Why Remain Catholic? ~ Fr. Ripperger

[Music] [Music] name of the father sudden holy spirit i mean direct oh lord all our actions by thy holy inspirations and carry them on by their gracious assistance sort of repair and work awards we begin from the invite behalf of them through christ star-lord seed of wisdom i pray for us name of the father son holy spirit amen okay so the topic of this uh conference is uh why should you remain catholic and there's uh or why be catholic because ultimately they're the title and it's not an apologetic for the catholic faith what i want to do is i'm just going to presume certain things so if a person has faith there's just going to be certain things that you can presume from that and then from there you can logically deduce well this is pretty much it okay so um and some of these things are obviously true to be a catholic there's a certain amount of faith that is required just to give a sense to these things regardless of how logical logical a lot of it is you still have to have faith to see the truth of the propositions because you can have a system that is absolutely coherent within its parts and not be true so um it really comes down to are the are the foundational propositions which are basically the parts of the creed are they the foundational propositions are they true if they are then you know the whole logical structure follows from that okay so that's the and that's actually one of the real problems of the church that's been in the last 40 years is that whole logical incoherence of things that are being proposed is breaking down because you know some guy he wants contraception well if you don't if you if you want contraception then that means that you know the infallibility of the church is open to question because now it's teachings have changed and then once that happens and then it's all gone right so um but where i want to start with that is this if you look and uh you can demonstrate you can demonstrate that gods exist to the natural light of reason so let me just give you a quick short one so um it is clear and evident to the senses that all things are in motion obviously you see things moving around i'm moving around as you watching me okay so and uh that and so they're based on that then the print so that's something that's self-evident right it's self-evident things emotions you know people say i don't know is he there or not well he's standing right in front of you well is he there you if someone did that you'd say okay it's time for them to be given some type of psychotropic drug right okay so uh so the saint thomas says that when it comes to our senses and the validity of what they tell us generally speaking it's self-evident that what they're telling us is true okay so the uh and that basically is through the senses that we're put in contact with reality that's going to be a key notion that contact with reality so that so and then there's the principle of motion that which is moved is moved by another and also the principle of sufficient reason the the emotion of a thing or the existence of a thing is accountable either in itself or in another in other words everything that exists has to have a sufficient reason to account for why it exists i mean and um it's either in itself is in the case of god or it's in another okay so in relationship to motion so things are in motion that which is moved is moved by another you can't have what they call an infinite regress you can't go on infinitely where there's nothing you never get to anything that starts the whole process of motion because if you never get to something that starts the whole process in motion then there shouldn't be any motion at all okay so there has to you have to get to some point where there's one thing that is unmoved that starts everything in motion and that we call god right so um because he's unmoved okay so that's that's one of the arguments and it takes a lot of philosophical analysis to see all the proofs of all those propositions okay so we know that god can exist purely through the natural light of reason the first vatican council teaches us that to go from that to saying something like jesus christ is the son of god incarnate is a different kind of an animal because or to actually know what is god thinking you know what actually there's some we know we actually know we actually know a great deal about what god thinks most people think he's this inaccessible thing that we can't see out there well if everything that exists everything that exists is being caused maintained in its existence by god that means that we can actually know what god's thinking just by looking at things he's thinking about the tables he chairs us you know obviously he usually has one thought which is himself and seeing within himself he sees the totality of everything he's causing but with this we you know people say what is god thinking we'll just look at reality there you go okay okay so that all being said so but there are certain aspects about god that when he acts upon [Music] something okay so we got this thing and everything is a combination of something that has a nature or an essence and that essence is brought into existence so it's a combination of essence and existence but existence is the same in everything and that means that every time god causes by the way god's name is i am who am look like this one i am his existence human is essence which means what it's in his very essence to exist okay he actually revealed his nature in that respect okay so his very nature is existence okay so he causes these things to exist in existence since it's it's the same in each thing in a certain sense in that respect god always acts as a unified cause why am i going into this and by unified cause i mean anytime something comes out of god there's always existence that's coming into their existence is occurring in some way and it's unified in the sense that we believe that there's three persons of the trinity god the father god the son god the holy spirit but they all act externally as a single cause so you can't discern that there's a trinity sufficiently well enough just in nature just in the created reality okay so what does this actually mean then about knowing that god's trying okay so and then we'll get to the whole catholic part here after that well if we are to know what's going on in the interior life of god what's you know what what's what's going on inside of god what's he thinking what's his will what's his plans etc he because the created order doesn't reveal enough about god i mean reveals that he exists it reveals certain of his attributes like that he's omnipotent omniscient etcetera you can reason to all those just read the semiconductors and teams of st thomas he shows how you can start with god's existence and then proceed to all these other things but uh obviously that's too far afield for our discussion but even though you can know a lot about god there's certain things you can't know about him unless he reveals it which means what either one of two things is the case historically either god did not reveal things about himself and his plans and his intentions or he did this is just a logical uh possibility right either he did or he didn't one of the two if he did not reveal what's going on internally in him then you basically default to um the free masonic position which is run religions as good as another we ultimately can't know anything about god and that um so whatever one guy however one guy wants to worship is just as good as the next right whereas if god did reveal something about himself then that's not the case that means so if if god didn't reveal its catches catch can who you know whoever comes up with the