Your Church, No Matter What

The situation is, admittedly, dire. However, fleeing to a parallel reality is not the solution.

There is only one Church, and this is the deal we get. There is only one Pope (in charge, I mean) and that one is the guy we get.

The Church has gone through horrible crises and periods of extreme corruption before. This is clearly the worst crisis ever, but again we were never promised that we would never see a worse crisis than those the Church experienced in the past. Also, in the bimillenarian history of the Church there had never been a period of defiance of Church teaching from within. Is it so surprising that the subsequent Divine Punishment would affect the Church also from within?

This is still your Church. It is covered in mud, but below the thick strata of Vatican II dirt it is as resplendent as ever. We are all expected to stay faithful to her, no matter how thick the mud; because, like Padre Pio, we love the Church even if she kills us.

It is the lot given to us to live in a time of heresy. But the Church will never be that heresy. We refuse obedience to a heretical Pope in everything in which obedience is not due to him. But we do not break our link to Christ’s Church.

We do not decide who is Pope. We do not decide whether the Church exists. Much less we decide whether she “deserves us”.

We accept this dire situation as, at the same time, our lot and our task. We accept that we might not have the consolation, on our deathbed, of knowing that the once great crisis has been overcome. We prepare ourselves to die in fidelity to that resplendent Church lying below the thick strata of mud, and we keep giving our allegiance to it.

You did not give up your passport when Obama became president. You do not give up on the Church when the Pope is a damn atheist, heretical Commie.

Don’t be a “not my President”-type Catholic.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “it’s the only Church you have”.

M