Living In A World of Needless Searches

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Conciliarism makes complex what is very simple: the Holy Faith. The Catholic Faith is not complex. It does give rise to ambiguity or confusion. There is no need for Catholics to "search" for truth or to "search" for unity" or to "search" for "peace." God has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church so that we will not have to spend our lives as the pagans of yore "searching" for answers about the meaning of human existence. The Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication is brought to the faithful by Holy Mother Church with ease and security, a point made very explicitly by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained.

 

As Pope Gregory XVI noted in Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834, and as Pope Leo XIII noted in A Review of His Pontificate, the Catholic Church never makes any terms with error. There is never a need for a Catholic to "search" for the truth about human existence. She has no need to "learn" anything about Divine Revelation from Protestants or adherents of the Talmud or the Orthodox or Mohammedans or any other sect. The Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church provides her with everything necessary to teach and sanctify the souls redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of her Divine Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

 

Much unlike Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his counterfeit church of conciliarism, which recently announced terms to accept disaffected Anglicans into its very large doctrinal tent (see Defaming The English Martyrs and Still Defaming The English Martyrs) that permits them to retain liturgical "rites" that were condemned as heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans Excelsis, March 5, 1570, the Catholic Church does not tolerate the errors of others in order to forge a false sense of "unity:"

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is 'the root and womb whence the Church of God springs,' not with the intention and the hope that 'the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

None of this means of thing, of course, to Ratzinger/Benedict and his conciliar "bishops," many of who are so bereft of the Catholic Faith as to speak in so absurdities that truly boggle the mind. We have reached such a point in the degeneration of the conciliar church that it is considered to "extraordinary" for a Catholic bishop and priest, the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, to have known that "Jesus was the way to heaven." Isn't every baptized Catholic supposed to know this?

Just consider the inanities of the "happy" "bishop," Timothy Dolan, the conciliar "archbishop" of New York:

"His pivotal insight, central to revelation, was that Jesus Christ was the way to heaven, the truth about how to get there, the life we hope to share for all eternity," he said a homily Dec. 9 at St. Patrick's Cathedral. (Archbishop Dolan says Archbishop Sheen knew Jesus was the way to Heaven.)

 

How is it to have a "pivotal insight" to recognize that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the way to Heaven? Pivotal insight? One who does not recognize Our Lord as the Way, the Truth, and the Life is an apostate. It is simply to adhere to the Apostles' Creed to recognize that Our Lord is indeed the Son of God made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost. Pivotal insight? Did the late Archbishop Sheen, who died on December 9, 1979, have to "search" far and wide for this "pivotal insight"? Or was the eloquent preacher--and a defender of many aspects of conciliarism, it should be added--merely defending the Faith with the great gifts of mind and articulation with which God had bestowed upon him in such abundance. Pivotal insight?

No Catholic has to "search" for the "truth." This is something that many arch-conciliarists do not understand or accept.

Just consider the fact that "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch has been able to reject a plain truth of the Faith (that Our Lord died in atonement for our sins on the wood of the Holy Cross) and remain a "bishop" in good standing in the conciliar structures as he has done so. Did Zollitsch arrive at his apostasy after "searching for the truth" through allegedly "scholarly" works of theology?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI feels free to do what true Catholic pontiffs never did prior to the dawning of the age of conciliarism, going into places of false worship as he imparts lavish words of praise upon those dens of iniquity and esteems their very symbols. Have his repeated actions in violation of the First and Second Commandment that offend the true God of Divine Revelation greatly come about as the result of a "search" for ways to "unite" with "believers" worldwide?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that it was necessary "to discover" a new relationship with the "faith of Israel" following the crimes of the Third Reich during World War II? Does this mean that Ratzinger/Benedict had to "search" for a way to make irrelevant the Catholic Church's immutable teaching that the Mosaic Covenant was indeed superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ at the Last Supper and ratified as He shed His Most Precious Blood on the wood of Holy Cross on Good Friday?

Ratzinger/Benedict himself has told us that his mentor, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, spent his entire life in a "search" for truth:

“Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Pope writes, ‘was a theologian who put his work at the service of the Church,’ because he was convinced that theology is useful only within the context of Catholic practice. ‘I can testify that his life was an authentic search for truth," the Pope adds. Pope Benedict says that he hopes the 100th-anniversary observance will stimulate a revival of interest in the work of von Balthasar, recalling Henri de Lubac's claim that the Swiss theologian was "the most cultured man of our century.’ The Lateran University seminar is co-sponsored by Communio, the international theological journal that was founded by von Balthasar in cooperation with theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and Angelo Scola (now the Patriarch of Venice). Participants in the weekend's discussions include Cardinal Scola, Cardinal James Stafford, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet.” (Catholic World News.com, October 7, 2005.)

