“This prostitution of Catholic education by our bishops to serve their private Modernist agendas and the awful scandal of clerical sexual abuse of minors are flip sides of the same coin, for both are rooted in the willingness to abuse clerical and episcopal power for one’s personal ends.”
By: Don McGovern
It is absolutely critical that the Catholic remnant in this country assumes a pro-active responsibility for catechising their children and there grandchildren if the faith is to survive. If you are not prepared to equip yourself for this sacred task, then you can kiss goodbye to any chance of them growing up Catholic and a meaningful Catholic presence on British soil.
One of the fundamental errors that most Catholics make is to equate Modernism with liberal Catholicism. This is an error equivalent to calling a Communist a liberal Conservative. A Modernist is not a liberal Catholic, he is simply not a Catholic; he is in fact an anti-Catholic! How else can we accurately describe someone who dissents from much, if not almost all, that constitutes one a Catholic?
A Modernist has much in common with the sixteenth century reformers, but where he differs markedly is in his methodology. Whereas Luther nailed his dissent to the church door at Wittenberg and shouted his foul mouthed defiance from the rooftop; the Modernists prefers to conceal his dissent and work away to destroy the Church termite-like from within. There will be no loud, coarse mouthed defiance from him; the last thing he wishes to do is draw attention to himself. Like the wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, all is disarming smiles, effusive politeness and inflated bonhomie; his handshake is always warm, if a little unpleasantly limp and moist.
When it suits his purpose he will claim that he is recovering some long lost tradition from the early Church, when he wishes to kill-off some tradition retained from the early Church he will tell us that it is necessary to change for pastoral reasons to better address the needs of modern man. Thus, he puts himself in a heads I win, tails you loose situation, all the while smiling you to death.
Just one example, Modernists are uncomfortable with the doctrine of transubstantiation. His attack is multi-faceted: he will encourage us to stand and receive communion in the hand; he will find pseudo-reasons for encouraging every Tom, Dick and Harriett to distribute Holy Communion and invade the sanctuary, and the Tabernacle will be removed from its place of prominence on the high altar. Most cunning of all, he invents numerous new “Real Presences”, on the premise that we will finish up with so many “Real Presences” that the real Real Presence won’t seem so special anymore. Thus we have the “Real Presence” in the scripture readings, the “Real Presence” in the priest (particularly mendacious that one, because he doesn’t actually believe in priests), the “Real Presence” in the assembled people, etc.
The scriptures record that even when Christ was on earth, many disciples deserted Jesus because they rejected the doctrine of the Real Presence (John 6, 60-72). But whereas the Bible records that these disciples walked sadly away from Jesus, the Modernist prefer to stay and work to undermine the doctrine itself from within the Church.
Another example: the Church solemnly teaches that she does not have the power to ordain women. The Modernist believes she does. More accurately, he doesn’t believe that priest have sacerdotal powers (that smacks to much of magic to him - like Christ’s miracles, that are similarly rejected), he believe that anyone, including women, can be appointed by the community to preside. So you find modernist like Bishop Malcolm Mahon taking two Anglican priestesses with him on his diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes and encouraging the faithful to attend their invalid (and hence blasphemous) masses. Thus he replaces our Catholic religion with his Modernist religion without uttering a single self-incriminating syllable.
The Modernist is always keen on ecumenism, but only if it involves mixed bathing with other Modernists. Thus he will queue up to wine and dine the “Archbishop” of Canterbury, and not tire of publicly slapping himself on the back for being the fine, liberal, progressive fellow he perceives himself to be for having done so. However, he will rent his garments at the mere suggestion that it might be nice to invite an SSPX priest round for coffee - he’d much prefer to sup with the local mullah or a liberal rabbi to that. Even brother bishops who evidence signs of genuine Catholicism are rapidly bundled off to outer darkness: witness Bishop O'Donoghue, who discovered his Catholic backbone shortly before retiring and became an instant leper, never again to be spoken off in polite conversation.
Because Modernists are anti-Catholics, nowhere has there termite like destruction been more ghastly and evil than in our schools. They have introduced religious text books that deliberately set out to destroy our glorious faith and enforce their agenda with a degree of ruthlessness that makes the German Nazis look positively incompetent. These text books make no mention that the children have a soul to save, no mention of the foundational doctrine of Original Sin, or a host of other Catholic doctrines that are de fide. A teacher can have his or her career ruined by merely seeking to teach one doctrine of the Catholic faith - and many have. The story of the persecution of good Catholic teachers by the bishops’ Modernism enforcement tsars would fill many volumes.
This prostitution of Catholic education by our bishops to serve their private Modernist agendas and the awful scandal of clerical sexual abuse of minors are flip sides of the same coin, for both are rooted in the willingness to abuse clerical and episcopal power for one’s personal ends.
So what is a genuine Catholic to do in the presence situation? First up, whatever you do, with a few glorious exceptions, do not entrust the faith of your child to a Catholic school. Having been force fed Modernists garbage for ten years or more, well over ninety per cent of children who attend our schools lapse, and rightly so. Indeed, that is not the end of this miserable storey, most of them do not merely lapse, they become actively hostile to the faith! And don’t expect any empathy from your Modernist bishop; as far as he is concerned this is a success story, for there is nothing he wants more than that our children should share his own hostility to the faith of our forefathers.
Have you not noticed dear betrayed parents that none of our good young priests has ever been near a Catholic school, had he done so, both his faith and his vocation would have been destroyed long before he was anywhere near a seminary. Bishop Morris, the outspoken Modernist who has recently been sacked by the Pope from an Australian see had not had a single vocation in his diocese for ten years, but that’s real success from the Modernist point of view. They do not believe in a sacerdotal priesthood, so why on earth would anyone imagine that a dearth of vocations would worry them?
Having removed your child or grandchild from the present corrupt Catholic school system, you need to send him to a good state school and catechise him yourself, or better still home-school him, but we have to be realistic and accept that not all have the time, circumstances or the ability to homeschool well.
Two of our bishops have recently broken ranks and very publicly announced that they are going to phrase out the toxic Modernist programs of their brother bishops from their schools and use text books that are a little more Catholic. One or two others have also done so, but with less fanfare. These bishops will need the prayers and militant support of all genuine Catholics if they are to succeed, for they will face absolutely massive opposition, not just from other bishops but also from within their own education bureaucracies.
Regrettably, while they plan to replace the Modernist’s poison with something a little recognisably more Catholic, what they are planning to use is far from perfect. It is undoubtedly better than Here I Am and Icons, but that is saying little; it would be near impossible to be worse.
This could be the last chance Catholics will have for a generation to have their children and grandchildren taught the faith properly. It is absolutely critical that we pray, fast and become militantly active in securing this by insisting on genuinely good Catholic syllabuses.
The best of those that Pro Ecclesia has evaluated is the American Faith and Life Series available from Ignatius Press. One of the problems in teaching the faith these days is that we have two generations of teaches who are as clueless as their pupils, having themselves been through Catholic schools and been brainwashed by the Modernists. Faith and Life could almost be described as an idiot’s guide to teaching the faith: it is so excellently and comprehensively structured that one could place it in the hands of an atheist or Muslin, and armed with it they would be able to teach the Catholic faith, and teach it very well indeed.
And Catholic parent or grandparent reading this who wants to catechise there children or grandchildren could not do better than purchase this series. Ignatius Press can be found at: http://www.ignatius.com
