This week, there has been a lively, not entirely productive conversation at the Orthosphere. The conversation has centered around some combination of Church structures, human consciousness, and the faults of the Roman Catholic Church.
This has been a difficult conversation for me to sit on the sidelines for, and at first I did not. I got in the fray and started throwing punches in defense of Holy Mother Church. For all her faults, she is my Holy Mother, and I love her. It can be frustrating to see the Church belittled, ridiculed, trivialized, innovated into nothingness. It can be frustrating to stand by and see her bear injuries and injustices at the hands of strange men who claim to know better than she does.
This is a difficult conversation too because I know without a trace of doubt that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church put in place by God. All this discussion about the “model for religion” and rage against “religious authority” is like listening to people arguing about what color the sky is. If Ecumenism means Roman Catholics must be the only party to turn the other cheek, that sucks, but it’s not without precedent. Imagine how Mary and John felt watching Christ be crucified, knowing in truth that He was God? Imagine how Peter felt watching Christ scourged at the pillar, knowing in truth that He was Truth incarnate?
At the end of the day, all the heretics, apostates, schismatics, and earnestly jaded people can do is shout into the wind. The Truth is the unshakeable ground they stand on, as they proclaim falsehoods. It is our task as Catholics to bear these stripes and unite them to Christ; it is our task as Catholics to rebuff these stripes where charity and fraternal correction allows, as Christ rebuked his Apostles; it is our task as Catholics to stand idly by while the Church is scourged and crucified, wrongfully, because we are called to pick up our cross and follow Him. If you think this antagonism will not, one day, be turned against us as individuals, rather than being reserved philosophically for the Church, you are sadly mistaken. It is a short leap from “The Church is wrong” to “The people who proclaim the truth of this Church are wrong”. Even the people on “our side” politically, can one day be the first in line to crack the whip over our backs for our spiritual differences.
I’ve been trying to process this whole dialogue and this is what I’ve come to. Christ says we must pick up our cross and follow Him. Sometimes the Cross is given to us by our enemies. Sometimes the Cross is given to us by our friends. Sometimes the Cross is given to us by people we respect and admire. Pick it up! All we can do is follow. All roads lead to Calvary.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 