In the Gospels, Jesus told a number of small stories in order to teach His disciples some truths, and we call those stories parables. The parables Jesus told were often lessons in how to live in the kingdom of God, both here and in the hereafter, and in many cases he does some contrasts between those who really are of the kingdom and those who are not, even noting that at times it is hard to tell the difference based on externals. One of those parables, found in Matthew 13:24-30, focuses on the metaphor of wheat and tares in regard to this principle. If you recall the story as Jesus told it, a farmer was sewing seed, and unbeknownst to him there were some weeds called tares mixed in among the wheat. First, what is a tare exactly? In common terms, it is called a cockle, but it is also known as a darnel, darnel ryegrass, or poison darnel, and its scientific Latin name is Lolium Temulentum. It is a pest/weed that often grows among wheat fields, and in its juvenile state looks identical to the wheat plants until it matures, and then it yields toxic seeds and also is susceptible to LSD-producing fungus. If too many of them are found in a harvest of wheat, they can taint and damage the wheat and render it unusable. It is these weeds that Jesus is referring to when He talks about them, and much like a coyote resembles a dog but is dangerous, so a tare is likewise.
As the Church has grown over the centuries, many tares have ended up in the harvest field, and some have been so deceptive that they have managed to get into leadership of the Church both on the universal and local level. One such notorious individual was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who perhaps is responsible for some of the nonsense we see in the Catholic Church now. But there are others who serve in strategic positions on local parish councils, in leadership in the Knights of Columbus and other apostolates, and they may even be sitting on the church pew next to you.
Some of this will come as no surprise, as there seems to have been some subversive elements long before de Chardin and others which have been trying to destroy the Church from within, and in his book Infiltration, Dr. Taylor Marshall details the existence of a secret society called the Carbonari which met in secret groups called alta venditas, and one purpose of these groups was that they wanted to subvert both the Catholic Church and traditional monarchy. My guess is, however, as Benjamin Wiker notes in a number of his writings (notably the book Politicizing the Bible he co-authored with Scott Hahn) that the roots of this go back even further - Descartes, and even back to people such as Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham. It was based in the mentality of the Enlightenment in other words, and as such has at its roots a deliberate divorce of faith from reason, and a relegation of religious faith to human reasoning. As Marshall notes though, the ultimate goal of such things was to create a new religion, a selfish, man-centered faith that denied the supernatural and was guided by a series of secret societies, notably the Freemasons (Marshall, Infiltration. Manchester, NH: Crisis Publications, 2019, pp. 9-11). This in turn led to the secularism that was touted by people beginning with Darwin, Freud, Marx, and later adding such "revolutionaries" as Simon de Beauvoir, John Maynard Keynes, Margaret Sanger, Alfred Kinsey, Saul Alinsky, and others who sought not just to merely add an "alternative" to the Judeo-Christian worldview, but to destroy and replace it. The way many proposed to do so was insidious - infiltrate the Church (and even Protestant denominations) with rationalist-based mentalities that radically altered theology and ethics, and thus in Catholic circles you get Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Rahner, and in recent years, James Martin. Among Protestants, it was a string of theologians actually starting with Karl Barth and culminating in radical revolutionaries such as James Cone. The tainting of Catholic teaching is evident in who many notable Catholic theologians and philosophers kept company with - Henri de Lubac's friendship with Teilhard de Chardin, Jacques Maritain's acquaintance with Saul Alinsky, etc. Vatican II was largely hijacked by such people, and the result has been about 50 years of major theological deficit in many sectors of the Church. It started in the seminaries and universities, and has especially infected the Jesuits within the past century. And, as academia and the religious tier of the Church was so infected, it trickled into the pews, and thus the reason why I am writing this now. I had an encounter with one such individual in recent days in our own parish, and I wanted to tell the story of that encounter now.
