The One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. The One True Church. Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth. The one true religion.
AKA “Reality.”
You can practice heresy, but it doesn’t change reality. You can apostatize, but it doesn’t change reality. You can embrace atheism, but it doesn’t change reality. You can claim 2 + 2 = 5, but it never, ever will.
In this way, every human being is Catholic, whether they like it or not, because the truth applies to everyone. You can choose not to practice it, you can be scandalized by the evildoers within it, you can say enough is enough, and that you are walking away.
But it’s like the Hotel California, you see. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Reality isn’t going anywhere, and truth doesn’t care about your feelings.
The Roman Catholic Church is the only one founded by the Creator and Savior of the Universe, who promised the gates of Hell would not prevail against Her. Our Lord is not a liar.
The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. Any doubts being sowed in your head are the work of the evil one and his minions.
…Christ proved His love for His spotless Bride not only at the cost of immense labor and constant prayer, but by His sorrows and His sufferings which He willingly and lovingly endured for her sake. “Having loved His own…He loved them unto the end.”[208] Indeed it was only at the price of His Blood that He purchased the Church.[209] Let us then follow gladly in the bloodstained footsteps of our King, for this is necessary to ensure our salvation: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His Resurrection.”[210] and “if we be dead with him, we shall live also with Him.”[211] Also our zealous love for the Church demands it, and our brotherly love for the souls she brings forth to Christ. For although our Savior’s cruel passion and death merited for His Church an infinite treasure of graces, God’s inscrutable providence has decreed that these graces should not be granted to us all at once; but their greater or lesser abundance will depend in no small part on our own good works, which draw down on the souls of men a rain of heavenly gifts freely bestowed by God. These heavenly gifts will surely flow more abundantly if we not only pray fervently to God, especially by participating every day if possible in the Eucharistic Sacrifice; if we not only try to relieve the distress of the needy and of the sick by works of Christian charity, but if we also set our hearts on the good things of eternity rather than on the passing things of this world; if we restrain this mortal body by voluntary mortification, denying it what is forbidden, and by forcing it to do what is hard and distasteful; and finally, if we humbly accept as from God’s hands the burdens and sorrows of this present life. Thus, according to the Apostle, “we shall fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in our flesh for His Body, which is the Church.”[212]
208. John, XIII, 1.; 209. Cf. Acts, XX, 28.; 210. Rom., VI, 5.; 211. II Tim. II, 11.; 212. Cf. Col., I, 24.
MYSTICI CORPORIS CHRISTI, Pope Pius XII, 29 June 1943, Feast of SS Peter and Paul
And now, a word from Ann Barnhardt:
Top Question In My Email Box Answered: Ann, How Can You Still Be Catholic?
Last night a reader sent me a link to a piece Karl Denninger put up on his blog in which Denninger essentially professed a full conversion to atheism precisely because God has not put a stop to the sodomite monsters that have infiltrated and now control the institutional Church, and are trying to destroy it, while simultaneously erecting an anti-church in its place. I was asked specifically to respond to this, and am happy to do so. As St. Peter says, we must be ready at all times to explain why it is that we have hope. I can think of no better time than now to make such explanation, precisely when it SEEMS that the situation is hopeless and that the sodomites have won not just a battle, but the entire war.
But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you.
Dominum autem Christum sanctificate in cordibus vestris, parati semper ad satisfactionem omni poscenti vos rationem de ea, quae in vobis est, spe.
1 Peter 3: 15
I am still Catholic because the Catholic Church is the One True Church founded by Jesus Christ in the Upper Room, built upon the rock of Peter, and outside of Her there is no salvation. The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body and Bride of Christ, and the Gates of Hell will never prevail against her.
Not good enough, Ann. Sounds like robotic boilerplate. We need more.
Fair enough. Everything that is happening now has been prophesied for at least a century. The main vector of these warnings has been no less than The Mother of God Herself, appearing all over the planet, from Portugal to Japan to Ecuador. In addition, Pope Leo XIII was given a vision of an exchange between satan and Our Lord Jesus Christ in which satan announced his plan to destroy the Church in one hundred years time. Satan was given the choice of which century he wanted, and he chose the 20th century.
Ann, you’re not helping yourself here. How could a loving God give satan PERMISSION to try to destroy the Church?
The same way that God the Father could permit His Son to be tortured and killed on the Cross – because from that horror – the single worst thing that ever has or will happen, the entire human race was redeemed. In terms of what is happening today, the good that is coming out of the horror is that men – some men, but certainly not all – will be drawn much, much closer to Christ than they would have been had the times been “calm”. For whatever reason, there are people alive, right now, today, that Christ wants to draw closer to His Sacred Heart, and He is willing to let this attack on the Church play out in order to achieve this goal. If you are reading this right now, it is conceivably possible that YOU are one of those souls.
The key to all of this is Our Lord’s Agony in the Garden…
Read the rest HERE. It only gets better.