Sunday, January 07, 2007
SO FATHER, IS HELL EMPTY ?
The Christmas Eve Mass was upsetting enough to have me considering if it was possible to still be Roman Catholic, given that I can't seem to find a place to practice the Roman Catholic faith. Today's homily nearly confirmed my suspicions that it probably is not.
It's not that I've changed.
On second thought, in a sense I have changed. I know what I didn't know 40 years ago. I know what Masonic doctrine looks like, and thus I know it when I hear it given from the pulpit. While I'm listening to it quietly in a Church where I'm attempting to worship Christ, those inconvenient Popes of old with their encyclicals condemning it, are circulating in my thoughts. Universalism is Masonic, not Roman Catholic, even when it's coming from the mouth of a Roman Catholic priest.
Again today we heard about the congressman who will take his oath of office on the Koran. We heard about the Baptism of Desire that has morphed into an explanation of why people in other faiths are also following Christ's path to heaven to the best of their ability. And out of that same mouth came a testimony that Christ is the only way to go. How do you have it both ways? Yet having it both ways seems to be what today constitutes Roman Catholicism.
Strangely the homily didn't make me angry. I seem to be beyond anger, like the living who contemplate the loved one in the casket and know that they can't possibly change the reality of death. I wasn't even upset on the way home when my husband decided the priest was mostly a Communist. Nor did I argue with him. Whatever the priest is, he doesn't seem to believe there is any particular value in being Roman Catholic. Maybe none of our leaders do anymore.
Zukkie sent me a link to a Frances D'Emilio AP article in which Benedict XVI tells everyone that
"The need emerged to elaborate a new world political and economic order, but at the same time and above all, a spiritual and cultural one--that is, renewed humanism," he said.
"At the start of the Third Millennium we find ourselves smack in the middle of this phase of human history, that has been for some time dubbed 'globalization."
The pope said that while politicians, scientists and researchers play important roles in the modern world, "today, more than ever, it is necessary to place at their side the leaders of the great non-Christian religious traditions" as well as Christian leaders.
I would like to ask Benedict who he says Christ is, because for the life of me I can no longer state the correct Roman Catholic answer to that question after this AP article and this morning's Mass. Whatever happened to "Dominus Iesus"? Or is it that Ratzinger believed it and now Benedict, and a lot of priests with him, believe something else?
