THE PRIDE OF THE PRIEST-TO-BE AN OPEN LETTER TO SEMINARIANS
PLEASE COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR WORDPROCESSOR AND PRINT AND SEND TO SEMINARIANS FOR THEIR SAKE AND THE SAKE OF THOSE THEY WILL MISLEAD
You do not need to be a Catholic priest to help people. Is it really helping people? Is the good done by the Church the enemy of the best? Let's see.
Man gets power and influence in the name of God. What if you want to be honoured as if you were God? It is easier to claim to have the word of God than to claim to be God. It means you have less chance of being caught out. The "humble" believer gets the biggest honour of all when his word is taken for God's and he is in effect God to those who listen to him.
Are you really humble when you say your faith is a gift from God whose Spirit testifies in you that it is true and this faith is not your own creation? You would need to be as clever as God to know that for there are people whose faith is perceived as a divine testimony to them that the Mass is blasphemy. Faith is no good as an epistemology.
Even if Catholicism makes sense, is it accepted because it is the truth? Or are Catholics conditioned? If they are, we must remember that Protestants certainly are. Are Catholics conditioned too then? No truly good person accepts a gospel (Protestantism) that says as long as you ask for the blood of Jesus to atone your sin that your sins will be overlooked and God will blame Jesus for them. It is trivialising evil and making a travesty of justice. But the point is it shows religion is or can be bad for the head. The Church claims to be a hospital for sinners and does nothing about Protestant blasphemies and errors and lies. They need to be told the diagnosis. No hospital functions like that!
If the Catholic Church is really one and holy and Catholic and apostolic it will plainly stand out to anybody with half a brain that it is probably the true religion and hugely superior to any other. It will be a simple matter. A religion that isn't easily seen as the true Church is not really Catholic if there are people who know of it but can't see its truthfulness. It is not meant for them. Why do decent people like the conservative Protestant philosopher, William Lane Craig, not see the truth of the Church and the obligation to unite fully with it as a member and a believer? Are they really acting in bad faith?
If we were all given a fair and real choice between different religions few of us would choose Catholicism. It is taking advantage of babies to baptise them into Catholicism. Church responsibilities and duties are imposed on them. That is to say judgement is required if they neglect them. There is no room for the notion that the child would probably choose the church if able so it is not intended to be a form of taking advantage. It is vindictive to make duties that can be done without or to impose them on a child. Parents who don't know enough about Catholicism to make a truly informed decision for it themselves have no right to try and make their child a member. If parents really believe that the child has a right to choose membership in the Church or reject it then why do they not choose a religion that encourages them to leave if they don't feel it is for them?
If we are all sinners, then it follows that when we do good works we effectively
let God know that we will do this good while adhering to some sins. It is like,
"I want to do this good thing but keep the sins in my heart. I will do good more
because it suits me than you, God." It raises questions about how trustworthy we
really are in religion. No wonder people can seem so devout in Church and emerge
spouting diabolic gossip. Religion seems to switch on a fantasy mode in the
brain - it is like a belief or faith simulation. They return to the real world and
the real truth about their belief becomes plain. We see Catholics at Mass who
become demons when it is over.
The Catholic Church cannot stop religious cherry-pickers (dishonest "Catholics" who think religion is about them and not about truth so they pick and choose what they like from Catholic doctrine) for it cherry-picks itself. Catholicism does not value credibility and thus cannot be a great religion or raising children up in. Religious nonsense is as much to blame for the strident secularism and rampant moral relativism as some atheists are if not more. A religion without credibility is to blame as a whole for the actions of a few clerical child abusers because it promises people efficacious help to change and be good and fails. Also, if it is man-made pretending to be from God or deluded, it is responsible as a whole for the child abuse for it simply should not exist and is only a hindrance to truth.
