Silence can be suicidal    dr. james kottoor(Chicago)

  One of the pass-times of ‘professional theologians’, especially with too many degrees and titles  may be to discuss endlessly topics like: “How many angels can stand on the pin point of a needle?” This is to point out the relevance or irrelevance of many things discussed in the Church including efforts of some to “correct the Pope” on may points. (See two reports below)

But the most important thing for us ‘the little flock’ or the “Cattle Class” (companions of one borne in cattle shed) who do not want to bent their knees to any insolent might other than to Jesus and Him alone is to stand & wait to serve,  to speak without fear or favour, to act as leaven and salt in the dough, to act as light in darkness and to suppress all streaks of peacocking tendencies lurking in us.

God created man to serve him honestly in this world according to the light each one is given and be happy both in this world and in the next. According to the understanding we have of God today, He does things or has done things for a definite purpose and is capable of getting his creatures reach the goals he has set for each. So none of us have to worry. Those who don’t believe in God also don’t have to worry because they are required to live according to their lights doing good to themselves and others and harm to none. That is the reason alleged by Francis that there many atheists who live better than many Catholics.

But we are all limited creatures and we all need help and support from ever so many people. That makes us bound in duty  to help others in need when we find them and also seek help from others. These are things supposed to be clear to all. Still many seem to act as if they don’t know them. That creates disorder and chaos in this world. They will have to learn the hard way, like the child that puts its finger in the fire and gets burned. It is not God who is punishing here. Each one reaps the fruits of his/her own doings. So no use blaming God for such things.

Growing up through discussion

In the meantime discussion on a multitude of things must continue. That is the process through which everyone learns and grows up. What is required from each one of us is to join in the local or global conversation that is going on. For instance what are they who call themselves followers of Jesus  or the “Cattle Class” are supposed to do? They are not exempt from speaking up even though they are expected not to have streaks of “inner peacock” propelling them to project themselves to show off?

To be one of the Cattle Class, or the Little Flock,  one has to empty oneself as Jesus did from his birth in a cattle shed to Calvary top. Pope Francis shows that attitude when he says: “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”  CNN Belief Blog co-editor Eric Marrapodi wrote: “Pope Francis has taken the papacy out of the  Sistine Chapel and into the streets," which means he is not only telling the priestly class to get out of the church of the sacristy to go to peripheries but showing how to do it by example, mostly by speaking up for the victims of oppression and exploitation constantly.

Jesus’ Pusblic Life   

During his public life of 3 years,  Jesus was not afraid to speak truth to those in power. Similarly are to be those who claim to follow him. They must be  ready to speak up for truth, as and when occasion demands in spite of what may happen to themselves? Speaking of Jesus, some may even say, “If only Jesus had kept his blessed mouth shut he would have lived a thousand years!” It only means the extend we have to go to speak up for truth. Those who keep their mouths shut can’t be followers of Jesus or a member of the cattle class, the little flock. So listen to some of the people who influenced the world for good for their outspoken pronouncements.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people," and  “Óur lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Desmond Tutu said: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." Ginetta Sagan, human right activist said: "Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor."  Deitrisch Bonhoeffer said: “Silence in the face of evil itself  is evil. God will not hold us guiltless.” 

So a  must for all  in the cattle class is to speak up boldly to share  with others what the little ones have – may be just “one fish and two loaves” the boy had with which Jesus fed a multitude of five thousand. What is important is to have the good will of that boy. By speaking out, besides sharing what we know, we get corrected by  the better informed or our critics. So be  busy like the bee, which goes to every flower but takes in only the honey from every flower.  Similarly let us also listen to all the critics of Francis. james kottoor, editor, ccv.

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Please read two reports on correcting Pope Francis

Formal correction of Pope – 12 facts you need to know

Dorothy Cummings McLean in NEWSCATHOLIC CHURCH, Fri Aug 18, 2017. 

Amoris Laetitia, Dubia, Formal Correction, Pope Francis, Raymond BurkesJohn-Henry Westen / LifeSiteNews.com

ROME, Italy, August 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — In an August 14 interview with The Wanderer, Cardinal Leo Burke stated that a formal “correction” of some of Pope Francis’ teachings on marriage and the family is “necessary.”Here are 12 facts about the proposed correction:

1) The correction will be an attempt to clear up the confusion and heal the divisions in the Catholic Church caused by differing interpretations of Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

2) The correction will follow the five dubia (questions) about the doctrinal implications of Paragraphs 300-305 of Amoris Laetitia sent to Pope Francis and Cardinal Gerhard Müller, then the prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, on September 19, 2016.

3) The dubia and accompanying letter were signed by Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Carlo Caffarra, Joachim Meisner (now deceased) and Raymond Burke.

4) Pope Francis chose not to respond to the dubia, and therefore confusion and division regarding Amoris Laetitia continue in the Catholic Church, necessitating a correction.

5) As evidence of this division, Cardinal Burke told The Wanderer, “Bishops tell me that when they insist on authentic Church teaching with regard to irregular matrimonial unions, people are simply rejecting their teachings. They say that another bishop teaches differently, and they choose to follow him.”

