Dom Basilio Magno
The Fruit of the Infidelity of the Church
The reformation took place because of several factors which were fertile
ground for it. Maybe if one or two factors were lacking, the Reformation
would never have taken place. But, it seems everything was in place:
Christendom was doomed to be divided:
one part Catholic, the other Protestant.
same factors exist today. And
all the factors are also in place.
For all you know, a Reformation is taking place even without us
knowing it. After all, when the Reformation took place in the 1500’s, how
many among the common men were really conscious of it?
is a pity that, in spite of voluminous information about that age, few
among both the Catholics and the Protestants know what really
happened. In fact, even the
Catholics and Protestants at that time were ignorant of what was happening.
Because of this, some Catholics, like the powerful Cardinal Richelieu, were,
in fact, protecting, defending and propagating Protestantism; and while
most Protestants did not realize it, they were going far away from the
teachings of Martin Luther.
is meaningful only if we can learn from the mistakes of the past. If not,
it is futile to think of the past: we might just as well think of the
present and the future. And the history of the Reformation is a study on
how Catholics committed blunders left and right unto the destruction of
their souls and how the Protestants effectively deceived themselves into
believing that they were reforming the Church when Martin Luther, himself,
thought it was all a big mistake.
What happened was not a Reformation; it was the Destruction and
Dismemberment of Catholic Europe.
II. THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT
problem in analyzing the history of the Reformation is that it is
surrounded by historical, political, social and financial factors . . .
but, most of all, by a spiritual factor - which both Catholic and
Protestant historians fail to consider. Without this spiritual factor, the
events of that era are completely impossible to understand . . . thus
making it easy for the devious to toss blame at whoever they want.
dynamics of what happened during the Reformation is so simple, i.e., what
happened from the ascetical point of view; the simplest of minds can easily
understand the happenings and the simple-minded could have easily prevented
it. But, there were few simple-minded
men at that time. All were complex-minded, just as we are today. There were
too many things in their mind. If they merely thought of God’s will,
everything could have been solved so easily. But, like us today, we never
judge things from purely God’s point of view. We judge things from many considerations,
most of which have nothing to do with God.
first and main factor that prompted the Reformation is spiritual. As from
the earliest time, but more so at the coming of Christ, the Evil One, who
has always attacked Christ, again attacked Christ’s true religion. And his
singular trademark, as we know from Scriptures, is HATRED . . . hatred of
things Catholic. And every Protestant sect today, with rare exemption,
nurses this hatred for things Catholic. Immediately obvious to us is their hatred
of Catholic doctrine on the veneration of images and devotion to the
Blessed Virgin Mary. They can hate their own images, but why do they have
to hate our images? For some reason, they can hate their wives; but, I do
not see why they have to hate other people’s wives, too. Their hatred is
devil hates the Catholic Church: his life is vowed to attacking the Church
. . . he is just waiting for willing instruments. And the Catholic Church,
in the 1500’s, inadvertently provided the instrument . . . by her neglect.
She neglected her primary role of instructing and leading her followers to
sanctity, being immersed in the wealth, luxury and worldliness that had
the Church, as a whole, in her human element, is also neglectful of her
primary role, the sanctification of her members. The neglect is
frightening. Of course, there is a sputtering of efforts here and there, as
was at Luther’s time, by more competent saints. But as the sputtering here
and there did not change the momentum towards Protestantism in that era,
neither will it today. Great saints, like Cajetan and Ignatius of Loyola,
could not stop the division of Europe . . . that is, half of Europe lost;
neither can anyone, even a saint, stop the Protestantinization of the
Catholic Church today.
Church’s neglect of her primary purpose for existing - the sanctification
of her followers, through a true and complete exposition of Christ’s
commands - had left a Catholic Church filled with traditional practices
whose meanings were lost. There was no rationale for Catholic belief, a
rationale that St. Thomas of Aquinas exquisitely presented in his Summa.
Because of the neglect of the men of the Church, Catholicism had become an
was in this atmosphere of irrationality that such Catholic religious, like
the Augustinian Martin Luther, was raised. The lack of knowledge of the
reasons behind Catholic belief irretrievably made them decide to interpret
Scriptures the best way they knew . . . according to the limitations of
their human brains; “I will interpret Scriptures the way I understand it.”
That’s a far cry from the Catholic attitude of: “I will interpret
Scriptures the way God wants it interpreted.” The Reformation was born from
this uninformed, unstudied interpretation of Scriptures by Catholic
religious. And, I repeat, they were nurtured in the bosom of a neglectful
it simply, the Reformation was not an anti-doctrinal movement. They had
nothing against any Catholic Doctrine . . . at least, at the beginning. How
could they when they did not quite understand Catholic doctrine. It was
more an objection against a mother who was not doing her job: in fact, a mother
who was having a grand, worldly time and was making her children finance
it. The beginnings of the Reformation was anti-clerical; it was a movement
against the men of the Church - their abuses, their worldliness, their way
of life, their sins, their repressive treatment. And frankly, at that era,
there was everything to
complain about the men of the Church . . . one of which was the
manner funds were being raised . . . at one instance, through the sales of
indulgences where “cut-backs” was the rule of the game.
this point, with the ever-present hatred of the devil, with willing
instruments ready, with a neglectful mother asleep to the oncoming tragedy,
the forces were in a position for the break-up of Christendom, like the sea water in a salt bed that is
already saturated with salt - just a mere additional handful will
crystallize the whole pond. But the situation was still salvageable . . .in
fact, very salvageable.
VIII entered the picture. He, like Martin Luther, had no doctrinal quarrel
with the Catholic Church. Up to the end of his life, he stuck to his
well-learned Catholic Doctrine. The poor guy simply wanted to commit
adultery, like most Catholic men; he had no intention of being either a
heretic or schismatic, like most adulterous Catholics. But unlike most
Catholics, forces outside him were gathering and were about to overwhelm
him . . . and England.
spite of all these gathering forces, the Reformation or, better still, the
Destruction of Catholic Europe was far from happening. Martin Luther did
not have a theology of religion to attract anyone. So far, the battle lines
were drawn between mere personal annoyances. And Europe was too intelligent
to sacrifice her Catholic religion for personal grievances . . . at least,
for the moment.
I think the word “Reformation” is unsuitable to describe what happened,
allow me to use it for the sake of historical continuity. Let me also use
the word “Church”, i.e., with capital “C” to describe the Catholic Church
and the word “church” to describe the men of the Church. They are quite different and,
during that era, even quite opposed to each other.
III. VISIBLE FACTORS
is sad to note that the irretrievable momentum of the Reformation towards the
disunity of Christian Europe was borne of an old Catholic practice - the
dissolution of benefices to support other church projects. This was the
seed of a brewing storm. What was this? Well, when the church needed to
build a large school, she would dissolve a few richly-endowed monasteries
and divert their income towards the building of that school. Now, this
practice is all right if you have saints running the Church. But the
fifteenth century was stuffed with few saints. One does not have to think far
to foresee the coming storm of abuses.
an era where church practices bore within them the seeds of corruption,
like lay investiture and commendam abbots, the abuse was almost certain.
