Anyone shocked by Bishop Marian Edgar Badet did not pay attention to Tuesday's partisan lecture. Christianity has been in a sad state for many years.
Ostensibly, “interfaith service” was meant to ask God to guide the new government. For her part, Badet has chastised President Trump for Here and Now, accusing him of not sharing traditional liberal beliefs in open borders and “trans kids.”
The church I knew, for all its flaws, had real values. Today, it is a cycle of compromise and moral collapse.
Take me to the Catholic church where I was raised.
Like a true Irishman, I served my time as an altar boy, sweated in my cassock during weddings, whispered Emmens at funerals, and nervously stumbled over odd readings at Mass. .
I served in Ireland during the transition from Irish Pound to Euro. This meant that on top of my altar boy duties, I had to work on exchange rates and figure out if I was being fairly compensated. This was a difficult task for a boy who hated mathematics.
The ritual was ingrained in me. Years later, I see a church. Broken, meaningless, almost unrecognizable. The Catholic Church, once proud of its rich history and claiming God's truth, appears to have sold its soul for scraps.
Or maybe even to Satan himself.
devil in the details
At the heart of this betrayal lies the seismic shift unleashed in the early to mid-60s by the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II, convened by Pope John XV and concluded by Pope Paul VI, “opened the windows” of the Church to the modern world. Then came the end of the Latin Mass, when centuries of solemn unified worship were abandoned in favor of the vernacular.
the council accepted AggiorNamentoor “renewal,” a move that has rattled church traditionalists none more so than Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.
For him, this wasn't a renewal. This was a complete surrender. He and like-minded believers saw this as the beginning of a human-centered agenda, shifting the church's focus from heaven to earth and reducing its mission to a shallow type of activity.
The former Vatican insider has become a fierce critic, accusing Viganò of turning the church into a pawn of globalist forces and abandoning the doctrine of God in favor of political expediency. He believes the church is infiltrating what he calls a “deep state” of ideologues bent on destroying the sacred foundation.
His critique is ferocious, targeting not only Vatican II but also the current papacy of Pope Francis, which he describes as the embodiment of this counterfeit church. For Viganò, the church took the focus away from God and redirected its devotion to modernism, relativism, and the misguided pursuit of worldly recognition.
Central to Viganò's argument is the belief that Vatican II's reforms were a gateway to moral and theological collapse. By abandoning the Latin Mass, the Church severed, in his view, an important link with its past.
The universal language of worship, time that transcended culture, was replaced by a fragmented and often disordered liturgy. What was once a mystical encounter with the creator has been reduced to a pedestrian movement of community gathering.
Sure, community gatherings have their place, but that's what community centers are for. The church is meant to be much bigger. It is a sacred space where the mysterious touches fatally, where the eternal meets the temporal. Remove it and all you are left with is an assembly hall with fancy windows and a man in a dress.
woke up francis
Under Pope Francis, Viganò's criticism became sharper. He accuses Argentina of not only following a sacrosanct agenda, but actively promoting it.
Whether it's vague statements about morality, relentless promotion of environmental and social justice causes, or soft stances on traditional teachings, Viganò essentially underwent a cultural identity exchange. see the church
Speaking of which, the now infamous “Who am I to judge?” comment on LGBTQ issues symbolizes the church's rejection of God's law. Viganò sees debates about the blessing of same-sex unions, expanding the role of women, and other progressive measures not as signs of compassion or inclusion, but as evidence that the church betrays its original mission.
Viganò's criticism extends beyond liturgy and doctrine to the implosion of the church. He is one of the most outspoken voices exposing the complicity of church leaders in the financial corruption and sexual abuse crisis within the Vatican.
To him (and anyone with a functioning brain) these scandals are not isolated incidents. Rather, they are obvious symptoms of a deeper illness. Essentially, we have a church that moralizes to the masses while acting in ways that completely betray fundamental Catholic principles.
The Hunger Games, Catholic version
This division has turned the church into a battleground, with each side accusing it of betrayal.
Traditionalists demand a return to the old ways: Latin masses, authentic doctrine, and a sacred liturgy in which believers are oriented toward the transcendent.
Progressives, on the other hand, cry out for reform and claim that the church must evolve or die. They dress their agenda in the language of compassion and progress. But it is nothing more than a blatant attempt to remake the church in their own image, which is worldly, selfish, and sometimes completely perverse.
Although both sides claim to defend the true essence of Catholicism, their visions are so irreconcilable that the church currently represents a house divided.
As someone who grew up immersed in Catholic ritual, I can't help but feel a mixture of anger and deep sadness. The church I knew, for all its flaws, had real values. Today, it is a cycle of compromise and moral collapse.
The desperate drive to modernize is indistinguishable from other pandering secular institutions. Seeking cultural recognition, the church has abandoned the very thing that made it powerful: its otherworldliness.
A church desperately trying to please the world becomes irrelevant to it. A house divided always falls. By abandoning heaven, the church found hell.