6) As further evidence of division, Cardinal Burke cited the Archbishop of Malta, who said that the Maltese bishops “follow the teaching of Pope Francis and not of other popes,” an assertion Cardinal Burke finds “shocking.”

7) Although a formal correction of a reigning pontiff on doctrinal matters has not happened in centuries, there have been corrections of past popes on several points, including administrative matters.

8) The proposed correction will set forth the clear teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage, the family, intrinsically evil acts and other matters thrown into doubt by Amoris Laetitia and compare them to what is being “actually taught” by Pope Francis.

9) If there is a correction, it will call Pope Francis to conform his teaching in obedience to Christ and the Magisterium of the Church.

10) The correction will be a formal declaration to which Pope Francis will be, in Cardinal Burke’s opinion, “obliged” to respond.

11) Cardinal Burke has asserted that the Roman Pontiff is the principle of unity of all the bishops, and so it is Pope Francis’ responsibility to put a stop to the current division among the bishops with a clear affirmation of Church teaching.
12) While opposed to any kind of formal schism, Cardinal Burke believes that there is currently apostasy within the Church, as was predicted by Our Lady of Fatima.

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Read also another recent post(Aug.23^rd) by LifeSight News

Amoris Laetitia is a ticking ‘atomic bomb’ set to obliterate all Catholic morality: philosopher     Pete Baklinski, in LifeSight, August 23, 2017

 Adultery , Amoris Laetitia , Catholic , Dubia , Intrinsic Evil , Josef Seifert , Pope Francis

August 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — One of the world’s top Catholic philosophers has called Pope’ Francis’ Exhortation Amoris Laetitia a ticking “theological atomic bomb” that has the capacity to entirely destroy all Catholic moral teaching. 

Dr. Josef Seifert, founding rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein, said the only way the theological bomb can be defused is by Pope Francis retracting at least one major error in his 2016 Exhortation. 

With philosophical precision, Seifert pinpoints the main problem in Amoris Laetitia (AL) to a passage that he said suggests that God actively wills people, in certain situations, to commit acts that have always been considered objectively evil by the Catholic Church. 

He quotes directly from passage 303 of Amoris where Pope Francis speaks about “irregular couples” living in habitual adultery who decide to forgo following the Six Commandment. 

“Yet conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel,” wrote Pope Francis in his 2016 Exhortation. 

“It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal,” he added. 

Commented Seifert: “In other words, besides calling an objective state of grave sin, euphemistically, ‘not yet fully the objective ideal,’ AL says that we can know with ‘a certain moral security’ that God himself asks us to continue to commit intrinsically wrong acts, such as adultery or active homosexuality.”

But Seifert pointed out that if just one intrinsically immoral act, such as adultery, can be permitted and even willed by God, then there is nothing stopping such a principle being applied to “all acts considered ‘intrinsically wrong.’”

If it is true that God can want an adulterous couple to live in adultery against the Sixth Commandment, he said, then there is nothing to keep the other nine Commandments from falling. 

According to such logic, Seifert continued, evils such as murder, abortion, euthanasia, suicide, lying, thievery, perjury, and betrayal can be “justified in some cases and ‘be what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal.’”

“Does not pure logic demand that we draw this consequence from this proposition of Pope Francis?” the philosopher said. 

Seifert said that if his above question is answered in the affirmative, then the “purely logical consequence of that one assertion of Amoris Laetitia seems to destroy the entire moral teaching of the Church.”

The professor’s concern is similar to one of the dubia (questions) raised by the four cardinals to Pope Francis last year asking him to clarify the meaning of his Exhortation. 

Question two of five asks the Pope if, with the publication of Amoris, does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor that there are “absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts and that are binding without exceptions?” 

In his paper, Seifert pleaded with Pope Francis to withdraw and condemn the notion that God sometimes wills people to commit intrinsically evil acts.

“If this is truly what AL affirms, all alarm over AL’s direct affirmations regarding matters of changes of sacramental discipline refer only to the peak of an iceberg, to the weak beginning of an avalanche, or to the first few buildings destroyed by a moral theological atomic bomb that threatens to tear down the whole moral edifice of the Ten Commandments and of Catholic moral teaching,” he said. 

Leaving such a notion uncorrected will lead to “nothing less than to a total destruction of the moral teachings of the Catholic Church,” he concluded. 

Last week, Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the four cardinals who signed the dubiaalmost one year ago, outlined how the process for issuing a “formal correction” of the Pope would proceed if the Pope continued in his refusal to clarify his teaching. 

“It seems to me that the essence of the correction is quite simple,” Burke explained. 

“On the one hand, one sets forth the clear teaching of the Church; on the other hand, what is actually being taught by the Roman Pontiff is stated. If there is a contradiction, the Roman Pontiff is called to conform his own teaching in obedience to Christ and the Magisterium of the Church,” he said. 

“Pope Francis has chosen not to respond to the five dubia, so it is now necessary simply to state what the Church teaches about marriage, the family, acts that are intrinsically evil, and so forth. These are the points that are not clear in the current teachings of the Roman Pontiff; therefore, this situation must be corrected. The correction would then direct itself principally to those doctrinal points,” he added. (Dr. Josef Seifert paper: Does pure Logic threaten to destroy the entire moral Doctrine of the Catholic Church?)