 

There is frequently the need to search for the truth of various historical facts. There is no need to "search" for the truths of the Catholic Faith, truths that indeed were put into question by Father Hans Urs von Balthasar by his belief that the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ contained "paradoxes" and "contradictions" that had to be re-examined in light of the "changing circumstances" in which "modern man" finds himself. Von Balthasar believed that "only love is credible," meaning that precise dogmatic formulations are secondary, if even at all necessary, to serving God as members of the Catholic Church. Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose belief in the heresy of "universal salvation" was critiqued by Father Regis Scanlon, O.F.M.., Cap., in The Inflated Reputation of Hans Urs von Balthasar, is to be "praised" for his "search" for dogmatic truth on points that have been defined solemnly by the Catholic Church--and therefore no longer matters of debate.

Those outside of the Catholic Faith may have to search for the truth as they led in their lives by the promptings of God the Holy Ghost. Those who have strayed from the Faith may have to do so after having abandoned the maternal bosom of Holy Mother Church, which had provided them with sure teaching and the sacramental graces to live in accord with it. A believing Catholic, whether a bishop or a priest or a consecrated member of a religious community, does not have to "search" for any of the truths of Divine Revelation as these truths dwell in Holy Mother Church and are readily accessible. Indeed, a believing Catholic has the solemn duty to proclaim the truth to all nonbelievers as his prays and works for their unconditional conversion to the true Faith, recognizing that it is a sin to leave unbeliever in his unbelief without making some kind of effort to seek his conversion.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI doesn't even believe this. He believes that it is possible for the Jews, for example, to have a "parallel" reading of the Old Testament that does not point unequivocally to the First Coming in time of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that we will commemorate in but ten days:

In its work, the Biblical Commission could not ignore the contemporary context, where the shock of the Shoah has put the whole question under a new light. Two main problems are posed: Can Christians, after all that has happened, still claim in good conscience to be the legitimate heirs of Israel's Bible? Have they the right to propose a Christian interpretation of this Bible, or should they not instead, respectfully and humbly, renounce any claim that, in the light of what has happened, must look like a usurpation? The second question follows from the first: In its presentation of the Jews and the Jewish people, has not the New Testament itself contributed to creating a hostility towards the Jewish people that provided a support for the ideology of those who wished to destroy Israel? The Commission set about addressing those two questions. It is clear that a Christian rejection of the Old Testament would not only put an end to Christianity itself as indicated above, but, in addition, would prevent the fostering of positive relations between Christians and Jews, precisely because they would lack common ground. In the light of what has happened, what ought to emerge now is a new respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. On this subject, the Document says two things. First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Christian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible.)

“It is of course possible to read the Old Testament so that it is not directed toward Christ; it does not point quite unequivocally to Christ.  And if Jews cannot see the promises as being fulfilled in him, this is not just ill will on their part, but genuinely because of the obscurity of the texts and the tension in the relationship between these texts and the figure of Jesus.  Jesus brings a new meaning to these texts – yet it is he who first gives them their proper coherence and relevance and significance.  There are perfectly good reasons, then, for denying that the Old Testament refers to Christ and for saying, No, that is not what he said.  And there are also good reasons for referring it to him – that is what the dispute between Jews and Christians is about.” (Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, p. 209.)

To the religious leaders present this afternoon, I wish to say that the particular contribution of religions to the quest for peace lies primarily in the wholehearted, united search for God.  Ours is the task of proclaiming and witnessing that the Almighty is present and knowable even when he seems hidden from our sight, that he acts in our world for our good, and that a society’s future is marked with hope when it resonates in harmony with his divine order.  It is God’s dynamic presence that draws hearts together and ensures unity.  In fact, the ultimate foundation of unity among persons lies in the perfect oneness and universality of God, who created man and woman in his image and likeness in order to draw us into his own divine life so that all may be one. (Courtesy visit to the President of the State of Israel at the presidential palace in Jerusalem, May 11, 2009.)

Joseph Ratzinger would have us believe that God has revealed Himself to us in an oblique manner, one that is not clear and certain. This is, of course, utter apostasy from a man who denies the very nature of dogmatic truth by asserting that past dogmatic decrees and papal pronouncements are conditioned by the circumstances in which they were made, thus making a mockery of the infallible guidance and protection of God the Holy Ghost. It is no wonder, of course, that Ratzinger/Benedict must live in alternative universe where it is necessary to spend one's live in a vast array of needless "searches."

Yes, of course, theologians and other scholars may have delve into various aspects of the inexhaustible treasures of the Holy Faith, doing so at all times under the watchful eye and direction of Holy Mother Church. To understand the Faith more deeply and to draw out from Its treasures deeper understandings that in no way contradict what the Church has taught from time immemorial is a work in behalf of souls that is indeed sanctioned by God. It is not necessary, however, to search for what God has revealed or the path that He has marked out for the unity of all men as members of the Catholic Church.

That the conciliar "pontiffs," who have claimed to have held the office of Supreme Pastor, do not preach simply and clearly that Catholicism and Catholicism alone is the one and only means of human salvation and the one and only means of personal and social order is a very strong testimony to the nature of the apostasy that is upon us. Billions of souls on the face of this earth have been left to wander aimlessly in life because the conciliar church and its "pontiffs" and its "bishops" and its priests/presbyters do not believe that they have a solemn duty to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all non-Catholics to the true Faith.

