Compromise With Error Must Lead To Disaster

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Longtime readers of this site have read hundreds upon hundreds of articles warning of the dangers of compromise with the least bit of error.

"If only we make this compromise now," we are told repeatedly, "then we will be able to stem the tide of evil."

"We gotta accept 'exceptions' to curb abortions."

"We gotta live with the lesser or two evils to get rid of [fill-in-the-blank; name of whichever boogeyman of naturalist is said to more "more" of a threat than others]." Gee, now we accept those who only support termination of funding for Planned Parenthood and related "family services" as sufficiently "pro-life" to warrant support. Very few want to admit that the so-called "lesser evil" of the year 2000, George Walker Bush, made possible the election of Barack Hussein Obama as a result of his own profligate spending and catastrophic "global war on terror" that costs the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent human lives and has devastated so many families in this country.

"We gotta live with 'civil unions' and 'domestic partnerships' in order to stop 'gay marriage." Oh, by the way, have you seen how well that one has worked lately? Support for this unspeakable perversity now constitutes a growing majority nationally, although there are differences to be found within individual states, obviously.

"We just gotta 'liberate" the Mass and keep quiet about the 'pope's' going to synagogues and giving joint 'blessings" with Protestant clergymen. We'll convert the 'pope' over time. We can understand 'Vatican II' in light of Tradition if we really, really try hard enough, right?"

There are a gazillion more examples that could be given, obviously. For present purposes in this short article, I want to focus on that last "we gotta" contention as it is the root of the current efforts on the part of Bishop Bernard Fellay and his allies within the Society of Saint Pius X to enter into "full, active and conscious" communion with the conciliar officials they have long reserved to criticize while at the same time "recognize" their supposed "authority" to govern the Catholic Church from which they have, in actual point of fact, expelled themselves.

The following section from Volume Two of Archbishop Alban Goodier's The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ explains very clearly that the Divine Redeemer Himself specifically warned the Apostles of the dangers of compromising with any errors.

The passage begins following an explication of how Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had upbraided the Pharisees for claiming to obey God while self-righteously protesting that they cannot support their parents financially because of their pledge to support themselves and their "service" to God first. Our Lord had also explained the worthlessness of the ritualistic washing of pots and pans before meals:

But He would not stop there. The Pharisees had of late tampered with the people, and the people themselves had wavered; He would seize this occasion to warn them, and to put them again on the right path. He rose from the table; He strode out of the door as He had done on like occasions; He beckoned the crowd to gather round Him. They had heard what the Pharisees had said, and had been impressed; for the Pharisees were their legal guides, and were understood to know what was right and what was wrong. They had heard His reply and that, too, had impressed; still their fear of His rivals was great, and they hesitated. Therefore must He drive His words home. Though he were to maintain His new manner of speaking in parables, still in some things He must be explicit. He would make them feel and know, not only that He stood by what He said, not only that formalities and customs were no substitutes for the laws of God and man, but that there were other principles of right and wrong than those of mere ceremonial washings.

 

And calling again the multitude unto him, he said to them: Hear ye me all, and understand. [15] There is nothing from without a man that entering into him, can defile him. But the things which come from a man, those are they that defile a man. [16] If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. (Mark 7: 14-16.)

He said no more. Since the time when He had begun to speak in parables His addresses to the people in Capharnaum had tended to be abrupt. He had now other work to do. On the one hand His enemies were more on the alert, and He would not 'cast pearls before swine'; on the other He was concentrating more and more on those who were to succeed Him. So He dismissed the people; by action more than by word He bade the Pharisees be gone; He turned again into the house and the Twelve gathered round Him. But there were not a little troubled. Now that opposition had definitely set in, now that the triumph of a week or two before had begun to change into conflict, they were less easy, less assured, than in the old days of successes. While they dealt with the people only all had been well; now the enemy had appeared in all his force, and it would be needful to be cautious. The Pharisees were all-powerful; they had authority over the people. If they could win the favour of Jesus, success was assured; if they could not, what trouble might not follow?

Surely Jesus saw this for Himself as well as they. And yet what had He just done? They had found fault as the had done before, and, as before, He had answered them; but this time He had done more, He had openly abused their teaching. They had gone away offended; more than offended, they had taken scandal; to their very faces He had flouted the inviolable traditions of Israel. They must warn Him; they must counsel Him to be more prudent; as they had been compelled to do before, when He would not so much as time to eat, so now they must protect him.