best idea well isn't that nice okay but when it comes to the if he did reveal something about himself then this revelation in order for it to be given to men and to be propagated from generation to generation it has to come in a very specific mode and by mode we mean it has to be done in a very specific way and that's this uh god cannot reveal things to an individual purely purely internally with the expectation that it would apply to all men and that all would believe it because why human beings are inherently untrustworthy and as a result the human beings cannot be the primary uh mode by which something is revealed so what does this mean it means and the then the question comes what about angels revealing this is what you know the mormons believe here's the problem with that demons can falsify being an angel of light so you can never prove when you say an angel reveal this you can never prove that that's actually what you know you never have that same degree of servitude unless it rests upon something which god himself has to reveal it and he has to reveal it in objective reality something which is accessible to all men which basically means what the senses so if you actually look so what does he do on mount sinai well moses goes up god starts talking to him reveals the ten commandments and that's the first objective revelation that we have right and then god reveals it to god uh many of the laws and stuff like that god reveals to uh to moses because as human beings we're let's just admit it we're all just stupid and so when it comes to god we are if we're going to worship god according to our own designs you're going to have people standing in front of trees but you know tapping on it and doing that that's what you're going to get as human beings because we're just that dumb so if we're going to worship god in a way that is properly ordered to him and not through some to some weird object or it's properly ordered him in a way that actually pleases him because it's rightly ordered he has to reveal it that's why god came down revealed the ten commandments that was the basic natural law and then he revealed to moses this is how you're supposed to worship me he was very precise and very detailed and exactly how that's to be done if god doesn't do that then we're back to the old the problem it's catch's cash can't it's whoever comes up with the best idea or whatever anybody can just do it any way they want okay so the objective reality the objective reality is something that everybody can have access to so god reveals through moses so that's the first revelation of the old testament then the second revelation is done by jesus christ that is god himself and how does how do we know that the revelation is from god himself is because and it's the same actual way in which we know in the old testament which is the content that is uh revealed and then it's backed up by something that is beyond above anything on the natural order whether angelic or otherwise so you got the burning bush that was one of the few signs etc and then there's several miracles that occur in relationship to the um to the jews when they're leaving egypt etc so you've got that going on there and then what does christ do christ shows he's god christ shows he's god because every single time he uh attempted to perform a miracle it happened there was never an instance where he failed to pull off what he was doing okay um if if the gospel accounts are correct okay so that which they are by the way so the uh and part we know about that i'll make the internal cohesion of them and all this stuff okay so that being the case christ himself comes and reveals you know okay this is the objective reality of the thing okay all authority comes from god we have an innate sense i mentioned it uh earlier before the conference you know that you know no human being has a right to take the life of another human being if you do have to because of self-defense it's on the state it's because you're acting as an agent of the state okay in relationship to uh individuals one individual does not have the power or right to bind another person in the form of conscience of themselves they don't have that authority you can't tell me what to do we all know that this guy can't he can't tell me what to do the only time we tell him okay you can tell me what to do is if what if there's authority structure and that authority structure has to come from god ultimately it's god alone who can bind people in the form of conscience only god now that means that god can then convey that power in a limited way and we know that he does that or that authority and the way we know he does that is uh through two ways one through the natural law so and this is what we were talking about in relationship to children children naturally know that they're supposed to obey their parents so the natural law because god creates human nature and in that structures it so that we behave a certain way he designed that and so he's the author of it and therefore the natural law determines that you know certain people have certain authority so the father has had the household etc so this is we know this through the natural law and you can know that just through the natural light of reason but then there's what we call the divine positive law and that is that is an additional and above and beyond the natural law god comes down and reveals an objective reality this is what my will is and this is who has the authority so that's what happened when the apostles were um so it when the apostles right before christ ascended he said go therefore and baptize all nations the general consensus of the theologians is it was at that time that there was the convance of jurisdiction to the apostles and then they pass it from generation to generation and how do we know that because it's right in scripture we see that that they're actually making bishops and priests in scripture okay deacons etc okay so that being said what this means is that uh when it ultimately boils down to it human beings are imperfect and there's a principle you cannot give what you don't have it's called the principle of sufficient reason if i'm not perfect i can't make myself perfect and in relationship to uh in relationship to this in relationship to god if i am going to attain some state after i'm dead it is above and beyond what i have in this life the oh and it's it's above and beyond it's beyond my natural capacities i actually have to have some other agency that lifts me up to that level okay and that ultimately is going to be god because only god can lift us up to the point where we can see him where we can be perfect because only god all perfection comes from god even the angels that are perfect are perfect because god caused them to be perfect so in relationship to us the only way we're going to attain this perfection in the next life is god has to be the cause of it so and we call that salvation because right now we're in a state of imperfection we commit sins we these are defects they're disorders etc because they violate the natural undivided puzzle we just don't behave the way we're supposed to in fact plato talks about it aristotle talks about it he's like there's something wrong with man you know he's reasonable has reason he knows what's virtuous and he does and yet he's doing these weird things it was kind of like this quasi-expression of saint paul right um and it's aristotle's a fascinating character because he he got to the point where he said it seems that the greatest level of happiness that a human being could have is to have a never-ending contemplation of the unmoved mover he arrived that purely on the base of natural light of reason which basically means