People of influence began dissolving rich ecclesiastical benefices for any
reason . . . more often to increase their personal wealth. To enrich
oneself by looting, church benefices became such an attractive temptation;
though blasphemous, it became grand-scale. A new business class rose and
established itself on a wealth confiscated from ecclesiastical benefices.
It was the easiest way of raising capital to start a business. Many lordly
rich names in England today became rich this way.
watch this: if the Catholic Church, through the Pope, put her foot down,
she would have inevitably demanded the restoration of the confiscated
wealth of the Church . . . which the nouveau riche were unwilling to
do, because by then, they were enjoying their newly-found wealth and
attendant power. These thieves
had to find a valid reason to keep their wealth. And what better reason
than to break up with Rome? And so it happened. Every break with Rome,
henceforward, would be motivated by a group of wealthy businessmen enriched
by looting the Church. The permanent momentum of the Reformation towards
dividing Catholic Europe into Catholic and Protestant was motivated by LOVE
OF MONEY . . . or, shall we say, financial consideration. The Reformation
was a financial move; not a religious objection. Having found a reason to
continue looting the Church, the nouveau riche protected Martin
Luther from ecclesiastical authorities and censures. Martin Luther became the excuse
that would allow them to continue the looting of the Church.
new businessmen, however, had a problem. Martin Luther had no doctrine
rationalizing their keeping of stolen Church properties. In truth, Martin
Luther’s doctrines were too tame to be heretical.
tail of the devil, to borrow St. Augustine’s words, describing the devil
when he takes up sheep’s clothing, (since the sheep has a short tail, the
wolf’s tail will always show) began to appear with the entrance of Zwingli,
who introduced some anti-Catholic teachings. But his teachings, though he
encouraged the confiscation of Church’s properties, did not give the
thieves a philosophy to legalize their robbery.
the new rich businessmen’s problem was still there . . . a continuing union
with Rome would demand restoration of the Church’s wealth . . . and virtual
poverty for them. They must remain separated from Rome to remain rich. What was before a mere
religious complaint was now a financial issue. The question was no longer
how to save one’s soul: it was how to keep the stolen wealth. Martin Luther
must, by all means, be prevented from returning to the Catholic Church. But
the businessmen had one problem: Martin Luther’s theology was still too
Catholic and a return to the Church was still a great possibility, while
Zwingli’s heresy did not justify their keeping their stolen church property
this point, though the situation was still salvageable, with love of money,
the root of all evil, entering the picture, saving the Catholic tradition
in Europe was beginning to become more difficult.
a genius, reflecting the pure intelligence of the prince of darkness
appeared . . . John Calvin. He would create an entirely new “religion” that
had nothing to do with Martin Luther but would satisfy every whim of the
new businessmen. It was a religion patterned for businessmen who had
enriched themselves on stolen church property. Since the Reformation had
been taken over by the businessmen with business motives, it would adopt
this avaricious characteristic and, henceforward, every Protestant sect
would contain this Calvinistic element. It would be the force that would be
the common trademark of Protestantism. And this would seal permanently the
division of Christendom into the Catholic and Protestant sects.
basic doctrine that would tickle the looters of the church is that man has
a duty to grow rich. Suddenly, every business practice that was done by
Catholics clandestinely because it was considered evil, was now allowed,
encouraged, and even considered as the most appropriate thing to do.
Calvin’s proposition was a financial proposition that tolerated every
unethical business practice. Then he added a sprinkling of religiosity in
his doctrine by stating that this fact of growing rich is a sign of
predestination to heaven. It was a doctrine every corrupt soul would
embrace unquestioningly. It was like having your cake and eating it, too;
sort of, having the world and heaven, too. Who could refuse that? With this
teaching, good works or almsgiving, the singular mark of the Catholic
Church, was thrown out. Of course, if you give alms generously, you will
never get rich. The practice of poverty, so essential to religious life,
refined his doctrine further by removing rationality, i.e., the right to
think and reason out. He had to. For if one reasons too much, Calvin’s
errors would be obvious. Calvin did this by introducing subjectivism; what
one feels is the norm for what is true and right. Who can make a mistake
with that? He had to raise the authority of the subjective mind to counter
the more reasonable authority of tradition or an outside source, like the
Pope and the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Without tradition, the
Protestant sect could not become the Church that Christ established, whose
description is found in Tradition. And it could not have the official
interpretation of Scriptures, which is also found in Tradition.
he introduced usury, charging of interest on an unproductive loan. Usury, once frowned upon by
Christendom, though practised in secret, is now legitimate business
practice. With these, Calvinistic Europe became an economic giant; and
through banking and trading would spur what we call today, Industrial
Capitalism. Sadly, Catholic nations would gradually adopt these
un-Christian business practices for their own economic progress. And so
what the Protestant Reformation could not do to the Catholic Church in the
16th century, it finally succeeded in the guise of Industrial Capitalism.
Every Catholic, today, in observance of Calvinistic doctrine, is trying to
be rich. The only vestige of Catholicism left in them is the little
almsgiving they give out of the abundance of their excesses.
IV. SOME EFFECTS OF THE
of the improvements in the life of Europe did not come from Calvinism; they
came from the Renaissance. The Reformation did not even come from the
Renaissance. What came from the Reformation, due to its subjectivism, is
the division of Europe along nationalistic or ethnic lines and class
struggle which from that time until now is the cause of all Europe’s
Catholicism united the entire of Europe, Protestantism fragmented Europe
into a hundred factions. And while united Christendom united all trades into
guilds, Protestantism lined one trade in competition with the same trade in
fragmented Europe. The good of all, paramount among the guilds, was laid
aside; only the good of the individual was paramount in Protestant Europe.
the intellectual sphere, Protestant thinking made itself depend on the most
unreliable of authorities, one’s personal feeling or the authority of mere
print, like the printed Bible. This doctrine is egotistical but effectively
removed the authority of the Pope. This subjectivism made personal
experience or emotion the source of authority; and its consequence was
spiritual anarchy, wherewith one Catholic doctrine after another was
abandoned and substituted with personal opinions of individual preachers. A
doctrine that advances the supremacy of the authority of the personal and
individual experience is the necessary seed for disaster. This factionalism
caused by Protestantism is what imperils the world today.
to say, Catholics, even Cardinals and Bishops, contributed to the
dissolution of Europe and the advancement and victory of Protestantism . .
