Philip Mathias of The National Post blog writes today that there are two Catholic Churches; essentially the church of believers and the hierarchical structure of the Church.
The allure of this duplicitous argument is that it opens the possibility in the minds of believers that they can attack one while remaining faithful to the other. Alas he undermines his own argument by proceeding to venture into the realm of defined teaching of the Church (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, infallibility of the Holy Father in matters of faith and morals) and denouncing them as simple constructs of the hierarchy of the church. In doing so, he breaches his own arbitrary division of the church into two forms by questioning what the church actually believes and equating it with the malfeasance of Bishops who improperly dealt with the spate of sex abuse scandals that have been exposed in the past 20+ years.
Whereas it is possible to offer criticism of the hierarchy and remain united with the Church (at least I hope so as I and others have been pounding away at Bishops for their mishandling of the sex abuse scandal, as well as forgoing their obligation to preach and teach the truths of our faith using the various secular medias of the day), it is quite another thing to pick and choose dogmas that the Church holds. Mathias in his argument is revealed to be among those who practice the latter in lieu of the former.
Now it will be interesting to see if clerics enter into the comments threads that will accompany this story to see if they will take up the challenge of using this opportunity to promote and teach the Catholic faith.
Remember that it is in the nature of heresy to take a truth and then distort it. Clearly this is what Mathias has done. Bishops, priests and deacons: are you willing to rise to the challenge of countering this heretical position?
Link to NP Blog: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/07/philip-mathias-the-two-catholic-churches.aspx
The allure of this duplicitous argument is that it opens the possibility in the minds of believers that they can attack one while remaining faithful to the other. Alas he undermines his own argument by proceeding to venture into the realm of defined teaching of the Church (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, infallibility of the Holy Father in matters of faith and morals) and denouncing them as simple constructs of the hierarchy of the church. In doing so, he breaches his own arbitrary division of the church into two forms by questioning what the church actually believes and equating it with the malfeasance of Bishops who improperly dealt with the spate of sex abuse scandals that have been exposed in the past 20+ years.
Whereas it is possible to offer criticism of the hierarchy and remain united with the Church (at least I hope so as I and others have been pounding away at Bishops for their mishandling of the sex abuse scandal, as well as forgoing their obligation to preach and teach the truths of our faith using the various secular medias of the day), it is quite another thing to pick and choose dogmas that the Church holds. Mathias in his argument is revealed to be among those who practice the latter in lieu of the former.
Now it will be interesting to see if clerics enter into the comments threads that will accompany this story to see if they will take up the challenge of using this opportunity to promote and teach the Catholic faith.
Remember that it is in the nature of heresy to take a truth and then distort it. Clearly this is what Mathias has done. Bishops, priests and deacons: are you willing to rise to the challenge of countering this heretical position?
Link to NP Blog: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/07/philip-mathias-the-two-catholic-churches.aspx
Bravo Father Tim.
ReplyDeleteI have posted about your response on my own blog here.
http://freethroughtruth.blogspot.com/2009/11/national-post-are-there-two-catholic.html
Thank you for your faithfulness to the Magisterium.
God Bless You
Michael Brandon
Thank you. I have posted a link to your blog in my favorites list. It is worthy of promotion!
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim
Well said!
ReplyDelete