You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.
MARCUS AURELIUS
This edition of Unpopular Opinions can be subtitled "Catholic Edition" as it pertains to Catholic subjects. It would probably be better to not have an opinion on these things since your opinions count for nothing in the Church of Rome. Yet, I think writing them and publishing them will find people that agree with me on these things.
1. I do not believe in the limbo of the infants.
This puts me in conflict with Augustine and Aquinas but not the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church which says nothing definitive either way on the matter. I am free to believe or not believe in the limbo of the infants. Here's why I do not believe in limbo.
Virtually no Catholic theologian believes that unbaptized infants who die in infancy go to Hell. Why? The reason is obvious. It strikes us as cruel that God would let this happen. Now, if we can dismiss Hell as their final destination on these grounds, why can't we dismiss Limbo as well? There is no logic that necessitates Limbo except the belief in the requirement of baptism for salvation. Yet, we have plenty of Old Testament saints who received no baptism. You can see where I am going here.
For me, it isn't a question of logic. It is a question of math. Heaven is expected to be populated by a vast number of souls according to the Bible. Yet, where are these souls going to come from since we must also admit that only the few are saved? Most people including most Catholics are going to Hell. This leaves us with the population of Limbo if it exists.
If Limbo exists, the number of souls there outnumber the population of souls in both Heaven and Hell combined. Think about it. Consider all the children who die by miscarriage, abortion, abortifacients like the pill and IUD, and post-birth complications and diseases. We are talking about billions since Adam and Eve. Yet, if they are in Heaven, then the souls there truly are uncountable.
I suspect that God leaves the fate of dead infants a mystery because of the moral hazard it would create if we knew their final destiny. Abortion would become an act of love instead of murder to a lot of desperate women. It is better that it remain a mystery for the end of time. What God has hidden, He has hidden for good reasons.
On a sidenote, I remember watching an episode of Mother Angelica where she said that she did not believe in Limbo. She believed that all infants went to Heaven. I do not know if this was always her opinion. I could also be misremembering that episode. You can leave a correction for me in the combox except I do not have a combox.
2. I do not believe that the canonization of saints is infallible.
This is another one of those things that puts me in conflict with Aquinas. Yet, one only has to look at recent canonizations to conclude that there is error in the process. Josemaria Escriva was a cult leader who bragged about his canonization before he died. And his devoted cult made it happen for him. This would be made easier by the reduced requirements for miracles and the elimination of the Devil's Advocate.
Pope Francis canonized John Paul II only to throw him under the bus later for sex abuse scandals. JP2 allowed sacrilege when he permitted a Buddhist idol to be placed above the tabernacle. This is the same man who could not tolerate Archbishop Lefebvre for his orthodoxy. But he could tolerate Marcial Maciel, the perverted founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Money and obedience to Vatican II have a strange way of buying papal favor.
When it comes to Paul VI, John XXIII, and Oscar Romero, their heroic virtues are nothing more than being loved by the modernist Marxist sodomite scumbags running things in the Vatican. Francis canonized these guys because it was on the wish list. The canonization of JP2 was just a way to appease the semi-modernist critics who would object to the canonization of these other modernists.
Canonization of saints today is more political than spiritual. This is why the canonization of more conservative candidates like Fulton Sheen have been stymied. The process is utterly corrupt now and hasn't been helped one bit by the lowered standards of canonization.
This will probably trouble some of the faithful, but it shouldn't. It says nowhere in the Magisterium that the canonization of saints is infallible. Infallibility only applies to those things taught since the apostles. The canonization of a particular saint is not one of those things. As for Aquinas, this man did not believe in the Immaculate Conception. He is not infallible.
Finally, any candidate who wouldn't survive a thorough examination by a Devil's Advocate is suspect in my book. This inability to survive that examination is why they eliminated the Devil's Advocate from the process.
3. I believe the Douay-Rheims is the superior English translation of the Holy Bible.
There are other good translations and other dreadful translations. The original is still the best. There is no translation without interpretation, so it makes no sense for Catholics to use Protestant translations. Use the Catholic translation. Use the Douay-Rheims.
4. I only subscribe to officially approved Marian apparitions.
I think Medjugorje is a fraud. I can't comment on things like Garabandal except to say it lacks official approval. I don't waste my time with it. Is it possible that some Marian apparitions are legitimate but unapproved? I think so. But I'm not going to go there. At some point, the Church has to provide for us. This is one of those times.
5. I think the charismatic renewal in the Roman Catholic Church is fake.
A lot of Protestant garbage backwashes into the Catholic Church, and I think this charismatic renewal stuff is one of those things. I think all of it is fake. In the early days of the Church, these manifestations of the Holy Spirit gave evidence to this new thing in the world that we know now as the Roman Catholic Church. By the end of the first century and Saint John's Apocalypse, these charismatic gifts vanished. Some people today do tongue tricks that are in no discernible language. I am calling bravo sierra on this.
