TRANSCRIPT
Anyone Catholic who is not about the business of evangelization might never entertain a serious hope of the beatific Vision.
Those words do not originate with Church Militant — although we wholeheartedly agree, which is why we are presenting them to you. They come from Fr. John Hardon, an old-school Jesuit who died in 2000 here in Detroit, despised by the modernist clique that runs the archdiocese here.
Fr. Hardon has been named a servant of God, the first step on the road to sainthood. The holy priest made no bones about the extremely weighty responsibility Catholics bear when it comes to spreading the good news of salvation and the necessity of the Catholic Church.
In so saying and doing, he echoed the words of Our Lord: “To whom much is given, much will be demanded.” Too few Catholics — even among those who know the Faith, sufficiently at least — either realize or accept the call of duty to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
There is almost zero missionary sense, much less zeal, for saving souls. And let’s be very clear here: There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Yet way too many Catholics themselves are offended by that, anticipating the offense others will take at it.
When Pope John Paul was on one of his many whirlwind tours around the globe, the Los Angeles Times published a poll that said a very large percentage of Catholics said you can still be a good Catholic while disagreeing with various Church teachings. And that poll was more than 30 years ago. Imagine what it would be today.
The Church in America has been consumed by America, and not the other way around. As a result, with more and more self-described Catholics rejecting multiple teachings (especially in the area of sexual morality), there is no consequent understanding of the need to help convert.
Many more people walk out of the Church each year than come into it, a subject we covered a couple of weeks back. And that means the Church is failing Her own, which means too many bishops and their staffs literally don’t give a damn about the Church, as She is constituted in Herself.
They care about the material wealth the Church has accumulated. They care about Her “reputation,” which is why they lie and distort and cover up every single scandal that comes along, and employ the legal system to cover their malfeasance. But when it comes to who the Church is, they’ve not a care in the world.
The Church is the Bride of Christ, and it is for Her that Our Lord underwent His passion. While He died for all of humanity to be redeemed, He did not die for the salvation of all, because all would not avail themselves of His redemption.
Only those who would embrace His redemptive act did He die for. The Son of God established a Church — one Church. There is no such thing as churches. There can be no contradiction in Christ, and yet, within Christianity, there are 40,000 contradictory positions on Christ and His teachings; and most Catholics, as well as their shepherds, are perfectly fine with that.
But what is astounding is that so many simply believe that, despite their total lack of charity toward those souls, they will simply waltz into Heaven because, you know, “God would never throw someone into Hell for all eternity.”
Let’s just say that is good for all of United States that the Apostles didn’t look at it that way, or we wouldn’t be here today. Going back to that very disturbing quote from Fr. Hardon, the reason you will not go to Heaven if you aren’t trying to bring people into the Church is that you are lacking not just in charity but lacking in charity in the most important manner possible: You’re indifferent to the question of a person’s eternal life.
St. James expressed all of this in a positive mode in the last lines of his letter: “Know, brother, that whoever brings a brother back from the error of his ways will not only save his own soul from death, but cover a multitude of sins.”
If you have charity toward your neighbor about his eternal life, you will merit eternal life. If you don’t, you will be damned because you lack charity. As usual, everything with the Faith is always expressed in the most simple, easily understood principles. Love, and you will be in love for eternity. Fail to exercise charity, and you will endure without it for eternity.
