TRANSCRIPT
One of the biggest lies in the Catholic Church today is really a philosophical one. From this errant philosophy, all manner of evil springs up.
It is the idea that Church must conform to me, that the Church is a good and noble thing, but must possess a certain malleability so that I can live or express the Faith the way that is best suited to me. That is a lie. And what’s worse, it is what we could call a “root lie,” meaning it is such a foundational lie that many errors will spring from it.
This lie is presented very smoothly — almost sophisticated. It has slogans surrounding it to dress it up, so to speak; slogans that are deliberately worded in such a way that they can be interpreted in different ways.
“It’s my Church,” for example. On the one hand, that’s true if you mean to say, “This is the Church to which I belong, believe, accept and live according to.” In that case, the phrase or slogan refers to association.
However, the same words, “it’s my Church,” can just as easily mean I own the Church — it belongs to me and, therefore, I can deal with the Church in a manner most befitting me. Here, we drift from an association with the Church to a possession of the Church.
And, of course, what is really being talked about isn’t the Church per se, but the teachings of the Church, the teachings which express the actual Faith. And once a person claims possession or ownership of the Faith — a.k.a., the teachings — it’s “lights out.”
But, quite often, these slogans all sound somewhat innocent and, as we said, even “true” in a certain sense. But words matter, especially when the words conceal or mask over a lie.
Take, for example, the latest offering from the largest spreaders of heresy on the planet — the Jesuits. Their flagship publication, America, is embarking on a marketing blitz to increase readership, and they are calling the ad campaign “Own Your Faith.”
The plot to corrupt people’s minds further — because the Jesuits apparently feel they haven’t destroyed people’s faith enough — is covered over by the reasonable-sounding Madison Avenue phrase.
Yet, if you break down the slogan into its constituent parts, you quickly see the lie. So let’s tackle each word.
Own: No one “owns” the Catholic faith. It is not something that can be owned. As is the case with most slogans and lies, it is almost always the case that the exact opposite is, in fact, true. But a clever-sounding arrangement of words masks over that truth.
“Holy Roman Empire,” for example (as historians note): It certainly wasn’t Holy. It definitely wasn’t Roman. And it wasn’t much of an empire. But hey, aside from that, let’s go with it.
The entire point of the Faith is not to own it, but to become owned by it, to be absorbed into it completely, soul and body. For the vast majority of us, this takes a vast amount of time and effort and struggle and all of that. The entire point of the Faith is to surrender ourselves, not take control. Perhaps the Jesuits need to go find the line from St. Paul about putting off the old man and putting on the new.
The second word in the slogan “Own Your Faith” is an extension of the first. Once again, it ain’t your Faith. It existed before you and will exist after you. We are merely custodians or stewards of the Faith given us temporarily as a gift, for us to conform to, not own.
So to use the word “your” is extremely duplicitous because it connotes possession of something (in this case, something which is in no way yours).
It’s like a friend handing you something to hold for them for a moment or brief period. Yes, you are in possession of it, but only in the most narrow understanding of that word. It is not yours in the sense that it now belongs to you. It belongs, and always will, to the owner of it, which is by no means you.
Why is this word, especially in conjunction with the first word, “own,” so spiritually dangerous? Because each word (and especially in combination), “own” and “your,” leaves absolutely no room for God. It’s all about you.
The direct object, the last word, “faith,” is now completely in your control. So you can approach it however you like. In this sense, faith itself ceases to be faith. An intimate part of the Catholic life is the mystery of Our Lord’s love for us — and how it unfolds and is revealed to us as we awaken to it.
This is not something we control; it is something granted to us. We merely cooperate with it if — big “if” here — we are properly disposed to. No one can be properly disposed to cooperating with God’s gift if they approach the gift with the mindset that they are in control or can do with the gift whatever they so please.
It’s true, of course, owing to free will, a person can misuse a gift; but in the misusing of the gift, they change the nature of the gift into something else. Let’s say someone gives you a car and allows you to use it to improve the quality of your life. You can now drive to work and no longer be reliant on other transportation.
It’s not your car. Someone has merely given you physical possession of it in the sense that you can use it, use it to be better off. But somehow you get in your mind that you own it and are free to do whatever you want with it, and one day decide to run over your enemy and kill him with it.
The nature of the car as dictated by the reason it was given to you has now completely changed. What was supposed to be a means of transportation to improve your life has now been converted into a weapon, and you transformed into a killer.
In the realm of the spiritual, this is precisely what a lie can accomplish — the destruction of good. That, after all, is the very purpose and nature of a lie; to corrupt truth, destroy the good. But most lies are not presented as such: They come dressed up to the party so to speak, presenting themselves as a truth.
In the case of America’s latest marketing campaign, Own Your Faith, the delineation of it is spelled out by Fr. Matt Malone, S.J., president and editor-in-chief of America Media. The slogan is the catchphrase that supports the bald-faced lie that is the title of the article — “The Catholic Church Belongs to All of Us.”
First, no it doesn’t. It belongs to Our Blessed Lord. It is His Bride, for whom He laid down His life. Second, Malone doesn’t really believe his own lie.
Does anyone really think that Malone, operating under this specious framework of ownership of the Church by each Catholic, would concede that Church Militant has some “ownership” of the Church — that the millions of people who view Church Militant each month have “ownership” of the Church?
Because, frankly, we don’t think he does, or any of the other twisted Jesuits spreading heresy in the body of Christ (however cleverly and thinly they may disguise it). In the most telling part of the article introducing the errors, Malone says, “I believe that the Church — and the country — are better off when we are free to wrestle with the most pressing issues of the day, unbound by ideological traps or that nagging sense that we are not supposed to ask difficult or controversial questions in Church.”
Yeah, whatever.
His phrasing is rife with philosophical errors, foundational errors. Who gets to decide what the most “pressing issues” are, Father? Who determines how one becomes “unbound”? What gets to identify what the “ideological traps” are?
This is little else than the same theo-babble bullcrap the laity has been subject to for decades to promote sexual sin, perversion and overthrow of doctrine. This lot is always “re-imagining” this or that or “approaching” the other; pretending they are simply searching for greater depth. Blah blah blah.
They have their agenda very clearly understood, and they proceed full steam ahead. They just want to make you think they are reasonable and “journeying” with you — searching, on a mission to become “church.”
They despise the Church because they despise Her teachings, Her doctrines, Her devotions — ultimately, Her beauty. They disfigure and mar Her beauty.
It is true: They want to own Her so they can destroy Her.