St. Stanislaus Board Member Robert Zabielski Speaks....

....as I heard it on the this evening on my drive home...He was being interviewed about the possible interdict for refusing to comply with a lawful directive of the Archbishop and he stated that he was not afraid of an interdict or excommunication (this is paraphrased)....

However, he followed that up with this (and this is almost or nearly verbatim), "This is a clergy made law; it's not in the Bible."

This sounds a little like "Sola Scriptura", does it not? It seems more than apparent that he understands little of the faith which he professes. St. Cyprian puts it clearly, "No one can have God as his Father who does not have the Church as his Mother." By rejecting the Archbishop, he rejects the Church. By rejecting the laws of the Church, he rejects the Father - and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Yet, he is quoted in today's Post Dispatch with regard to the possible interdict as saying, "I'm not going to accept it, morally. It won't have any bearing on my religion."

To what religion is he referring? The answer is easy - he prefers his own personal brand of "Catholicism" - that which develops when one rejects those things which are offensive to his sensibilities, or embraces those things which are forbidden or sinful, such as pride.

There is a certain feeling of pity that I feel for people like this. I wonder if they were taught to view the Church with the disdain that they openly profess? I wonder what it might take for them to accept the teachings and the disciplines of the Church, willingly and obediently? I wonder if they will continue to reject the graces God wishes them to have. I feel pity for them as well because, in their implicit rejection of Christ by rejecting the Church, they are deprived of true joy and happiness.

Pope Leo XIII stated, "Obedience is not the servitude of man to man, but the submission to the will of God, Who governs through the medium of men." (Immortale Dei).

And St. Augustine reminds us, " Let the superior be obeyed like a mother, with all due honor, so that you offend not God through offending her; much more should you obey the priest who has charge of you all" (Letter 211).

And finally, from the lips of our Lord, Himself, "He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects the One Who sent Me" (Luke 10:16).