Adrift in a Sea of Moral Confusion

Immediately following the death of the Holy Father on April 2, "Catholics Speak Out" and the "Quixote Center", issued a Press Release titled: "A Man of Contradictions: Pope John Paul II Leaves a Mixed Legacy"
This group begins by stating:

Catholics Speak Out and the Quixote Center pray for the pope’s soul. We acknowledge his essential goodness and deep spirituality.

They then begin to expound on the Holy Father's "very mixed legacy." There can be no doubt that the Holy Father constantly affirmed the perennial teachings of Christ and His Church. For this, many professed Catholics became upset - they were upset because the Church would not approve them in their sins. A rational and knowledgable Catholic can hardly hold the position that the Holy Father's continued exposition of irreformable Church teaching resulted in a "mixed legacy." The only thing which seems to be "mixed" are the scrambled ideas and positions held by those who have been seduced by Satan.

Some of the statements include:

He even shared the Holy Eucharist with men and women who had publicly dissented with church teachings, then turned around and signed a solemn statement that no member of another Christian denomination could sit at the holy table.

The Catholic response to this confused statement can be read in a number of places:

For starters, one can look in Ecclesia de Eucharistia
44. Precisely because the Church's unity, which the Eucharist brings about through the Lord's sacrifice and by communion in his body and blood, absolutely requires full communion in the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance, it is not possible to celebrate together the same Eucharistic liturgy until those bonds are fully re-established. Any such concelebration would not be a valid means, and might well prove instead to be an obstacle, to the attainment of full communion, by weakening the sense of how far we remain from this goal and by introducing or exacerbating ambiguities with regard to one or another truth of the faith. The path towards full unity can only be undertaken in truth. In this area, the prohibitions of Church law leave no room for uncertainty,92 in fidelity to the moral norm laid down by the Second Vatican Council.93

I would like nonetheless to reaffirm what I said in my Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint after having acknowledged the impossibility of Eucharistic sharing: “And yet we do have a burning desire to join in celebrating the one Eucharist of the Lord, and this desire itself is already a common prayer of praise, a single supplication. Together we speak to the Father and increasingly we do so 'with one heart'”.94

The next "reason" given for a "mixed legacy":

...he denied that grown women and men should be able to control their reproductive lives without interference from the church or the state. Under his reign, millions walked away from the church or ignored its teachings.

What is the difference between those who walk away today and those who walked away from our Lord, as we read in the Sixth Chapter of John? "This is a hard saying - who can accept it?"

Grown men and women who are followers of Christ "should be able to control their reproductive lives" - indeed they should! And the Church provides the moral teaching for us so that we can be clear what is and is not pleasing to God. The Church assists us with her wisdom which comes from the Holy Spirit. We receive certain gifts of the Holy Spirit, provided we are properly disposed. These gifts, these graces, give us the necessary strength and protection against the sins of impurity, against the sins violating the commandments of the Decalogue.

The Holy Father has affirmed the constant teaching of the Church. The "millions' who ignore the teaching of the Church on artificial contraception, directly procured abortions, and homosexuality are not only ignoring and disobeying the Church, they are refusing obedience to Christ, Himself.

He tried to construct a new understanding of the role of women in church and society, spoke of women’s “complementarity,” their fundamental equality, but made sure they would never receive equal treatment in the church.

Men and women are different, yet equal in dignity. This subject has been beaten to death but some still refuse to accept that God created man and woman as He did.

Rather than address each issue, for there are many, I will instead just post those which are listed by this group of professed "Catholics". It would be one thing if there were one or two issues which could be discussed in an intelligent manner. However, these groups, quite often, raise numerous issues, many of which are sexual in nature and each one has been addressed at length by the Church before. A defective understanding of Catholicism and general morality is often the cause of such vehement disagreement and defiance of Church teaching.

He waged a war against homosexual persons, and bitterly denounced a gay pride march in Rome, taking it as a personal affront—never acknowledging the role that gay men exercise in staffing the churches as priests.

The Holy Father was very clear to show concern for the individual while rejecting the individual's sins. As the Catechism (#2357) reminds us, "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "...homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

And Paragraph 2358 states: "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."

John Paul II extolled democracy, but exercised an iron hand over the church.

There are many, many others who would disagree with this statement. The Holy Father was very lenient and allowed much of this dissent to continue unabated, as were many of the bishops who failed to excise the cancer from the body.

John Paul strengthened the Curia, which hated and fought Vatican II, stripping the bishops of any real authority, setting in motion a determined effort to roll back the clock and the prophetic gains envisioned at Vatican II.

Again, the Holy Father, repeatedly fostered and promoted the reforms of Vatican II. Those who persist in claiming he was "rolling back the clock" are flagrantly ignorant of the efforts of the Pope in implementing the vision of the Council. Most of these people, I suspect, could not even tell us what the documents of Vatican II are, and probably do not even know how many documents were issued by the Second Vatican Council.

John Paul II’s machinery subjected the bishops to galling bouts of liturgical editing by junior members of the curia with little or no linguistic experience.

Sheer lunacy...

John Paul II oppressed those who disagreed with him. The man who advocated for human rights denied freedom of expression to theologians...

Again, it is clear from statements like this, particularly when the facts utterly refute this statement, that these people appear to be deranged, suffering from a glaring inability to see and deal with reality. They either ignore or distort the facts. When we can still see Richard McBrien and others spouting heresy at every opportunity, we can be certain that the Holy Father did not deny freedom of expression to a sufficient number of so-called "theologians".

When it became clear that John Paul II would never drop the man-made (not revealed) rule of celibacy, thousands of priests walked away from their deeply loved call to serve in vocations they loved, unable to live a lie.

"Unable to live a lie?" What a revealing statement...! Those men entering the seminary knew well beforehand of the sacrifices they would be making and of the gifts, the graces, they would receive for dedicating their lives to God and to His people. Those, whether priests, religious, or laity, who deliberately chose to live a lie are ultimately responsible for their own actions.

Because of his rigidity, the church is nearing collapse.

I could be wrong, but it seems that it is because of heretics and apostates infiltrating the Church and poisoning the faith that the Church, at least in the West, is faltering. Decades of little or no catechesis has left many unable to protect themselves from the poisoned elixir of pride offered by groups such as these.

Perhaps, if the Church had addressed this cancerous disease in a manner relative to its dangers to the faithful and exercised her available discplinary and medicinal remedies, the Church would not be in the precarious position she is in now. It seems that the Church needs a cleansing of the putrification that continues to contaminate and poison the faithful. Are those who belong to dissenting groups such as this really and truly Catholic? How is this possible, while they may have been baptised as Catholics, demonstrate by their obstinate actions that they have rejected Christ and His Church and that they have no qualms in corrupting others.

May our Lord have mercy on us, on His Church, and on those hell-bent on destroying His Church.