6. Archbishop Lefebvre should have submitted to Rome and not consecrated those bishops of the SSPX.
Lefebvre was a good man and probably a saint. JP2 and the rest of the semi-modernists were not good men, and they were trying to run out the clock on Lefebvre. Lefebvre lost his patience with these games and went forward with the illicit consecrations. That was a mistake. That's all I can say on that.
The right response IMHO was to exercise patience and leave it up to God. I don't think this is hard because this is what I have to do every day as a Roman Catholic living with the Vatican II dumpster fire. The consequence of Lefebvre's actions was not to preserve his movement but to splinter it. The one good thing that came out of it was the FSSP. As for the SSPX, they have been doing things their way for so long that I doubt they will ever return to submission even if they got everything they demand. Organizations have a tendency to move from advocacy to self-preservation, and I don't think the SSPX is immune to this tendency. Lefebvre was the first one to succumb to this tendency.
7. The TLM will not save the Church.
It is my desire to see the Traditional Latin Mass return to Roman Catholic parishes. I do not think it will save the Church from its present crisis. This is because this crisis began when we still had the TLM. The Novus Ordo is the symptom and not the cause of the disease which is modernism. Bringing back the TLM without addressing this disease amounts to putting a band-aid on cancer.
8. You shouldn't have children you can't afford.
Catholics in general and Trad Catholics in particular are known for having large families. This begs the obvious question. How do they afford all of those children?
I know some families are agrarian where children are a resource on the farm. I am totally in favor of this. But how do they afford the birth and subsequent healthcare bills? I know others who serve in the military or have government jobs with Cadillac health benefits. But for the vast majority of people, one child is a financial hardship. Two is devastation. Even millionaire Catholics struggle with these expenses. As for a problem pregnancy or birth, that will bankrupt you.
Once upon a time, healthcare was cheap. Then, the government got involved and ruined it. Once upon a time, the Catholic Church owned and ran hospitals as a charity. They helped Catholic families with the birth of their children. That is over with now. The Church is a joke on these things. They tell you to have children, but don't lift a finger to help you with the burden. Just make sure to keep paying for the cost of the recreational sex of all those dirty sodomite priests and bishops.
So, what about the rest of faithful Catholics? Here is John Zmirak on the issue:
There were working-class people who accepted the discipline of remaining open to life, or the ascetical practice of Natural Family Planning – and there were “white trash” Catholics who used the Church’s teaching as a pretext for going on public assistance. (A shocking number of self-consciously orthodox Catholics whom I have encountered, most of them graduates of small, fervently Catholic colleges, take advantage of food stamps and Medicaid, while patting themselves on the back for being “counter-cultural” at their neighbors’ expense.)
The Shame of the Catholic Subculture
If you are supporting your large family on public assistance, you are one of those white trash Catholics that John Zmirak is talking about here. I think this is shameful and disgraceful. That leaves Natural Family Planning.
Catholics are forbidden to use artificial contraception or get an abortion. Instead, the Church advocates Natural Family Planning which is open to life. NFP is to be used when there is sufficient reason for it. Not being able to afford to have children is one of those reasons. This is everyone who isn't on the dole or isn't a lottery winner.
Trads condemn NFP as contraception. These people are idiots. Would they condemn it if they were cut off from receiving welfare? And that, Gentle Reader, is the dirty secret of traditional Catholicism. They have children they can't afford and make you pay for them with your tax dollars while condemning you for not having children. Sickening, isn't it?
9. Catholic schools are no better than public schools.
It is no secret that the public schools are in bad shape. They don't educate anymore. They indoctrinate in Marxism and perversion. And you pay for these schools whether you like them or not.
A Catholic school seems like a better choice than the public school, but it isn't. Nuns don't teach school anymore. Most nuns are lesbians with butch haircuts now. Do you want them teaching your kids? This leaves laypeople including many who are not even Catholic. They expect to be paid for teaching which drives up the cost of that Catholic school. Did I mention some of them are gay and openly flout Catholic teaching? The fact is that Catholic education is as woke as the public school system.
The only option for Catholic parents is homeschooling. Protestants are ahead of the curve on this. Aside from materials, homeschooling is free and superior. Catholic schools are dead now.
10. I will always choose my Novus Ordo parish over an SSPX chapel.
I have no antipathy towards the SSPX. As for their status in the Church, it is irregular. That's all I can say on it, and that is all that I need to say. My Novus Ordo parish is legitimate. I think the liturgy is terrible, but it is the Roman Catholic Church. I don't have to think about it or debate it, so I won't.
I see it like a man with a bad wife. She may be terrible, but he is in it until death parts them. That's my attitude with the Church. I am in it forever. The Church has problems with the SSPX. Why complicate my life with it?
If my parish offered the TLM, I would attend it. If the FSSP was in my town, I would attend there. I can't say the same for the SSPX. Maybe I will someday when things change. Until then, I attend the Novus Ordo and cringe. I pray that God will end it.
That's it for Catholic Unpopular Opinions. These things are like lit matches dropped in gasoline. I have more unpopular opinions like these, but I will move on to more mundane fair in the fifth edition. And, if you disagree with anything I have written here, that's your problem. I already have my problems to live with.
