How quickly Apostasy is taking over our Church

How quickly Apostasy is taking over our Church

Look at the crowds of parishioners that are no longer there!  Of course people are still attending Mass but as the days move on you can see how some people you saw on a regular basis are no longer around.  During the warm summer weather vacations reduce some members, but a whole summer?  

One of the culprits is the residue from the recent scandals.  But that is now several years past and the remnant of what that did to many of our friends and relatives has its scars still clinging to many regular attendees at Mass.  Their lack of coming to Church has crippled the Holiness of the Church.  However, there are other events going on in Rome like the excommunication of Cardinal  Carlo Maria Vigano for his accusations towards Pope Francis.  And what about defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who sexually abused a number of seminarians and later was found guilty of pedaphilia.  At 92 he no longer is able to be prosecuted but his legacy will follow him to the grave.  

It isn’t just these two Cardinals that have opened the news media to the Vatican’s role in problems; it is another notch in the belt of those who either are on the side of Catholicism or against it.

In any endeavor in history places the examples of men and women who stand as a beacon shining the correct manner to reach new citizens how to act in a world filled with confusion.  Whether you are new in a particular vocation or advancing according to your ambition, you will always look to someone who has been there to show the way to success.  

I remember the words that are directed towards my class of deacons when answering the bishop’s warning:  “By taking on this ministry you will be held liable before God if you teach or lead your charges in the wrong manner.  You must answer for their mistakes if they are led by sinful attributes, coming from you.”  The message was not verbatim but the acceptance of Holy Orders requires a more stringent attitude upon those of us who become clerics.  I know my judgment will be more severe than those I counsel.  That is what imposition upon me means.  

How many innocent Catholics and other Christian followers have gone the wrong way because a senior cleric has either instructed them in an impure manner or subjected one or more to the abuse of a priest, bishop, or cardinal.  Deacons are also not left out of this group?

I often wonder, as I have already seen, the many friends who have left the Church due to many priests or bishops who have become the stench of evil by their subversive actions? 

Apostasy is not held before the eyes of these innocent neophytes, but those who have used their ordination as a coverup for their sin, will find the punishment for it if they do not repent of their awful possessive manner.  

All this is another sign of the impending days of gloom for those who will not turn to God in the days ahead of the tribulation.  “Satan will cause a falling away or apostasy before the Lord returns.  “Do not be shaken out of your mind suddenly, or be alarmed either by a spirit or by an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.  Let no one deceive you in any way.  For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object or worship, so as to seat himself in the temple of God, claiming that he is a god.”  (2 Thes 2: 2 - 4).  Paul’s warning of the coming tribulation is imminent.  Hasn’t appeared yet, but is a prediction that is taught in Daniel.  (Dn 9: 24 ff).  

Ralph B. Hathaway