My latest column: “Salvation happens ‘IRL’, not on Twitter”

July 6, 2023

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

Some of our readers may remember aspects of the history of my Twitter exploits a few years back. I built an account up with a very large follower to followed ratio, almost 25k to 83. This is calculated to impress, Twitter being a superficial medium that measures reality in terms of follows and likes. It’s fueled by much fruitlessly expended CO2, so to speak. Many opinions, but often little context. A lot of talk but little action or real effort results from much expended “gas.”

But one can, with patience and fortitude, find a pool of folks who don’t follow just to get a follow back, tit for tat, and who want to hear what a priest has to say. Granted I offered a unique “brand,” as it were, telling the story of my experience of relaunching the integral Catholic tradition within a parish context. And that’s the real point of this column. The “real.”

After a few incidents involving my account I was asked, or rather told, to stop posting. Or else. On behalf of whom this was communicated it is better not to mention. The reason for going back in time and delving once again into the late unpleasantness is to make a point. I was making Twitter less fun because I was boldly challenging one of the more widely known and “followed” heresiarchs who presents himself as a Catholic and is treated as a priest in good standing by his religious community. He is well liked by the Pope and treated to personal audiences, photo-ops with His Holiness, and hand-penned congratulatory notes. All of these are, of course, posted on his Twitter account.

You may guess of whom I speak. Or not. It doesn’t really make a difference in the end. Why? The real protagonist in this and all matters Catholic is the Faith, the truths of the Faith. The Logos, our Lord, is the center of our lives. And this is important for the sake of the souls whom Christ sent the Church to save.

On another occasion I made a point about modesty in this forum that offers little to no context. Latin Mass Catholics inhabit a largely lost world, where men and women use clothing for a similar purpose in a true equality long forgotten by a society that measures freedom in terms of license. Thousands of consumers of information on Twitter with no experience of a Latin Mass, or the unique experience of community enabled by it, had little to no capacity to understand how one person with skin exposed in a sea of people can provide a considerable distraction at Holy Mass. That was the point of a tweet that drew international ire and caused a Twitter mob of deranged thousands to swarm and attack a single priest.

Read the rest: https://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/our-catholic-faith/salvation-is-irl-not-on-twitter/

Pray that Archbishop Fernandez, new head of doctrine for the Church, “return to the Catholic Faith”

While some in the Church tear down and destroy, we build: sending our priesthood candidate off to the seminary

Stephen has been in formation with us for over 7 years. This month he sets out for postulancy with the Oratorian fathers in Cincinnati. We sent him off with congratulations, prayers and best wishes at a standing-room only lunch on a recent Sunday.

Along with his work as sacristan, Stephen also headed up the overall design and redecoration effort for our church’s recent traditional restoration. 

The theme for the lunch was Italian trattoria.

Our beautiful family of faith was gathered in full strength. 

Traditional parish life is marked by numerous children and growing families.

On Amoris Laetitia: “It is dangerous to give the impression that only outward acts can be morally good or evil.“

Fr Thomas Crean on whether Amoris is 'Thomistic'

LifeSiteNews carries an interview with Fr Thomas Crean OP on the use of St Thomas Aquinas by Amoris laetitia, in light of Christoph, Cardinal Schönborn's claim that the document is 'Thomistic'.

Read the whole thing there; I paste in an extract below.

(The English version of) paragraph 145  (of Amoris Laetitia) states: “Experiencing an emotion is not, in itself, morally good or evil. The stirring of desire or repugnance is neither sinful nor blameworthy. What is morally good or evil is what we do on the basis of, or under the influence of, a given passion.” It footnotes the Summa, 1a 2ae 24, 1.

But what St. Thomas says here is that no emotion, abstractly considered, is either good or bad. Even hatred is not bad as such: it is good to hate sin. However, every actually existing emotion will always be either good or bad. This is true, independently of any actions to which they may give rise.

St. Thomas says: ipsae passiones, secundum quod sunt voluntariae, possunt dici bonae vel malae moraliter. Dicuntur autem voluntariae vel ex eo quod a voluntate imperantur, vel ex eo quod a voluntate non prohibentur (“The emotions themselves, inasmuch as they are voluntary, can be called morally good or bad. And they are said to be voluntary inasmuch as they are commanded by the will, or else because they are not checked by the will.”) There is a serious mistake in the text of Amoris Laetitia here, since certain emotions can rise by themselves to the level of mortal sin, for example, certain kinds of deliberate anger and sexual desire. It is dangerous to give the impression that only outward acts can be morally good or evil.

The Latin text of paragraph 145 is slightly different, but the net result is the same. On the one hand, it changes “the stirring of desire or repugnance is neither sinful nor blameworthy” to “perceiving a desire or repugnance beginning is neither harmful nor blameworthy,” which strictly speaking is true, since the perception itself would not be a sin. However, it retains the claim that moral good and evil lie only in outward action. And, bizarrely, it also quotes one of the objections in the Summa as if it were St. Thomas’ own teaching!

Next, paragraph 301. Here Amoris Laetitia states that people … can be living in irregular (e.g. adulterous) situations and may know the Church’s teaching on ‘the rule’, and yet may be unable to see the value of “the rule.” These people, Amoris Laetitia says, may possess sanctifying grace and may be unable to obey the rule without sinning.

It goes on: “St. Thomas Aquinas himself recognized that someone may possess grace and charity, yet not be able to exercise any one of the virtues well.” As Dr. Joseph Shaw has pointed out, this quotation is irrelevant to the question of whether one can be excused from obeying the divine law by an ability to see its value, or whether one can be obliged to disobey it to avoid some other sin. St. Thomas is simply talking of people who have repented of past sins, and who now live virtuously, but do so with some difficulty because of the effect that those past sins have left behind.

Hence Dr. Shaw wrote: “Aquinas is simply pointing out that impediments are more likely when the virtue has not been acquired by a process of training and habituation over time, but by an infusion of grace from God. This abstruse issue is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand, and makes me wonder about the intellectual integrity of the people advising Pope Francis at this point in the document.” A more relevant passage from the Summa would have been found in 1a 2ae 19, 6: “If erring reason tell a man that he should go to another man's wife, the will that abides by that erring reason is evil; since this error arises from ignorance of the Divine Law, which he is bound to know.”

Read the rest: http://www.lmschairman.org/2017/10/fr-thomas-crean-on-whether-amoris-is.html

France: “Rioters stripped and badly beat an 80-year-old French priest and then attempted to lynch him in Saint Etienne on Friday night.”

 

N.B.

Fresh tweets

 

Humility and obedience to God conquers “pride”

“The has been the worst ‘pride month’ in history............. and it's great!

-Budlight is down 30% in sales for three months.

- Target Down Billions of Dollars.

-MLB, Xbox, the Navy, and Starbucks removing their pride logos and merchandise.

- Thousands of People protested the Dodgers game.

-Thousands have been protesting at schools, events, and libraries.

- Google is removing sponsoring of pride events. We are Winning! Never lose hope and keep praying the Rosary.” via Nicholas Cavazos