Conciliarists have held endless numbers of conferences and symposia and workshops to "search" for "Christian unity" ("Paul’s exhortation resounds with no less vigor today. His words instill in us the confidence that the Lord will never abandon us in our quest for unity"-- Ecumenical Prayer Service at St Joseph's Parish in New York, April 18, 2008) and to "search" for "world peace" and to "search" for a way in which in "believers" (a category that conciliarists believe includes Mohammedans and Hindus and Buddhists and Jews and Jainists and animists and all other believers in one false religion after another) to work together to combat secularism. Everything but Catholicism and it alone is considered to be part of the "search" for "answers" that are to be found only in the Catholic Church.

Our Lord made Himself manifest as a helpless Baby in Bethlehem, content to be born in poverty, humility, and relative anonymity. He did proclaim Himself during the course of His Public Ministry to be the Messias, proving this by His words and actions, especially by the miracles He performed prior to His Passion, Death, Burial, and Resurrection, and Ascension to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father's right hand in glory. The answer that Our Lord gave to His cousin, Saint John the Baptist, attests to the fact it was of Him that His cousin, the last of the Old Testament Prophets, spoke when preaching in the desert and administering his baptism of repentance:

Now when John had heard in prison the works of Christ: sending two of his disciples he said to him: Art thou he that art to come, or look we for another? And Jesus making answer said to them: Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

And blessed is he that shall not be scandalized in me. And when they went their way, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: What went you out into the desert to see? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went you out to see? a man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are clothed in soft garments, are in the houses of kings. But what went you out to see? a prophet? yea I tell you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: Behold I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.(Matthew 11: 2-10.)

 

We do not need to spend our lives in "search" for the truth. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is difficult enough to get home to Heaven as a member of the Catholic Church even when one accepts the totality of the Deposit of Faith. The vagaries of fallen human nature and of the effects of our sins ravage each one of us. Our Lord has made it easy for us to know what it is true by giving us Holy Mother Church as the sole repository and explicator of His Deposit of Faith. All we have to do is to cooperate with the graces that He won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady in order to overcome the effects of sins on our souls and to grow in holiness.

We separate ourselves from the conciliarists because they offend God by defecting from the Faith, starting with their rejection of the nature of dogmatic truth and their making complex what it is: the knowledge of Him that He has deposited in Holy Mother Church. We must understand, however, that offenses against the moral order are no less of a concern to God than offenses against doctrine. Offenses against the moral order, many of which have been committed by the conciliar "bishops" and their chancery factotums and their insurance companies are not "little things," unless, as I have noted in other commentaries in recent weeks, that the loss of the Faith in a single soul is a "little thing" and that the clergy responsible for indemnifying the loss of just one soul do not show themselves to be enemies of the Cross of the Divine Redeemer as a result.

Although there are those who tell us that we should "stay and fight" in once Catholic parishes that now in the hands of apostates (or their enablers who refuse to speak out against them), we must recognize that offenses against the doctrines of the Faith and offenses against the moral order are never the foundations upon which God will choose to restore His Holy Church. Truth in the moral order is as black and white as truth in the doctrinal realm. Concilairism consists of its very nature in a rejection of various parts of the Catholic Faith, and it is this rejection that leads in turn to the same sort of despair and hopelessness in the souls of so many men now as existed at the time before the First Coming of Our Lord at His Incarnation and, nine months later, His Nativity.

Mindful of the fact that our own sins have worsened the state of the Church Militant on earth and of the world-at-large, let us be content during the Ember Days that start tomorrow, Wednesday, December 16, 2009, to intensify our Advent penances as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.

We must remember that Our Lord was hated by the august King Herod the Great when news of His Nativity reached Herod. We must remember that Our Lord had to be taken by his dear foster-father, Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, and His Most Blessed Mother to live in exile in Egypt. We must remember that Our Lord lived most of His life hidden from the world performing the arduous work of a carpenter, working with the very wood of trees that were created through Him, the very wood of trees upon which He would redeem us, thus re-creating us unto children of God by adoption.

These truths, which we don't need to "search for" as they part of the Deposit of Faith, are important to remember at all times because the crosses of the present moment, no matter their source, are fashioned to us from the very hand of God Himself to be the means of our participating in Our Lord's Easter victory over the power of sin and eternal death. It matters not what anyone thinks of us for refusing to accept the conciliarists as representatives of the Catholic Church or for refusing to associate with those who believe act in a de facto manner as the authority of the Church while looking the other way at grave abuses of the moral order and indemnifying wrong-doers time and time again. All that matters is that we carry our cross as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, looking for no other consolation than that which is given to the souls of the elect upon the Particular Judgment and that is ratified for all to see at General Judgment of the Living and the Dead:

Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (Matthew 25: 21.)

 

May Our Lady help us in these final days of her expectation to prepare to welcome her Divine Son on Christmas Day by the time we spend in prayer before His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and by our keeping watch for the many ways that He comes to us in our daily lives, being careful to pray for the good of all men, including the conciliarists and those others who cause scandal to the faithful that they seek to minimize and excuse, so that they can embrace the Catholic Faith, the one and only path to happiness here on earth in preparation for the eternal joys of Heaven itself.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for 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