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This despairing cry from an anonymous Catholic seminarian was posted at the radical Catholic reactionary<\/a> site One Peter Five<\/em> under the title, \u201cSeminarian: \u2018Is There Any Reason Why I Should Remain Catholic?\u2019 \u201c<\/a> (5-18-21). I will reproduce all of the article (in blue<\/span>) and make replies.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n I\u2019m finishing up my theology studies and planning to leave the seminary. I know I shouldn\u2019t go into public ministry. <\/span><\/p>\n If he knows<\/em> that, then he certainly shouldn\u2019t. One must be sure of such things. I was called to a ministry of apologetics and evangelism as a Protestant in 1981, and have never wavered in my firm belief that this was an authentic call: just as I also followed the \u201ccall\u201d to join the Catholic Church in 1991. But <\/em>I question whether he truly<\/em> \u201cknows\u201d it. He is despairing at the moment, and those are the times that the devil exploits to the max, to disillusion us and make us question ourselves. He needs encouragement and hope and reaffirmation of his calling. I think I have some, if he ever reads this.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve become disillusioned and resentful. I don\u2019t believe in what the Catholic Church is teaching, and I don\u2019t want to help perpetuate what it is doing.<\/span><\/p>\n This is, of course, a sweeping statement, and therein lies the problem with it. He assumes a false premise: that the Church is teaching heresy. It is not<\/em>. Not a single doctrine has changed. Now, if he means that certain people<\/em> at this seminary<\/em> and\/or whatever parish<\/em> he is involved in, are teaching false doctrines and heresy, that may very well be true. The Bible warned about wolves in sheep\u2019s clothing. But that\u2019s not the Church as a whole. Thus his statement can only at best apply to local and specific environments.<\/p>\n I understand that this \u201ccry\u201d is emotional in nature, and I\u2019m sure there are many reasons why (on a personal level) he has been led to this sad abyss. But one can\u2019t answer emotion with emotion and accomplish anything. My job as an apologist is not to be this poor soul\u2019s shoulder to cry on (hopefully that is someone he knows very well and can trust; if I were one of those I would do that, too<\/em>). As an apologist who doesn\u2019t know this seminarian from Adam, I have to note where he has gone astray in his thinking \u2014 despairing or no.<\/p>\n The answers to and way out of such despair have to be objective and from reason: something to hang onto in one\u2019s dark night of the soul. I\u2019m obviously not in despair, as a fellow Catholic. So I can\u2019t give this person more despair in empathy because it\u2019s not in<\/em> my heart and head. I\u2019m filled with joy and fulfillment and hope as a Catholic.<\/p>\n After almost 10 years of discerning a call and pursuing a vocation, it seems like I\u2019ve wandered down a dead end road, and ended up stranded in the woods.<\/span><\/p>\n It could be that he was never called in the first place, but more likely, he was and is disillusioned because he has been (I assume) surrounded by bad examples of Catholics, and heterodox teaching from dissidents and so-called \u201cprogressives\u201d who no longer accept the teaching of the Catholic Church en toto<\/em>.<\/p>\n The first and most obvious solution was that he could and should have removed himself from this toxic environment<\/em> and found one where the people do<\/em> continue to teach the unchanging faith of the ages and the fullness of Christian truth. He\u2019s in this bad spiritual \/ emotional place, I think, because he\u2019s come to think (and feel<\/em>) that the rotgut he is encountering in this seminary represents the entire Church<\/em>. It does not. That\u2019s a lie from the pit of hell that the devil has put into his head during this crisis in his life.<\/p>\n I was na\u00efve enough to assume that the Catholic faith was practiced in the Catholic Church, but experience has taught me that the faith is no longer welcome in the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, this is not true of the entire Church. The faith lives on, as it always has. It is (I\u2019ll take his word) true in his seminary and\/or parish. We know nothing of where he is, so I can\u2019t speak to that. I can\u2019t look up the credentials and history of the men who have been teaching him and who brought him to this sad impasse. But it seems fairly obvious and likely that this is the cause of his darkness and hopelessness. Emotions are not objective. He thinks this seminary is the whole Church, just as a fish in an aquarium thinks its environment and living space is the entire world and that there is nothing outside of it.<\/p>\n I would advise against pursuing a vocation in the Church today, and I wouldn\u2019t even recommend the Church to anyone. What could anyone expect to find but spiritual abusers who refuse to enter the Kingdom of God and try to prevent others from doing so?