FROM A LAX CHURCH TO AN AGNOSTIC CHURCH
Editorial: Radicati nella fede, December 2014
Newsletter of the Catholic community of
Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy
A God that no longer asks anything of men is one that doesn’t exist. Yet this has been the tragic consequence of the Post-Conciliar Church, which by espousing a secular vision of mercy has arrived at practical agnosticism. If it is true that practical atheism exists i.e. those who live as if God doesn’t exist, even if they don’t deny His existence explicitly, so then real agnosticism exists i.e. those who talk of an unknown God Who doesn’t speak clearly to men, from whom man gets what he wants according to the circumstances; a God Who is essentially there to validate without asking much in return.
This appears typically to be the situation in a great part of today’s Catholicism and lived concretely by the majority of the baptized.
A God of pure forgiveness is proclaimed, a consoling God, who doesn’t ask for personal conversion or a change in lifestyle. A God ready to accept new changes in society, ready to declare that immoralities if lived with a sincere heart, are in essence, not really immoral. The debates regarding the recent Synod have shown ample evidence of this. Marriage is no longer considered in our decadent west, so let’s make haste to say that God is not asking for absolute indissolubility. People don’t get married anymore, so let’s make haste to say that if there’s sincere love between the cohabiting couple, this compensates for the Sacrament in some way. This talk is not only related to marriage as we could cite many other instances.
In the end we can say that we are witnessing a new way of talking about God; a God who asks nothing of men; a God who forbids nothing. During the “period of protest” the slogan was “forbidden to forbid”: today this slogan inhabits the new Church, the Church of the Post-Council. “Forbidden to speak of a God Who forbids”, this seems to be the slogan used to re-program involved Catholics but above all the clergy. A welcoming clergy is needed without their reminding anyone of the urgency to convert. To speak of punishment, penitence and fear of the Lord are forbidden. They say people need consolation to regain trust in the Church so: please don’t forbid anything! That’s the boring refrain.
In one fell swoop Sacred Scripture in its entirety has been erased i.e. all of the Gospels and the Old Testament. There is talk of a God that we will not find in Revelation; of a Jesus borrowed from Masonic secularism, but Who bears no resemblance to any passages of the Gospels. A Lord who doesn’t indicate the way to life by asking men to distance themselves from sin; but a Lord who is in a hurry to validate what men do when they are intoxicated by sin.
Moreover the eforts of the hierarchy seem sometimes to control only that part of the Church which takes its time in proclaiming a God who dislikes and punishes sin so that man may mend his ways and return to a holy life. The “Forbidden to speak of a God who forbids” becomes “ [We want] no more of a Church that forbids!”. In effect, is there anything left to forbid in our parishes and churches?
We should ask ourselves what the faithful and priests are thinking when the Word of God is proclaimed at Mass, when you hear the prophets announcing the punishments of God and the invitations to conversion, when the end times are mentioned in the Gospels, the last judgment and the Glorious return of Christ.
Precisely in these years when there has been so much talk in the Church about dialogue with the Jews, the entire Old Testament has been de facto censored. It is a modern God at the centre of too many churches, a bourgeois God who blesses emancipated choices in keeping with the times; a God who asks for nothing from you anymore.
However all of this falsity has already been punished. Yes, because a God who asks for nothing from you, is a God that de facto does not exist. This is true in the life experiences of people: what’s the use of a God who says to man he is always right?
We have dug our own graves. Modernized Catholicism has dug its own grave by preaching a God who is pure indulgence; it has transformed itself into agnostic Catholicism , which even if not denying the existence of God, lives detached from Him, because for the Modern Church, God is not known. If God tells me I’m always right, if He blesses my choices a priori, if God coincides with me and my will, He disappears from my life. This is the tragedy of the Post Conciliar Church which is becoming agnostic.
And this is why today you hear a lot of talk in the Church about the world and the Church, and hardly ever anything about God.
As we experience Christmas, let us remind ourselves instead, that God came into the world, became Man and has shown His face to us; He has spoken throughout the centuries in the Old and New Testaments and He has asked us to obey Him. Therefore we must heed Him.
The Church must simply be the faithful echo of the Lord Who is speaking.
[Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana]
