Athanasius contra mundum redux

Few western Christians know about St Athanasius, although he is renowned in the eastern churches. Why? Because in the face of pressure from all the bishops and the secular authorities, he proclaimed that Christ was God, not a superman, which was the idea that was much more popular at the time.

from which comes the phrase: Athanasius contra mundum. Athanasius against the world.

So why do I bring up this obscure bishop today?

Because a similar scenerio is going on quietly in the Catholic church today, and it will have huge geopolitical implications. Think a church supporting all the NWO plans, and letting the woke run all those schools, universities so they can preach global warming and the gender agenda, and take over the church's medical facilities so they can push eugenics, abortion, and euthanasia of the unfit.,.

Because if the conspiracy types are right, and the NWO is going to be imposed on all of us, then one big obstacle has to be removed: The churches. And if you destroy Catholicism, the small independent Bible churches can be ignored or destroyed one by one.

So now the Pope, under the guise of the meeting of the synod on synodality, has plans to reform the church and is using the meeting (full of his PC minions) to impose his ideas of "reform" on all and sundry.

Is anyone out there objecting? a few of the usual troublemakers.

The Pope just complained to some fellow Jesuits about all those rigid Yanks who might oppose his wonderful reforms.

 

The Pope should know these reforms will lead to the destruction of the church: the joke in Latin America is that when the Church pushed liberation theology, people en mass left to join Evangelical and Pentecostal churches who still preach belief in Christ and the idea that we serve God in the duties of our daily life, not by being revolutionaries or SJW or demonstrating against fossil fuel.

who is behind this opposition? Many people, but one big influencer was Mother Angelica, a fiesty Italian American nun who built her own cable TV network from scratch (and made sure it is independent so the bishops can't shut it down).

due to her influence, many bishops and clergy continue to believe what the church has always believed, and many believing Catholics remained in the church despite the scandals and mockeries of bad liturgy, weak bishops, and ugly churches.

But that of course was not the only problem. Because Catholic Christians not only are proclaiming Jesus as Lord on Mother Angelica's EWTN network, but some are giving sermons on podcasts and youtube sites.

The latest bigmouth is a bishop in Texas, who just got a visit from the Vatican equivalent of the FBI looking for bad stuff. Now the rumor is that he is going to be asked to resign.

If you want to know why, it might be this letter he sent to the parishes in his diocese. The link is to Lifesite, because for some reason the diocesan webpage won't load.

the letter is so very not politically correct: it insists Jesus founded the church, it denies all religions are equal. It insists that sex is for marriage]. It reminds folks that not everyone gets into heaven (correcting the idea that you don't have to bother to be good because you get a free GetOutOfHell card when you die).

All stuff that is in the Baltimore catechism that the nuns taught us in second grade before the great winnowing of the orders by Vatican II.

Those dogmas go back almost 2ooo years, 

but he dares to add this correction, which would not be needed in the days when the decadent Roman emperors were shocking not just Christians but good pagans:

all people should be helped to discover their true identities as children of God, and not supported in a disordered attempt to reject their undeniable biological and God-given identity.

Hmm... wonder if that will pass the googleblogger censor.

but this is the part if the letter that I approve of: not because I object to the church being a major force in charith work, but because the overemphasis that this type of work is the only way to serve Christ leaves out the way ordinary folk serve God: in the duties of their daily lives.

So at the end of his theological letter, the good bishop reminds us of this:

In order to follow Jesus Christ, we must willingly choose to take up our cross instead of attempting to avoid the cross and suffering that Our Lord offers to each of us individually in our daily lives. The mystery of redemptive suffering—i.e. suffering that Our Lord allows us to experience and accept in this world and then offer back to Him in union with His suffering—humbles us, purifies us, and draws us deeper into the joy of a life lived in Christ. That is not to say that we must enjoy or seek out suffering, but if we are united to Christ, as we experience our daily sufferings we can find the hope and joy that exist amidst the suffering and persevere to the end in all our suffering. (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-8)

 well, alas, I can no longer go out and run a mission hospital in an African war zone, or work 90 hours a week in an isolated hospital on the res, or work with the mentally challenged, but hey, I can still pray and offer God my aches and pains.

Thanks for reminding me of this, Bishop Strickland.