Catholics are more often guilty of false charity than praiseworthy for a well-ordered charity. Probably because even their praiseworthy charity is not above suspicion.
Nothing is more odious to God and man than sanctimonious and unctuous religion. It is odious _ note that the word is close to `odoriferous' - because it tends to stink of dead men's bones. Better yet, it smells like three-day old fish.
Christians are advised to `turn the other cheek.' But, does this mean that the cheeky should thereby be given the green light to poison the minds of trusting people without the least cry of `fraud,' `fake,' or `felon'?
One thing the supercilious Catholic is really good at is protecting the enemy. This is where a dangerous delusion confounds `praying for one's enemy' with `aiding and abetting the enemy.'
This is doubly disastrous when it takes on the external appearance of `virtue.'
There was a time when this kind of Catholic folly was met with infrequently. The time has now come, when this folly finds a happy home in the greatest number.
Heresy, for example, is now considered (thanks to the hijackers of Vatican II) as an `interesting opinion,' while schism is bandied about as if it were a license granted by Canon Law!
St. John, the Apostle of love, is the only one to warn the faithful against the Antichrist and antichrists. This is truly remarkable, because more than anyone else, St. John spoke repeatedly of love.
The first Scriptural mention of the Antichrist is found in St. John's First Epistle ( Chap. 2, 18 -19): "Dear children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have arisen; whence we know that it is the last hour. They have gone forth from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would surely have continued with us; but they were to be made manifest, that not one of them is of us."
The second time that St. John uses this word `antichrist' is also in the same Epistle: "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. (Ibid. 2, 22).
The antichrists also deny the Father indirectly: "No one who disowns the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father" (Ibid. 2, 23).
"And every spirit that severs Jesus, is not of God, but is of Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he is coming, and now is already in the world." (Ibid. 4,3).
Then, St. John writes in his Second Epistle: "For many deceivers have gone forth into the world who do not confess Jesus as the Christ coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist" (2 John, 7).
Mark well that St. John advisedly uses the word `flesh' and not merely in the `spirit.'
Those who see `Christ' everywhere _ even where He is denied as coming "in the flesh" are nothing more than antichrists. This is the folly of the Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin, who has gained such an enormous following among Catholic laymen and clergy.
It seems that only those who genuinely love their neighbor and expose themselves to bitter animosity are the only ones with the courage to unmask the fakes, frauds and felons.
In the thirteenth century, it was the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure who took up the defense of the mendicant Friars against the hypocritical attacks of wealthy clergy.
Consider the vehemence with which this lover of Truth spoke out against the calumniators.
"It is plainly established by inviolable law of the supreme Legislator that worship must be rendered the supreme Majesty to the exclusion of any cult of idols: that the created intellect must serve the supreme Truth to the exclusion of any assent to falsehood; that man must strive mightily toward salvation, not yielding to the flesh in its pleasures; finally, that he must consent to the righteousness of God-conforming virtue, shunning the depravity of deforming vice. As we are made essentially to desire, seek, and love the truths of faith and morals, so we are strictly bound to turn away from the opposite errors, with a revulsion that should be stronger as these errors prove to be more pernicious. Catholic commentators of Holy Scripture have known this well and have striven to their utmost to eradicate the seedlings of perverse doctrine at once, lest they grow and choke the seed the Lord has sowed.
But in recent times, though the splendor of evangelical truth has shone more brilliantly than ever, we have witnessed a thing we cannot speak of without deep sorrow. There has been diffused abroad, even through the written word, a doctrine that, like a loathsome and horrible exhalation from the bottomless pit, would block the resplendent rays of the very Sun of Justice and darken the sky of Christian minds. Such a pernicious blot must not be allowed to spread, insulting God and endangering souls all the more as the serpent's cunning lends it a superficial air of piety.
This teaching must be stripped of its outer garment; the pit must be clearly exposed. Thus foresight may prevent disaster. And we trust that the author of these great errors, being still alive, may yet by the goodness of God be set aright. Let us appeal in his behalf to Christ, that, remembering the mercy He once displayed to Saul, He may again by the power of His Word and the light of His Wisdom strike the haughty one with terror, cast the proud one down, pursue the erring one and correct him by leading him back to truth."
Better the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy (Proverbs 27, 6). Therefore we should not attempt, with `the oil of the sinner' (Ps.140, 5), that is, with flattery, to salve the feeble head of such a man, or to heal the ulcer of his swollen heart. Rather, we should strike with severe reproach the proud skull of one so insolent _ not in a spirit of bitterness, but out of the zeal of a balanced mind. As for the pestiferous teaching itself, it must be refuted through orderly procedure, so that in vindicating the truth the reply shall match the objection, and the defense directly counter the attack."
These words of St. Bonaventure and of St. John ought to awaken us to our responsibilities in defense of the Faith against all attackers, however sacrosanct they may appear. No one has the right to spread error in the name of truth. Once the refutation is made; once the evidence is provided, there ought not to be an endless quibbling. When Rome has spoken, the matter is closed. The discussion is ended. On all those matters that pertain to our eternal salvation, Rome has spoken long ago. It is to the Rome of the past that we must look for our guidance, and not the Modernist usurpers of today.
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