 

They came round Him and waited. At length one of them took courage and suggested: "Dost thou know that the Pharisees when they heard the word were scandalized?" . [12] Then came his disciples, and said to him: Dost thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?

Jesus knew, only too well, what this hesitating question implied. Long since, it is true, the Twelve had learnt to prefer the leadership and teaching of the Master to that of the Pharisees and Scribes. Still, until lately, active opposition had been little. But now it was growing fast. Already He had been compelled to leave Caphanaum for a time; since that day He had seldom been able to stay there for long together.

There was clearly danger in the air, and these, His Twelve, were beginning to be afraid. They feared this powerful rival; they were dreaming of compromise; they were asking themselves whether it were not wise to practice more conciliatory methods. With all their rejection of the Pharisees, they still held them in awe; in their presence they forgot the authority of Him who, for them in particular, had quelled the storm, and scattered the clouds, and had walked dryshod to them on the waters.

He must guard them against this growing danger. The lesson would take time; again and again He would have to repeat the warning, driving it ever deeper home. From now to the end there is nothing more vehemently repeated, more explicitly exposed, than the charge against this particular enemy; yet at the end of all He has to encourage them still not to fear. Not till after He has gone, and the Holy Ghost Himself has come to strengthen them, are they able together to lay their anxiety aside. Is it too much to say that to this day, and throughout all time, there is no enemy more dreaded by prudent and good men than the scandalized Pharisee, above all the Pharisee who has the authority of religion on his side? This at least is true; that of all adversaries there is none with whom, to human eyes, conflict seems more hopeless, more certain to end in disaster.

But the method of defence was His own. The force of the enemy against Him He refused to measure; they were wholly in the wrong, and that was enough. The Father was greater than all enemies. Moreover error could only lead to error, no matter what support and show of righteousness it must muster on its side; and error, in the face of truth, must always perish in the end. Let His own learn betimes to ignore that which was not true, be it ever so powerful, error left alone would destroy itself.

[13] But he answering them, said: Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. [14] Let them alone: they are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit. (Matthew 15: 13-14.)

 

With this He ended. Later He would have much more to say, but for the moment that was enough. Meanwhile the less timid Simon was not so anxious as the rest. He was more concerned with that which the Master had said, more eager to understand the parable which He had used. In the silence that followed he turned the conversation.

 

[15] And Peter answering, said to him: Expound to us this parable.

The reply appalls us with its plain speaking, though it would have much appalled the far more homely Asiatic mind. At the same time, because of its very plainness, it contains the most explicit distinction in all the teaching of Jesus between physical and moral evil. In its vigorous way it gives the distinction between the pagan ideal and His own. It is at the root of all the moral teaching of S. Paul, it anticipates S. Augustine, both of whom had need of this sharply drawn line in the face of the enemy with whom they had specially to contend. (Archbishop Alban Goodier, The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ: An Interpretation, Volume Two. London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1931, pp. 434-437.)

 

Compromise with error must lead to disaster.

Error is never the foundation of any kind of "better tomorrow."

This is why "incrementalism" has been wrong in the "pro-life movement" and other "movements" to retard social evils that have their proximate root cause in the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King in the Sixteenth Century.

This is why all forms of naturalism, whether of the "left" or of the "right," must lead to complete social disaster as men and nations need to submit themselves in humility and docility to the sanctifying and teaching offices of the true Church, the Catholic Church, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

This is why there will never be any "once-and-for-all" definitive "explanation" or "settling" of the "meaning" of the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "teaching" of the conciliar "popes."

This is why any and all efforts to compromise with the conciliar authorities in the belief that "change" can be effected by working silently and without "polemics" from within can do nothing but lead to "conversion in reverse," to coin a phrase, as most of those who formerly opposed the conciliar errors come to accept them, at least on a de facto basis, while they content themselves about their having paid due heed to the "authorities."

Alas, the conciliar officials are but the new Pharisees. They are men who demand adherence to their strictures. Yet it is that they have maintained the "authority" to govern and thus command in the name of the Catholic Church even though they adhere to one condemned, anathematized propositions after another. No compromise with them is possible. They must be converted back to the Catholic Faith before they die.

Just as deadly, of course, is the entire false foundation of the "resist but recognize" position as it is false in and of its very nature. Based in a false ecclesiology that arrogates unto bishops the ability to "sift" the teaching of a true pope, the position advanced by the Society of Saint Pius X from its inception leads to contradiction, vacillation, division and confusion, resulting into an eventual foundering as different factions go off in different directions.

