Is James Martin a Heretic?

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"How many souls can I make fit for hell? Put it this way: Hans Kung was a fag."

The Catholic Church has long opposed giving communion to the divorced and remarried. Recently a vocal and powerful minority within the Church, probably including the Pope himself, have challenged this position.

It is a sign of the decadence of the state of contemporary Catholicism that those in this minority are called "liberals" or perhaps even "moderates"--advocates for the importance of "pastoral care" alongside doctrine, and even disciples of the "new" doctrine of mercy, advocated by the current Pope.

In fact, of course, they are heretics.

I'm not using the term because I don't like them (though, obviously I don't), but because it is precisely accurate. In Catholic terminology a heretic is one who denies one or more (though not all) claims of Catholic doctrine. If one is in in favor of giving communion to the divorced and remarried, then one must deny at least one doctrinal claim.

Now, of course, it is fashionable among some modern Catholics to deny that there is even such a thing as doctrine, and thus not really any such a thing as heresy. The Church (so goes the argument) has beliefs and teachings, some of which stay the same and some of which change. It might be inadvisable to change anything too quickly or change too many things at once, but in the end, everything is, so to speak, up for grabs, as long as one acts in the spirit of Christ's teachings as they were presented in the Bible and explained and developed by the Church.

That view is also a heresy. And no, I won't argue for it. But in a sense I don't need to, as those in the contemporary pro-communion-for-the-divorced-and-remarried crowd explicitly reject it. They endorse the view that one should not deny Catholic doctrine, as well as affirming that they themselves are not really doing so.

Rather, they claim they are exhibiting pastoral discernment in how to apply Catholic doctrine. Or mercy.

This of course makes no sense. It's a smokescreen or more precisely a lie. And the liars are well-aware of what they are doing.

What is the Catholic argument for not giving communion to the divorced and remarried?

1. Communion involves physically receiving the real body and blood of Christ.
2. It is a grave sin to receive the real body and blood of Christ if one is currently in a state of mortal sin.
3. Adultery is a mortal sin.
4. Being in a second marriage is equivalent to being in an ongoing state of adultery.
5. Being in a second marriage involves being in an ongoing state of mortal sin (from 3 & 4).
6. If one is in a second marriage, it is a grave sin to take communion (from 2 & 5).

We can see that the argument is based on four premises, each of which is uncontroversially (even for the heretics) a fundamental Catholic claim. I believe it is a valid argument (one whose conclusion follows logically from its premises), and thus, rejecting the conclusion involves rejecting the truth of one or more of the premises.

And you can't get it around it with the totem words "pastoral" or "mercy".

Take your pick:

1. Deny the Real Presence.
2. Deny (among other things) the Catholic interpretation of the words of Paul in the Epistles--"For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."
3. Deny that adultery is a mortal sin.
4. Deny the Catholic interpretation of the words of Christ on marriage.

And don't say, "I'm not denying any of those--I'm just claiming there are exceptions." Please don't.

And don't say, "yes, but you have to meet people where they are." Simply don't.

Also, don't misunderstand. This is not an argument for the truth of any of these premises.  Virtually all of my non-Catholic friends deny at least one of them. Indeed, for some Protestants at least, denial of, say, the first, is one of the things that makes them Protestant.

I'm only talking about Catholics who claim to believe all of them but because they are in favor of communion for the divorced and remarried, in fact must deny them.

And of course they know that.

Do you think Archbishop Cupich believes in the Real Presence? Yeah, sure he does. Eucharistic Adoration? In the seminaries that trained Cupich and his like they called it "cookie worship". Indeed, if you try to kneel to Christ's body and blood, as you would if you honestly believed it was really Christ's body and blood, then Cupich will bitterly snap at you. He becomes an old woman. Even if you're a teenage girl.

Archbishop Cupich believes in midnight basketball and gun control.

Cardinal Kasper doesn't give one golden bauble about the words of Paul the Apostle.

James Martin SJ doesn't believe in mortal sin. Come on, seriously. Does anyone here believe that he does? Anyone? Mortal sin is for the haters. Martin's thing is hating the haters. Martin is obsessed by hate. Consumed by it. And don't say he loves gays or any of that claptrap. If the Zeitgeist were homophobic, as it often has been and no doubt will be again, Martin would be hanging gays from lampposts and then smirking about how merciful that was. You know he would.

Block that.

And what of the Pope? Honestly I don't really know what he does or does not believe. Tragically, I'm not sure he does either.

