CONTROLLED CHAOS
God then withdrew, a punishment quite just,
Yet still men are intent on going bust!
If there is one word with which to describe the state of the Catholic Church today, surely that word is “chaos.” The normal structure of the Church is that of a pyramid, with God’s own Authority descending through Pope, cardinals, bishops and priests, all raised up by God to look after His sheep, or laity, at ground level. This hierarchy consists of fallible men, from top to bottom, so that at all levels mistakes can be made. However, if in normal circuмstances a Superior in the hierarchy misbehaves, he usually has a Superior of his own to whom I can appeal against his misbehaviour, because any given Superior in the Church will normally make decisions in accordance with Canon Law, and, with a minimum of good will, in accordance with truth and justice. And so, in normal circuмstances, from lower down I can appeal all the way up to Rome.
However, what happens when the fallible human being at the top of this pyramid loses his sense of truth and justice, and even his good will? There can only be chaos in the Church from top to bottom, because the Catholic Church was designed by God to be a monarchy in which there is His own divine Authority to protect the great truths of salvation, so that He can populate His Heaven with souls to share His bliss. That Authority is recognised and exercised at all levels of the hierarchy, but supremely by the Pope, who has no human Superior above him, but only God. It follows that if the Pope, or the man in white who is universally accepted as Pope, seems to lose all sense of Truth for which alone he receives his awesome Authority over the Church, dwarfing all merely human authorities, then the Church is in chaos, from top to bottom.
In this respect, the Catholic Church resembles a string doll consisting of multiple pieces of coloured wood, upheld on strings, upheld in turn by the puppeteer above. If for one moment the puppeteer lets go of the strings, the entire doll collapses into a jumbled heap of meaningless pieces of wood. If for one moment Almighty God lets go of His Pope and Cardinals in Rome, His bishops and priests and laity turn worldwide into a jumbled heap of Catholics, disunited and divided among themselves, many of them striving to recreate in their own little corner a semblance of that divine Authority which can come from God alone. What less can they do? Wise Catholics recognise their basic impotency, unless and until God restores a Catholic Pope. Meanwhile Catholics must do what they can to rebuild Catholic corners, and help all other Catholics to do the same, just so long as they have the Catholic Faith (and here let nobody pretend to be infallible!).
And the Pope, or seeming Pope? The correct perspective on the history of mankind is that, because of original sin, each of its Seven Ages is launched by a key figure, followed by a period of decadence until the next key figure is appointed by God to raise mankind up again, until the Antichrist will bring to an end the Seventh Age of the World which was introduced by God Himself with His Incarnation, some 2000 years ago.
This Seventh Age has been by far the longest, because God’s own Incarnation has been the turning-point of human history, the climax of all Seven Ages, because the Incarnation has continued ever since through the Catholic Church, Jesus continuing to live and save souls for eternity among all races and nations.
But God, to honour man, chose to entrust His Church not to angels but to fallible men, without turning them into robots by taking away their free-will. This means that He laid Himself open to the possibility that the human ministers of His Church would eventually so misuse their God-given free-will as to destroy His Church. This is what virtually happened at Vatican II (1962–1965). In 1968, God gave mankind a second chance, when He guided Pope Paul VI to condemn artificial means of birth control in the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. But all mankind, not just the Catholics, rose up in revolt, to condemn the old man dressed in white, living in Rome, supposed to know nothing about marriage.
Almighty God then said, so to speak, “Alright. Have it your own way. You do not want My Church. Have your own, and see how you like it. Good-bye for now. Get back in touch as soon as you want My Church back. Meanwhile, I will keep it going, in distress. I will be waiting to hear from you. I love you still.
Kyrie eleison. |
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