It’s Iimi! Desperate Defiance (Part II)

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It’s Iimi! Desperate Defiance (Part I)

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A Foolish Rebellion

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A Time to Choose

Things are falling apart faster than I expected. Certain Catholics (not all of them: I pray this is merely a noisy minority) have gone beyond expressing disagreement and misunderstanding and have started rejecting the authority of the magisterium under Pope Francis. Some openly accuse him and his supporters of heresy. Others think the Pope is incompetent. But the assumption of these individuals is their opinions carry more weight than the teaching of the Pope, and they are deceiving faithful Catholics into going along. Now, each Catholic who professes to be a faithful Catholic will have to make a choice.

The choice every Catholic must make is whether to remain in obedience to the Pope and giving assent when he teaches, or to decide they can be Catholic without the Pope and listen instead to Catholics who say what they want to hear.

Despite slogans of “Answer the question,” what we are seeing is not a Pope who is corrupt or in error with “heroic” Catholics opposing him. This is not about “bashing” the cardinals who issued the dubia. This problem precedes this, and has its roots in factions which have been at war with the Pope, promoting dissent since 2013. These dissenters undermine our faith in Our Lord who built His Church on the rock of Peter, deceiving many into thinking the Pope is destroying the Church.

It saddens me to watch Catholics deceived into deciding they can no longer support the Pope. They think the problems in the Church will vanish once Pope Francis’ pontificate ends. But we have always had confusion and dissent in the Church. History shows that whenever portions of the Church fell into error, it was always the Bishop of Rome who was a beacon to the truth. We’ve had muddled Popes and morally bad Popes, but none of them have taught error. If his critics are right, this will be the first time a Pope has ever taught “error” and encouraged people to follow it.

But this is what Our Lord promised to protect us from. Informed Catholics used to know that the Papacy was the final line in the sand to determine what was bound and what was loosed. If the Pope can teach error (binding error and loosing truth), then we no longer know when truth was taught, and by whom. That’s denying the promise of Our Lord to protect His Church.

So, when it comes to this choice, I make mine to stand with Pope Francis. I trust that God will protect Him from error, and I reject the accusations that our Pope is incompetent or heterodox. That doesn’t mean I deify him or think he cannot sin. It means that since false teaching will endanger souls, God will protect the Pope from making false teachings.

While I believe the dissenters are a minority, I will hold to this position, even if I stand alone, because I believe that being in communion with the Pope is God’s intention for us in being faithful Catholics.

Being Faithful in Small Things Means Being Respectful to the Pope

When people talk about the Catholic Church becoming more faithful, they generally think of a Church that expels the liberals and leaves us with a more conservative Church that was doctrinally pure—according to the preferences of the individual imagining it. It’s easy to understand the temptation. Catholics get tired of dissenting Catholics walking around with seeming impunity and they get tired of what they think are ineffective bishops. Catholics wanted vindication and they didn’t want to keep battling people who claimed to be good Catholics while openly rejecting Church teaching. What people didn’t consider was that this would stand the parable of the lost sheep on its head, where the shepherd who, instead of leaving the 99 to save the one, wouldn’t worry about 70 lost sheep so long as he had 30 good sheep who didn’t stray.

This mindset shows up when Catholics take offense with the Pope’s words about seeking forgiveness from those we wronged. Since this involved the past mistreatment of people with same sex attraction, people reacted with outrage. Some went so far as accusing him of wanting to apologize for Church teaching. That sort of thing happens all the time. The Pope speaks. People rely on out of context quotes and go berserk. They assume mercy means permissiveness, and asking forgiveness for mistreatment means apologizing for Church teaching—even though the Pope specifically rejected this interpretation.

But what makes this troublesome is I’m not talking about radical traditionalists here. I’m talking about people who spent years or even decades defending the Church suddenly treating Pope Francis as if he were a burden to endure and saw themselves as needing to defend the faith in spite of him.

