The poison fruit

Feb. 15, 2025

The Some of the key signs of the modernist heresy are as follows:

1. The emancipation of the state and all science from any responsibility or influence of religion. The absolute primacy of personal conscience (regardless of how well formed it is) over any teachings of the Church. The idea that the Church and the Faith should have no bearing on societal life or politics. That the Church of Christ and her leaders should have no say on any of these matters. - In this line of thought, it is not the Church and her teachings that are to be the bar that morality and ethics and behavior are measured against, but rather the Church and her teaching must be subordinate to all those things and be in agreement with them as we personally and/or as a society want to understand them.

2. A constant evolution and changing of doctrine and teaching in keeping with the present ideas or times. - There is no such thing as fixed and eternal truth. Everything depends on the times and current ideas or understanding.

3. A spirit of unity between all religions and even atheism based on the feelings. As any agreement is superior to any doctrinal differences. - The minimization of what we consider eternal truths for the sake of subjective feelings.

These are, more or less, the main directions modernism goes in and now we can see why it operates in a different way than heresy usually does by making the first step the practices followed by the doctrines. If the heresy of modernism can evoke within someone the tendency to judge everything based on a subjective, personal interpretation, it can eventually totally supplant any objective or eternal truth. Once that particular pattern of thought and decision making is cultivated in terms of faith, it rapidly begins to dominate every other aspect of the life of the person and society. Once the practice is ingrained, every other form of revealed and objective truth concerning our Faith and eventually the basic, immutable truths of human existence and science become prey to the feeling of the times and the people.

Another element of modernism that we find often is a relativism in regard to the Faith. This is a consequence of the subjective nature nurtured by the heresy. This relativism appears as follows: “all religions are basically the same and each one is true in its own way, however one is not better than the other”. While there is some good in other religions, this is a fact, there is not an equality between them and the Catholic Faith. There isn’t even an equality between the Catholic Faith and other Christian denominations. That is not to say that there aren’t many people of goodwill in other denominations or faiths or that people from other faiths and such cannot go to heaven. Saying that Catholicism is not to be placed on a level equating it with other faiths or denominations is simply a matter-of-fact statement. It is a factual statement because the Catholic Church is the ONLY Church founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became man. As the only Church founded by Christ, she alone is capable of possessing the fullness of Truth. If this were not the case, then Christ would have had no need to found a Church or to ensure it would have survived more than 2000 years at this point. It is the ONLY Church and ONLY denomination that can trace itself back to Christ and His apostles. This is not arrogance or a human feeling of prideful superiority; it is simply a fact.

"By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.” Matthew 7, 16-18

More to come in the future.

God love you, Fr. Anthony