Saint Judas

If you have seen any of the previous Vortex episodes this week, we can come to the conclusion of what we might term "Judas week" here at Church Militant. If you haven't seen the previous ones, we strongly suggest you view them because this episode assumes you know the arguments from Scripture, the Fathers and doctors, popes, saints, and private revelation about Judas' damnation laid out all this week.

When we speak of the Church of Nice, we mean the institutional approach laid out and backed by weak, feminized male leaders who do not want to preach the hard truths of the Faith. Why they don't want to is based on many motives already covered numerous times in previous episodes.

At the heart of the Church of Nice is an accommodationist attitude that refuses to deal in the supernatural reality preached by Our Blessed Lord that humans go to Hell. He Himself tells us this directly in Matthew's Gospel. These people — clergy and laity — have for decades downplayed Hell (the consequence of unrepented mortal sin), and this approach has spun off all kinds of ills in the Church.

When Hell is ignored then so is sin, because simply put, if there’s no serious chance of going to Hell, then sin doesn't really have any serious consequence beyond this life. If there's no sin, there's no real need for the sacrament of confession — because, put simply, what exactly would you be confessing? And additionally, why would you be confessing it?

If the sacrament of confession is unneeded, deemed not a necessity, then there's no real reason to worry all that much about people in a state of mortal sin receiving Holy Communion, or for that fact, even non-Catholics. In fact, since the disposition of one's soul is an immaterial consideration, then it also follows that the teaching that the Blessed Sacrament is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ really, truly and substantially present under the appearance of bread and wine doesn't really matter that much.

After all, if the point of reception of Holy Communion is to join one's self to Our Blessed Lord to increase in sanctity and prepare for full communion with Him in the next life — well, if Hell is not a serious consideration, then it doesn't really matter what state our souls are in, because, after all, there's no serious everlasting consequences for living in sin.

And if the sacraments of confession and Holy Communion are not all that serious, then it naturally follows that the priesthood, which is how these sacraments are conferred on the laity, isn't all that important either.

Do you see what ignoring Hell does, the impact it has? It empties the confessionals, obliterates the need to be properly disposed to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord, and reduces the dignity and necessity of the priesthood by blurring the line between the ordained and non-ordained — and more than blurring, simply erases.

This is why the Mass has taken on the character of an assembly of people getting together on a Sunday to hang out and sing some crappy hymns off-key while we go up and eat our piece of "bread" (which is how so many see it, even though it is still the Body and Blood of Our Lord), which we get from the sloppily attired, post-menopausal woman on our way to the mall without having considered our own unworthiness.

Erase Hell and you erase the need for the Church, which is to defeat the gates of Hell in the life of each person.

Judas is the patron saint of the Church of Nice. And the one thing to bear in mind in all of this is that this evil that has been adopted by so many in the Church these days — including vast swaths of the clergy, including bishops — come to us by way of the Protestant heresy, courtesy of Protestant theologian Karl Barth.

Barth is practically worshiped in the hoity-toity crowd of Catholic eggheads who have high IQs but are woefully deficient in wisdom. One of them was Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who came up with the massively un-Catholic idea that "we have a reasonable hope that all men are saved" — including Judas.

His error has been spread by popular priests like Robert Barron, who runs the seminary for the archdiocese of Chicago, instilling this protestant heresy-inspired notion into the minds of young men in his charge. Those young men would be better served by reading the works and thoughts of St. Thomas and St. Augustine, whom Fr. Robert smilingly dismisses on this subject, saying they are too severe.

Too severe? Those doctors of the Church are echoing the words of Our Blessed Lord Himself. Is God too severe on this point for the Church of Nice?

The answer is, sadly, yes. The Church of Nice thinks that all this "Hell" stuff is a little over the top. That's why they can't have a serious take-no-prisoners discussion about it. It's why it's never in their homilies. It's why they tell starving souls in confession that this isn't a sin and that isn't a sin. It's why they celebrate Mass with all the decorum of a boring circus. It's why they drone on and on about mercy, when what they are really offering is a false compassion, a false understanding of mercy.

They have erected their own belief system and taken the label Catholic because they have kept the buildings and institutions ,and to all outward appearances it's Catholic.  

But at its heart, it isn't Catholic. The importance of the sacraments are shunted off, the theology is accommodated to feelings and emotions, the liturgy is minimalized and made a near-mockery of. The liturgy in particular has been most offended against in this great whitewash of Hell. The Mass is the being present to and at the great sacrifice of God the Son to God the Father on our behalf. It is the Sacrifice of the Mass, the unbloody re-presenting of Calvary. It is the cause of our redemption.  

But since the idea of redemption and salvation are thrown over board in the whitewashing of Hell, then the purpose of the Mass shifts — from one of sacrifice, because there is no real need for a sacrifice, to a gathering of the assembly, where we, the Church, are the most important aspect of what is going on.

So the homilies have to shift, the music has to shift, the very direction the priest faces has to shift, the occupants of the sanctuary need to shift, who administers Holy Communion needs to shift — all these need to shift from reflecting the notion of sacrifice to the protestant notion that the people are who matter.

This is why there is such tremendous blowback from notable Church leaders — in private and in public — about the Mass being offered in Latin, for example. They want nothing to upset the carefully planted idea in people's minds, instilled by errant theologians, that the Mass is really about us the people gathering around a table for some food.

Imagine what would happen if a priest in a run-of-the-mill parish in a run-of-the-mill diocese started offering Mass the way it was envisioned by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council and faced the same direction as the people — meaning toward God? The Church of Nice would quickly see a demonstration of Hell, because all Hell would break out with the bishop and scores of local priests — all because Fr. Smith just wanted to do what the Council said he should do.

Greed and disobedience are what led to Judas Iscariot’s damnation, and unless it's repented from, it's what will lead to the damnation of the Church of Nice as well. Too much of Catholic identity is at stake to keep silent on this matter of Hell, sin and Judas any longer.