These people will hasten to tell you they are not being unfaithful. They profess obedience to the Church and Pope. I don’t dispute their sincerity. What I dispute is their belief that their behavior is not dangerous. I do not believe a person can withhold loyalty and respect to the Pope in small matters without eventually becoming disloyal and disrespectful in great matters. Our Lord warns us in Luke 16:10, “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.” If we can’t trust a person to be respectful and loyal to the Pope in small matters, how can we trust him to be faithful in large matters?

No, I’m not talking about radical traditionalists. I’m talking about Catholics who profess loyalty to the Church and the Pope, but they are patronizing about it. They feel superior to him and think they have a better grasp of Church teaching. They’ll argue that the Pope can make mistakes when speaking as a private person, and not intending to teach the Church (which is true). But they don’t ask if maybe they are the ones who made mistakes in interpreting the Pope or Church teaching itself. They’ll point out that we have bad Popes (which also is true) but they don’t show that Pope Francis is one. In other words, they mention the cases of not being infallible and of bad Popes in order to lead people into thinking the Pope’s might have spoke in error and might be a bad Pope. What they don’t do is prove that the Pope speaks wrongly. They  blame him for the misunderstandings that happen but don’t ask whether there is another cause—like our tendency to focus on one sentence in isolation when we must read his entire statement in entirety if we would understand. 

This is the danger: If one is so confident that they know better than the Pope, they eventually will decide that they can only obey him when they agree with him. The danger though is that Our Lord linked obedience to his Church with faithfulness to Him (see Luke 10:16 and Matthew 18:17), and the Pope is the head of the Church. Even when one might disagree with him on a minor matter, it is wrong to treat him like a fool—even if one is polite in doing so. I’m not advocating papolatry or ultramontanism (two popular ad hominem attacks thrown at Pope Francis’ defenders). I’m simply saying that Catholics who rush to blame him for the confusion caused by religious illiteracy are causing scandal, leading people to mistrust the Pope and the Church. Such people should remember that  Our Lord warns that the fate of those who cause such scandal:

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh. 

 

 The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate (Douay-Rheims), Mt 18:6–7.

A Church of a Billion Popes?

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Hijackers

The Catholic Church is led by the magisterium—the Pope and the bishops in communion with him, with the priests passing on the teaching in the parish level—who have the authority and the responsibility to teach the Catholic faith, and to determine what is and what is not in keeping with the Catholic faith. The rest of us cooperate in this teaching mission to the extent that we accurately present the Church teaching. It stands to reason that the Pope and the bishops can’t be everywhere at once, and the lay Catholic needs to explain and defend the faith.

However, once Catholics try to establish a “Catholic ministry” that is in actual opposition to the teaching of the Church as passed on by the Pope and bishops in communion with, they are no longer faithful Catholics, but hijackers.These hijackers appeal to figures of renown within the Church and Church documents to either give credibility to their own position, or to discredit the teachers of the magisterium who teach something they dislike.

Of course what they think the Church should be conveniently reflects their own behaviors and rejects the views of the Church when she teaches against the preferred behavior. Thus we see Catholics openly treat bishops with contempt when they teach and give heed to Catholic bloggers who have no authority to claim that their views represent authentic Catholicism. 

When we see Catholic blogss treating the Pope with open contempt because they dislike Laudato Si, that is a clear sign that the person is a hijacker and not presenting an authentic Catholic teaching. When we see Catholics dismissing the authority of the bishops to teach on the death penalty or the defense of marriage, that too is a clear sign that the attacker is a hijacker. Heed the warning signs—such a person is attempting to make themselves a counter-magisterium and take the faith to a new generation.

The fact is the Pope has authority over things far beyond making ex cathedra statements. As the Vatican I document, Pastor Æternus, says:

If then any shall say that the Roman Pontiff has the office merely of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those things which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal part, and not all the fullness of this supreme power; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the Churches and over each and all the pastors of the faithful; let him be anathema. (Chapter III)

This doesn’t mean the Pope or the bishop has the right to “say whatever the hell he wants,” of course. But nobody is claiming he can in the first place. Such accusations that he is doing so only demonstrates that the accuser has nothing more than a superficial understanding about the Church teaching he or she disputes. If one looks at Pope Francis and his teachings, one will find the same concepts being used by his predecessors.