Greg is the name of a parishioner in our church, and as such he is not just a mere parishioner. For one thing, Greg has several positions of leadership on the parish council, as well as serving as a Eucharistic Minister, usher, and RCIA sponsor in the parish. He is also active in our local Knights of Columbus council, where he is a past Grand Knight. If you met Greg in person, you would think he is a wonderful guy - he is friendly, and honestly, despite what I am about to share I really don't think he is an evil man as he does display some commendable virtues that are sincere. But, in being "friends" with him on social media, a few disturbing things came to light in recent months that need to be addressed, because Greg represents an example of a tare/coyote in the field, and there are many more like him in parishes across the country. This is due in part to a lack of sound discipleship and catechesis on the part of the leadership of the Church - unfortunately many bishops are more like bureaucrats than they are spiritual leaders and shepherds, and they cannot tell the coyotes from the sheepdogs in their flock (nor are they very discerning a lot of times of the difference between a sheep and a goat). The recent sex scandals in the Church are a glaring reminder of that. It is a problem that numerous orthodox Catholic writers on both the Traditionalist and pro-Vatican II side of the spectrum have addressed, ranging from Michael Rose's 2000 book Goodbye Good Men to Dr. Taylor Marshall's 2019 book Infiltration aforementioned and referenced. With that all being said, let us now talk about the specifics of the conversation with Greg.
Due to the recent looting/rioting in response to the unfortunate and tragic murder of George Floyd in Minnesota by a corrupt cop (a whole other issue I will be addressing at another time), there are many people now flouting the "Black Lives Matter" (a terrorist organization which is more White than Black, as it is primarily made up of virtue-signalling White liberals) cause, and many of us who are conservatives are trying to remind the public that the greatest enemy of Black Americans is not Donald Trump, Republicans, or even all White people, but rather White leftists, in many cases the very ones who virtue-signal "racism" about everything. This is evident in the travesty that is abortion, which if you read Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood, and what she actually believed, you quickly see she thought of Blacks as "human weeds" and "inferior" and a big part of her eugenics plan was to abort as many Black babies as possible (she also targeted Catholic immigrants, poor Appalachian people, and others too). I posted the following meme several days ago on my social media page concerning that, and of course it garnered attention, primarily from Greg.
After posting that, one of the first people to jump on and comment was Greg, and what he said revealed a lot about himself. Greg is very politically liberal, to the point that he actually defends Marxists such as Saul Alinsky, and what followed in the discussion was an alarming revelation that he values his politics over his faith. When the sin of abortion, and the fact that the Church affirms life begins at conception and that abortion is the sin of murder were brought up to him, he said this:
"It is easy for the church - a clergy of men - to say that those unborn are the most vulnerable - how about the more than 75,000 families ripped apart by government action at the border with children being molested, traumatized and raped BY GOVERNMENT agents ? How about the denial of adequate food to children and critical medical care to them once born?"
The second part of this discourse he posted is an argument that is virtue-signaled by leftists all the time, and is easily refuted - many of those same leftists, if they were really honest, would support a neo-Malthusian agenda that is evident on the Georgia Guidestones in which the population would be reduced by them to what they feel is an ideal number. Do they care about adequate food for children and critical medical care? Some may, but most don't - for the majority, it is a talking-point only with little substance. He calls the Church "a clergy of men," and even said that he would rather be excommunicated than let a group of "old men in robes" (in reference to the Catholic episcopacy) force him to deny a "woman's right to choose." My question to Greg was a simple one, and he dodged the answer - why, then, ARE you Catholic?? I already know that answer without trying to even indulge the question - Greg is a "cradle" or "cultural" Catholic, meaning he was raised in the Church but never made a conscious choice to embrace and follow the Church's teaching. As a wealthy attorney, Greg is one of those people that used parish membership, his involvement in the Knights of Columbus, etc., as social-climbing skills to advance his own status. Like I said, it doesn't mean he is an evil man - as a matter of fact, in other areas he has displayed some admirable virtue - but it does mean that he is Catholic for the wrong reasons. When you come into the Church, by participating in its sacramental life you affirm that you believe what she teaches, even if you don't quite understand it. When a Catholic man joins the Knights of Columbus, he also confesses an oath and a promise that he will uphold and defend the Church and her teaching even under opposition; that is actually part of the First Degree ceremony as a matter of fact. For Greg to say what he said indicates that he is dishonest when it comes to his faith - he is part of the Church for the wrong reasons, and that can be a dangerous game for his soul to play. Sometimes, it takes either converts or those who are "cradle" Catholics that have a true experience with Christ to educate other Catholics as to what their faith really entails, as many do fall short. That is not judgmentalism either, but rather a fact of life and a reality of authentic faith. Greg has yet, unfortunately, to learn that.
