Thursday, October 28, 2004
HOW MUCH CAN WE AFFORD TO DABBLE IN OTHER FAITHS ?
The question is clamoring for an answer like a 2-year-old who wants Mom's attention while Mom is on the phone. Either we find an answer or someone is going to get emotional, and that someone might just have one of the tools of modern warfare at their disposal.
So what do we do? Stand with Christ or abandon Him?
Below I've posted William Kennedy's response to my concern about the traditional trend in the Church merging with a kind of Traditionalism that lies apart from Catholicism. He does not see it as a problem so long as he can present his views unadulterated.
Doesn't his very presence in the forum of discussion indicate that he is willing to give ground to the possibility that Christ and Christianity didn't get it right?
When did a Catholic stop believing that an Encyclical of a Pope is infallible? Mortalium Animos speaks directly to the concept that the Guenonian Traditionalists are promoting. It speaks of the division of religions and the disharmony that results. If Pope Pius XI were here today giving the contents of that Encyclical, he could not be more current. What does he recommend?
These pan-Christians who turn their minds to uniting the churches seem, indeed, to pursue the noblest of ideas in promoting charity among all Christians: nevertheless how does it happen that this charity tends to injure the faith?
He wrote that Encyclical in 1928. Today we turn to our fellow Catholics and ask "What happened to the Church?" The faith has indeed been injured. With Mass attendence at 33% and falling, we don't have a lot of time left to get this figured out. Either Christ is Who the Church says He is, or He is not. Either He is the Only Begotten Son of God, or He is just another wise prophet who teaches us how to await the messiah.
More and more I see this interreligious dialogue as a perscription for the destruction of faith. As Pius says:
...it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it...
