Man Overboard?

With great sadness, today I read around of desperate Catholics thinking of conversion to Orthodoxy. I should, I think, repeat my two cents on the matter for the benefit of all those who were to entertain such unfortunate thoughts. 

The Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ on Peter. The Orthodox of whatever variety are Schismatics. You don’t want to die a Schismatic. You really don’t. 

The mistake some people make is to confuse the praxis with the Truth, and to decide that the organisation with the better (or less bad) praxis is the one that should have their allegiance. Wrong. 

 The matter here is not one of degree, but of substance. There is only one Church. There is simply no other shop in town. Everyone else is not simply a lesser Church. Everyone else is, simply, no Church at all. 

There is only one shop, and you are either in it or out of it. If the neighbour has a pretend shop without commercial licence, his pretend shop can be as clean and inviting as you like, but it will still not be a shop due to the lack of the licence that alone allows it to be, and legitimately call itself, a shop. 

Conversely, the only real – that is: licensed – shop in the village can be dirty, messy, run by idiots, and undermining its own business every day of the week, but it will still be the only shop. 

The Church has an intrinsic quality, that of being the only shop Christ established and to which He gave a licence, that separates Her in the most obvious manner from all the pretend organisation. The difference is not quantitative, but ontological. The Church is the Church, all the other aren’t. A bigger difference, a wider gap than this cannot exist. 

Must be, then, accept the madness that happens in the shop as the authoritative, and therefore proper, way to run it? Certainly not. 

The Authority who gave the shop the licence left a Manual. The Manual says how the shop is to be run. If the shop is run by idiots and becomes dirty and smelly this will never cause it to stop being The Only Shop, nor will any degree of neglect ever cause any non-shop to become one. 

When the shop is run by idiots who pretend not to know what the Manual says, and actually keep telling us we must now follow a New Manual, this does not dent the validity of the Manual or the legitimacy of the shop in the least; it merely allows us to get an idea of what back-breaking fines the Authority who has given the licence, and which is also the owner of the unit itself, will impose on such disgraceful managers when the inspection is due. 

It is certainly a huge problem that the only shop in town should be run in such a disgraceful way; but this is just a factual circumstance, and cannot change the simple fact that no amount of mismanagement can change the nature of both the Only Shop, and the wannabe pretend shops. 

You, dear reader, have a fairly uncommon privilege: you have been born, or have been received, into the Only Church. You hold a ticket to a passage in the Only Barque through the perilous Sea of Life. 

To think of conversion because of the bunch of minus habens currently steering the Barque is as senseless as to wonder whether one should not jump in the sea and end the perilous passage swimming, or asking for admission in one of the many life rafts desperately trying to reach the end of the voyage, and in a very difficult situation because they are, very simply, not the Only Barque. 

Forget the swimming. Forget the life rafts. Stay in the Barque. Shitty as the crew is, it’s the only place. 

M 

 

 

Your Other “Five A Day”

Five a day keep the devil away…

TLM: Say “Thanks” To The SSPX

Mundabor's Blog

Thanks, SSPX!

And it came to pass we were informed from high places the Tridentine Mass is not in danger during the current Pontificate.

I must say I had to smile.

Firstly, I invite you to consider that in the end no one can speak for the Bishop of Rome, who will do what he thinks best (or worst) irrespective of what Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos has said, or even of what he might have said to others. There will always be a new situation that will allow him to say that new measures are now necessary.

Secondly, the reason adduced for Francis’ forbidding the priest of the FFI to celebrate the Tridentine Mass can be used ad libitum in the future. If six dissidents are reason enough to forbid 400 priests (says Wikipedia) from celebrating the Mass of the Ages, its “divisiveness” (divisiveness that is most certainly there: a good…

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SSPX Rosary Crusade: Don’t Delay, Start Today!

I have written several times about this, but would like to do it again as we now approach the last weeks of the Crusade.

This is a wonderful occasion to take the habit or praying the rosary daily.

Mundabor

 

Shocking News From Italy

Twenty-six women who claim they are the mistresses of priests ask Pope Francis to put an end to priest celibacy.

I wasn’t so shocked since twenty-six Italian jail inmates asked for the abolition of the jail system, and twenty-six Italian pedophiles demanded the abolition of the age of consent.

I also wonder how many of these women would divorce their (non-priest) husband if he had a mistress, but do not want to realise the priests in question are cheating the Church with them.

If one is unfaithful to Christ, what lets a woman think he will be faithful to her?

Mundabor