what that he recognized that that he didn't have a concept of the beatific vision he was just saying that it would seem if you could just always contemplate this this would be that because it's the highest object of the highest faculty you're giving you the highest delights in central street that that would be the that would be it but then he says but such a state is too high for man because of our composite nature we have to work etc and so he said all you can do is kind of play as much as you can and then spend the rest of time developing virtue so uh what does this ultimate mean it means that to have this never-ending contemplation to be perfectly happy which we have a desire to be which this uh this perfect happiness there's a natural desire for happiness but it falls short of god himself basically what it does it helps us to basically realize or to contemplate god to the degree that we can based on our own natural abilities but then there is what they call an elicited desire for to see god face to face and that comes by grace so god gives us grace i want to see god i want to see him right okay so that being the case in order to achieve that given our state of sin in order to see him face to face there's all sorts of things you have to be in a state of perfection so in order to achieve that god has to be the cause and we call that salvation that's what that is salvation being taken out of our state of sinfulness and being brought to a state of no more sin having perfect gratitude of will and intellect and seeing him face to face that is something that's above and beyond even angelic nature so it's only something that god can cause so what does this mean if god is the only cause that can bring that about then we're back to this it's one or the other either he revealed to us how that is to be the case and how we're supposed to do that or he didn't and if he didn't do it well then we're back to this whatever you think is fine what i think is fine etc or if he did reveal it then we have to follow the prescriptions that he determined in order to get back to god it's just a logical argument right now according to the revelation we know that um god chose 12 apostles and then right before he ascended into heaven he conveyed to them jurisdiction which means what the authority and right go and teach all nations which means what only the apostles from what we can gather from all if you study all the other manuscripts of all other religions none of them have ever made the claim that god conveyed on them directly the right to proselytize and god conveyed on them the right to govern and to rule which is what jurisdiction is go and teach all nations right which means what in order to teach you have to govern et cetera so there's not that whole thing i want to unpack all that but the point being is is that he gave that to the apostles and then we know it's passed on and so it goes from successor to success or down to the present day so what does this mean concretely well if you're going to go from the time of revelation to us today if we are going to be saved we have to follow this prescription that he stay he's set up and if he set it up we have to make sure that this revelation passes intact without any of the essential elements ever being modified or changed because once we do that we don't know the means we're off already and so it has to come down intact and this is basically where the infallibility of the church is involved without infallibility it is impossible to be saved it's just impossible okay that just follows logically now that all being said what is this okay so what does this all mean why should i be catholic because the catholic church is the only one that's that by appearance at least fulfills this prescription it's the only one you look at all the other religions you know muhammad it was a you know muhammad is god's prophet well that's muhammad right he's not claiming to be god he didn't back it up with miracles and he didn't do it you know etc so in other words he didn't back it up with things that we can be certain that only god can do these things he might have done stuff that demons could do but he didn't back it up with other things you know and it's it's obviously not buddha and it's obviously not you know a variety of other different people who started their own religions etc so it has to ultimately come from god to us today so in order for us to be saved in order to get here we have to be part of that religion which basically um contains the means and the knowledge necessary in order to get back to god that's the only way we can do it to our knowledge there's only one religion that can prove that it actually has that all other religions don't have that and how do we know that because take for example many of the protestant sects it's all based on what one guy tends to think or his revelations or whatever he tends to think well you know that's fine if you've got this going on and that's really what it boils down to is that they don't believe in any authority structure or infallibility that maintains it even to today and so as a result god reveals to everybody in privately and individually and that's why i started out with you can't start from that and how do we know that because one guy is going to contradict the other guy god told me actual god told me not x okay now where are we right so it has to be something that what we can go back look at objective reality and say well this is what we know and you can actually do this you can actually go and study the uh the manuscripts and monuments of the church the tradition of the church and see where this thing actually came from okay so then you all so if this is the only if so this basically means that because the catholic church is the only one that has has this process the catholic church therefore is the only divinely established means of salvation that's what it means so if you want to be saved this is what you got to do okay now some people just say well i don't think there were anything i think we're just a conglomeration of molecules well that's fine but in the end i think that you'll find out differently obviously and there's arguments even against that but if if a person has any seriousness about ultimately being happy and you want perfect happiness this is the this is the only means so what about people who are part of other religions can they be safe the answer is yes they can but only by means of the one that christ set up what that means is that any non-catholic that is saved which some of them are not a lot in fact i'll talk about that in a minute they're saved by means of the catholic church doesn't mean that they're a visible member of it but it means that it comes to the instrumentality of the church okay the second part of it is is it's very rare that they are pius ix stay condemned the proposition that you can have reasonable hope in the salvation of non-catholics he condemned that proposition what's reasonable hope pretty good idea it's probably pretty sure this guy made it to heaven right so for example when you see um uh you know somebody who uh is they're they're dying right and they can't the priest comes and they confess their sins to the priests the priest let me give you an example a close friend of mine when his wife was dying you know the priest is there he um he's already anointed her but just before she dies he was going to give her absolution one more time and he said to her penny are you sorry for all the sins of your past life her dying word was absolutely she was dead that's perfect manifestation i mean i don't know how it gets any better than that of final penitence right and so because we should receive the sacraments and because she uh