What does Liberalism mean in Catholicism? It means that a person or group rejecting the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in specific matters of doctrine, discipline, or church government but accepting the body of its teachings or its forms of worship. The Catholic Church has been steeped in liberalism for years unbeknownst to many complacent Catholics. The quote below of Pope Paul VI toward the end of the Vatican Council II confirms it. “… We would say that, through some mysterious crack—no, it’s not mysterious; through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God.” There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation. The obvious signs of liberalism in the Catholic Church can be traced back to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). This was an epochal event in the history of the Church, as it marked a turning point in the Catholic Church's approach to the outside world. During the Council, the Catholic Church released a number of documents that called for greater openness, dialogue, and collaboration with the world. These documents included the 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae), which declared that individuals have the right to freedom of conscience and religious liberty, as well as the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, which emphasized the importance of social justice, the pursuit of global peace, and the responsibility of each individual to help the poor. These documents were seen as a break from the traditional, rigid stance of the Catholic Church, and are considered to be the first signs of liberalism in the Church. In actuality we already had signs of Liberalism among Catholics even before the 1789 French Revolution, Pope Gregory XVI condemned it with his 1832 encyclical Mirari Vos, and very specifically Pope Pius IX with his encyclical Quanta Cura and the Syllabus attached to it in 1864. Then it was notably St Pius X against what was described as Neo-liberalism with his 1906 encyclical Vehementer, condemning the Separation of Church and State (and consequently the Secular State), which Liberal Catholics advocated in the same vein as Chateaubriand’s The Genius of Christianity in 1802 (“neither truth nor the Church need any temporal protection”), and his 1910 apostolic letter Our Apostolic Mandate against the French Progressivist movement known as Le Sillon (The Furrow). We can tell if the Catholic Church is steeped in liberalism by looking at the way the church operates. For example, the Catholic Church also allows “divorce” through marriage annulments (it is now very easy to get an annulment for the false reasons, such as "you were too young", "you were not mature enough", "you did not succeed in forming a good couple", etc..) This is a liberal policy because it allows people to end their marriages. What happened to “till death do us part.”? The Catholic Church also allows contraception. This is a liberal policy because it allows people to have sexual relationships without having children. “ Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18 However, the following are more recent indications that suggest the more liberal or progressive direction within the Catholic Church:
Liberals do not understand the first and greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind” (Mt. 22:37). The Liberals would say: How can this be love, if it is commanded? For them the law is opposed to liberty, to love. A Law of Love is incomprehensible for them! Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Law is a Law of Love! It is true love, because we have the psychological liberty not to love God (We CAN reject Him.); it is a Law because we are duty-bound to love Him (We are NOT ALLOWED to reject Him!). He is our Creator. God is the Summum Bonum, the Supreme Good. His Goodness attracts our love powerfully; but His Supremacy imposes on us a duty to love Him. Every created thing, compared to the Creator, is like nothing: a finite thing compared to the Infinite is as nothing. This is why Our Lord says to the young man thirsting for perfection: “God alone is Good!” that is: God alone is worthy to be loved; everything else is as dust in comparison: “Vanity of vanities and all is vanity.” Thus, the Church teaches us to pray: “May thy holy mysteries, O Lord Jesus, produce in us a divine fervor, whereby having tasted the sweetness of thy most dear Heart, we may learn to despise earthly things and love those of heaven!” Now the Liberals have taken away this prayer: they no longer want to despise the things of the earth! True liberty is always in regard to inferior things; false liberty is in regard to superior realities. Liberals, wanting to be free from God, become slaves to earthly things! In one word, the Liberals reject God’s Supremacy, they relativize it, and set up a new absolute: Liberty! My personal opinion is that when a Catholic who is faithful to the Church’s teachings, God’s Commandments, one who reads (what were written by the Saints) to feed his soul and one who prays often especially the Rosary, one who centers his life on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he would be obedient according to Church teachings and not have become a Liberal. It is not possible to understand the present crisis of the Church, or to know the true character of the people in present-day Rome, or to find out the proper attitude to take vis-a-vis the events, without investigating the causes. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to go back into history and discover the primary cause in that Liberalism condemned by the popes for the past two centuries. On the basis of keeping God’s Commandments, to us Catholics, true freedom is not a matter of doing what you want without restraint, but cultivating the right wants and living in obedience to God's will. In other words, freedom results when our wants align with God's will. (It is our responsibility to save our souls.) Freedom and Responsibility:
Our Lord came to set us free. Freedom is at the heart of the Christian message. Christianity is not a religion constraining our freedom, as many think it is. This religion is about liberation; liberation from sin and ungodliness, Liberation from all which separates us from God and one another. Freedom is a calling to realize in ourselves what is true about us, a calling to actualize in us all what is true, good, and beautiful. The Lord came to set us free! In the Book of the Romans St. Paul tells us that some become slaves to sin when they act in ways they know are evil. Thus, freedom is not simply 'doing my thing' but rather a call to live as according to a right order. According to God’s commandments. Edmund Burke was right when he described such freedom, 'The only liberty I mean is a liberty connected with order, that not only exist along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them.' Freedom is to do what we must.There is then a clear link between freedom and duty, between liberty and virtue. Religion and education are then essential to a truly free society as they mold the moral ecology of a community. When did the Catholic Church become liberal? Liberal Catholicism is a formerly widespread modernist current of thought within the Catholic Church seeking the reconciliation of Catholic teaching with classical liberalism and/or liberal democracy. It was influential in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, especially in France and the United Kingdom. It is also distinct from both the attitude of Catholics who are described as theologically "progressive Christian" or "liberal Christians", who are deemed now as heretical by the Catholic Church. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. When did the Catholic Church change? The Catholic Church engaged in a comprehensive process of reform following the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Intended as a continuation of Vatican I, under Pope John XXIII the council developed into an engine of modernisation. Liberalism is a sin. “Liberalism is the root of heresy, the tree of evil in whose branches all the harpies of infidelity find ample shelter; it is today the evil of all evils.” Dr. Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany Liberalism is the program of naturalism. Free-thought begets free morals, or immorality. Restraint is thrown off and a free rein given to the passions. Whoever thinks what he pleases will do what he pleases. Liberalism in the intellectual order is license in the moral order. Disorder in the intellect begets disorder in the heart, and vice-versa. Thus does Liberalism propagate immorality, and immorality Liberalism." (Ch. 26). Liberalism "is, therefore, the radical and universal denial of all divine truth and Christian dogma, the primal type of all heresy, and the supreme rebellion against the authority of God and His Church. As with Lucifer, its maxim is, 'I will not serve.'" (Ch. 3). "Liberalism, whether in the doctrinal or practical order, is a sin. In the doctrinal order, it is heresy, and consequently a mortal sin against faith. In the practical order, it is a sin against the commandments of God and of the Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments. To be more precise: in the doctrinal order, Liberalism strikes at the very foundations of faith; it is heresy radical and universal, because within it are comprehended all heresies. In the practical order it is a radical and universal infraction of the divine law, since it sanctions and authorizes all infractions of that law." (Ch. 3). The Catholic Church since Vatican II. In accordance with Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church officially abandoned its “one true church” position and formally ended the thousand-year schism with the Greek Orthodox Church. It also entered into ecumenical conversations with other churches with the hope of establishing greater Christian unity. The church has assumed observer status in the World Council of Churches and has participated in groups associated with the World Council. Representatives of the church participated in the discussions sponsored by the World Council that led to the publication of the important document Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (1982), which identified areas of agreement between the churches on several core teachings; the church responded positively, though with qualification, to the text. Steps to improve relations with non-Christian religions were made at Vatican II and by the popes of the later 20th century. The council’s declaration Nostra aetate (October 28, 1965; “In Our Era”) rejected the traditional accusation that the Jews killed Christ, recognized the legitimacy of Judaism, and condemned anti-Semitism. Efforts at improving relations with other religions, especially Judaism, were pivotal to the papacy of John Paul II, who prayed with world religious leaders in 1986, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and prayed in a mosque and a synagogue. The openness of the Catholic church following Vatican II took surprising forms in places such as Latin America, where many local church leaders supported liberation theology (the Latin American movement that sought to aid the poor as a religious duty and criticized existing socioeconomic structures) in the 1970s. For a time, the church adopted a less confrontational approach to communist governments in the hope of improving the lives of Catholics in those countries. Following the election of John Paul II, however, the church supported opposition movements in communist eastern Europe and suppressed liberation theology; at the same time, it remained keenly involved in international affairs, as the pope undertook numerous pastoral visits throughout the world. Problems, however, have been more in evidence than progress. The church faced the challenge of resolving the long-latent conflict between the hierarchy and the lower clergy over the tradition of total obedience in lifestyle and ministry. This conflict has come to a head on the issue of clerical celibacy; although there are no sure statistics, there are estimates that as many as one-half of Catholic clergy wish celibacy to be optional. The issue of clerical celibacy was raised anew in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when members of the clergy, as discussed earlier, were accused of sexually abusing minors. However, some have argued that pedophilia is unrelated to the celibacy requirement, claiming that the root of the sex abuse lies in the infiltration of the clergy by sexual predators seeking to exploit priests’ easy access to children. "There was also discontent among the clergy regarding the nature of the church’s ministry. Many religious workers felt that the conventional ministries were not reaching enough people and were not meeting their most urgent needs. The desire to work “in the world,” while hardly alien to the New Testament ministry, was not easily satisfied within the traditional roles assigned to the clergy. And what might have appeared to be a minor issue in some places became a major issue in others; many priests and religious (women religious in particular, who have had more of a problem) no longer wished to wear the identifying garb, because they believed it to be an obstacle to personal relations. The discontent with life and ministry led to a large number of departures from the priesthood, most dramatically following Paul VI’s encyclical Sacerdotalis caelibatus (June 24, 1967; “Priestly Celibacy”), which confirmed the necessity of