Compromise with error must end in disaster.

Archbishop Goodier was English. He knew full well how many English Catholics three hundred years before him had made what appeared to them to be "little compromises" with Anglicanism before they were swallowed whole by it. Although having been born in 1869, six years after the death of Father Frederick William Faber, Archbishop Goodier, a Jesuit, shared with the Oratorian Father Faber a very English contempt for the supposedly "high-minded" spirit of "compromise" that was at work among so many English Catholics in the Nineteenth Century. 

Father Faber dissected this false spirit as follows:

 

The love of God brings many new instincts into the heart. Heavenly and noble as they are, they bear no resemblance to what men would call the finer and more heroic developments of character. A spiritual discernment is necessary to their right appreciation. They are so unlike the growth of earth, that they must expect to meet on earth with only suspicion, misunderstanding, and dislike. It is not easy to defend them from a controversial point of view; for our controversy is obliged to begin by begging the question, or else it would be unable so much as to state its case. The axioms of the world pass current in the world, the axioms of the gospel do not. Hence the world has its own way. It talks us down. It tries us before tribunals where our condemnation is secured beforehand. It appeals to principles which are fundamental with most men but are heresies with us. Hence its audience takes part with it against us. We are foreigners, and must pay the penalty of being so. If we are misunderstood, we had no right to reckon on any thing else, being as we are, out of our own country. We are made to be laughed at. We shall be understood in heaven. Woe to those easy-going Christians whom the world can understand, and will tolerate because it sees they have a mind to compromise!

The love of souls is one of these instincts which the love of Jesus brings into our hearts. To the world it is proselytism, there mere wish to add to a faction, one of the selfish developments of party spirit. One while the stain of lax morality is affixed to it, another while the reproach of pharisaic strictness! For what the world seems to suspect least of all in religion is consistency. But the love of souls, however apostolic, is always subordinate to love of Jesus. We love souls because of Jesus, not Jesus because of souls. Thus there are times and places when we pass from the instinct of divine love to another, from the love of souls to the hatred of heresy. This last is particularly offensive to the world. So especially opposed is it to the spirit of the world, that, even in good, believing hearts, every remnant of worldliness rises in arms against this hatred of heresy, embittering the very gentlest of characters and spoiling many a glorious work of grace. Many a convert, in whose soul God would have done grand things, goes to his grave a spiritual failure, because he would not hate heresy. The heart which feels the slightest suspicion against the hatred of heresy is not yet converted. God is far from reigning over it yet with an undivided sovereignty. The paths of higher sanctity are absolutely barred against it. In the judgment of the world, and of worldly Christians, this hatred of heresy is exaggerated, bitter, contrary to moderation, indiscreet, unreasonable, aiming at too much, bigoted, intolerant, narrow, stupid, and immoral. What can we say to defend it? Nothing which they can understand. We had, therefore, better hold our peace. If we understand God, and He understands us, it is not so very hard to go through life suspected, misunderstood and unpopular. The mild self-opinionatedness of the gentle, undiscerning good will also take the world's view and condemn us; for there is a meek-loving positiveness about timid goodness which is far from God, and the instincts of whose charity is more toward those who are less for God, while its timidity is searing enough for harsh judgment. There are conversions where three-quarters of the heart stop outside the Church and only a quarter enters, and heresy can only be hated by an undivided heart. But if it is hard, it has to be borne. A man can hardly have the full use of his senses who is bent on proving to the world, God's enemy, that a thorough-going Catholic hatred of heresy is a right frame of man. We might as well force a blind man to judge a question of color. Divine love inspheres in us a different circle of life, motive, and principle, which is not only not that of the world, but in direct enmity with it. From a worldly point of view, the craters in the moon are more explicable things than we Christians with our supernatural instincts. From the hatred of heresy we get to another of these instincts, the horror of sacrilege. The distress caused by profane words seems to the world but an exaggerated sentimentality. The penitential spirit of reparation which pervades the whole Church is, on its view, either a superstition or an unreality. The perfect misery which an unhallowed  touch of the Blessed Sacrament causes to the servants of God provokes either the world's anger or its derision. Men consider it either altogether absurd in itself, or at any rate out of all proportion; and, if otherwise they have proofs of our common sense, they are inclined to put down our unhappiness to sheer hypocrisy. The very fact that they do not believe as we believe removes us still further beyond the reach even of their charitable comprehension. If they do not believe in the very existence our sacred things, how they shall they judge the excesses of a soul to which these sacred things are far dearer than itself?

