National Post: Are there two "Catholic Churches"?

A Faithful Catholic Priest Responds

Fr. Tim Moyle from Mattawa in the Diocese of Pembroke read this brain dead article by Philip Mathias in National Post online. It got his goat, and I'm glad to link to what he had to say about it.

What Fr. Tim had to say is more significant than what Mr. Mathias said, so I am copying Fr. Tim's words for you. You can probably just skip the NP post and just take this to the bank:

Philip Mathias of The National Post blog writes today that there are two Catholic Churches; essentially the church of believers and the hierarchical structure of the Church.

The allure of this duplicitous argument is that it opens the possibility in the minds of believers that they can attack one while remaining faithful to the other. Alas he undermines his own argument by proceeding to venture into the realm of defined teaching of the Church (Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, infallibility of the Holy Father in matters of faith and morals) and denouncing them as simple constructs of the hierarchy of the church. In doing so, he breaches his own arbitrary division of the church into two forms by questioning what the church actually believes and equating it with the malfeasance of Bishops who improperly dealt with the spate of sex abuse scandals that have been exposed in the past 20+ years.

Whereas it is possible to offer criticism of the hierarchy and remain united with the Church (at least I hope so as I and others have been pounding away at Bishops for their mishandling of the sex abuse scandal, as well as forgoing their obligation to preach and teach the truths of our faith using the various secular medias of the day), it is quite another thing to pick and choose dogmas that the Church holds. Mathias in his argument is revealed to be among those who practice the latter in lieu of the former.

Now it will be interesting to see if clerics enter into the comments threads that will accompany this story to see if they will take up the challenge of using this opportunity to promote and teach the Catholic faith.

Remember that it is in the nature of heresy to take a truth and then distort it. Clearly this is what Mathias has done. Bishops, priests and deacons: are you willing to rise to the challenge of countering this heretical position?

Fr Tim says this about his blog:

Reflections from the pastoral ministry of an Evangelical Catholic Priest on the intersection points of faith and society. Please be free to comment to any posting as I am intending this blog to stimulate a conversation. Thank you.

Here is the link to Fr. Tim's blog:

Where the Rubber Hits the Road: National Post: Are there two "Catholic Churches"?

God Bless You Father Tim. My Catholic Church has faithful priests and parishioners in it, who can question error when they find it, but are faithful to the Magisterium of the Church.