Heresy, Humor And St. Augustine

"Heaven will be where no heretic will bellow, no schismatic cause dissension, where all will be of one heart, where peace will abound." - St Augustine

I don't know where the quote comes from - I found it in the July issue of Magnificat, in the Saints Meditation for July 22 - but I like it. As long as we live and breathe, we will have to endure the bellowing and dissent, realizing that only in heaven will we experience true peace and union. Nothing has changed in 2,000 years. Life was, is, and will continue to be a struggle - both internally and externally - and the Church will always be under attack, from within and without.

Nowadays the Church seems to be assailed more from within. The sex abuse crisis - which is an attack of a different nature, but just as real and just as damaging, because it could lead to the loss of salvation for many souls - has become the rallying point of today's heresy-mongers. It's almost as if they are saying "The Church has abdicated its standing on issues of morality; therefore, the Church has no right to pronounce on issues of faith." Well, it may sound convincing to people who think the Church is merely a human institution, or to people who don't think at all. But since the Church was divinely-instituted, Her teachings are independent of the sinfulness of the members. The teachings are still true, and in matters of doctrine and dogma, they cannot change. Even in the midst of heinous actions and unimaginable sins - a la the sex abuse crisis - the Church remains the bride of Christ, free of error. Not free of sinners - not while it exists on Earth, not ever. But still the source of salvation.

So until the days of heaven, I see no problem with arguing with the heretics and dissenters of our day - in fact, by virtue of our Confirmation, we have a duty to defend the Church! - singling out their errors, poking fun at their ill-conceived ideas, satirizing their appeals for false charity and rigid intolerance. The best weapon against falsehoods is the Truth - not my Truth, but the Truth. And there are a variety of ways in which the Truth can be presented - and one way to get the bellowing started is to present it with humble humor and a smile. Sometimes - once in a great while, and only due to the grace of the Holy Spirit - fools can be made to realize their foolishness through the tried and tested method of reductio absurdum.

Anyway, I didn't intend to make St Augustine's quote about me, but it looks like I trended in that direction. Perhaps some are offended by my approach to dealing with the dissent in the Church - that is not my intent. I have found that people will take the long way around to be offended no matter how many safeguards are put up to prevent that from happening. Or others may say "how can anything said on this blog change the situation for the better?" I have no illusions about the total lack of influence I hold in this regard, but I believe that unlike the heretics and dissenters and schismatics, I am not making the situation worse. Through their anger, their bile, their imagined oppression and calls for "reform" - those are the sources of disunity. Truth divides, as Jesus said - but lies are what perpetuate separation.

If I bring a smile, or make someone laugh - for now, that's more than enough. There's a lot of stress and strife weighing so many of us down right now, all the bellowing notwithstanding.

So are imaginary Catholyc ice cream flavors gonna bring about conversion? Probably not. That's not the point. Or is writing a 'play-by-play' description of a Mass going to save a soul? I highly doubt it. I write what makes me laugh, and if it makes a bunch of other folks laugh too - that's cool. Like my profile says: "I'm the USO for the Church Militant." Hey, I've got awards to prove it! LOL!

And if what I write makes some heretics bellow...well, they're looking for something to bellow about anyway. But maybe - just maybe - in the course of getting hot and bothered, they just might see some scrap of Truth in some of the straw I've written. And that's cool too.

I think St. Augustine liked battling the heretics of his day. If he were alive today, I wonder if he'd be a blogger. I wonder if he could out-fisk Fr. Z. - speaking of which, check out Father's latest dissection of an intolerable editorial from the National Catholic Distorter. Talk about bellowing! Hoo-wah!

So thanks for reading - and commenting - and I hope by God's grace to be a source of fun and faith. I've got some new ideas brewing (oh, and some are really good! The rest of them just plain suck) for future publication.