Ecumenism is a lie because it pretends that the true Church has not desired the return of her fallen away children. The Church has always held this desire close to Her heart. The only problem is that She cannot close Her eyes to the causes of this falling away: rejection of Her doctrines or rejection of Her moral teachings. Actually, the two cannot be separated. It would be easier to conceive of a coin with only one side than it would be to conceive of doctrine without its application in practice.
In a similar way, the Church has always had the injunction of Christ before Her as She sent Her sons and daughters as missionaries throughout the world. Missionaries left the comfort and safety of their own lands to labor in the wastelands of humanity to bring the message of salvation to those who lived in hopeless slavery to demon gods.
Unlike Mother Theresa who seeks only to make pagans better pagans rather than embrace the supernatural life of grace through Jesus Christ, missionaries from the time of the Apostles brought the only message of salvation to the infidel.
The prophets of old did not resort to ecumenism as it is erroneously understood and practiced today. The prophets lost their lives preaching truth to those who would not hear it. St. John the Baptist was not an ecumenist because he knew that ecumenism is nothing but a buzz word for religious indifference. He knew, too, that no one can be indifferent about religion and that no one can equate one religion with another.
If the Modernist Church which sports the name `Catholic' only because its adherents have invaded our buildings is praised by the world, it is only because this Church has become one with the world.
Years ago, when even Her hierarchy was Catholic - staunchly Catholic - the Church was accused of being `intolerant,' `smug and complacent,' and aloof from all other religions. She was accused of being narrow-minded - lacked `broad-mindedness'.
When Protestant sects formed the National Council of Churches, representatives of the Roman Catholic Church were invited to attend. The Catholic Church declined the invitation. When the World Council of Churches was formed, the Roman Catholic Church was also invited to attend. Again, She declined.
Again and again, the Catholic Church has been viewed by religionists and politicos as `intolerant.' At every such conference, the two main topics discussed are doctrine and ministry. Besides these two all-important issues, what else could religious conferences discuss among themselves?
Labels are placed on people by other people for the purpose of frightening people away from those people targeted by the label-sticking people. By calling the Catholic Church `intolerant,' the people putting this label on us hope to frighten any one who might be interested in knocking at the Church's door.
If we were to ask those who give us such labels and similar ones to present some proof for their statements, they only answer that the Church is smug in thinking Herself the sole interpreter of Christ's doctrines.
The Church is considered `narrow-minded' because of Her unwillingness to involve Herself in those conferences that are supposedly working toward a union of the Churches.
The Roman Catholic Church cannot conform to the wishes of these sects which differ among themselves so much in doctrine that they even have to build their churches on opposite corners in even the smallest town. Have you ever noticed that in the United States almost every small town will have on its main street four churches? One on each corner where main arteries intersect. Each one will proclaim a different and contradictory doctrine. Each one will adamantly proclaim that its version of the Gospel is the correct one! In almost every case, the person who `ministers' to the assembly will be a man who has never received a mission from the Apostles to preach in the name of Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, since Modernism's resurgence even within the walls of the Vatican, these various sects, Christian and non-Christian, have found a patron. The true Church, however, cannot ever abandon Her unique role in the world.
Few people aver to the fact, but the first attempt at religious reconciliation took place in Jerusalem. This was when a religious body gathered together with Annas, the high priest, at its head.
Five of his sons wore the ephod in succession - the ephod being the symbol of family power. Annas had some monetary connection with the temple in that some of the family funds were invested in trades within the temple. It is said that the stalls for the sale of birds and beasts and other materials used in sacrifice belonged to his sons. The booths were known as the `booths of Annas'. It might have been expected of a high ranking priest that he would show a somewhat higher tone. But Annas was a Sadducee. Sadducees did not believe in a future life. Understandably, then, Annas would be very disturbed when this man, Jesus, came into the temple, over-turned the tables and chased the money-changers from the temple with a whip.
Annas certainly remembered the incident even though he pretended to be surprised to see Jesus there before him. Annas opened the first ecumenical council in history by asking Jesus to explain two important religious questions - like the ones discussed later on in Europe and the United States: His doctrine and His ministry.
Annas was a representative of a religion common to a nation; he was a religious authority and he would have Jesus discuss His views on the important questions of religion: doctrine and ministry. But Jesus refused! With this the first Church Conference closed in failure.
Jesus refused in words that left no doubt in the mind of Annas that the doctrine He would uphold in this conference would be His Divinity! Annas was also prepared to uphold another doctrine - his own - which would not accept the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
In short sentences, Jesus answers Annas and says in so many words: "You question my Divinity and wish to place me on the same level as other men, or rabbis, that go up and down the country roads. You wish to see in Me nothing more than another prophet of Israel - a prophet, perhaps, but essentially just another man. You would like Me to say to you that I am just like everybody else - just another human being. If I did this, you would welcome Me and all the trouble would be over. But I cannot do this! I have spoken openly to the world. I have declared My Divinity. And I say unto you: I have exercised My Divinity in a way that even you can understand: I have forgiven sins. I have given My Body and My Blood whereby I shall remain among My disciples. I have even allowed many to turn away rather than deny this mystery. All the things that I have done were to instruct the people concerning My identity: My Divinity. Now, if you, Annas, hold to your principle that I am not Divine, but am just as human as you are, then there is nothing in common between us. What's the point in having a discussion on doctrine and ministry with you?"