<\/span><\/p>\n This starts to become sinful at this point, but we understand that it is a hurting soul with no hope left. Nevertheless, we cannot let falsehoods of this nature go out unopposed. It is not<\/em><\/strong> true that only spiritual abusers who aren\u2019t Catholic at all can be found in the Church. There are far too many of those \u2014 God knows \u2014 and it has wrought devastation in many human beings, but it\u2019s not the sum total of the Church. It\u2019s a small minority. The Church has always had grave sinners in it, including sexual sin. St. Paul talks about a case of incest among the Corinthians. See:<\/p>\n Sins and Sinners in the Catholic Church<\/a>\u00a0[1998]<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n \u201cCould the Catholic Church Go Off the Rails?\u201d (Indefectibility)<\/a>\u00a0[1997]<\/p>\n Indefectibility of Holy Mother Church: Believe It Or Not<\/a>\u00a0[2002]<\/p>\n Indefectibility: Does God Protect His Church from Doctrinal Error?<\/a>\u00a0[11-1-05; abridged and reformulated a bit on 2-14-17]<\/p>\n \u201cThe Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail\u201d Against the Church<\/a>\u00a0[11-11-08]<\/p>\n Indefectibility of the One True Church (vs. Calvin #9)<\/a>\u00a0[5-16-09]<\/p>\n Indefectibility & Apostolic Succession (vs. Calvin #10)<\/a>\u00a0[5-18-09]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n St. Francis de Sales: Bible vs.\u00a0Total Depravity (+ Biblical Evidence for the Indefectibility of the Church, from the Psalms)\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0[11-24-11]<\/p>\n The Bible on the Indefectibility of the Church<\/a>\u00a0[2013]<\/p>\n Salesian Apologetics #1: Indefectibility of the Church<\/a>\u00a0[2-4-20]<\/p>\n The Church is crumbling into quicksand, and we are scolded ad nauseum<\/em> that the Church still has to change more with the times.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s doing no such thing. This person has been sold a bill of goods. He\u2019s got the theological liberals lying to him and saying that the Church has changed and no longer believes a, b, c, d, and that this is a good<\/em> thing; and he has the reactionaries telling him that\u00a0the Church has changed and no longer believes a, b, c, d, and that this is a bad<\/em> thing. Neither scenario is true. Church doctrine has not changed.<\/p>\n The premise is wrong. The Church is what she always has been. It has sinners in it, who try to do great harm. They are on the left and right of the spectrum, and there are many nominal Catholics: in name only (just as there always have been, too, human beings being what they are).<\/p>\n But Jesus doesn\u2019t change. He set up His Church, and the Holy Spirit (Who is also God and doesn\u2019t change) guides and protects it from falling away. If we get our eyes off of Jesus: God incarnate and the sinless, Holy One, and onto a bunch of renegade wolves in sheep\u2019s clothing, then our perspective will be tragically exaggerated and skewed and we will descend to the pit of despair, where the devil wants us to be.<\/p>\n Jesus said, \u201clet your yes mean yes and your no mean no\u201d, and we respond, \u201cnot either yes or no, but both yes and no.\u201d We call good evil, and evil good. We guard a false peace of compromise in contradiction, and cultivate diseases of corruption and decline. The Church is like a wet cardboard box, and the bottom is falling out.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s what the devil would like us to believe, but it\u2019s a lie. The Church has been through far, far worse times in her past, yet survived and underwent renewal (which tends to be cyclical by century). That ought to give us hope in the doctrine of indefectibility, seeing what we have survived. Today\u2019s crisis is grave, but not the worst ever, by a wide margin.<\/p>\n Why evangelize? Evangelize to what?<\/span><\/p>\n The one true Church, the fullness of the Christian faith, the Church that Jesus established, promised would never fall away, and which has been historically continuous since He died: that<\/em>\u2018s what. And that\u2019s quite enough. When I came into the Church in 1991 I wasn\u2019t looking at people, I was looking at which Church had the teaching of the Bible and the apostles and Church fathers. It was no contest. The Orthodox was the next closest, but since they allow divorce and increasingly, contraception (two objectively mortal sins), that quickly ruled them out for me, since neither the Bible nor the early Church taught either thing.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not allowed to catechize anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n The are multiple thousands of catechists and Bible studies in parishes. It\u2019s hard to believe that he actually thinks these things he says are literally true.<\/p>\n There is too much resistance to the faith from the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t see it. The faith still remains what it always has been. If this is an implicit dig against Pope Francis, it\u2019s also a lie that he is not orthodox. I have defended him 193 times; I know<\/a>. If I had found heresy, I would have been the first to loudly oppose it, since I am 100%, rock-solid orthodox. My mentor was Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ: who was considered the best and most orthodox catechist in America before the official catechism came out (which he personally endorsed as \u201corthodox\u201d).<\/p>\n What\u2019s the point? What are we doing? The Church is no longer hoping to convert the world to Jesus Christ, but we are converting the Church to the Spirit of the World.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is also a falsehood. I agree that there could surely be more emphasis<\/em> on outreach (which has always been the case from Day One), but it\u2019s not true that the Church has somehow started to oppose evangelism.<\/p>\n The salt has lost its flavor and it is being cast aside and trampled underfoot. The lamp is dimming, the coals are dying out, and charity is growing cold. The substance of the faith has been drained out of the Church and watered down. The Church has been hollowed out. Triumphalism is defeated, the Barque of Peter is sinking, and it could be downhill from here.<\/span><\/p>\n This is the doctrine of the defectibility of the Church, which is heresy, since that doctrine is de fide<\/em> (dogma at the highest level). The pope<\/em> is also<\/em> indefectible<\/a>, as was taught at Vatican I in the same section that defined papal infallibility.<\/p>\n But, I know I\u2019m the problem. I\u2019m bitter, pessimistic and resentful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hence, (in my opinion) this letter should not have been public, and much of it is suspect, by his own report. Those attitudes are not edifying, and are easily sinful. Readers of it might be led to the path of despair as well.<\/p>\n I know I shouldn\u2019t minister publicly in the Church, and so I\u2019m getting my degree and leaving. I shouldn\u2019t have tried to persevere for so\u00a0<\/span>long, and I wish I had never pursued what I thought was a calling. I\u2019m the kind of person who should be chased out of this Church.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, there is a lot to unpack here. The question becomes: was there a suspicion that his calling was an authentic one? Is he speaking about his true self (\u201cI\u2019m the kind of person . . .\u201d), or just speaking out of despair, being resentfully sarcastic (sour grapes thinking) and not describing the true person outside of that despair? One can\u2019t know from just this letter.<\/p>\n But before I leave, I just want to ask one question, hoping that some leaders of the Church may hear me, and maybe try to offer a response:<\/span><\/p>\n Is there any reason why I should remain Catholic?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Further, is there any reason for\u00a0anyone<\/em>\u00a0to remain Catholic, or become Catholic? I dare you to tell us\u00a0<\/span>one good reason.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not a leader of the Church but I can give many more than one (149 more). I have provided 150 reasons<\/a> in one of my better-known articles (see the same article translated into Spanish<\/a>). See the related papers:<\/p>\n St. Augustine wrote:<\/p>\n For why do they sit at the gate, and what do they watch for, if it be not for this, that so soon as any bishop or clergyman or monk or nun has fallen, they may have ground for believing, and boasting, and maintaining that all are the same as the one that has fallen, but\u00a0that all cannot be convicted and unmasked? Yet these very men do not straightway cast forth their wives, or bring accusation against their mothers, if some married woman has been discovered to be an adulteress. But the moment that any crime is either falsely alleged or actually proved against any one who makes a profession of piety, these men are incessant and unwearied in their efforts to make this charge be believed against all religious men. (Epistle 78 [6]: to the Church at Hippo [404 A.D.] )<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You can\u2019t tell us that the Church is necessary for salvation, because we are no longer allowed to believe and teach that anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n This is false. It\u2019s in the Catechism and the Vatican has reiterated it in recent times; most notably in Dominus Iesus<\/em><\/a> (2000). If this person is determined to reject the Catholic Church, he has to (in all honesty) do it based on what it actually<\/em> teaches: not what some dissident liberal falsely pretends<\/em> that it teaches.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t need to be saved from anything anymore\u2013except from maybe tradition\u2013it\u2019s unhealthy to talk about sin, and hell no longer exists.<\/span><\/p>\n Nonsense. I just recently put up a paper documenting how Pope Francis not only teaches a lot about traditional doctrines concerning hell, Satan, and demons<\/a>, but in fact far more<\/em> than the previous two popes.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t tell us that Christ is present in the Church, because we have to acknowledge that he\u2019s present in other churches also, and even in nature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Those things are true (God is omnipresent, so of course He is in nature), but He is most fully<\/em> present in ours.<\/p>\n What can the Church offer that a scenic mountain view can\u2019t offer? You can\u2019t tell us that we are building the Kingdom of God on earth, because we can do that better as liberal Democrats, and that the traditions of the Church are only holding us back.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, that\u2019s the typical Marxist \/ far left messianism. Sime people are more Democrat or Marxist than Catholic, and it has become their religion and idol. But the Church<\/strong><\/em> doesn\u2019t teach this. He keeps repeating the same mantra-error over and over, so I have to keep reiterating that it is a falsehood.<\/p>\n You cannot tell me that the Church is a community of charity, because I know how unwelcoming the welcoming are, I know how intolerant the tolerant are, and I know how vindictive the merciful\u00a0are.<\/span><\/p>\n There are bad apples in every human group.<\/p>\n You cannot tell me that the Church will accompany me with dialogue because I know how the Church is not a safe space for people who believe in the faith, and how much churchmen gossip, bully, and ostracize.<\/span><\/p>\n People are sinners. None of this should even surprise us, let alone lead us to despair. The Bible teaches:<\/p>\n Hebrews 12:1-3<\/strong> (RSV)\u00a0Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,\u00a0[2] looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.\u00a0[3]\u00a0Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hello?!\u00a0Can anyone hear me?!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n I hear you loud and clear. I understand your frustration and despair, but I think it has come about partially because you have accepted several false premises. Those don\u2019t help things at all. If I or someone else can convince you of their falsity, you\u2019ll be in a much better place, because you are carrying all of this load of \u201cbaggage\u201d of false notions on your back.<\/p>\n Do any leaders of this Church care about anything besides guarding the false peace, enforcing mediocrity and managing the decline? Do you care about the salvation of souls? Do you care about\u00a0anything<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n Most do. Some don\u2019t. It\u2019s always been this way. Even if most didn\u2019t<\/em>, the Church wouldn\u2019t cease being who she is.<\/p>\n I dare you to answer this question: Is there any good reason why anyone should practice the Catholic faith in the Catholic Church? I dare you. Is there any reason, besides fear of the judgement of God\u2013something which we are no longer allowed to believe in\u2013why I shouldn\u2019t warn people to stay away from the Catholic Church?<\/span><\/p>\n Sure: there can only be one \u201cThe Church\u201d: as someone said (can\u2019t remember who). Only the Catholic Church has all the credentials to claim that title. And that\u2019s why we must follow her, once we understand that this is the case (as I did in 1990). If we\u2019re in a bad seminary or parish, then we do the utmost to high-tail it out of there and find one where the practice of the faith is flourishing.<\/p>\n Of course, I know that the leaders of the Church cannot answer this question satisfactorily. We no longer believe in the Catholic faith, and we can no longer say anything of substance. They can only respond with something about an inclusive human community journeying toward unity in a dialogue of accompaniment, etc., and my point will have been proven.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s what liberals<\/em> who no longer accept the faith in its entirety say. It\u2019s not what the Church teaches.<\/p>\n The Church has nothing to offer the world that it doesn\u2019t have already, and its benefits cannot outweigh its deficits. Some lower clergy and faithful laity could respond with a satisfactory answer, but they also know what it\u2019s like to feel so unwelcome in this welcoming Church, as well as what it\u2019s like to struggle to find reasons to stay.<\/span><\/p>\n If this person truly believes this, he has already left the one true faith and Church in his heart, and he is not without blame for doing so. He would stand accountable before God if he leaves the Church. Much better to get it right now before that dreadful day comes for him.<\/p>\n I often sneak out of the chapel during homilies on Marian feast days, because I find that aversion to the sacred is especially directed toward Mary, and it hurts me too much to hear Our Lady denigrated by priests. So I will end this terrible rant by praying for the intercession of Our Lady Help of Christians, to please help the Church, and especially the little ones who feel so spiritually abused<\/span> There is no law that says he had to stay in a lousy parish like this. Why did he not leave?<\/p>\n Our Lady Help of Christians please do something, anything\u2026 But, either way, I should probably leave, I\u2019ve lost my faith and I\u2019m not wanted here.<\/span><\/p>\n I can only hope that he reads this and takes it to heart. I will pray for him and ask all my readers to also do so.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Reactionary writer at One Peter Five<\/em> Peter Kwasniewski also responded<\/a>, and he agreed with what I have written in many respects, but sadly, not in some other major and crucial ones. He first pointed to the saints as reasons to remain Catholic:<\/p>\n Each one of these saints is a masterpiece of God\u2019s grace triumphing in the frailty and fracturedness of fallen human nature. Each one is a bright light in the encircling gloom. Each one tells us what the Christian is called to be and can, in fact, become by fidelity to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Each one gives the lie to fatalism, nihilism, and cynicism. And each one is an unanswerable argument for the truth of the Catholic Faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Amen! This was one of my 150 reasons, too. Then he appealed to Catholic civilization:<\/p>\n If someone were to ask me \u201cWhy be a Catholic?,\u201d I would reply: The glorious civilization the Catholic Church inspired and built\u2014the culture of fine arts and sciences that has no equal, let alone rival, anywhere in human history, because divine revelation illuminates and fuels human endeavor. It attracted and motivated the highest flights of genius as well as the most extensive philanthropy; it made a home for epiphanies of beauty that reach up to eternity and infinity, lifting us above our earthbound vision and daily doldrums. The music, the architecture, the painting, the poetry\u2014Gregorian chant, Palestrina and Byrd, Haydn and Bruckner; Romanesque basilicas and Gothic cathedrals; Giotto, Fra Angelico, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, El Greco, Bernini, van Eyck; Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Manzoni, Hopkins, Chesterton, Waugh\u2026 once again, the list could go on practically for ever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Eloquently put! I mentioned this in part, in #35 of my 150 Reasons:<\/p>\n Catholicism retains the sense of the sacred, the sublime, the holy, and the beautiful in spirituality. The ideas of altar, and \u201csacred space\u201d are preserved. Many Protestant churches are no more than \u201cmeeting halls\u201d or \u201cgymnasiums\u201d or \u201cbarn\u201d-type structures. Most Protestants\u2019 homes are more esthetically striking than their churches. Likewise, Protestants (particularly fundamentalists and too many evangelicals) are often \u201caddicted to mediocrity\u201d in their appreciation of art, music, architecture, drama, the imagination, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Kwasniewski continued by noting the history of Catholic theology:<\/p>\n If someone were to ask me \u201cWhy be a Catholic?,\u201d I would reply: The theology of the Church in its apostolic, patristic, and scholastic plenitude, a grand oak tree birthed from a tiny acorn, showing in its mighty trunk and vast crown the power of the principles at root. As John Henry Newman saw and described so well in writing the work that accompanied his entry into the Roman Church,\u00a0An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine<\/em>, the truth unfolds in strength and stability across the ages of faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the massive internal contradiction in his view is that he thinks all this was true \u201cdown to the eve of the Second Vatican Council.\u201d Later he referred to \u201cpostconciliar<\/em> distortion of Catholicism.\u201d Yes, it was distorted in practice<\/strong> among dissidents<\/em>, but not in and of itself<\/em><\/strong>. The Catholic Church, according to him, went off the rails and ceased being itself in 1962. But of course this is impossible, according to traditional Catholic faith. The Church can never defect. It can never lose the faith. Nor can the pope<\/a>. Yet Kwasniewski wrongly believes (against de fide<\/em> dogma and the facts of the matter) that the present one is a heretic<\/a>.<\/p>\n And for this reason, Dr. Kwasniewski cannot fully offer hope to this struggling former seminarian. He\u2019s still offering him slop, if he thinks the Church ceased being so, and that some semblance of \u201ctraditionalism\u201d (i.e., reactionary Catholicism has stepped up to fill the gap and the void. It\u2019s self-evidently absurd. Even his fellow One Peter Five<\/em> writer and founder of that operation, Steve Skojec, recently stressed<\/a> that so-called \u201ctraditionalism\u201d is not some sort of replacement pseudo-Church. So Kwasniewski\u2019s ecclesiology remains highly disjointed, confused, and deficient.<\/p>\n This person needs to be led back to the Church of the ages, which remains today, the same as it always has been, with human problems and sinners, but the same doctrine. After Jesus preached on the doctrine of the Real Presence, the Bible says \u201cAfter this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him\u201d (Jn 6:66). Then He asked the remaining disciples:<\/p>\n John 6:67-69<\/strong> . . . \u201cDo you also wish to go away?\u201d\u00a0[68] Simon Peter answered him, \u201cLord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;\u00a0[69] and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s the same with the Church. It is the Body of Christ, and indeed, \u201cthe household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth\u201d (1 Tim 3:15). How could anyone possibly think of leaving that fold and going to some inevitably and inherently lesser, inferior place?<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Photo credit:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Fotorech<\/a>\u00a0(3-6-19)<\/span> [Pixabay<\/a> \/\u00a0Pixabay License]<\/a><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Summary<\/em>:\u00a0A Catholic seminarian has been brought to despair and hopelessness after relentless indoctrination from dissidents who disbelieve in the Church\u2019s doctrines, including indefectibility.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This despairing cry from an anonymous Catholic seminarian was posted at the radical Catholic reactionary site One Peter Five under the title, \u201cSeminarian: \u2018Is There Any Reason Why I Should Remain Catholic?\u2019 \u201c (5-18-21). I will reproduce all of the article (in blue) and make replies. ***** I\u2019m finishing up my theology studies and planning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":57806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,230,132],"tags":[870,1545,1546,4021,4018,1550,1549,1512,890,1548,5765,1547,2644,2734,1118,5762,3369,141],"class_list":["post-57805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-ecclesiology","category-inquisition-crusades-scandals","category-liberal-modernist-theology","tag-catholic-answer-bible","tag-christian-hypocrites","tag-christian-perfection","tag-corinthian-church","tag-corinthians","tag-galatian-church","tag-galatians","tag-hypocrisy","tag-indefectibility-of-the-church","tag-lax-christians","tag-lousy-christians","tag-nominal-christians","tag-one-peter-five","tag-peter-kwasniewski","tag-sanctification","tag-seven-churches-of-revelation","tag-sinners","tag-sinners-in-the-church"],"yoast_head":"\nAre Sinful Church Leaders a Disproof of Catholicism?<\/a>\u00a0[1998]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nHow Can the One True Church Have Sinners in it?<\/a>\u00a0[2002]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n\nSt. Paul on Sinners in the Church (Notorious Galatians)<\/a>\u00a0[12-20-11]<\/div>\n*
\nCatholic Sinners & Corruption: the \u201cJesus, Paul, & Revelation\u201d Retort\u00a0<\/a>[5-25-17]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nSinners in the Church (by St. John Henry Newman)<\/a>\u00a0[3-9-20]<\/div>\n\n*<\/div>\nHonestly, not much of my faith has survived the seminary.<\/span><\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nHe should have left this cesspool long ago if it is this bad.<\/div>\n\n\n*<\/div>\nI could not tell you one teaching of the Catholic faith that isn\u2019t always changing. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nThat is, in this seminary<\/em>. Not a single one has changed in the Church. If it had, this person could have easily documented that. But he doesn\u2019t, and there is a good reason for that: he can\u2019t find one that has changed in the actual \u201cbooks.\u201d<\/div>\n\n\n*<\/div>\nI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve even begun to acknowledge the extent to which modernism has undermined the foundations of the faith.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nIn sadly too many specific places it has, in practice. But it hasn\u2019t changed the actual faith. It\u2019s like after Vatican II: all these dissident liberals pretended that all this stuff had changed and that it was enshrined in the council, when in fact none of it had, and the council taught no such thing. This gets to the issue of indefectibility. The true Church established by Christ cannot<\/strong><\/em> and will not<\/strong><\/em> ever defect from the true faith<\/em><\/strong>:<\/div>\n\n\nThe Sex Scandals Are Not a Reason to Reject Catholicism<\/a>\u00a0[National Catholic Register<\/em>, 8-24-18]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nLeaving the Church for Insufficient Reasons (Damon Linker)<\/a>\u00a0[8-30-18]
\n*<\/div>\n\nLeaving Catholicism (Not Primarily Due to Sex Scandals!)<\/a>\u00a0(reply to Michael Boyle & Melinda Selmys) [10-5-18]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nWhy Not Become a Protestant, Due to the Sex Scandals?<\/a>\u00a0[3-7-19]
\n*\nAre Abuse Scandals a Reason to Leave the Church?<\/a>\u00a0[National Catholic Register<\/em>, 3-31-19]<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nby the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n