celibacy. The laity too became more restive, and many left the church for a variety of reasons, including the church’s teachings on artificial birth control. Some left because they believed the reforms of Vatican II were too liberal. More generally, there was a widespread but not explicit rejection of the traditional uses of authority and obedience in Roman Catholic clergy and religious communities. Vatican II also made profound changes in the liturgical practices of the Roman rite. It approved the translation of the liturgy into vernacular languages to permit greater participation in the worship service and to make the sacraments more intelligible to the vast majority of the laity. The change, a sharp break with the older tradition of using Latin in worship, caused discomfort for some but allowed for adaptation of the liturgy according to the needs and desires of many throughout the world. Perhaps the most significant change brought about by Vatican II was the beginning of what the German theologian Karl Rahner (1904–1984) called the emergence of the Weltkirche (German: “world church”). Vatican II was not dominated by the churches of Europe and the Americas, the traditional centres of Catholic strength. The Weltkirche continued to develop during the rest of the 20th century, as the Catholic church established a vigorous presence in Africa and parts of Asia and became a more prominent and outspoken church in Central and Latin America. The shifting demographics of contemporary Roman Catholicism have presented the church with a number of challenges. How should it respond to declining church attendance, declining numbers of religious, and the increasing secularism in the West and in the traditionally Catholic countries of Europe in particular? Would the ordination of women and married men check these trends? How should the church respond to the growing numbers of Muslims in some of these countries? How should it adapt its message and its practice in non-Western regions of the world, especially Africa? How should it balance papal authority over the entire church and the rights of the bishops over the local churches so as to avoid centralized authoritarianism on the one hand and the loss of unity on the other? What pastoral strategies should be used to combat the aggressive evangelization by fundamentalist groups in Latin America? Such challenges are among many that will face the church in the new millennium as it tries to be faithful to that Gospel dictum of “bringing forth old things and new.” Lawrence Cunningham, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Traditionally, when a priest administers Holy Communion, he will say “Corpus Domini Nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam, Amen,” which in English means “May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting. Amen.” Because the priest says “Amen,” there is no need to respond to him as you await reception of the Sacrament. “Ecumenism leads to the loss of faith, and many have lost it because of ecumenism. It is making Catholics into Protestants. When one wants to please Protestants (other Christian denominations) at all costs, one becomes Protestant!
Now, in the face of this program of ecumenism, what can one do? The first thing is to keep the Faith (the Traditional Catholic faith), begging Our Lord in His Divine Goodness that He deign to keep you in the true Faith, without changing your faith, without any diminishment. Then live the Faith. St. Paul says: "The just man lives by faith," that is, everything he does is in the light of faith, obeying the Commandments out of love for Our Lord Jesus Christ. You are the light of the world [by your faith]..so let your light shine before man, that they may see your good works [faith working through charity] and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Then, communicate your faith to your children by giving them a good catechism, by providing for them a good school - by giving them good examples, by teaching the Faith to your children. In order to teach the faith you have to learn the faith yourself! It is important for you to study your faith, to know Catholic doctrine. I would advise you to read excellent books such as The Catechism of the Council of Trent—beautiful books that will help you to feed your Faith. Don't spend too much time reading about scandals, but spend more time reading the doctrine of the saints, learning your Faith, and communicating it to your children, to your neighbors, to whomever. Whenever you meet someone, you might be able to bring them closer to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual things are not like material things: when you give material things, it is finished, you don't have them anymore; but, spiritual things, when you give them you don't lose them, you still have them. If there is a teacher among you, he understands. In a similar way, the more you communicate your Faith, the more you have it. Now if Faith and these spiritual treasures are of such a nature that the more you give them the more you have them, then it is a duty to communicate them by your prayers, by your good example, by predication, by all the means that Our Lord has shown to you. Any occasion can be good to profess your Faith. The good seed that you put in the ground might grow one day, and will render glory to God. You never know! So even though many people might laugh at you, might criticize you, don't fear to profess your Faith. One of the best professions of Faith that you can make is to come to the traditional Mass, because that is a complete and full profession of the Catholic Faith. With the traditional Mass, it is clear: it is Catholic. So you must love the Mass! You have the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel, go and visit Him; organize some hours when there is always someone in the chapel; even better organize Perpetual Adoration: we owe this to Him! Come and visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament! You need Him to feed your souls in the Mystery of Faith, to strengthen your soul and bring many graces on you and on your family. And if you love Our Lord, then you must love one another. St. Jerome said that at the beginning of the Church the pagans were looking at the Catholics and were saying: "Look how much they love one another." The example of charity among all of you is also a great testimony given for Our Lord! It makes the Faith warm and attractive to souls. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Guardian of the Faith, help you to keep the true Faith in her Divine Son Jesus Christ, to live it, to communicate it with the "meekness of wisdom" and charity. Amen.” Excerpt of an article on Ecumenism by Fr. Francois Liasney.
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