.It is said that Cardinal Richelieu aided the Protestants of Germany to
defeat the German Catholics by sending Gustavus Adolphus because he feared
that a strong Catholic Germany was a threat to Catholic France. With Cardinals like this, you don’t
need Protestants. It is also said that the Catholics of the Netherlands
aided the Protestants there against Catholic Spain because they feared the
Spanish Catholic soldiers who were looting the Netherlands. So I do not
tire in saying that the Catholics contributed much to the success of the
ignorance, neglect, complacency and worldliness of the men of the Church
were the breeding grounds for the Reformation. But that era boasted of great saints. Sts. Ignatius, Francis Borgia, Philip Neri, Charles Borromeo, Teresa of Avila, John
of the Cross, Thomas More, Jerome Emiliani, Cajetan, John of
God, John of Avila,
Angela, John Fisher, Joseph Calasanctius, Peter of
Canisius, and Robert Bellarmine.
am sure Luther, Zwingli and Calvin were no match against these saints. A
third of these saints could have stopped the tide of the Reformation. Then why
did it succeed? It was a punishment from God, a Divine Retribution towards
a church that was not faithful to its Bridegroom. It was like Sodom and
Gomorrha. There were righteous men, but not enough to withhold God’s
retribution. While Europe was losing millions in Europe, the Catholic
Church was winning millions to the Faith in Mexico through Our Lady of
Guadalupe. It is the old story of God abandoning Israel, Europe, because of
her infidelity, and going to the Gentiles, the New World.
V. HISTORICAL POSITIONING
Reformation coincided with the discovery of the Americas and of the
Philippines where the Catholic faith would eventually prosper. Italy,
Spain, France, Portugal, Hungary, Poland and part of Germany and half of
Ireland would remain Catholic. The other half of Ireland and Germany,
England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Prussia would be dominantly
Protestant. When I say, Protestant, I mean they were formerly Catholics who
turned Protestant or they were young Catholics who never received Catholic
instruction due to the prevailing controversies and wars and, therefore,
easily converted to Protestantism. Strictly speaking, they were never
Catholics in the first place.
the next one hundred years, what was thoroughly Catholic Europe became
secular in its political, economic and educational features. Whence before,
the Spiritual authority was foremost as the unifying force of Europe, now
it would be civil. And the civil cannot unite anybody: the unity of Europe
would be shattered. And
Europe’s attempt to re-establish that unity today through the European
Market is a practice in futility.
Reformation reduced Europe into a group of nationalistic states with only
their self-interest in mind and where religion was used to further national
Council of Trent would momentarily save the Catholic portion of Europe. But
then this portion would slowly succumb to Deism and Rationalism. And the
attraction of progressive capitalism in the Protestant countries,
especially England, would drive the Catholic nations to adopt the
Protestant economic outlook.
from Catholic France was devastating. It portrayed the Catholic Church as
an outmoded institution, a medieval component of superstition and
ignorance. By the 18th century, Catholic France would further breed
enlightened despotism . . . which was certainly despotic, but certainly not
Protestant and rationalist outlook gradually triggered the French
Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in England, wherein Democracy
became desirable. Democracy, hand in hand with liberalism, states that man
is independent of all authority outside of himself. If one takes a little
time out and dwells into this concept, the consequence is a political
system in which the sovereign people is absolutely free, unrestrained by
conscience, by Church or by God. Democracy is a system where the people can
make decrees even contrary to God’s law: and, by Jove!, they can do it by a
mere vote. This is the result of Calvin’s principle in attempting to free
the conscience from God, Tradition, and the Pope. The cradle of democracy
is such names as Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Lessing and Kant. They
held teachings contrary to the essence of Catholicism.
a democratic practice we practise today, copied from the democracy Catholic
France institutionalized, is this: if you wish to control the chamber or
parliament or senate, kill your opponents.
the sequence of events: the duty to be rich by Calvin produced a new middle
class. But since they ran out of Church property to loot, they looted the
common man whose dignity was further degraded. The wealth of the nation,
instead of being possessed by many, was possessed by a few and so the
laboring class was further degraded into a horde. Child labor in England
should be mentioned here.
through education where the Calvinistic duty to be rich was taught, the
workers’ children began to realize class-consciousness; they organized
themselves and began to fight the rich that they, too, may be rich. Thus,
the war between labor and capital is the consequence of Protestant thinking
and democrary. This would destroy Europe and constantly threaten what remained
of it. The division of Europe by the Reformation would be the cause of all
subsequent wars. It would drive Europe into the unprecedented calamity of
the Second World War. And the United Nations’ disregard for the rights of
small nations would make the unity of the bigger European nations a
VI. HOW A CATHOLIC NATION TURNED
The Reformation is the story of how Catholics
turned Protestant. And this has always been the strategy of Protestants
ever since . . . in that they find it easier to proselytize among
Catholics, i.e., bad Catholics, rather than among pagans. This is easy in
that most Catholics are Protestant at heart, anyway.
And Europe had the perfect atmosphere for such
a moral heresy: merchants were emerging as a new class, the decline of
Catholic schools, the spread of humanistic culture (wherewith man thought
he could handle all his problems.) On the other hand, the church was not
only inutile but even a burden: ecclesiastical maladministration, priestly misconduct,
burdensome church taxes, yoked the ordinary layman. The Church was so rich
she was a temptation for every avaricious heart.
The Reformation began on a good note . . . it
was an attempt to return to the spirit of the traditional Church. How it
became derailed into becoming an entirely new religion based on an
individual’s interpretation of the Bible will be shown below. This rent
Europe into two camps, Catholic and Protestant. And, mind you, Bishops and
priests apostatized and led their faithful to apostasy. In England, when
Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy making the King the head of the
Church, Bishops, priests, monks and the laity lined up to take the oath
repudiating Papal authority. After the Council of Trent, with God’s help, the
Catholic Church maintained her Divine vitality, still embodying the spirit
of the early martyrs and saints.
It was the intervention of a few avaricious
lords and squires plus the unfortunate mixture of political forces which
converted the mutterings of Martin Luther into a catastrophe that shattered
the unity of Catholic Europe. If you look at the disunity among the parish
priests in a diocese or even among religious in a house, you’ll know what I
mean . . . it is so easy to shatter unity.
Henry VIII, bearer of the title, “defender of
the Faith”, repudiated the Pope. After he executed Anne Boleyn on charges
of infidelity, he was ready to return to the Church. He even enacted laws
requiring all English subjects to profess certain Catholic doctrines denied
by the Protestants. Henry espoused traditional Catholic doctrines which
some modern Catholics today deny . . . like ecclesiastical celibacy,
Transubstantiation, sufficiency of Communion under one species, validity of
the vow of celibacy, the utility of private masses for the souls in
purgatory and auricular private confession.
But the confiscation of monastic properties and
revenues devoted to religion, charity and education proved so lucrative, he
had to continue his schism. Within ten years, Henry VIII confiscated
monastic property worth sixteen million pounds, most of which went to his
friends, thus cementing their loyalty to him.
This was the shattering of the dream City of
God. It was a rushing towards a purely civil control of material affairs
where God would have no part. The Reformation was making this offer: to
local rulers, the privilege of looting Church properties; to Bishops,
priest, nuns, an excuse to repudiate their vows whose purpose they had
forgotten, and, therefore, the privilege to marry. And for the common men,
the abolition of Church taxes. Even today, any politician would win on that
What Martin Luther raised was most
insignificant. His nailing of his thesis at the door at Wittenburg Castle
was a very common practice for medieval debates. That does not have any
dramatic significance as many want to give it. It was the aforementioned
vested interests that made a mountain out of a molehill. While the lords needed
Luther as a plausible excuse for seizing church property, Luther needed the
lord’s patronage and protection and material support. It was a parasitic
relationship; they used each other.
It is, indeed, a providential act that the
Church lost its wealth; it ceased to be the object of avarice. And where
would the avaricious look now for loot? They could either borrow from the
banks, as Charles V did to frustrate Francis I's hopes for the throne, or
they could tax the common man, aggravating his misery, as has always been
in the history of man.
With avarice foremost in man’s heart, loyalties
took bizarre turns. France would ally itself with the German Emperor,
sometimes with the Pope, sometimes with the Protestant Princes, against
German Catholics, sometimes with the Turks against a Christian army. The
Protestants were always on the side of the Turks against the
VII. PROBLEM IN ANALYZING
Let me simplify the incidents that led to the
Reformation, or, as I wish to describe it more appropriately, the
Destruction of Europe, with the hope the reader can say, “I now see how
things happened.” We shall attempt to give the spiritual and human motives
that contributed to that act of rebellion against a revered and traditional
heritage - Christendom.
In the 1500’s, Europe had been Catholic for 15
hundred years. The Reformation was an attack on that institution. To
understand what happened, one must know all about this institution,
otherwise, we shall never know whether the attack was valid or not. It is
the man who knows the Catholic Church that is appalled at the great events
that happened; he, alone, can understand what was destroyed by the
Reformation. The Protestant historian does not know what was lost; he never
And one who truly knows the Catholic Church
will see that the men of the Church did not, except for a few, know the
reasons behind Catholic beliefs. And so, gradually, with the onset of the Renaissance,
Catholic doctrines like the infallibility of the Pope were turning into
myths. Catholicism was eventually viewed like Freudian Psychology, good for
its time but exposed as false.
An armchair historian will tend to easily
explain the Reformation; and an easy explanation is always a wrong
explanation. Because he will tend to see it as a necessary phase from a
dark age to an enlightened age, from an age of fanaticism and superstition
to an age of happiness. But the happiness is only in his head; not around
or in him. Which makes his analysis all wrong.
Only the man who knows what Catholicism is will
know what was abandoned; only he will know the void left by the
Reformation. He alone will see the problem. How on earth can such a religion,
the only true religion, be rejected by half of Europe for an aberration?
Why is it that when the fever was gone, the Church’s health did not return?
Why was such supreme good allowed to perish? I cannot understand.
I can easily understand the Protestants today:
they don’t know any better. But the founders of the Reformation were
Catholics. How could men, living in an age when European meant Catholic,
when civilization and Occidental meant Catholic, could give up the essence
of their culture and leave a void in its stead. Love of money is the only
explanation: for money, anyone would sell his own mother. Money sealed the
fate of Europe - half of it would choose to be Protestant.
Today, a Catholic may be displeased with a
Papal pronouncement or dislike a priest or rebel against a rule; but seldom
will he harbor hatred for the Catholic Religion. If one ever does hate
Catholicism, he becomes a suspect neurotic or his behavior is described as
pathological. And yet this is what happened to Europe during the
Reformation. How is it that European Christendom lost its personality?
VIII. THE CHURCH IS UNDER CONSTANT
To picture the previous era of the Church as
peaceful that is eventually disturbed by the Reformation is an illusion
historians foster. The Catholic Church had never been peaceful; she had
always been under siege, in perpetual conflict, in perpetual peril of
extinction from within and without. The reason is simple . . . because she
claims to be the only true religion and she is not of the world.
The way of life of the Church, by itself, even
without external attackers, is a fierce conflict, a spiritual combat
between the soul and the dark forces of evil out to thwart man’s bid for
heaven. Though privileged by Constantine the Great to be the state religion
and showered with wealth and gifts, the Church was nearly swarmed by the
Arian perversion. Though we, students of theology, laugh at such
controversies as ridiculous, hair-splitting distinctions, during that time,
it was a most serious threat within the church affecting Bishops, priests
and monks; it was a parasite that would constantly haunt the church . . .
up to the days of the Reformation and even today.
The Arian heresy was more than what we are taught
in theology; it was a rationalizing spirit, i.e., the inability to
understand one half of the truth that is beyond reason and, as a result,
reject that half. It is the same spirit that propelled the Reformation:
“How can such things be?” And the Arians persecuted the Catholics as did
the Reformers. And the Church had to contend with the Arians for 300
Today, though few Bishops and priests proclaim
the teachings of the Catholic Church, at least, the Pope does. Prelude to
the Reformation, the Pope did not; he had become a political pawn. Add to
this the scandal of Pope going against Pope or the existence of three
Popes. The unifying force exerted by the Popes of the 1300’s over Europe
was gone. If the Popes
remained spiritual in their role, it would have stayed; but because they
became political, it was gone. And as the Reformation progressed, a
spiritual Pope could have turned the tide. But a political Pope failed to
play his part and paid a heavy price.
IX. FERTILE SOIL FOR A SPIRITUAL
During these times, the Catholics were doing
their traditional practices: but they did not know why. Of course, there
were a few shining examples of holiness that explained and clarified Catholic
doctrine; but the rest of Catholicism was fossilized, so to speak. Then
came the Black Death that decimated even the few shining examples.
Lastly, a feeling of dissatisfaction of the
populace at the powers exercised by the clergy, their financial power, the
heavy and, oftentimes, unreasonable taxes, the Papal office, though filled
with holy and learned men, was turning into an Italian Principate. Having
neglected her teaching role, moral anarchy ruled the Church. A few saints
raised their voices but the stage was set for the break-up of Europe.
Catholic Europe at the 1500’s was like a dike
with high flood waters behind it; only a hole in the dike was needed. In
the meantime, everybody felt secure behind the dike. No one believed the dike
would give way.
The four elements for the disaster are in
place: a.) a clergy ignorant of the way to salvation; b.) an equally
spiritually-ignorant and morally-weak laity, especially among the rich; c.)
indignation at the failure of the men of the Church to reform themselves;
d.) and the devilish tail sticking out in all these events - hatred for
anything Catholic. This last element is proof that all the first three are
machinations of the evil one. The devil, himself, was attacking the Church.
The Church would prevail but the casualties in lost souls would be
The corruption of the clergy was not universal
but universally-tolerated. This state showed the Church was ill; but the
danger was not in the illness but in its neglect. The worldliness of the
clergy was most scandalous to the laity. The rich, today, are worse than
the clergy at that time; but worldliness in any degree among the clergy
and, more so, in the Papacy is unacceptable.
But those aberrations did not trigger a doctrinal
disease in that they never regarded vice as virtue as we do today. The
knowledge of right and wrong was sound, during that time; the practice,
though, was deplorable.
The indignation towards the men of the Church for
not reforming themselves was so widespread but quiet; this was the energy
behind the Reformation. The Church should never have waited that long. The
Church knew the cure: like Nineveh, all should have repented. But she did
not move. The waiting is what introduced the element of hatred which, in
turn, became the leaven that corrupted the whole process.
Hatred towards the Church will always be there.
Christ warned us of it. But the Church must see to it that there is no
valid reason for it. Everywhere, the Church is an issue because it
constantly restricts man in his worldliness, ambition, desire and pride.
And that is annoying. And more hateful is the Church's claim to an absolute
authority, like the infallibility of the Pope, and in her insistence that
she is the only true religion.
But this time, there was reason for the hatred.
The hatred started imperceptibly among very few; but the majority was
becoming fertile ground for it. And a striking mark of the Reformation is
the intense, sometimes insane, hatred against the Faith. With the hatred
set free to express itself, they spat at everything Catholic; and, typical
of the devil, it struck at the Mass, the priesthood, and the Pope. Hatred
was the singular force that made any return to the True Faith
The high flood waters were exerting great
pressure on the dike. The menace was great and no one saw it. The breach
came from an insignificant town, from an unknown man who had no intention
of starting a Reformation. Just like any hole in a dike . . . it started
with a leak, then a stream, a torrent, then an unstoppable flood.
X. THE DESTRUCTION OF CATHOLIC
What Martin Luther let loose was not a
theological debate; but a revolution with all its incumbent horrors,
murder, looters, freebooters and brigands. It is no different from the
Russian or French revolution or any revolution that seizes mankind every so
often. Even Luther must have been surprised to see himself on top of the
What happened in Europe is no different from
what is happening today in the tribal wars in Africa . . . pure anarchy. It
was not a conflict between faiths or philosophies; it is the mere
unleashing of what is bestial in man.
The building up of the wave, I wish to
summarize, is made up of eternal hatred for the Faith, avarice of the local
princes, lords and squires, the loose living of the clergy, and the turning
of religion into a mechanical practice. The Vatican heard the rumbling
noise and misjudged it as mere bickering among Dominicans and Augustinians.
The Church paid dearly for her bad analysis.
By 1519, Luther was still professing his
Catholicism; but the undercurrent of avaricious lords who had stolen church
properties swept him off his feet. The momentum gathered strength and a new
element entered the picture . . . the loss of faith.
Zwingli hastened the momentum. He was a
Catholic priest whose deviation from the Church was doctrinal. Luther had
no doctrinal deviation at this point. Like Luther, however, Zwingli was
just used. Leaning on his doctrine, the government of the Swiss Canton
seized Church property and decreed that priests should marry . . . a most
efficient weapon for the destruction of the Mass and the priesthood. And
true enough, in a short while, the Mass was abolished and Zwingli declared
that the Bible under private interpretation was the sole authority for
This was followed by the typical Protestant
Iconoclasm wherein hooligans went about destroying the precious artistic
religious symbols of their ancestors in a barbaric manner.
The priesthood, and its symbol, the Papacy, had
to be destroyed to allow them private interpretation since the Catholic
Church allowed no private interpretation. And with the priesthood went
confession, consecration, alms, good works, and prayers for the dead.
Arianism which was a doctrinal perversion from the start, Protestantism was
an honest attempt at reform. It was only later that Luther incorporated
errors. Zwingli and Calvin added to the doctrinal perversions. Calvin
started an entirely new religion. From the beginning, the Reformation was
not a definite heresy; for the first twenty years it had no form. It never
meant to start something new: it was a mere complaint on how things
Zwingli’s doctrine did not attract the
avaricious lords who looted Christ’s Bride. Calvin would correct that and
justify the looting of Church property with his “duty to be rich,” in
effect, saying, “be rich by keeping what you stole and steal more; if this
makes you rich, it is a sign of predestination to heaven.” Sheer
The Reformation is aptly described as a flood
because it destroyed much but built nothing. The church could have rebuilt:
but she did not. And God was not going to help. God sent the Mohammedans to
threaten Europe. Christendom was doomed . . . to be half-Protestant, an
entirely new religion to be influenced by Calvin.
Luther’s “Justification by Faith” was an
after-thought meant to reject the priestly office. It did not motivate the
movement: it was a hollow statement with no life in it. A doctrine like
that cannot start anything nor gather any following.
Then Luther fell into that common temptation of
many preachers: to tell the audience what they want to hear. So he began
with the marriage of the clergy. Even today, that would be very popular. And
he added that in some cases, divorce may be lawful; and that would
certainly be popular. These were doctrines that did not invite men to high
challenges: they merely whet man’s appetite. Of course, Luther received a
roar of agreement.
The Reformation movement in England was neither
national nor doctrinal. It was personal . . . adultery. Later on, it would
be directed by a few men with vested interests acting, not out of a
religious sense but, for money. These men would adopt Calvin’s teachings but
The incident with Henry VIII was a
miscalculation on his part. He did not intend it to be so; it was an
accident. There was nothing doctrinal: it could have been averted. It was
purely political though wrought with incalculable risk. Henry VIII’s break
with Rome was through the machination of Cromwell who didn’t care for
anybody except to fill up his pocket.
Aspersions were hurled at Ann Boleyn unfairly.
Henry VIII was a womanizer; he had an affair with the elder sister of Ann. Now he wanted Ann. But Ann would
not have anything to do with him . . . unless she was legally married to
him. A strong and moral woman she was. And therein was the problem . . .
she insisted in being wife and Queen, not a mistress. It was a self-controlled
Ann against a flabby, weak Henry. And when Henry needed a theological
opinion in favor of his annulment with Catherine, Cromwell bribed
theologians to rule in his favor.
Frankly, Henry had a point since Catherine was
previously married to Arthur, brother of Henry VIII, who had died early.
But the case is not clear to me. So I would never suggest that Catherine
should have given in. Anyway, the case was decided in England by Archbishop
Cranmer, a friend of the Boleyn family whose mind was exclusively
preoccupied with the advancement of his profession and nothing else.
This is sad because England had the least
corruption among the men of the Church. Yet, in England, the looting of the
Church was most thoroughly done and the stamping out of monasteries
complete. All because of a permanent financial crisis in England where
expenditures were always outrunning revenue. This financial crisis was, at
first, being solved by forced loans, falsifying currency, and imposing
heavier taxes. When it didn’t work, the looting of the moneyed church began
in full. With the looting of the Church, England became suddenly possessed
of a vast capital sum which should have sufficed for all its needs. But
this is not how avarice works. With the looted wealth, England should have
been the most powerful monarchy in Europe. But that is not how it turned
Thomas Cromwell pocketed much of it; this loot
would make Oliver Cromwell influential later on. All the members of the
Reformation Parliament shared the loot. It was this loot and their
consequent influence that made Queen Elizabeth practically a slave to
Calvin was every avaricious businessman’s
heart’s desire. His genius consisted in writing down what evil was already
being done and accepted by many but without good reason. He would give a
sound reason for doing evil. His genius is that what was done but
considered evil he transformed as something seemingly good and even a sign
of predestination. And Calvinism is the core of Protestantism up to this
Calvin introduced the practice of people
electing ministers; but after their election, ministers cease to be
servants of the people and become arrogant superiors of the electors. Try
asserting your right over a parking space when a senator wants your space;
see how his bodyguards treat you . . . thanks to Calvin.
For Calvin, the printed word has more authority
than the living tradition. The way one interprets Scriptures today is more reliable
than the two thousand years of traditional practice of the Church. He made
humility a vice and the love of money a virtue. He made the insatiable
appetite an object of worship. His love of money went against every
Catholic concept of good works and self-denial which entailed giving up of
money. He encouraged his followers to enrich themselves; and they did so .
. . by looting the Catholic Church.
Calvin inevitably had to attack the priesthood
and showed his hatred for the Creed and the discipline of the Church. Then
he put up his own religion. The devil had shown his true colors.
By now, the force that began as indignation
against the corruption of the clergy, especially at their wealth, had
turned into an intense, fierce and increasing hatred against the Mass and
the Blessed Sacrament. It was exactly the same hatred that prompted the
killing of innocents in the hope of killing Christ, the same hatred that
crucified Christ on the cross.
But now, it had organization, a philosophy and staff . . . led by
the genius of Calvin. The Catholics and the Protestants were now in line
for a battle that would tear Europe asunder.
And the church, so to speak, did nothing to
stop it. The Popes were paralyzed by continuous political wrangling between
the Medici, Orsini, Colonna and Borgia; and also by the bitter political
struggles of the leading European states. It was politics, politics and
more politics, if they were not busy protecting the Papal real estates.
Let me describe a typical Pope at that time.
There was Leo X. He was tonsured at age 7, became a Cardinal at 13, and a
Pope at 38. He loved the arts and was fond of music, the theatre, hunting
and elaborate banquets. Deeply interested in politics, he was unscrupulous
as to the means he employed. Some Cardinals tried to assassinate him. He
had the leader, Cardinal Petrucci, executed. He appointed Cardinals at a
price. Della Mirandola sort of prophesied about Leo X, saying: if Leo
continues this way, God will punish us.
Deaf to good advice, Leo X raised funds for the
building of St. Peter’s by proclaiming new indulgences. He did not heed
Alexander’s advice to act more wisely in handling Martin Luther. A vigorous
reform in the men of the Church, even only in the Papacy, could have saved
the day. But Pope Leo X was taken up with his arts, amusements, busy
accumulating funds for his depleted treasury and more concerned about the
political situation than the spiritual welfare of Christendom.
In Mainz and Magdeburg, the preaching of
indulgences was given to Bishop Albert who paid 14,000 ducats (about
$50,000) to be Bishop with money borrowed from the banking house of Fugger.
To pay back his debt, he asked for half of the money collected from indulgences.
Catholicism looked more like the stock market.
It is also said that King Francis I offered a
million gold thalers for the election of a Pope to his liking. Cardinal
Wolsey offered a hundred thousand ducats to be elected Pope. But this era
of the Reformation, with due respect, did not produce bad or immoral Popes.
Many of them were, in fact, good Popes. But none of their efforts could
stop the on-coming storm. Added to the Pope’s headache were the
schismatical councils held by Cardinals, like the assembly at Pisa which
decreed the suspension of the Pope.
The Reformation wasn’t a reaction: It was more
like the stench that came from a corrupt church. The Reformation was not
the medicine; it was the pus.
By this time, also, most of the existing
religious orders were so scandalously relaxed; they were in no position to
resist the pressure of Protestantism. In fact, a large number of monks and
nuns joined the apostasy. And so Trent busied itself more with the
reformation of the old religious orders.
XI. CALVINISM AND DEMOCRACY
Luther’s teachings emphasized obedience to the
established government; this was attractive to heads of states who easily
adopted Lutheranism to control the people. Calvin, on the other hand, taught the supremacy of the
enlightened conscience which sees the will of God; this was bestowed on a
few . . . of course, the Calvinists. These few could, therefore, resist
monarchs and heads of states . . . and were bestowed with the right to rule
the sinful world. This was attractive to the business class who always
wished to control the heads of states. Calvinism carried the seeds of democracy.
Calvinism, in effect, is saying that ‘a group
of people, if they believe they are more enlightened than the civil head
and more righteous than the king, may dislodge that king and rule in their
stead.’ And true enough, the kings of Europe were dislodged, one by one;
the Czar of Russia was also dislodged this way and, eventually, even the
King of Catholic France . . . all through the Calvinistic-inspired people’s
Shall I venture to repeat the fact that
Democracy is a Protestant Calvinistic teaching that contributed to the
eventual corruption of the Catholic Church? And the adaptation of the
Church and religious orders to democratic practices has contributed to the
scandalous relaxation of these orders today. St. Robert Bellarmine, a
Jesuit, held this idea; though another Jesuit, Suarez, not a saint, had
some democratic element in his teachings . . . that’s probably why he is
not a saint.
Democracy is not a Calvinistic invention
though. It existed long before Christianity. But it was recognized as
un-Catholic. Today, it is accepted as the model for all in the Church. Pascal
agrees democracy is useful and most effective in ruling beasts in men’s
clothing; but it is not for the Church.
LUTHER and ZWINGLI
Luther and Zwingli were both Catholic priests.
Basic to their teachings is justification by faith alone . . . which, if
interpreted correctly, is Catholic. Their mistake consists in this: the
knowledge on how to be justified by faith is not learned from the
divinely-established Church and her Tradition, but on the private,
individual interpretation of Scriptures. That should produce as many
interpretations as there are people interpreting . . . and it did just
that. But no matter how diverse were their interpretations, they were
united in the repudiation of Papal authority . . . and, I would even say,
hatred for the Catholic Church.
Lutheranism and Calvinism were the two
predominant Protestant sects but they all overlapped. All of them lost
their connection with the Episcopacy by their repudiation of it. The Anglicans
lost theirs with Matthew Parker where a wrong formula for consecration was
Whenever Princes espoused Protestantism, their
first move was the dissolution of the monasteries to acquire their assets
and the abolition or changing of the ritual of the Mass. The first was
meant to enrich themselves; the second to remove the obligation of
returning their stolen wealth.
Zwingli did not even wait for Princes to seize
Church properties. He started it himself (having gotten control of the
state council of Zurich) and, as usual, prohibited the celebration of the
Mass. But it was Calvin who systematized the heresy: he imposed obligatory
church attendance and non-conformists were punished severely, even with
Zwingli lived in Switzerland when everyone was
in a deplorable spiritual condition, including himself. His program
consisted in abolition of the mass, the sacraments of penance and extreme
unction, indulgences and pilgrimages, the destruction of relics, altars,
pictures and sacred vessels. He denounced celibacy, encouraged monks and
nuns to marry and encouraged the state to loot church properties.
XII. LOSING THE BATTLE
Destroying the Church in England was easy.
Anyone could have done it. It simply consisted in forbidding everything
that would keep the Church alive. Let the old Catholics die out and keep
the young ones ignorant. Prevent children from getting instruction in the
Catholic Faith. Hunting out the priest and forbidding the mass and the
sacraments would hasten the process. The persecution of the Catholic Church
persisted long enough to form what was once England’s religion into a mere
sentiment. From a sentiment, it became a mere memory; from a memory, it was
easily forgotten. In 1688, Catholic life died out in England. Left behind
was a population of millionaires enriched by looting the church headed by
Cecil, the mastermind of the looting. The King’s in-laws, the Seymours,
neglected their business and simply wallowed in their newly-found
Later on, the millionaires would raise
Elizabeth to the throne and have Mary Stuart executed. Elizabeth, who
detested Protestant doctrines, had to concede to them to keep her
In Scotland, the Church was immensely rich. And
for the few nobles who were already benefiting by drawing from clerical
revenues, Calvinism offered an easy reason for absorbing the whole. These
nobles were very few; the trouble was that no Catholic put a stop to it.
In the Netherlands, the problem was not
religious either: it was economics and politics. It was Catholic Spanish
soldiers who looted the churches and monasteries. The rich Catholics had to
unite with the Calvinists to protect themselves. After ousting the Spaniards,
they saw the opportunity of getting richer. They, in turn, looted the
Church. And in the tradition of Orange, they tortured the monks together
with the destruction of every religious work of art. Today, Antwerp is
still like that . . . bare.
XIII. THE CATHOLIC REACTION
The defense of the Catholic Church is always
taken up by God Himself. But, as usual, He chooses His human instrument . .
. and only a few of them. God has installed a mechanism in the Church
whereby it renews itself, if and when it is needed. The mechanism goes into
effect, not one minute earlier, not one minute later. He has His reasons
and we shall not ask, “Why not earlier.” To insinuate that things would
have been different if a COUNCIL were held earlier, would put in doubt the
wisdom of God. A council could not have done anything . . . though some
Catholic Historians would want to believe otherwise. Arguments,
discussions, wrangling, committee meetings, synods and conferences are not
known to have renewed the Church.
The counter-Reformation hardly worked in saving
Europe. Eventually, each Catholic nation would be lost; Catholic France
would be lost during the French Revolution, others to communism. The rest
would be lost to industrial capitalism or materialism. So what counter-
Reformation are we talking about?
The Reformation was a punishment for an
unfaithful church that had become like the unfaithful Jewish nation in the
Old Testament. God was punishing Europe; and just like all His just
punishments, it was not an iota less or an iota more.
And so, the Saints raised by God during this
era were saints who never had any plans of a counter-Reformation or
anything like that. Surprisingly, the instruments used by God were men and
women who indirectly reformed the Church by simply being Holy. I repeat,
they had no plans of reforming the Church . . . they only wanted to be
holy. It is by being holy, by seeking God’s kingdom of holiness first that
they reformed the church.
We have mentioned some of these saints:
Ignatius of Loyola, Philip Neri, Charles Borromeo, Teresa of Avila, John of
God, Stanislaus Kostka.
Hilaire Belloc, noted Catholic historian, knew
how renewal is initiated. The formula is not new; it is as old as the Old
Testament: REPENTANCE. “If the men at this time repented, the attack upon
the Catholic Church would have had no success. If only the men of the
Church denounced their own guilt and their worldly lives and the gross
scandal of their impurity, their oppression of the poor, the exaggeration
of mechanical aids to religion, the occasional use of fraud even in the
election of Popes and appointment of Bishops and the chicanery in clerical
courts.” Funny, but Hilaire says, if only “they repented and turned
anchorite” . . . a very exact ascetical and theological solution. “And if
the rich abandoned their wealth and gave them to the poor,” he continued.
Doesn’t this sound like the Gospel? How come Hilaire, a layman, knew this:
how come the ecclesiastical authorities did not know it?
Europe had sinned against her God; and the only
solution was repentance. And note that the saints who led the
counter-Reformation were simply repenting, not for the sins of the world,
but for their own personal sins. And their lives showed nothing except
proofs of their personal repentance.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, whom historians quote
as having spearheaded the counter-Reformation, had that farthest from his
mind. After an injury from a battle, he just wanted to lead a holy life and
spend much of his time composing the spiritual exercises to aid others in
being holy. If he wanted to convert anyone, it was the Saracens, not
St. Philip Neri simply wanted to work among the
poor boys. John of God simply worked for the sick. Stanislaus Kostka, who
died at the age of 18, is known simply for having defied his powerful
family to follow Christ. THE WAY TO REFORM THE CHURCH IS TO SEEK PERSONAL
HOLINESS: leave the reforming to God. Aloysius Gonzaga died before
ordination, attending to plague-stricken people.
It is not accurate to say that the Jesuits led
the counter-Reformation. It was more because the first Jesuits were
personally holy. Francis Borgia and Francis Xavier were more concerned with
foreign missions. And there was Peter Canisius and Robert Bellarmine. Even
if the entire Jesuit order today were in Europe at that time, without holy
people like their founders, they would not have even slowed down the
spiritual dismemberment of Europe. Holy people - living saints - is the key
to any renewal or counter- Reformation. And when people are not holy, they
are usually stupid, corrupt and cowardly . . . and this is the description
of Catholic Europe at that time.
Historians state that St. Philip Neri, also,
spearheaded the counter-Reformation. If you read his life, there was
nothing of that sort in his work. Even the role of the Jesuits in the
Reformation was incidental in their history. St. Philip Neri is said to
have reformed the clergy; he did not. He merely encouraged his priests and
other priests who came in contact with him to be holy. All holy people do
Repentance precedes chastisement: people repent
to prevent chastisement, as the people of Nineveh did. But, often,
repentance follows chastisement . . . or, more often, as what happened to
the Israelites and to 16th century Europe and to us, today, chastisement
comes (this saddens us) . . . but we never repent. What a waste!
The devil was so visible in the attacks on the
Catholic Church that, really, nothing, absolutely nothing else, could have
neutralized it but PERSONAL HOLINESS. I never heard of any other way of
thwarting a devil’s attack. Note that the attacks were intense, fanatical
and unscrupulous. Well, fanatics are always unscrupulous because they are
sincere on a narrow issue. The hatreds are of a flaming sort . . . and very
The Church could have easily reasoned out the
rationality of Catholic beliefs and shut the mouth of the irrational
attackers. But at that time, the church lived complacently on the long-accepted and unchallenged
traditional practices that she really had lost track of the reasons for
Catholic beliefs. Religion had become routine and had gradually turned into
instinctive practice; the Catholic Church had lost its habit and skill in
analysis. So when the attack came, the Church groped for answers it never
learned; it defended herself blindly. At the first attack, the enemy seemed
to have the right arguments, simply because the Church was not ready with
her arguments. The attackers were winning by default.
The above-enumerated saints argued most
convincingly in favor of the Church. It was the humility in their way of
life and presentation of arguments that made their arguments unassailable.
The humility in one’s way of life and arguments is the greatest proof it is
from God. How can you argue against that? And that slowed down the flood
waters. But as the Saints dwindled after the next centuries, the rest of
Europe succumbed to the de-Catholization of Europe.
