Letters

'New Catholicism' (letter)

Richard Congram

Contents - Aug 2002 - Buy a copy now Editorial: The Assumption of Our Lady: 15 August - Michael Gilchrist Liturgy: New English Missal: Vatican sets guidelines for ICEL - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Education: Beliefs and practices of Catholic students: the decline continues - Michael Gilchrist New program to apply Papal teachings in Melbourne Archdiocese - Michael Gilchrist Sexual abuse, celibacy and vocations: a response to the Church's critics - Fr Paul Stuart Events: Thomas More 2002 Winter School in Bendigo Helping Catholic school students to love the Church - Br John Moylan CFC New study of US seminary formation exposes fundamental flaws - John S. Webster Letters: Experts? (letter) - Jerome Gonzalez Letters: Church architecture (letter) - Tom King Letters: Women and the Church (letter) - Maureen Federico Letters: Sex abuse crisis (letter) - Mark Reidy Letters: Sexual sin (letter) - John H. Cooney Letters: Value for money? (letter) - L.L. Booth Letters: Dissent (letter) - Clair Tieppo Letters: 'New Catholicism' (letter) - Richard Congram Letters: Beyond 2000? (letter) - Mrs Peg Santamaria Letters: God's masculinity (letter) - John Davis Letters: Theological accuracy (letter) - Jan Chalmers Letters: Leaving it to God (letter) - Errol P. Duke Letters: Shakespeare (letter) - John A. Rayner Books: Dynamics Of World History, by Christopher Dawson - Michael Lynch (reviewer) Books: Abortion And Martyrdom, edited by Aidan Nichols - Tracey Rowland (reviewer) Music: 'Live Worship: Lifted', by Emmanuel Worship - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: New Titles from AD Books Reflection: What Catholics should expect of their priests: men 'clothed in holiness' - Fr Fabian Duggan OSB

To remain a practising, orthodox Catholic today one needs various attributes, including a prayer life, an unshakeable faith, the patience of Job and a rather thick skin.

Regrettably, we live in an age of sillythink and sillyspeak, both within and outside the Church. Sillythink is exemplified in the current culture of anthropocentrism within the Church, i.e., mankind first and God second. An example of sillyspeak is a statement like "We are Church" - a totally meaningless, ungrammatical expression. Constant prayer is essential if such alien pressure is to be resisted and true faith retained.

With numerous incumbents of our pulpits and editors' chairs of the new persuasion, one needs infinite patience and self-control to avoid confrontation. It is not easy to remain calm and silent when presented with errors and deliberate half-truths. (Mind you, I am never quite certain of the need for restraint in the light of Our Lord's treatment of the money-changers and others who desecrated the temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-17 et al)

Like many outside the Church, those within of the new persuasion delight in portraying orthodox Catholics in an unflattering light. We have been described variously as uneducated and ill-informed, spies and conspirators and fundamentalists. Today I heard a new epithet used - "Christo-Fascists".

Internal name-calling is a mere trifle, but a matter of the greatest importance is the fact that the "New Catholicism" of the past forty years has resulted in two generations being not "stolen", but lost to the Faith. Yet the promoters of this aberration press on. If they admit the tragedy at all, they answer that the culture of the day is to blame. It is not. If it were, the elderly, who comprise about 80 percent of the congregation in our churches, would also have voted with their feet and and left long since.

Brisbane's Catholic Leader of 2 June 2002 noted that most of the few young Catholics who attend Mass reported "low levels of satisfaction." Of course they would. The new persuasion feeds them pap and gruel, while their souls hunger for the red meat of Catholicism.

RICHARD CONGRAM
Holland Park, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 15 No 7 (August 2002), p. 14