As a Catholic, perhaps I should be angry with those who deny Catholic claims. But I'm not, or at least I'm not per se. I'm angry with Catholics who deny Catholic claims. They are the worst sort of dishonest, well, scum imaginable. Termites, they have been called. Too cowardly to come into the open; too filled with hatred to simply go away. They must spoil it for everyone. They must spoil it for us. They are unceasingly dedicated to eating away at the Church from the inside. And that's much worse than the damage any atheist would do.

Dear Reinhard 2.5: Is it Wrong to Steal Shoes?

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Following the first two installments at St. Corbinian's Bear, here and here...

From the Advice Column of German Cardinal Rienhard Marx...

Dear Reinhard:

Call me "Bruno". I am a dog who has been living in a human family--man, wife and six year old daughter--for 35 years (that's 5 human years if you count them that way). For the most part my needs are taken care of. I get yummy food, refreshing water and my master and mistress walk me twice a day. Last Christmas they even gave me a tennis ball.

But even in this most bestest of situations, I confess to having, well, other feelings. To put it plainly, I can't stop munching on my master's shoes. They're leathery and delicious and when master isn't looking I occasionally take one from the closet and add it to the growing pile behind the garden bush. That way, I'll have a supply just in case. I don't think master knows about this as he is always yelling, "Verdammt! Wo sind meine Lieblings loafers?" at mistress. Their daughter caught me once, but instead of telling master, she just smiled and winked. After master was grumpy with her last week, she even procured another shoe for me.

As I am a good Catholic dog, I know that stealing shoes is wrong. But they do taste very good.

I've tried going to Confession. But if I manage to show up for the five minutes in the week that it is available in my parish, the priest usually just pats me on the head and gives me a leftover piece of bratwurst. I like the bratwurst but still I feel that this is somewhat condescending. How would you feel if you wanted absolution but were merely handed a sausage?

Do you have any sausages?

What shall I do? I hear that the current Pope is friendly to dogs. But I wonder whether this is merely posturing for human consumption. Is there a bite behind his bark? Or will he in the end turn out to be a cat lover, just like the others?

I think the Synod on the Family should deal with pet issues since we are an integral part of many families. And I'm tired of feeling excluded.

Signed,
Bruno in Munich

Reinhardt replies...

Dear Bruno,

You claim to be a "Catholic" dog, but I've checked the government rolls, and there's no record that you have paid the state income tax for membership in your chosen religious organization. Of course you may pay in dog biscuits. But you're already five years behind. Please send 2,729 biscuits to the P.O. Box of Cardinal Kasper. Until you do that, I'm afraid to say that I cannot offer you any advice, nor will I continue this communication. Do you think German priests work for free?

God bless you!
Reinhard

"It Was Not For the Supremacy That You Have Sought My Blood. But Because I Would Not Bend to the Marriage!"

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This is the final part of the trial scene for the 1966 film, A Man for All Seasons.

Paul Scofield plays Saint Thomas Moore.

He gave up everything, including his life, to defend the clear words of Christ...

...on divorce.

The indictment is grounded in an Act of Parliament which is directly repugnant to the law of God and His holy Church, the supreme government of which no temporal person may, by any law presume to take upon him. This was granted by the mouth of our Savior, Christ Himself to Saint Peter and the bishops of Rome whilst He lived and was personally present here on Earth. It is therefore insufficient in law to charge any Christian to obey it.

Have mercy.

That speech strikes the contemporary Church like thunder.

The interesting thing about the film is that it was written by a non-Catholic and non-Christian.

Robert Bolt had been divorced three times.

Some believe Bolt rewrote the intensely Catholic Moore into a sort of free-speech liberal.

I think this is half-true. But Bolt himself was aware of the issue:

I am not a Catholic, nor even in the meaningful sense of the word a Christian. So, by what right do I appropriate a Christian saint to my purposes? 

What first attracted me was a person who could not be accused of any incapacity for life, who indeed seized life in great variety and almost greedy quantities, but who nevertheless found something within himself without which life was valueless, and when that was denied him, was able to grasp his death... 

So, St. Thomas More's deep religious convictions—the motive of his life and death—are too often minimized or even discounted as a kind of amiable eccentricity. 

Yet is it meaningless to write about a saint and leave out God.

Faithful Catholics think of the sixties as a turning point. By the mid-sixties the rot had already set in, and all that.

But what's notable is that in 1966 a thorough-going and principled Catholic could also be a sympathetic free-speech liberal.

A Man for All Seasons won six Academy Awards.

The film could not be made now. For that matter, at least two other films based on Bolt's screenplays--Lawrence of Arabia and The Mission--could not be made now.

Today, such a character as Moore, or Moore as written by Bolt, would be called a hater.

I do none harm. 

I say none harm. 

I think none harm. 

And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then, in good faith, I long not to live.

Yeah, sure. He was a hater.

Enjoy your rainbow.