" PAST " SERVING WITH THE ANGELS CATHOLIC AGAIN

 

                                                            Martin Luther Death Mask

Serving with the Angels


CATHOLIC  AGAIN!      Acolyte was recently reflecting on his Family Tree. On the Paternal side Irish Catholic.

On the Maternal side German ( Lutheran)and English (Protestant Church of England...sort of). My Mother’s conversion to Catholicism brought back to the Faith branches of the Family Tree which had strayed for over 450 years.

“The evil that men do lives after them….”Shakespeare has Mark Antony say, it is so very true! In the cases of Martin Luther – the drunken, blasphemous, sacrilegious and bitterly anti-Semitic beginner of Protestantism and King Henry VIII the hypocritical, sex-obsessed plunderer and persecutor of the Church, it is clear that at some stage in the late 1500’s they both set in motion forces that compelled or induced my German and English ancestors to abandon the Faith into which they were born and which had sustained their , and my, earlier ancestors for at least 1,000 years since their conversion from paganism.

The outrageous nature of such an act comes sharply into focus when we consider Our Lord’s description of our relationship in the Church to Him: “I am the Vine; you are the branches…..”These two sinning, arrogant, lustful men literally tore the branches away from the Vine.”And not just once, but on and on for generation after generation.

KING HENRY VIII

That was not the limit of this atrocity. Like every person in serious error, these successive generations sought to justify their false position by greater and greater error. So we see a multiplying of the number of Protestant sects and at a constantly increasing rate-Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Unitarians, Mormons, Latter Day (!!) Saints and on and on , at such a rate that in the U.S.A. alone the number of Protestant sects has gone from 20,000 to 40,000 in about 60 years. And Henry’s Church of England in its decrepitation, has long since gone beyond parody.

Scientists have very recently reported the discovery that Cancer cells are very much more sophisticated than they had believed. Not only do they multiply at an alarming rate, but they actively disable the defences of healthy cells adjoining them. The cancerous growth of Protestantism has sought to invade the Church since before Vatican II through the back door with false ecumenism. “Niceness” has become prized by some in place of Truth, “Shared Values” in place of Principles and Sacred Tradition which come to us from the Apostles they would put aside, to accommodate the inclinations of our “separated brethren”.

Thank God for our truly Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, who gently but firmly cuts through humbug and falsity and vigorously pursues authentic ecumenism which leads those in error back to unity in the Catholic Church.

The errant behavior of Luther and Henry VIII are for God Himself to judge. The sad results for hundreds of millions since their time are difficult to address and have required a long term view. The broken branches have withered where they fell and fertilized myriad coarse weeds. We need to pray for the Holy Father’s success to increase more and more, adding luster to his well earned title of the Pope of Christian Unity.

Catholic Again indeed! Thanks be to God.

Acolyte
Copyright This article first appeared in the May,2010 issue of FOUNDATION.