For example, the Church has never supported indiscriminate capitalism, indiscriminate use of the environment, indiscriminate use of the death penalty or war. But hijackers use the either-or fallacy in order to portray the Pope or bishops as holding the contrary position. If the Pope speaks of the evils of unrestrained capitalism, that is seen as endorsing socialism (which the Church condemns). When the Church condemns the abuse of the environment, she is accused of being on the side of Al Gore. When she speaks against particular wars and particular applications of the death penalty, she is accused of contradicting previous Popes and bishops.

But the either-or fallacy fails because the contradiction to a universal claim is not the opposite universal claim (All men are honest vs. no men are honest). The contradiction is done by demonstrating that some things or people do not fall into that universal claim. If one claims that all capitalism is good, one doesn’t refute it by claiming no capitalism is good. One can refute it simply by proving Some capitalism is not good. There’s a huge difference.

The Church, in challenging the world, is not saying that all things in a category are bad. She doesn’t teach (contrary to modern claims) that All Sex is bad. She teaches that sex taken out of its proper context is bad. The content in which it is good is marriage between one man and one woman in a lifelong relationship which is open to the possibility of offspring. But hijackers misrepresent her position into saying that because the Church does not say “all sex is good,” it means she teaches “no sex is good,” and encourage people to rebel against the Church—but the rebellion is against something that does not exist.

Ultimately, the obligation of the Catholic is to discern the sources they use for information about the Church. If the sources are putting themselves in opposition to the magisterium and claiming they are giving you the “true story” about the Church or claim that they are being more like Jesus than the magisterium, you can be certain that they are simply hijacking the label of Catholic to give their position of rebellion an illusion of credibility. We have to reject these false teachers.

This is done by studying the faith, so that when we run into hijackers, we can discern their distortions. We also have to look to the Pope and the bishops with trust as having the authority to teach in a binding way and recognizing that when our understanding runs afoul of the Church teaching, we have to be very careful when we are tempted to label our own interpretation as true and the magisterium is false. Remember, God didn’t give us the charism of infallibility.

Corruptio Optimi Pessima (Corruption of the Best is the Worst)

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Hating the Word of Salvation

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Reflections on the Anti-Francis Mindset

Introduction

One thing seems clear from reading comments and articles from a certain subset of Catholics is that we do have a strongly anti-Francis mindset that exists in the Church. To this mindset, the Pope is to blame for how the media reports his words and is believed to have whatever motive the media attributes to their report on his words. It can be quite demoralizing for the Catholic trying to be faithful, and encountering Catholics who seem much more confident in their allegations than they are in questioning them. It’s easy for these Catholics to begin to doubt themselves and wonder if they have perhaps missed the point because they continue to run into these allegations.

The problem with this mindset that demoralizes others and undermines trust in the Pope is it assumes two things that needs to be proven:

1. That the media reports are accurate.
2. That the motives attributed to the Pope are true.

Unless both can be established, it is a rash judgment to assume bad will or bad teaching from the Pope.

Thus far it turns out that every time the media has focussed a story around the Pope planning to change Church teaching by using a quote, that quote was only a part of what the Pope said and when viewed in context it shows he did not say what the the media reported. When this happens over and over again, a person should recognize that certain sources are simply unreliable. But instead, the anti-Francis mindset assumes the Pope is unreliable.

Shocking News—Arnobius of Sicca blog Denigrates the Pope… OK, not really...

