How happy I am to tell you, so many of my fellow Jesuit priests were killed at the altar in the 16th century by the so-called reformers; there was no Protestant reformation; there was only a Protestant revolution. They were murdered at the altar because, as we believe, Jesus continues to offer the same sacrifice He offered on Calvary. He died only once on the cross, but in every sacrifice of the Mass, made possible only through the priesthood, Jesus communicates the graces that He won for us by His death on Good Friday afternoon. First then, gratitude, gratitude for the priesthood, through which we have the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession. St. Ignatius tells us, his spiritual sons, whenever possible, divide every homily you preach, every lecture you'll give, into three parts, in honor of the holy Trinity.
Concern
I would not be honest in speaking to you if I did not share with you the deep concern I have and that I share with thousands of believing and faithful Catholics, if I did not express my deep concern about what is going on in many so-called developed countries, like our own United States. Just a few obvious facts:
- In the United States, since the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Catholic seminarians have dropped by 90% in our country.
- Closed seminaries. My own beloved Society of Jesus, we have closed three of our five Jesuit seminaries in America, and not coincidentally, the three largest.
- Concern over some seven thousand priests in our nation that have left the active priesthood, again, since the close of the Second Vatican Council. Having taught my own Jesuits their theology for over twenty-five years, concern is a mild word. The anguish over so many ordained priests in our own nation, dare I use the word, abandoning their priestly vocation.
- Concern over so many priests,, who are in the vanguard of promoting such unchristian practices as adultery, sodomy, contraception.
- Concern that our own American Catholic episcopate, in 1968 when Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae -- our own bishops -- a long, piously worded document, told Catholics to follow their own consciences in the practice of contraception.
- Concern over so many priests promoting what is nothing less than a rebellion against the authority conferred by Jesus on Peter and his successors, rejecting the authority of the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ. Now my twenty?ninth year in working for the Holy See has taught me many things. One thing I've learned, and I share it with you, which is, why I am expressing the second part of our homily.
- Concern, especially in so-called developed nations like our own, over the widespread breakdown of faith in and vocations to the Catholic priesthood. One thing I've learned in these years of working for the Holy See, there is not just a major crisis in the Catholic Church. This is the gravest and deepest crisis in the history of Christianity in two thousand years, and the heart of that crisis is a crisis in the priesthood.
1 comment:
When you are more concerned with fake conversions, based on vague ambiguous language, and your motive for those conversions is to use people as economic slaves and cannon fodder; then once the converted find out you are not sincerely converted to your ideology, only use it for the purpose of your greed for power and social status; then you have turned them into an enemy.
But it is your choice, if you prefer fake converts, and don't have the courage to be brutally honest with yourselves first, and subsequently with those who may consider converting to your ideology.
A true religion allows for every single belief it rests upon, to be enquired into for evidence of its authenticity and truth; so as to be built on a rock. A fake religion is but an ideology, used for PR deceive the public purposes. Why would a true religion require a dogma of infallbility to protect it from examining whether its belief in that issue was authentic?
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