As most of you know, I went to a normal diocesan seminary. One of those seminarians was later ordained for a midwest diocese. On his Facebook profile, he once put up an interesting conversation he had with an older priest. He asked the older priest if young priests would save the Church. The old priest said “No, young priests will not save the Church. Jesus Christ will save His Church.” Of course, the post had hundreds and hundreds of likes.
I wanted to “like” it too because it shows that Christ is in charge of His Church. I also wanted to “like” it because it reminds us priests to be humble (and not clericalistic) before the mystery of a great crisis in the Catholic Church. But ultimately I did not “like” that FB post because it’s a Protestant notion that God works in spirit upon his believers instead of what we Catholics believe: When there’s a Church crisis, God sends real saints in real human bodies who suffer in their real human souls for misunderstandings in reform of the Church.
I certainly don’t claim to be one of those saints, but imagine if St. Catherine of Siena had said “Oh dear, so of course God is not going to send someone like me to end the Western schism of ‘two Popes’ because God in His great Providence is going to take care of it Himself.” Of course, such a sentiment sounds very humble. But it’s actually not humble if God had chosen St. Catherine of Siena to heal the great Western schism. And we know from Church history that God did in fact use St. Catherine as His chosen instrument to end the papacy-relocated to France in the middle of the bubonic plague and massive political intrigue all around her.
Indeed, St. Teresa of Avila said “Christ has no hands but yours.” In other words, it’s silly to think God is going to mystically end this current crisis of “two Popes” without a Cardinal stepping up to be the instrument of such grace. It’s a Protestant-notion to believe that it will be “some other bishop after me” who will restore the Catholic Church’s doctrine and liturgy to what Christ had given the Apostles. And as humble as it might sound for me to blog something like, “No, young priests will not save the Church. Jesus Christ will save His Church,” it’s actually a Protestant notion. The Catholic notion is that God functions in the flesh, not only in spirit. God reforms His Church through real people convincing people of the truth in love, not magically changing everyone’s brains across the globe against their free will.
The featured-image above is just one I found of a Coast Guard guy (a “Coasty” as they call each other) throwing out a life-preserver. It is not me and it has nothing to do with me. But it’s what I searched because the featured-image at the top fits with the title of this blog, namely, “My perpetual debate while podcasting.” So what is my perpetual debate while podcasting or writing blogs?
It is: Should I throw out life-preservers to bring people into the Church of Jesus Christ or go to the Captain’s deck to reform things before the whole thing goes down? Again, I know you are tempted to cheer for the seemingly-humble answer “No, young priests will not save the Church. Jesus Christ will save His Church!” But that is not the humble answer if it’s the lazy and Protestant answer. Moreover, it’s really not the practical answer. What good is it if I bring people into the ocean-liner of the Catholic Church if the people in charge of it are destroying it? (At least, the current hierarchy seem to be permitted to destroy it in the human element, even though we know the divine element of the Church can not be overturned.)
In any case, as you know, I still believe in the Catholic Church. So, I’m going to keep throwing out life-preservers in my teaching series like RCT and VLX on YouTube and Apple podcasts. But my written blogs here will be a continual warning to those that Christ is rescuing through us traditional priests that the people in charge of this ship are not the ones to trust as much as we who threw the life-preservers. Again, I know that sounds arrogant at first, but you have to realize that most of these truth-seeking people who would want to come to Christ and the Catholic Church are extremely diverted by the ultra-liberal news that they constantly see coming from the Vatican and the “synods” across the globe that do not reflect Catholicism. Evangelicals don’t want this synodal garbage where you get to vote for your favorite heresy.
As I’ve written before, we all might be tired of the tired quote “Better to light one candle than curse the darkness,” but that is probably the line I need to guide me. I will continue to evangelize and teach, but I will also be checking in frequently on the Captain’s deck to reform them, as they are clearly trying to overturn this ocean-liner that is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I’m not leaving her just because they don’t like me. In this current mutiny of modernism, I’m not leaving these pirates to trash this ship’s traditional doctrine just because they don’t like her ancient liturgy. As I’ve blogged before, in a real-time mutiny, mutiny against a mutiny is actually obedience to the original Captain.