. The priest is an onlooker or an enabler, functioning merely to rubber stamp or affirm the individual choice.
While the Church is attacked from the outside by vaccine mandates, shutdowns, restrictions, the Church is also attacked from inside by unbelieving baptized Catholics, modernist liturgical iconoclasts, political public sinners, and the St. Gallen front man in white. He will not exclude Biden or Pelosi from Communion any more than he will do so for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. This would serve only to stall and jeopardize the agenda.
We are left then with an atomized collection of small communities who still choose the apostolic faith and integral teaching, gathered around priests and, in some cases, bishops who still preach and teach the tradition unapologetically.
These live hidden lives, countersigns to the public face of a Church bowed and kneeling in surrender to whichever contemporary ethos is triumphant at a given moment.
The remnant will continue on, battered and bruised, but limping toward eternity, home-schooling families having babies, priests offering the ancient Mass, all withdrawing increasingly from engagement with a disbelieving and hostile world, wondering when the next ecclesiastical hammer will fall on those who simply do what the Church has always done.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ now and forever.
apriestlife.blogspot.com
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress