Blah, Blah, Blah

So you’ve read Thomas Aquinas, Cervantes, Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare? Blah Blah Blah. Lately on Catholic web sites, I’ve been seeing so much self righteousness and so much anger and so much bitterness. All of which is passive aggressively wrapped up in a bunch of fancy rhetoric. It’s written to be disguised as an intellectual discussion and debate. I see this so much that I felt compelled to address this Biblically and simply: without the hate.

Recently I read a back and forth conversation in a comment section on a popular Catholic website. In that exchange of words, if you tried hard enough, you could almost see where the curse words had to be deleted before the “submit” button was pressed. And this was between 2 Catholics. They both desperately wanted to show that they had it all figured out. There was no opinion in their remarks. To them they were stating the facts. To me it was looking politely hateful. Both of them claimed to have the answers and both claimed to be very well educated. Personally, when someone spends a few paragraphs explaining all their educational and personal accomplishments, I immediately think of the Pharisees who boasted and prayed out loud in front of the people.

Now, I am a common Catholic. I’m not Harvard or Yale educated but I can read and form an opinion. To me these back and forth’s lose all of their meaning and come across as a bunch of hateful, egotistical gibberish. I don’t claim to know all about idioms nor have I ever completely read, Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare or Thomas Aquinas (as one comment stated), but I have read God’s Word. And what I know is that God’s Word and our traditions were put together by our Catholic Fathers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Somewhere down the line, it has become okay for many to think that they are smarter than the Church. Have we become so arrogant that we think all of our dabbling in the classics and reading the Saint’s writings, have somehow made us spokespeople for the traditional Catholic? We act and write as if it is our duty to rebel against the changes that the Church has made over the last century. It’s almost like we think that somewhere up in Heaven, God is saying,

”You know what? These people sure have put a lot of thought into Vatican II and they HAVE been reading a lot of history and are really educated soooo……I guess it’s okay if they question the Church’s decisions and question the Pope’s motives”. “Maybe it’s okay if they get other Catholics to question my Church too?”. “Maybe they ARE smarter than the Church I’ve put together”

Now, if this describes you right now, then I ask for you to not get angry but to remember one thing. God knows what He is doing. The gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church so let’s not think that OUR opinions of Vatican II, the Pope’s liberalism or bringing back the traditions of the Mass are really weighing heavy on God’s heart right now. I don’t think when His Holy Spirit inspired the cardinals at the papal conclave to choose a Pope that He possibly may have gotten it all wrong. I don’t think He’s been on a vacation since Vatican II and I don’t think that Joe Schmoe on a blog has figured out how God let His church get out of touch and out of hand.

We should all remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 15:1-3:

"Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?"

Jesus clearly said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. Let’s not profess to be so traditional and so full of knowledge, that we think we’re smarter than Jesus. Remember Jesus? Jesus ,who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit? I’m pretty sure the Holy Spirit knows more than we do. In fact, I don’t need any fancy words to tell me that. I just have my Catholic faith.