There is nothing that frustrates me more
than those Catholics who are continuously engaged in highlighting all that is
wrong with the Church; continually stressing why the Church’s teachings are
unreasonable or incorrect; emphasising the need for the Church to conform to
current popular opinion on a variety of subjects; accusing the Church
leadership of being out of touch and draconian, while also making anecdotal pronouncements of them being guilty of bigotry, misogyny
and a host of other offences.
On his Blog today, Fr Ray Blake, one of the bloggers I follow, makes a very
interesting point about these dissidents. He says: “In the past we might have called them
heretics, now we call them dissidents... The problem is that they remain to
teach others to leap the fence, indeed, their role as "dissident"
seems to give them importance in the secular world, and the "Liberal
Catholic" establishment to comment on the Church and to condemn it.”
I must say that I often wonder why these
dreadfully unhappy folks don’t go to a Christian denomination that does comply
with all of their religious requirements and beliefs? After all, there are
already so many Christian denominations out there, many of whom already have
women ‘priests’, permit divorce, give the laity a right to vote for future
leaders/ministers, agree with contraceptive use and with a woman’s right to
choose abortion, to mention just a few examples.
Obviously one wants to encourage Catholics to stay united to the Church, but there must surely be a point at which one must weigh the cost of that continued unity. A point at which one asks of the person, why remain a Catholic if you intend to continue committing such treacherous acts? Why remain a Catholic if you cannot accept that: “The Lord made St. Peter
the visible foundation of his Church. He entrusted the keys of the Church to
him. The bishop of the Church of Rome, successor to St. Peter, is "head of
the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church
on earth".”[i]
You can read Fr Ray’s entire post, titled “Shooting And Breaking The Legs Of Sheep And Heretics”, on his Blog by following this link.