expressed final penance on the end for her sinfulness against god then we know we then we have pretty good certitude this person made it happen that's reasonable hope she made it right okay whereas the other people if they don't have those particular means it's much harder for them and it's much less likely for them to actually get into heaven the other side of it is too is by that is of the means not just the time of the death bed but to throughout one's life the church has a variety of different means to gain the grace to start perfecting yourself now and to start leading a life that's in congruity with the sacraments or in congruity with the um ten commandments sorry that's in congruent with that and so the church has a much richer means by which that is possible and so it again contributes to reasonable hope and that will be saved it is the common opinion of theologians that um i've been researching this just recently it's the common communion theologians i think it's census uh comunis that god gives everybody sufficient grace to be saved and that's based partly on the all our call that few are uh chosen right so the um or many but the the point being is is that the there's a general impression or a preposition by most theologians that everybody gets sufficient grace to be saved that doesn't mean everybody's saved in fact uh the number of people being saved um by the again the uh community uh uh sorry the census communities is just intensive communities is that the fact that uh unless the majority of the people are saved in fact a few people are saved so the number of people saved is relatively few if you look at the general number that's the kind of the general consensus there's some other people that hold something else um and so there that's why we that's why you'll read technical journals and they'll say well we don't it's not de fete and it's not set tense it's proxima but it sends it looks like it's this okay so that's why they tend to talk that way that all being said um that means that once you step outside the catholic church your chances of being saved go down and i'm not just saying that because we're in the church and look at us aren't we privileged that's actually not the case actually there's a certain humility because you only stay in the church if god's giving you the grace it's not don't take the credit for it it's him doing that okay so uh that all being said this is one of the reasons why you actually want this is why it's important to remain catholic and practice the catholic faith because it's the only way that we're going to get to heaven just based on objective criteria do protestants are processed saved yes are non-catholics say yes but that's why the the the way they used to say is that it was extraordinary it was rare that's why the pious sense is that you know you can't have reasonable hope and salvation to come catholics didn't say you couldn't have any hope because there's some that are saved but you can't have reasonable hope in the sense of we're pretty sure this guy got saved okay any questions so someone who is a non-catholic would presumably have a more heroic journey to to get to heaven because because it would be more there'd be more obstacles would there be it'd be harder to get there yeah but not necessarily on their side but on the side of the grace given okay yeah and the other point is all you know when when you mention you know the exact percentage of people that are that are saved you know is it is it 5 is it 25 is it 50 yeah we ultimately don't know it doesn't really matter though because it's one it's one person it's you that you should be worrying about you're worrying about us that's right everybody else yeah it's just you yeah that's right well your family but but you all you can do with your family is pray for them pray for them show them and show them all the avenues yeah i think that the real difficulty today is um on the opposite extreme at the opposite extreme meaning that everybody's saved or you know a majority of people are be saved and what happens with that is that people say oh then it's not that difficult i don't have to worry about it or they you know they don't think that there's certain requirements that i have to meet in order to be saved you know ultimately we're saved by sanctifying grace in us but that's god who makes that possible and we have to cooperate with that but i think that this and that's i think the real danger that you're seeing out there you know that in the end all you know we hope that all men be saved well no we better not dare that because it's just heretical and it's already been condemned you know etc so um i think that's the more opposite extreme that we're seeing today well even christ said that you know it was it was easier for a camel for a rich man to get to go through that yeah it's easier for a camera to go through the eye of the needle and then for rich man and the other needles as you know as you know it's that narrow door that you can get them through there but it's a lot of work so yes this is probably a talk in and of itself but what about the orthodox religion and how do they fit in in salvation as far as not being catholic but yet be closer to being catholic than protestants of yet not having the privacy of peter yeah so uh this is uh okay let me just back up just a little bit so what would you think if you had a car and i stole your car and i lived across the street from you and stuck it in my uh driveway and said hey rick what do you think of my car isn't that a great car look i got i got a car look at my car what would be your reaction you're crazy yeah exactly exactly okay that's exactly what's going on with religions who have elements of sanctification because god gave all the elements of sanctification to the apostles into the church and the fact that these other religions started using them independently of the church is theft spiritual theft basically and so recently today they're talking about isn't it wonderful that the orthodox have this and the protestants have that and they said no it's not it's theft it really belongs to all the elements of sanctification the church has always taught is actually under the authority of the um the bishops and so every time someone's baptized outside the church or gets married outside the church sacramentally or um you know employs like says mass outside the church every time that happens god is gravely offended because usurpation has happened in relationship to the bishops so in relationship to the orthodox they have valid sacraments so they have they have the valid sacraments and it i i personally do not believe it was helpful that paul vi extended them jurisdiction for their confessions i think that was a mistake for a variety of different reasons um and part of that has to do with uh you really should not normalize the validity of sacraments outside the church you just shouldn't do that so they have that so if you look at the if you look at you know and we know that when christ god established that that because he's the cause remember how i tell you acts as unified cause so everything that god causes only god can maintain perfect unity in a thing so there's one holy and catholic and apostolic right so on the side of the orthodox they lack the principle of union because uh the first vatican council said that the principal union not a principle of unity and here's a slight switch which they it was a little underhanded thing they pulled at vatican ii and nobody noticed and that was this at vatican one it was formally defined that the papacy the office of the papacy the papacy is the principle of unity if you're not in union with the pope you're not in the church period okay so that is the principle so this is this is the principle but there are other principles that um so for example there are other principles like having the same faith is a principle of unity but it's not the principle so you can have various principles of unity but if you don't have the one principle you don't have true unity these other ones it's more of okay once you've got the then you have to have all the uh so to speak okay and so the orthodox they don't have the principle of unity they have some of the principles you need but not all of them but even that even in relationship to faith is something like you can your first marriage if it doesn't work out they'll kind of turn a blind eye and get married a second time i mean this is all nonsense right so then the other one is holy and these are the the the the church will always be sanctified that the doctrine is holy it sanctifies its people and its finalities people's holiness okay that's what it's what it's designed for and so there are elements of sanctification that are given to the church and so some of these people have them but because they don't have the principle of unity they're out you're using these things outside what god had intended because he established you know upon this rock i will build my church and you even know that the other apostles know that peter is the guy who makes the decisions how do we know that two instances when john and peter run to the um to the k to the where christ was buried when he died john got there first and then uh but he stood outside knowing it wasn't his place and then peter went in and checked it out okay the other part of it is is that when it came to the question of circumcision um uh paul knew that it wasn't his place to make the determination he went and talked to peter and convinced peter you have to change this and then once peter said it the question was over okay so we know that that that that's how that all that structure works and we know that that was from the beginning and it is passed on okay the second is cat according catholic is that it's universal so it's anybody of any of any race can be a catholic okay and then the apostolic is two four the epistolic is primarily apostolic primarily apostolic succession so you have the the passing on of of the the office of bishop from generation to generation in the vatican in their archives there's an actual document that shows how every single bishop today can be physically traced back to a particular apostle so we have we actually have that documentation in fact when a bishop is consecrated by a bishop when he goes to rome he's given a document and told which pop hustle their successions traced back to yeah okay so at least they used to i don't know if they still do okay but so that means so it's the order is passed on from generation generation but then also this authority that christ gave go and teach all nations was passed on from generation to generation and it that's why i always tell people that the only religion that has any religious rights in any society is the catholic church all the other ones are to be tolerated right you and you tolerate the principles of toleration that's a whole conference in itself but the other ones don't have any rights because it wasn't conceited to them by god in relationship to this but the orthodox when it comes to the apostolic part of it they have what they call material succession of apostolicity which basically means what they have valid orders it goes from generation to generation so they're all about their bishops are valid their priests are valid right but when it comes to formal succession that is they don't have jurisdiction that's passed on from generation to generation and so as a result of that they don't have they don't have the principle of unity they don't have um the they don't truly have apostolicity because they don't have this formal succession there's some question about their universality but i think that one could be easily argued um and then as far as the holiness goes um some of their doctrine isn't holding so technically speaking some authors assert that the catholic church is the only one that has all of these no other religion has any of them in the proper sense so let's just tell you about the orthodox so what did they do at vatican ii what they did at vatican ii is is they shifted the principle of unity from the papacy to apostolicity if you have apostolic succession you are part of this church of christ which is called the branch theory and the branch theory was started by protestants they didn't like the fact that the catholic church was claiming it was the only true church and so what they did is they came up with this idea that well there's this one church of christ does this sound familiar one church of christ of which there are different branches like the catholic and the orthodox and at that time when they came up with this theory it was the anglicans those are the only ones that they were willing to extend it to okay and now it's pretty much everybody but what this does is this shifts and so when the when this actually got uh condemned and pro addressed in a variety of different ways by popes and by majestic documents and saints and authors and stuff but what ends up happening and so what they did though is they they shifted it from the papacy you're not part of this church that christ established unless you're part of the papacy that's essentially what vatican one says that gets collapsed into if you have apostolic succession you're part of the church that christ established that is why they permit intercommunion with the orthodox and with high anglicans at the time they were talking about at highlands but at least with the orthodox so yes so heretics who do not have or do or should do not agree with absolutely everything the church is to teach and they have been in touch with the papacy and the vatican and they keep getting the answer that your teaching is not of the catholic this is not the right teaching we are we're refusing right to to you know accept right belief particularly about baptism okay are they automatically excommunicated what are well they were never part of the church so they're well okay so wait a minute i have to stop with that okay a distinction has to be made whenever you are baptized what's infused into your intellect at the time of your baptism is catholic faith even if it's done in a protestant ceremony through malformation that may get corrupted if they make a formal act of heresy once they make a formal act of heresy or commit something that's morally sinful they lose their state of grace but it's theoretically possible for a protestant to not make a formal act of heresy because he may never come to really understand what the church teaches and then make a formal rejection of it that's rare i think um the theologians talk a lot about where's the threshold on that you know how much do you have to know and how much do you have to believe it et cetera but that's the general principles so um but they are not part of the visible part of the church that's one of its attributes that the church is visible they're not invisible members of the church but they can actually be members of the church by virtue of being in the state of grace because if they're in the state of grace they're part of the community saints and if that that means that they're part of the church because communion saints only exists in the catholic church everybody in heaven is a catholic even the protestants in this life become catholics right the second um uh and as i mentioned before all demons are catholics i mean the way they talk and think is entirely catholic which i don't want to say that too much because then people are like i knew there was something wrong with those catholics they're diabolic okay but anyway uh but anyway so the um but uh so where was i sorry got distracted yes everybody in heaven is actually catholic so but if you make a formal act of heresy you corrupt the virtue of faith you lose your state at the state of saying finding grace and your connection to the church is severed and at that point the only way you can get back into the church um is basically by entry into it formally um i suppose that you a person might i don't i've never heard any theologians argue that there could be some way in which a person would unless you made like a perfect act of contrition but how many protestants even know what that is god could give them a grace to do so but it would be so rare to actually occur yeah so catholic heretics are considered protestants no they're catholic heretics like catholic groups you know that's a very good question okay that's uh that's something that really does need to be addressed because there's so much confusion about this today so you know you have somebody uh a particular priest i'm not going to name his name because i don't want to get in trouble by some bishop who's a heretic but but he he's a priest who goes around promoting homosexual lifestyle everybody knows who's this guy is right okay and the stuff he proposes is absolutely heretical and you're seeing priests all the time since this is just completely heretical so the church uh in order to be a heretic um a formal heretic so we'll make that distinction of material guarantee so a formal heretic let's do this material here material treatment material heretic is someone who in his intellect ascends to a teaching or an idea without uh fully knowing what he's giving assent to that it's not true in other words so you see this a lot of times with um uh you know one of the one of the common ones that you you see is people thinking that well you know everybody's gonna get saved or all these people get saved for getting saved is so easy etc right and that's just not true so you've got that kind of a problem going on or there's a lot of material or sorry a moral heretics people who believe contraception is okay that abortion's okay that you can fornicate and that's okay etc so there's a lot of people who believe that that there's nothing wrong with this stuff right so this material heresy is basically what we call error they're in error which means they don't really understand what they're thinking and or they haven't fully given consent to it yet so it requires two things error is that there's something on the side of the intellect but it's not full or harsh it can be full or partial they might fully understand what this doctrine is but they haven't given consent to it fully yet okay a formal heretic is someone who um looks at the error and gives full and knowledgeable consent that it's wrong and the standard for the church is so it's in the will he knows that he knows that it's false sorry yet he but he also wills it fully not just partially because he may not fully until you fully do it you don't corrupt the virtue of faith okay so once he knows that any that so the formal heretic is someone who knows this fully and the church is standard for determining that that there's full consent the church concedes or the theologians conceive once a person gives full consent to this boom he has lost his faith and is therefore outside the church because he no longer has the faith which keeps him in union with the church okay so um then this but the standard they use is obstinacy this is why it takes forever for a guy to get condemned as a formal heretic because the church has to say hey you know you're teaching something that's erroneous you know what say you in this right so then the guy says you know uh i think dogs go to heaven too right and i i believe the dogs go to heaven and then they'll write back are you aware of the fact that this teaching has been condemned by such and such and such and then if he writes back and says no i didn't know that i'm sorry i won't do it then they don't condemn him as a formal heretic and as long as if he brings his thinking and congruity with this even if he has a hard time seeing it he can still function as a catholic if he doesn't give a full consent and he's still tr and he's trying to work towards overcoming his error whereas if he says yeah i know what you teach you know but i still think that dogs go to heaven okay and that dogs have immortal souls too right okay they're people too okay so that's the the obstinacy is and so they have to because the obstacle shows that the consent is full consent that's why it takes forever to get these guys out the problem is that a lot of times the church doesn't even go through that process anymore they still do on occasion once in a while find out some priests got booted out or silenced or what have you so and so people you know back in when i was in the um seminary before i joined the fraternity they're just like don't use the word heretic people aren't heretics you know like you know they are look either you believe what the church believes you don't it's called the prince of excluded middle either you do or you don't you know it's not a middle but um but they're you know people are so mealy-mouthed and emotionally soft that anytime you tell somebody look you're a heretic and you need to do something they're like i can't believe he said i mean it's it's literally like using the n-word to describe somebody it's on that level in the church so yes how does that play into this so with ignorance what happens is that the person might think about he might give a scent to something that's contradictory there's but he because he doesn't know what the church actually teaches so and obviously the ignorance can be culpable but that culpability doesn't make him a heretic it just me well i mean it makes him a material heretic not a formal heritage and you don't you see the church i'm not sure how wise it is they've kind of dropped using this term material heretic of those people who they just use they say he's in error and the reason i think they're doing that is because as soon as you say material heretic i know this for myself anytime you make a qualification even on like a conference or something like that what happens is people here they truncate this and they only hear heretic right so a lot and i think that's why the church has been talking this way and part of it is too is i think they think that almost everybody's an error that nobody really understands but i i i don't think the threshold is that high as they want to make it to be either so although the obstinacy is the one that the church really looks for and this is why you you know you can say you know bishop so and so is a heretic you can say that right if if you're by that you mean material heretic but you should be specific and people say no he's a formal heretic i'm not well you don't know that you don't know the interior life and that's why the church goes through a process to make sure that you you basically reveal your wheel at will in the and if process have revealed their will is that where does excommunication in the catholic church even come over then it's up to the then it's up to the person superior to excommunicate them they're already excommunicated yeah that's yeah well i should say uh they are already cut off uh invisibly from the church they're not in the state of grace they don't have the virtue of faith so they're technically speaking not members of the church even though visibly they look like they are so the excommunication is the visible cutting off so their souls are literally in great danger that's right and that's why