Old Roman Catholic Church, Hudson Florida
Here’s the practical list of Fr. Hardon, a list of seven things you can do to perform penance and please God. The first three things are for penance and the following four are reparation:
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When I was a in the mainstream Catholic Church this was a common occurrence in several of my parishes.
However the Church actually teaches “the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted”.
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“Venerating the remains of saints is seen by many as a bizarre throwback, impossible to justify to modern people. For while the tradition spans millennia, times and beliefs have shifted. In a world where science, we’re told, has explained everything, bodies hold neither mystery nor importance. They are modified and commodified, changeable and interchangeable, something to be transcended and replaced.”
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“Proofs, like pregnancy, are binary; a mathematical proposition is either proven (in which case it becomes a theorem) or not (in which case it remains a conjecture until it is proven). There is nothing in between. A theorem cannot be kind of proven or almost proven. These are the same as unproven.
In contrast, there is no such binary evaluation of scientific theories. Scientific theories are neither absolutely false nor absolutely true. They are always somewhere in between. Some theories are better, more credible, and more accepted than others.”
“Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science. Mathematics and logic are both closed, self-contained systems of propositions, whereas science is empirical and deals with nature as it exists. The primary criterion and standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence, not proof.” The source of these quotes by Satoshi Kanazawa are here.
One of the strengths of normative Christianity is its reliance on LOGIC. (Classical logic; not how some folks use the term today.) So in classical logic you have premises and then discussion/argument and then conclusion. These can be PROVEN in a binary fashion. Right or wrong.
If you accept the base premises of Christianity then the rest of the De Fide theology follows without error and provably so.
This is one key reason why there is such friction between “Traditionals” and “Liberals”. Theological liberals believe God’s perfect Will can change depending on the era or situation. It doesn’t. For if it did God would not be outside of time and time is His creature as much as matter is.
One could write many volumes on this subject. For today consider two things:
1) How science by its own definition and premises is not concerned with proving Truth yet we treat it as a new religion; and
2) Liberal Christianity is self-refuting. One is either normatively Christian (that which Christian almost universally believed for 1,500 years) or not really Christian in any meaningful sense at all.
Just because little 5 yr old Johnny tells people he’s an astronaut does not make him so. Likewise you can place “Catholic” or “Christian” on any sign or church you want to. On what authority or basis is this so? Whatever the answer in your case, it’s important to reflect upon it and be able to answer that.
God’s view is the only one that counts. If it turns out that reality is very different than our science describes will that really be a surprise?
Recently we had scientists questioning whether we actually exist or where we are in the universe in ways that are profoundly heretical to scientific orthodoxy of today. So with these things we need a bit of humility, and curiosity trusting that in the end God has it in hand and probably more than a few surprises in store for us.
Consider Our Lady of Fatima: the miracle of the sun. What happened? Something did. Even the unbelievers have a problem with this one. It was witnessed by tens of thousands, perhaps MOSTLY unbelievers.
Being Left inclined does not make a person evil; in many cases it is precisely because they would like a better world and want increased “good”. But what “good”/Good do they seek? What is the authority of the “good”? Can we really reason that Marx and Alinsky are better examples of “good” than Jesus Christ? Really?
The Good of the Will of God is often different than the “good” that is defined by most of the world.
There are soft-core Lefties who just want a decent world for everyone (good motive, bad means) and you have hard-core Lefties who actually understand what they believe and its consequences.
So what to look at when pondering “foundational Good”?
Current Rome?: No. Our political leaders? No.
My suggestion is that we return to classic reason. Aristotle being perhaps the most accessible religiously neutral figure that pursued Good.
From there we may rediscover the best of Christianity which under-gird the whole civilization. You may no more eradicate it from the West with a good outcome than you can remove the spine from a healthy person. How do you discover the best of Christianity as it is applied and lived in the world? Through the lives and writings of the Saints.