The Catholic Church in the 1500’s, as in every
era, is likened to a wheat field. When the laborers were asleep, the enemy,
the evil one, came and sowed tares in the field. And when the seeds grew, the
laborers were surprised. “Didn’t we plant only wheat; from whence did the
tares come from?” God, for the meantime, had allowed the good seed, which
He planted, to exist side by side with the bad seed sown by the evil one in
And so, it was in the 1500’s; the Church was
not attacked from without. The attack was from within; from within the
Catholic Church, from the tares planted by the devil in the Catholic
Church. It was the evil one attacking the wheat, the true children of the
Church, by sowing tares within the institutional Church. It was a classical
move the evil one had never even bothered to modify. He always does it that
way because it always works; and so, it worked in Europe.
Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the incompetent clergy,
the avaricious businessmen, the ignorant laity . . . most of the actors in
the drama of the Reformation were tares. And the Catholics that were lost
and the rest that remained, but were eventually lost, were tares. They
should have transformed themselves into wheat, as the Fathers believed it
to be possible. But because they remained tares, they attacked the wheat as
weeds would the good plants but did not overwhelm the wheat. The actors in
the Reformation were not good men who were corrupted; they were tares who
merely showed their true colors.
Exactly the same thing happened earlier in the
Church. The Arian and Pelagian heresies came from within. And today, the
most insidious heresy, modernism, has its origin from within. What happened
during the Reformation is no different from what has been happening to the
Church; it was not surprising, it was expected. Except that the men of the
Church did not expect it.
When the laborers suggested to the husbandman
to remove the tares, he said, no. Why does God allow wheat and tares to be
together? For the meantime, he says . . . that each, by his own choice, may
show the sincerity of his heart; and so that the unshaken faith of the true
Bride may shine with redoubled luster, states St. Cyprian. At the end
times, yes, the angels will separate the tares from the wheat and burn the
tares. But in the meantime, God has allowed them to be side by side. There
is no danger to the wheat; the tares are the only losers.
As long as the tares are with the wheat, the
Reformation will continue even up to now because it is the work of the evil
one going through his avowed work of trying to destroy the Church by
working through the tares within the church. And in this our day, since the evil one knows his time is
short, he surely will sow more tares, more virulent than before, in one
last but futile effort to destroy the good seeds. It is said that, at that
time, the Catholics did evil, but they knew it was evil; today, when
Catholics do evil, they think it is not evil . . . or worse, they think
that it is good, just because everybody is doing it. Today, we must shout
louder what Augustine said: “Good is good even if nobody is doing it; bad
is bad, even if everybody is doing it.”
Only the tares will be lost. What is
significant here is: just as in the 1500’s, the tares in the drama of the
Reformation were Bishops, priests, monks, nuns and Catholic laymen. Who
among us can say we are not the tares of the 20th century? Are we wheat? Do
you know what it means to be wheat? And if you are tares, do you know how
to be transformed into wheat? These thoughts are for us.
If the wheat are the saints and the Catholics
lost to the Reformation are the tares, to what shall I compare the
Reformation? The Church is like a man in the Old Testament allowed to have
a true wife and a concubine. The true wife is the wheat and the concubine
is the tares. The concubine becomes unfaithful; she not only flirts but has
a live-in affair with another man, the world, whose prince is the evil one,
God’s only rival for the affection of souls. The bastard child of that
concubine is the Reformation.
CAUTIONS IN REFORMS
As in former times, the Church will always have
defects . . . because she will always have tares within her fold. And so,
there will always be reasons to complain of her state. And the honest
desire to cure her of her tares will always be in the best of us. But we
must beware against unenlightened zeal. It was unenlightened zeal which
turned the good intentions of Luther into a disaster. The same thing can
happen to us.
“They are zealous for God, but their zeal is
not based on knowledge since they do not know the righteousness that comes
from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s
righteousness.” This is Luther’s brief biography. He had a zeal for God but
it was not based on the Tradition of the Church and the writings of her
great saints. So, he established his own concept of righteousness . . .
that leads to I-don’t-know-where.
Unenlightened zeal is usually motivated by
pride; it is a belief that we, and we alone, can renew the Church. If we
are enlightened, we shall see that that comes from the devil, the father of
pride. And God and His Church will never and should never concede to a
correction motivated by pride because that would be encouraging pride. If
there is anything God hates, it is pride . . . shown by the way He punished
the angels because of their pride.
The way to correct the illnesses of the church
is through Humility; it is through humility that the wheat remain wheat, it
is through humility that the tares are transformed into wheat. And humility
is this: that we believe that there is nothing we can do to reform the
church because we cannot even reform ourselves. Besides, we are nothing.
And the beginnings of humility consists in that we correct our defects and
not mind the defects of others. For the more we see the defects of others,
the less we see our defects; while the more we concentrate on our defects,
the less we shall see the defects of others. So, if we look too much at the
defects of others, like the church, we probably have more serious defects
which we are unconscious of.
And the first outward manifestation of
humility, the proof that we are conscious and are working at our own
defects, is obedience to Rome. Today, many are barking at the defects of
the Church . . . but with pride. Their pride is a greater defect than the defect
they are barking at. The Church, before listening to their complaints, must
first ascertain the presence of humility; with humility, then the Church
knows the correction is from God, for anything with pride comes from the
To those with an unenlightened zeal, let me
repeat, only God can reform the Church. Note how holy reformers are. They
are always relaxed when reforming the Church. History also shows when God
reforms His Church, it is because Bishops, priests and religious, whose job
is to prevent the need for reformation, have failed in their job. So, God
does not use them. God chooses the least likely candidates; usually the
weak - the uninformed, the lay - but humble. God also does not use
religious orders since the existing ones have also failed to stem the need
for reformation. If God uses a particular order, He first sends a holy
person to renew that order. So we go back to a humble, holy person as the
only instrument of reform.
Sts. Benedict, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola,
Colet, Catherine of Sienna, were mere laymen. Being humble and holy, God
used them to reform Popes, Bishops and priests and the whole Church. They
were the wheat who were able to turn some tares into wheat. The true Church
shines through the virtues of her saints, especially humility. But, of
course, there remain many tares to reckon with.
Sadly, the ills that led to the Reformation are
still with us, except that we don’t need a Luther as an excuse. We use
socially-acceptable reasons to worship our lust. And so the ravaging of the
Church continues because, unlike Nineveh where all, including babies and
animals, performed acts of repentance, the Church, as a whole, has not
repented. Yes, a handful are doing so, like in the 1500’s but, for God, this
is not good enough: “ . . . if there were 20 . . . if there were 10 . . .
but there was not 10.”
But for us, let this be a thought: let us
quietly work to learn how to be humble. For it is in being humble that we
shall be certain that we belong to the true Catholic Church because we have
the virtue of her founder, Jesus Christ, Who said: “I am meek and humble of
heart.” Humility is also the only sure sign that we are from God; and the
overwhelming sign that the Catholic Church is the true Church.