they used to excommunicate people not because i was like we'll get you chucky you know it was you know you're we're going to spank you here and this is how we're going to spend here cut you off you know go to your room is basically what the church is saying go to your room and think about this you know if you want to come back and you're willing to change then you know what we do to the kid if you want to get your act together you can come back and be with civilized people but until then you can then it goes to the next superior well when i'm getting ahead of people under him if they accept what he's teaching are they necessarily they don't have sufficient knowledge yeah you know what you were saying um if you're wondering how god is thinking just look at reality yeah i look at the reality of the church i'm wondering how how more severe penance was than say in the middle ages for example when the church was very new and very uh more strict right comparing it to what it is today is is it either god's mercy making it more easily accessible for people who are very sinful today because sin is so easily accessible now all you got to really do is just turn on the internet yes it's not i mean back in the day you had to kind of go find someone go to a bar and go right away so now it's just so easy so it's more easy it's easier to just access a confession and know the type and go look it up okay confession at the sun priests give the opinions right you know and even plenary indulgence you go to community and do personal it's not it's not the sackcloth thing going on in the public and you know like it used to be or whatever i guess there's no more hardcore lenten practices that are required by the church when it used to be back in right in that time also for example after vatican 2 a lot of things were taken away you didn't have to do like eating meat on fridays is no longer a mortal sense of eating so is that is that god depriving mankind of extra graces to get to heaven or it could also be a sort of a mix of he's making it more merciful for men who are so much more easier to fall now and what do you see i don't think those are necessarily exclusive okay if that makes sense i think it's a bit of both i think that the i think god's cutting us more slack now because people are so soft but i also think that in the past you know when you were given a penance for confession it was considered to be done um you you you basically you if you like support for example if you committed adultery it was a pretty severe penance and their basic attitude was you should pay for this and part of it is is to make reparation to god but then also to basically remove any possibility that you would have to spend in time on purgatory just by doing all his penance you're gonna spend less time in purgatory right as a matter of justice so um and that's actually one of the things so like when you get to the indulgences i'll give you an idea of how people's understanding this has changed when you get to indulgences paul the six changes indulgences it used to be that you're gonna get look in these old prayer books and it says 100 days and people say oh that means 100 days in purgatory that's not what that means it means doing a hundred days of prayer and fasting that's what that means it has the same amount of merit all i got to do is say this prayer and the church herself adds to it through the spiritual treasury that same efficacy of that paul vi simply said unless it's plenary it's just if you say one hail mary the church will add a hail mary it's called parsley it's a gargantuan problem but it tells you that it it's a it's a lack of understanding of the of you know god's justice is exactly yes but he's absolutely merciful but he's also absolutely just and so there is he even says in matthew 5 26 you know he'll throw you in jail until you pay the last farthing i mean that's just the way it's going to be and by why is it that god wants this for our own sake of being purified so that we're perfect so that we can be with him without anything on our conscience okay another question yeah yes so um in these times i've noticed that there are people that have come to me that have wanted to come into the church yeah they bred themselves to the church they're protestant but then they see um they see problems they see problems with encyclicals coming out that contradict yeah that they've read they see problems with deacons or pastors telling them things that are in the end they say this must not be the time to come in they're nervous they're not sure what is true if what they've read is true or what's what is being said today through the uh yeah through the holy father and through bishops right so how do you approach that with people what would you recommend um well my basic attitude is let's just say for the sake of argument that our boat is sinking at least it's still sinking yours is already sunk so you might as well get into the one and be at least out of the water for a while but the second component but that's actually not the the the we know that our boat won't sink right because he said the gates of hell will not prevail against it which means all of these all those things that are necessary for salvation those all those things that are essential to the church will never change and that's why the church put the restrictions on people infallibility they said he's only infallible when he speaks under these conditions not outside that we don't have any guarantee so we know there are certain things that the church has invalidly proposed and you they say you must believe this in order to be saved if he acts if he talks contrary to that you just don't pay attention to it in other words what you have to and this is why the tradition is becoming more and more important you know one of the things that's so interesting about covet is one of the priests and the dean in our uh in our diet that we are in because we we when we moved we didn't know which deanery we were in and we found out which dean we ran around the way so we invited the dean down and um he's a really good priest a really good priest actually i think he's a guy struggling for holiness and he's he said he said you know i think that the church has gone through a woke period and what he said by that he said is that people are waking up that the tradition is the way to go and the way that i and i said yeah i think part of it had to do with the fact that not in that diocese because in that diocese the priests went over backwards to try and provide the way they could the best they could at least in their own mind so i i think that i it was quite admirable with some of the stories that the priests were telling us but in a lot of dioceses they they weren't providing for the people at all and it was the traditional priests who were trying to provide for them and so people began to realize there's something here that isn't there and so there is a certain sense in which is true that when we see people acting morally and uprightly or trying to do the good that we are attracted to that and when they're not we're not but in relationship to the church you have to tell people look it the church when we say that the church is holy we're talking about it's holy in its sacraments it's holy in it the fact that it's always trying to sanctify people it's holy in its doctrine it does not mean that everybody in the church is holy and it also means that um so in also in relationship to the pope it's under a certain set of conditions or even with the bishops or certain set of conditions where they can say stuff that's false and this is the real problem is you just tell people look at come in the teachings of the church haven't changed they're