Think of it this way. Look at my first paragraph. See how many quotes you can create that could make me sound like I am opposed to Pope Francis. These are the ones I found with a cursory look:

• “we do have a strongly anti-Francis mindset” (implies I am speaking of the whole Church and I am a part of it).
• “the Pope is to blame for how the media reports his words” (Hey! Even the Papal defender Arnobius of Sicca says it’s the Pope’s fault!)
• “It’s easy for these Catholics to begin to doubt” (when taken with the other two partial quotes, sounds like I am saying the Pope is causing the doubt)

In other words, a person looking for quotes to bolster the image they want to give could even take my own blog which defends the Pope and make it sound like I am blaming him. I did say all of these things. But I didn’t say them in the context one might be led to believe. In fact, I’d oppose all of these claims. I wouldn’t be to blame for a reporter skimming my first paragraph and grabbing a few lines that caught his eye and making a story out of it. It would, in fact, be unjust to say I should have expressed myself better to avoid such misinterpretation. 

Who Watches the Self-Proclaimed Watchdogs of Catholic Authenticity?

That’s how it seems to work with the Pope. For the secular news reporter who has a negative view of the Church teaching, thinking it is judgmental and harsh and wishes it would change, words that talk about loving the sinner and presenting God’s love can sound like “A CHANGE IN TEACHING!” (and there’s another quote in my blog that can be taken out of context). It isn’t any such thing of course. Then the Catholic who has an antipathy towards the Pope—and certain Catholics have been antagonistic to his election to the papacy on account of his stand as cardinal on the extraordinary form of the Mass and have been hostile ever since—see this as justifying their hostility.

Like ripples from a rock thrown into a pond, this mindset affects other Catholics who equate such sites as defenders of Catholic orthodoxy. If they oppose the Pope, some are led to believe that the Pope should  be opposed . . . after all, if it wasn’t true, they wouldn’t have said it right? So the reputation of Pope Francis as heterodox continues to spread. Nobody asks the question as to whether these self-proclaimed watchdogs of orthodoxy are in fact orthodox themselves?

This is a problem because the individual or small group does not have such authority to teach at all—especially if they try to teach contrary to the Pope and the bishops in communion with him. God has entrusted the successors of the apostles with the authority to bind and loose—not people with a blog and a laptop (and, yes, that includes me). The person who tries to advocate opposing the Pope when he teaches is a rebel, not a faithful Catholic.

Does a Political Platform Judge the Catholic Teaching? Or Does the Catholic Teaching Judge the Political Platform?

That brings us to another problem. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was easy to equate conservative politics with Catholic orthodoxy. The Church was strong on her affirmations of abortion, “gay marriage” and similar issues as morally wrong. Politicians who opposed the Church on these things were liberal. Politicians who agreed with the Church were conservative. Simple enough—or so we thought.

It was never that simple. Church teaching and conservative politics never entirely overlapped. In some cases conservatism had positions which were also incompatible with Church teaching. In others, the motives for a shared teaching were difference. The Church had positions on social justice that were sometimes confused with political liberalism. St. John Paul II and Pope emeritus Benedict XVI also spoke on the social problems in capitalism that needed to be reformed—and were accused of “moving to the left.” They spoke on environmental issues—and were accused of "moving to the left.” They spoke on compassion for illegal immigrants—and… well you get the point.

So, what we see happening with Pope Francis, happened before with his predecessors (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11). They were praised for things members of a political happened to agree with (even if held for different motives), and attacked when such groups disagreed. Thus the simultaneous mutual claims by right and left that the Pope supports the other side. Like the Self-Appointed watchdogs mentioned above, political platforms do not have authority to teach. Political parties can take positions that the Church must condemn as incompatible with the Christian obligation. When they do, the Church condemnation is not partisan, but a warning for us to think about where we are in relation to God.

So, when our political beliefs feel threatened by the teaching of the Church, maybe the issue is not a bad Pope. Maybe we’ve adopted a political belief incompatible with the faith.

The Either-Or Fallacy

In addition, we need to remember that there are many times that the truth is not found in the formula of “Either A or B.” Sometimes both A and B are condemnable. Sometimes neither A nor B is condemnable. Republican and Democrat parties disagree with each other, but it is not a case of one being always true and the other always false. Yes, sometimes one party is in error while the other is not. But, sometimes both can be in error. Or sometimes their disagreements are over ways and means which are both in keeping with Church teachings. So we always need to ask what is true, what is in keeping with the Church teaching. That’s not just something we ask about others. It’s what we need to ask about ourselves.

Conclusion

These seem to be the problems with the anti-Francis mindset in the Church. There’s a lot of motives for it, whether misunderstanding or disagreement. But each person who doubts or outright opposes the Pope needs to answer some questions: On what basis do you justify yourself? Pope Francis is not an Alexander VI or John XII. He’s not a John XXII. There’s no moral behavior to scandalize or personal belief to be corrected. Where did your doubt come from? From your own belief? Then how do you know you have not gone wrong yourself? From the assertion of another? How authoritative are they? From your politics? Remember we must “Render unto God.” Do you think he is teaching error? Remember that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church.

The fact is, the Church is led by the successors of the Apostles, not the bloggers or the people who prefer the extraordinary form of the Mass. The magisterium has the authority and the responsibility to determine whether a belief is compatible with the teaching of the Church, not the bloggers or the fans of the extraordinary form. That’s ultimately the problem with the anti-Francis mindset. It would rather deny that God protects the Pope from teaching error than admit the possibility of being wrong about what the Church teaching requires us to do.

Now not all of these people are doing this out of malice. Some have simply been deceived by the hype. Some have not thought things through. Perhaps some are acting out of Scrupulosity. But some may have fallen to pride and decided that only when the Church goes their way that it is to be obeyed. I personally won’t judge the reason or the motive. But I will say that the anti-Francis mindset is an error and must be rejected.

"This is a Rebellious People..."

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Media and Our Conception of the Catholic Faith

An Example of People Ignoring Media Claims About the Church

It’s become common now for the media to make comments about different people and events in the Church that show how they do not understand what the Church teaches. Take for example the article "Woman claims role as Kansas City’s first female Catholic priest | The Kansas City Star.” According to Catholic teaching, only a male can be ordained to the priesthood. St. John Paul II has made it quite clear:

4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful. (emphasis added)

So, when we read in articles about women claiming to be ordained and the media treating this as fact, a person who has been paying attention to Church teaching knows that the opposite has been taught by the Church. He or she knows that this is not some new sort of teaching. We recognize that the media is to blame for this, and people who try to promote this as an example of change for the Church are either grossly uninformed about the Church or else are pushing an agenda against Church teaching.

That much seems obvious. We don’t see the National Catholic Reporter or Rorate Cæli (to name the extremes) talking about how wonderful/terrible it is that the Church is “changing” her teaching. 

Too Many Instances of People Accepting Media Claims About the Church—When it Suits Them

So, I find it curious that so many Catholics seeking to be faithful are willing to treat media reports as true when they call Pope Francis a liberal and claim he is overturning Church teaching. Anyone who looks at what his predecessors have said on a topic will find no conflicts, but at most a different way of explaining the Church teaching. The theme of the Pope’s preaching is reaching out to sinners, seeking to bring them back to God. He has said absolutely nothing about changing the faith. He has only said that it’s not enough to stop with stating what is forbidden, and we need to think about how to bring those people in a sinful situation back to the Church. He has repeatedly said that when it comes to Church teaching, he is a faithful son of the Church—on precisely the issues he has been accused of favoring a change.

So it seems clear that anyone who is trying to allege the Pope is changing the Church teaching is either grossly uninformed on what he said and what the Church says probably relying on the MSM and the opinion sites (religious and secular) which are treating the MSM as accurate.

Now of course, we want to avoid the genetic fallacy rejecting any news solely because it comes from a certain source. But we do need to consider the accuracy of a source—how knowledgable it is—when it attempts to report "breaking news” on the Church (which usually comes across looking like THIS). We also want to avoid the argument from ignorance fallacy where we think that because we haven’t heard about a response to a misleading story that it wasn’t responded to.

Instead of Looking to the Church, People Look to the Media Caricature to Confirm What They Already Decided

The antidote to such antics is to look for the Church accounts of things. There are some sites which do a good job of reporting what was actually said, even to the point of providing transcripts (such as Vatican Information Service or ZENIT). I have found that whenever the rapid reporting of the MSM pronounces that the Church under Pope Francis is “changing Church teaching,” it is disproven within a few days at the most. That is why we cannot accept the MSM reporting on the Church at face value. They are acting from lack of understanding and perhaps bias (hoping that the Church will change her views as if they were a political platform).

Basically, when we look for an explanation of the Church teaching, we should turn to the Church, not away from the Church for a reliable answer. That’s not what is being done anymore. When a political pundit defines the Church in terms of his or her own bias, that’s not a reliable answer, but people are using these things to confirm their own views and justify what they were going to do anyway. Whether it’s a political liberal who wants to see a Church transforming into what he or she wants it to be, or whether it’s a conservative who is looking for an excuse to legitimize their rejection of Pope Francis, we are experiencing a situation where instead of being faithful Catholics looking to the Church, we are seeing Catholics who are affirming the Church only when it suits them, and denying it when they run afoul of the teachings.

Conclusion

If liberals want to trumpet their support for Pope Francis, then let them heed his teachings as a “Son of the Church.” If conservatives want to portray themselves as faithful to the Church, then let them start giving assent to the teachings of the current successor of St. Peter, trusting that Our Lord will not fail in His promise to protect the Church under the successor of St. Peter.

If people decide to ignore these things and instead pick and choose what it means to be a Catholic, then that’s hypocrisy—and both liberal and conservative are guilty of the same disobedience, even if they dissent on different grounds. Cafeteria Catholicism is not only a behavior of one political faction.

Making Excuses: What Part of Intrinsic Evil Don't You Understand?

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Remembering the Fear of the Lord

For they will not mend their ways; 
they have no fear of God. (Psalm 55:20)

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
prudent are all who practice it.
His praise endures forever. (Psalm 111:10)

When I witness the anger against the Church and her insisting on teachings, over and over I hear the same thing: "God doesn't care about my doing X! The Church is being unfair!" It isn't surprising. In the West, there is a tendency to turn Jesus into a "nice guy" who doesn't care about what we do as long as we don't hurt anybody else while we do it. After all, they ask, didn't Jesus say to love one another and not to judge?

Basically, Western views of Christianity can be summed up as H. Richard Niebuhr put it:

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."

In other words, the popular view of Jesus is Christianity stripped of everything which makes it meaningful. He's no different than any other pop guru out there.

But that is not what Jesus had to say to us. He warns us to be holy and to be ready:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. (Luke 10:16)

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’ (Matt 7:21-23)

“If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.  If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. (Matt 18:15-17)

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18-19)

That's the very opposite of the "Santa Claus" type Jesus people tend to believe in. He is the Way to salvation, but His salvation is not given indifferently. It requires following Him wholeheartedly. It requires fear of The Lord. That scandalizes people . . . especially if they contrast the Old Testament God with the person of Jesus.

Now Fear of the Lord, in the context of the Psalms cited, is not a sort of servile response to a divine argumentum ad baculum from a God who can't wait for you to screw up so He can bash you. 

Fear comes from the word יִרְאַ֬ת  (yir'ah) meaning (in this context): Reverence, Piety, Knowledge (Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 432).

In other words, if we would be wise and follow God, it requires Reverence to Him (as opposed to presuming that He didn't really mean what He said), Piety (as opposed to thinking a lackluster approach is good enough) and knowledge of His teachings (as opposed to thinking that however I personally interpret what I think the words mean).

Basically, Fear of the Lord can be summed up in the old Catholic saying: Know, Love and Serve God. Know and accept as true what He teaches, follow His teachings out of Love for Him (as opposed to "It's a rule the Church made and I have to do it until they change their mind") and live your life in a way that emphasizes this.

We need to recognize that all too often our passions interfere with knowing, loving and serving God. Either we desire something that we are told is sinful (harmful) for us or we fear losing something if we follow Him. So we "shoot the messenger" and blame the Church . . . as if the Church would invent such strict rules to be odious.

Really, the whole concept of blaming the Church is irrational. If we accept that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be (the Church established by Christ that teaches with His authority), then what she teaches ought to be heeded because she has the authority to bind and loose. But if the Catholic Church is not what she claims to be, then any truth in her teaching is mere coincidence, and it makes no sense to want to remain in her to begin with. (I firmly believe anti-Catholics are wrong and grossly misled, but at least they are more logically consistent in their error than the Catholic dissenter who wants to "change" Church teaching).

Our Western Society has become very foolish. Our society rejects God's commands when people do not want to follow them. Our society will continue being foolish until we realize that we need to turn back to knowing, loving and serving God and not putting our own passions first.

Remembering the Fear of the Lord

For they will not mend their ways; 
they have no fear of God. (Psalm 55:20)

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
prudent are all who practice it.
His praise endures forever. (Psalm 111:10)

When I witness the anger against the Church and her insisting on teachings, over and over I hear the same thing: "God doesn't care about my doing X! The Church is being unfair!" It isn't surprising. In the West, there is a tendency to turn Jesus into a "nice guy" who doesn't care about what we do as long as we don't hurt anybody else while we do it. After all, they ask, didn't Jesus say to love one another and not to judge?

Basically, Western views of Christianity can be summed up as H. Richard Niebuhr put it:

"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."

In other words, the popular view of Jesus is Christianity stripped of everything which makes it meaningful. He's no different than any other pop guru out there.

But that is not what Jesus had to say to us. He warns us to be holy and to be ready:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. (Luke 10:16)

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’ (Matt 7:21-23)

“If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.  If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. (Matt 18:15-17)

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18-19)

That's the very opposite of the "Santa Claus" type Jesus people tend to believe in. He is the Way to salvation, but His salvation is not given indifferently. It requires following Him wholeheartedly. It requires fear of The Lord. That scandalizes people . . . especially if they contrast the Old Testament God with the person of Jesus.

Now Fear of the Lord, in the context of the Psalms cited, is not a sort of servile response to a divine argumentum ad baculum from a God who can't wait for you to screw up so He can bash you. 

Fear comes from the word יִרְאַ֬ת  (yir'ah) meaning (in this context): Reverence, Piety, Knowledge (Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 432).

In other words, if we would be wise and follow God, it requires Reverence to Him (as opposed to presuming that He didn't really mean what He said), Piety (as opposed to thinking a lackluster approach is good enough) and knowledge of His teachings (as opposed to thinking that however I personally interpret what I think the words mean).

Basically, Fear of the Lord can be summed up in the old Catholic saying: Know, Love and Serve God. Know and accept as true what He teaches, follow His teachings out of Love for Him (as opposed to "It's a rule the Church made and I have to do it until they change their mind") and live your life in a way that emphasizes this.

We need to recognize that all too often our passions interfere with knowing, loving and serving God. Either we desire something that we are told is sinful (harmful) for us or we fear losing something if we follow Him. So we "shoot the messenger" and blame the Church . . . as if the Church would invent such strict rules to be odious.

Really, the whole concept of blaming the Church is irrational. If we accept that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be (the Church established by Christ that teaches with His authority), then what she teaches ought to be heeded because she has the authority to bind and loose. But if the Catholic Church is not what she claims to be, then any truth in her teaching is mere coincidence, and it makes no sense to want to remain in her to begin with. (I firmly believe anti-Catholics are wrong and grossly misled, but at least they are more logically consistent in their error than the Catholic dissenter who wants to "change" Church teaching).

Our Western Society has become very foolish. Our society rejects God's commands when people do not want to follow them. Our society will continue being foolish until we realize that we need to turn back to knowing, loving and serving God and not putting our own passions first.