This encounter with Greg from the parish led me to seek counsel from trusted sources I know, and there are many individuals that gave me some valuable guidance - Dr. Desmond Birch, Charles Coulombe, and even written sources such as Scott Hahn, Regis Martin, Taylor Marshall, and others. What they told me was the same thing essentially - Greg's flippant dismissal of the Magisterium, in particular the Episcopate of the Church, as merely a group of "old men in robes" and a "clergy of men," invokes a challenge he needs to face. The "old men in robes" he so flippantly dismisses in favor of his own sentiments also entails the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church, people such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others, and many of them explicitly condemned abortion as murder and a mortal sin. Also, those "old men in robes" are the successors to the Apostles, and have been ordained with their authority by Jesus Himself, who established the Church and its leadership, so in questioning that Greg is calling Christ a liar and not taking seriously Christ's authority. That is some pretty serious stuff when you really look at it. Now, that being said, let me address some of the bishops we see today who act more like bureaucrats or activists than they do the successors to the Apostles - those bishops have valid office, and as such they should be respected as far as the office goes. But, when they say or do something that is contrary to the Magisterial teaching of the Church, they too need to be called out on it, as they are in defiance of the very Lord and Savior who ordained their office. And, that even includes the Pope where he is wrong. So, as a side note, it isn't about the "clergy of men," as Greg so flippantly said, but rather about something much greater - Apostolic authority, coming from Christ Himself, embodied in the Deposit of Faith. The problem with Greg and so many others is that they are ignorant when it comes to the Deposit of Faith. I have even seen it with my 6th-graders I teach as a catechist - one girl even asked the question "what is a Gospel?", which unfortunately she didn't know, and many kids that age now cannot even recite the Lord's Prayer or the Ave Maria from memory - these things are basic catechesis that they should have learned at least 3 years before they come into my 6th-grade class! So, it is not only a social crisis, as well as a faith crisis, but is at its root a catechetical crisis - ignorance is rampant, and where ignorance is rampant heresy and apostasy flourish. The first-grader who is not adequately catechized will become the Greg of tomorrow - leftist, obstinate, and more self-involved as well as ignorant. They become Catholics in name only, with their church membership being nothing more than a means unto their end and no serious commitment to follow Christ and His teachings. This is tragic, and is a scandal of high proportions. Until it is effectively addressed, the Catholic Church will suffer, but it also can be seen in Protestant denominations too now, even those who historically have been more conservative and Evangelical.
I wrote all of this today to address some serious problems. We all encounter them on social media almost on a daily basis, and it is daunting at times. If one dwells too much on it, the whole thing can be depressing as well. But, hope is there - it starts with you, with me, and every individual Catholic. We make the change in our own homes, we commit to spiritual growth and educating ourselves on what our faith means to us, and we even challenge ourselves as to why we are Catholic and Christian in the first place. Mostly though, we need to let the Holy Spirit impart supernatural grace to us to elevate, perfect, and heal us so that we may be the type of person God called us to be. And, the greater responsibility rests with the leadership of the Church as well - they need to set the example. Thank you, and God bless until next time.
