Interviewer: What do you think about the election of the new Pope?
Me (Fr Carlos Martins): I am just delighted and grateful to God that the Church once again has a man to fulfill the Office of Peter. I look forward to the opportunity to receive his ministry and to grow in my love of him.
Interviewer: What do you think about his being so conservative?
Me: I think he is a pope of the Catholic Church.
Interviewer: Can you explain that?
Me: I think he has proven himself as a priest, teacher, and governor, and because of that his peers, the Cardinals, have elected him to oversee them and the entire Church.
Interviewer: But do you think that he will take the Church in a new direction, like many people have been calling for?
Me: Like what?
Interviewer: Well, people that think the Catholic Church should accept contraception, accept that gay people can marry, and become more liberal in its outlook?
Me: No, Pope Francis will not change the Church’s stance on those issues.
Interviewer: Why?
Me: Because that question is equivalent to asking me whether I think Jesus Christ is a liar. Jesus is not a liar, but the Truth itself (John 14:6). Jesus Christ never wrote a word. But he did found a Church. This is clear in Matthew 16:18 and 1 Timothy 3:15. He also guaranteed that the Church would be free of error in its teaching when He promised He would send it the Holy Spirit: “When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you to all truth.” (John 16:13) Thus, if the Church, founded by the Truth Himself, is led by the Spirit of Truth, then the “business” of the Church is to be a teacher of the truth. To believe that the Church is free to change the truth—to make people feel good, to get with the times, to be inclusive of democratic opinion, etc.—is to make Jesus into a liar.
Interviewer: But is there no room for disagreement, for other opinions?
Me: Not in those matters where the Church has already declared the truth. For the Church to stop its proclamation of what it knows to be true is to ask it to cease being what it is. It would be the equivalent of asking Ford to stop selling Fords and to sell Chryslers instead. Or to ask McDonald’s to start selling Whoppers in place of its Big Macs. It is not going to happen, because in doing so, the entity in question would cease to be the very thing that it is. If Ford starts selling Chryslers, you might as well order Ford’s coffin. For the Church to operate with any other motive than to be God’s mouthpiece of truth, then it is not the Church of Jesus Christ.
Interviewer: [long silence … I could tell he followed my argument but the answer went in a direction he did not anticipate and now did not know what to ask.]
Me: Look, name for me an institution or corporation, other than the Catholic Church, that has existed for 2000 years and has never changed its mission statement, its manner of governance, or its brand, and yet has thrived over its opponents? Or, to place it in corporate lingo, name for me an institution that has maintained a sustained competitive advantage over every one of its opponents for 20 centuries?
Interviewer: [Provided no answer]
Me: I can’t either. Then I think that the function and formula of the Catholic Church is a winner, don’t you? Why would we change it?
Interviewer: [No answer and now wearing a grin]
Me: The issue of belief in the Holy Eucharist, or lack thereof, among Christians, illustrates this well. For 1,500 years every single Christian church in the world believed in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Not just symbolically, but substantially. Literally. Now this was a most fundamental belief—in fact, the most fundamental—about what it meant to be Church. When the Protestant and Anglican revolt happened 500 years ago that ceased being a belief for those groups. Now in that change we are not talking about changing the wearing of a particular color during a liturgical season, but something intrinsic to the very identity of the Church: the Body and Blood of the Lord Himself, which in the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel, Christ states one needs to eat and drink of, in order to possess salvation. To make that change, like the Protestants and Anglicans did, cannot be done without their simultaneously making a statement about Jesus Christ: that He is a liar who, contrary to what He promised, allowed the Church to believe and operate in error for its first 1,500 years.
I was thanked for the interview and the journalist left. It was never published.
-- http://www.courageouspriest.com/jesus-liar?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+courageouspriest%2FqTKF+%28Courageous+Priest%29
Conservative?