Every conference on faith requires as a pre-requisite the presence of the Holy Ghost through grace. Where grace is lacking, there can be no fruitful discussion to gain insights. There can only be re-affirmation of lack of sight.
It is an absurdity doomed to failure to think that there can be some kind of communication between the natural and the supernatural, between the carnal and the spiritual.
When Jesus said these things, one crude soldier struck Him with his fist. He must have sensed the humiliation and inability of Annas to answer Jesus. So, he did what his kind always do: He did not present a cogent argument to rebut Our Lord; he lashed out at Him with the only thing his kind know -violence!
This soldier represents all those throughout history who bear hatred against Divinity; that group which is unable to veil its hatred in any intellectual opinions, but knows only force and brutality.
What happened to Jesus in the `religious conference' in the hall of Annas happens in the entire life of the Church. Here, in the court-room of Annas is to be found the reason for the Church's refusal to take part in movements for unification as expressed in the familiar `conferences on religion'. The Church can only rejoice that there is a desire for union among Christians, but She cannot take part in any such conferences. The Church can only answer those who ask of Her: "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, where all the Jews gather; and in secret I have said nothing. Why dost thou question me? Question those who have heard what I spoke to them' behold these know what I have said." (John 18,20-21). The Church needs no conferences with heretics. There is only one thing for them to do: renounce their errors, humbly repent and return to the bosom of the truth faith.
Hundreds of years before the prophets of false religions even spoke, Jesus spoke His Divinity at the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople. Jesus spoke in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages; Jesus spoke at Trent; and He speaks today in every pulpit of every church throughout the world where His doctrine has not been perverted by Modernist heretics.
There are all kinds of ritualists who desire to have the ceremonies of the Church if only the Church would renounce Her claim to supreme authority in matters of faith and morals. This innate longing for the Church to abandon Her loyalty to Truth has eaten the innards of the sects to the point that they have sought to secretly infiltrate the highest places in the Church for the sole purpose of demoting Christ and His Bride from their Divine origin to that of just another human institution.
They have penetrated the walls of the Eternal City; they have caused the vast majority of Catholics to abandon their faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
None other than men perceived to be legitimate Popes have fooled the people into believing that the Roman Catholic Church is just an human institution like their own; that Jesus is not divine nor is His Church divinely guided by the Holy Ghost. These men, Roncalli, Montini and Wojtyla, have connived with the enemies of the Church to reduce Her in the eyes of the world as nothing more than another human institution founded by erring men and erring women.
Following the first principle of these sects, namely, that Jesus is not divine, there is no longer any purpose in any kind of `dialogue' or `ecumenism'.
Is this intolerance? Yes! It is just that: the intolerance of Divinity. It is this unique claim of the Church that brings down the blows of the world's disapproval against the Church.
Many reasons are sought for the death of Christ. Few focus on the real reason. the real reason why those religionists and their descendants seek the death of Jesus and now His Church is because they are intolerant. They are intolerant of His claim to Divinity.
Jesus Himself was very tolerant of many things: He had no fixed abode because when someone asked Him where He lives, He simply said that the birds of the air have their nests and the foxes have their dens, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. He was tolerant of hunger and cold; He was tolerant of verbal and physical abuse. But there was one thing He could not tolerate: He could not tolerate denying that He was Divine!
People today do not seem to be able to understand the difference between tolerance and intolerance. They are confused on this subject. For most people, tolerance is always supposed to be synonymous with broadmindedness. Intolerance is always supposed to be undesirable because it is perceived as being synonymous with narrow-mindedness.
This is not true because tolerance and intolerance apply to two completely different things.
Tolerance applies only to persons, and never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, and never to persons.
We are taught to be tolerant to persons because they are human and it is human to err. But, we must be intolerant concerning principles because they are divine. We must be tolerant to the erring, because ignorance may have led them astray; but we must be intolerant of the error, because Truth is not ours but is God's. For this reason, the Church throughout history has always welcomed the heretic back into the true fold after due reparation has been made. But the Church can never allow the heretic to bring his heresy with him into the bosom of Her wisdom.
The Second Vatican Council is the instrument used by Satan to spread the cancer of religious indifference. The bitter fruits of this infamous assembly of half-alert and cowardly Bishops continues to poison souls so many years after it prepared the ground for the seeds of Modernism to spring up like weeds after a summer's rain.
Ecumenism, in its metaphysical essence, is the greatest possible offense against God because it hides beneath its seemingly `noble' exterior the most perfect expression of atheism: It denies God while actually claiming to believe in Him!
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