not going to change what you're attracted to is here you just have we got to get you to a place where you can uh follow them and live them is the real issue um and i think that uh that's one of the real reasons i mean i think that the number of the church has really missed it has a is in a situation of a missed opportunity can you imagine if the church had the same solidity that it had in the 50s now the conversion rate would be off the charts we would we would be we would have yeah actually we would have already been a catholic nation exactly and that's actually one of the reasons why the protestants actually set out to destroy the catholic church by means of contraception but anyway so uh that all being said um i think that the main thing you have to do is just tell them look what you're looking for is still here let's just get you where you can live it and see it and the other thing is we live in a time when a person you've heard me say this i think people have to have one of two things or you're just going to end up a heretic it's basically like if all of a sudden poisonous fumes started pumping into this room you either got to get out of the room or you've got to have a mask one of the two otherwise you're going down for the camp well in the catholic church modernism is this toxic fume in the church and it's so thick it's so thick that there is absolutely no way you're not going to succumb to this stuff unless you have one of two things either you have an extraordinary grace which is very rare it's very rare i've only seen it in a handful of people or i mean some people can have sensitivities but they very often fall into error but they can have so they you know you can they have sensitivities that are in the right direction and so so you know you like i i have a relative that just generally knows that when they hear something like that's just not right so they have a census fidelium right that's not that common today people like to think they have it but it's not that common or you have to have an enormous amount of philosophical and theological knowledge to know exactly what the truth is and where the boundaries are otherwise you're just going to get sucked into it and i think that's the real that's why i keep telling catholics you can't rest on your laurels you got to keep reading and keep reading you know so and it's not enough it's not enough you know people say well father i'll just listen to you yeah that's not a good idea i am not an authority you know okay so i teach a lot of stuff but i'm all i'm doing is passing on what the saints have said you have to go back and read what the church is taught you have to go back and read its documents its catechisms the saints their teachings you follow them not me okay if i'm canonized then you can do it but that's unlikely by the way all right okay salvation and how rarities could keep their um outside the catholic church which would include fallen away catholics too yeah well what it comes down to is when i think about relatives who i loved and who have died and i'm not sure they weren't they weren't practicing you see the absolution you know right the fact that i'm very moved to still pray for them is that unreasonable because um i guess it's just a belief about mercy right that there would still be hope yeah well there's not okay right well you can't have reasonable hope in thinking i think the person made it but you can hope in the sense of well god is merciful let's just pray that his mercy found his fulfillment and we're going to pray for the repose of this person the beauty of the church is teaching on the spiritual treasury is if you if you pray for this person they ended up in hell that's that the prayers are wasted it goes to somebody else so um but the uh but you i the church basically says you can pray for anybody living or dead now obviously there's certain and you can offer masses for anybody living or dead right obviously you're going to use a little bit of prudence i wouldn't be praying for the salvation of hitler for example you know um or or the or that hitler gets out of purgatory right i wouldn't be doing that it's just a waste of your prayers i mean it's still going to go into spiritual treasury so there's no waste in a strict sense so but you can pray for anybody living or dead and so if a person feels moved to do that i think you should do it as long as it's reasonable so so in doing these prayers does that give him a grace of final perseverance hold on just a second what's that so in praying for these people is that giving them the grace maybe a final well here's the thing and i usually don't talk too much about this but because god stands outside of time and he sees the totality of everything that ever happened and never will happen even for all eternity he sees it right now all of it right that means that if you pray for a person now who died in the past if you can pray for them now and ask god to retroactively apply the merits of the grace backwards he'll see that and he can apply it he it will have been applied at that time in our time so you can do that i sometimes i'll recommend that to people that you know especially if they're really suffering from somebody who committed suicide pray to god and ask him to have given that person of grace of final penitence so um and so that that can still be done so yeah you can do that um or if they manage to be saved you can just pray that their soul is released from purgatory i actually did have um at least i mean we don't have moral certitude about this but it seems pretty consistent i had one case where the guy that was possessing and that's a whole other question about whether human beings who have been damned can possess but that's what it appeared to be and he treated his wife terribly and but we figured we figured out that she managed to be saved so we would ask her to come down and stand there and give testimony against him oh sour look on that guy's face was unbelievable and at one point i said i told him apologize to your wife for the way you treated her in this life and he just looks at me and he says i'll do it but i'm never going to mean it and i'm like actually you're right you can't mean it because your will is fixed in evil but do it anyway right so and he did it and he was just torqued off that he had to do it of course but this but she wasn't catholic which was kind of interesting so there's some indication that she was saved some but uh so the point being is is that uh but i don't think those are too common right that all being said i think that yeah you can pray for them for the salvation of their souls and or or you can just ask god give them that haven't given them the grace that they could be saved or and if they're in purgatory you know release them from purgatory so and we never know what grace is god gives to people in the end we really don't know because that whole incidence of the cure of ours and the guy who committed suicide and you've heard that one having you yeah yeah so if you know the fact that um he was made knowledgeable that the guy had um been given the grace of final penitence as he's plunging down from the bridge that and he accepted it tells us that until the person's dead there's still a possibility so okay if you'll kneel i'll give you a blessing benediction about 10 [Music] armor [Music] right [Music] foreign so

Channel: Sensus Fidelium

Views: 94,166

Keywords: catholic, christian, salvation, jesus christ, god, lord, prayer, church, hope, devotion, religion, virtue, grace, heaven, protestant, orthodox, gospel, bible, truth, thomas aquinas, reason, ewtn, catholic answers

Id: aovDj89-D4A

Length: 67min 59sec (4079 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021