Now, it is important to bear all this in mind while we are considering the sixth dolor. Mary's heart was furnished, as never heart of saint was yet, yet with these three instincts regarding souls, heresy, and sacrilege. They were in her heart three grand abysses of grace, out of which arose perpetually new capabilities of suffering. Ordinarily speaking, the Passion tires us. It is a fatiguing devotion. It is necessarily so because of the strain of soul which it is every moment eliciting. So when our Lord dies a feeling of repose comes over us. For a moment we are tempted to think that our Lady's dolors ought to have ended there, and that the sixth dolor and the seventh are almost of our own creation, and that we tax our imagination in order to fill up the picture with the requisite dark shading of sorrow. But this is only one of the ways in which devotion to the dolors heightens and deepens our devotion to the Passion. It is not our imagination that we tax but our spiritual discernment. In these two last dolors we are led into greater refinements of woe, into the more abstruse delicacies of grief, because we have got to deal with a soul rendered even more wonderful than it was before by the elevations of the sorrows which have gone before. Thus, the piercing of our Lord with the spear as to our Blessed Lady by far the most awful sacrilege which it was then in man's power to perpetrate upon the earth. To break violently into the Holy of Holies in the temple, and pollute its dread sanctity with all manner of heathen defilement, would have been as nothing compared to the outrage of the adorable Body of God. It is in vain that we try to lift ourselves to a true appreciation of this horror in Mary's heart. Our love of God is wanting in keenness, our perceptions of divine things in fineness. We cannot do more than make approaches  and they are terrible enough. (Father Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross, published originally in England in 1857 under the title of The Dolors of Mary, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 291-295.)

Any questions?

We must, no matter the particular difficulties we encounter in our own personal lives or as a result of the interrelated errors of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, keep focused on this simple truth: Truth itself needs to be defended. Error needs to be opposed.

We must be willing to suffer the loss of everything to defend the truths of the Holy Faith. Everything.

So many Catholics have suffered much in these days of apostasy and betrayal. Entire families have been torn apart. Husbands have divorced wives, wives have divorced husbands. Parents are estranged from their grown children, siblings are estranged from each other. Formerly close friends no longer speak to each other, preferring to speak about each other in the most uncharitable, unjust manner.

When offered to the throne of the Most Blessed Trinity with a pure love of Him and a right intention, suffering given unto Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary helps to make reparation for one's own sins and to effect the conversion of others. This is, of course, the essence of the prayer that the Angel of Fatima, Saint Michael the Archangel, taught Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos to pray during his three apparitions in 1916, a year before Our Lady appeared them in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal.

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee.

Most Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit- I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.

 

Although we do not look for consolations in this passing, mortal vale of tears, there are times when Our Lady will send us such consolations as the needs of mortal men require.

Indeed, I learned recently that a long-suffering Catholic man whose own family has been torn asunder by a spouse's rejection of the true Faith and her embrace of the world, castigating him in bitter terms and accusing him of things that he has not done, had the consolation of seeing his octogenarian father return to the Sacraments at the hands of a true priest after being away from the Faith for at least fifty years and quite possibly sixty years. This man's suffering--and it has been quite intense, a veritable purification, the likes of which are all too common today--helped to plant the seeds for this miracle of grace to take place. There have been other such conversions in recent years as well, including Sharon's own beloved father, who had been out of the Faith for over seventy years and mocked It openly, who returned to the true Faith at the hands of a true priest just a month before he died on February 3, 2007.

Accept the chalice of suffering that comes your way. Embrace it. Embrace all of the suffering and rejection and ostracism and ridicule that you must in order to avoid making a single compromise with error as such compromise, no matter how seemingly "necessary" it may appear when chosen, leads to disaster. Always. Inevitably. Without fail. Our patient embrace of suffering and our fidelity to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary might just win the day for those from whom we are estranged so that we might be able to enjoy a good reconciliation with them in eternity in the glory of the Beatific Vision even if such a reconciliation does not take place in this life here on earth.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now so that we can plant a few more seeds that might result, please God and by the intercession of Our Lady, in the restoration of the Catholic Faith and the vanquishing of conciliarism and all of its egregious errors and novelties and blasphemies and sacrileges and heresies once and for all? Just one Rosary more. Right now. Isn't it time?

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

 

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints