By: John Dique

John Dique — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:47:06 +0000

Fasting and deep prayer have disappeared from mainstream Catholicism, and a general lowering of interest in the mystical life has been a feature of it for too long, only to be revived in a somewhat small group called Catholic Charismatic renewal, that only emerged after Vatican II.
No system of ritual or law can survive without love, or more correctly Covenant love, which is about compassion, not about what one Jesuit (Fr Lonsdale) called a “Career cleric” (“Eyes to see, ears to hear”).
Cardinal Sean Brady is stuck with his office, and his past life and its involvement may have a defense, but BBC and other journalists don’t see church from inside out that he does, but from outside in. Most importantly, church has been very slow in listening. When a church does not listen to what comes from above, it must inevitably be forced to listen to its accusers from below, the perversion of history called Secular Humanism which while it is essentially atheist, is disinterested in power. There is an opportunity for Catholics is to be renewed in love, to be renewed in penitence, and to realise how important it is to be correct in the heart. It is not just about pedophilia victims seeking compensation, but about a decadent church which showed a disinterest in mission. For too long an unhealthy dose of the sanctimonious which is all about posturing and so destructful to soul, which is what everybody is supposed to be saving, has survived, while the inner way (Matt 5) has been neglected. Pope John Paul II himself said of the sensate, that it contains neither God nor soul. (Crossing the Threshold of hope”) Fr Karl Rahner SJ was even more blunt. “We must be willing to admit, that if the doctrine of the Trinity were to be dropped as false, the majority of religious literature would remain UNCHANGED” (“The Trinity”, Capitals mine). Cardinal Brady is not an island. He is part of the wider church. His church is at fault. It needs fixing. It would be a simpler matter if that church (along with Cardinal Brady) continued to apologise, and address the growing need within its ranks for a move towards mysticism, the antithesis of Secularism. The latter while it is a far bigger plague than Priest pedophilia, and the cover ups, is ubiquitous, and what lies under the law today, instead of the understood trust, the understood law within the Catholic church. Ordinary Russians put more faith in Soviet doctrine than the Russian church or the Tsar, and ordinary people today particularly youth, (who are conspicuous by their absence from Sunday service) put more faith in Secular law than they should do to church. For this to change church must change. There is an old Chinese saying, “The higher the bamboo grows, the lower it bends”. Building up a pyramidal church has its own consequences. Cardinals will be critiqued. Best it continues to go on. As G.K.Chesterton put it, “I believe in getting into hot water. I think it keeps you clean.” A bit of shame never really hurt anyone. And all aspects of church can do with a little more shame (John3:19). Catholics, priesthood included, are supposed to walk in the light, not in darkness.

Comments on: Maligned cardinal defends himself from BBC accusations

By: John Dique