Mid-City Christian: A Lying Messiah?

Written by Sister Gabriela of the Incarnation, O.C.D.

“At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.’” (Lk 10:21)

I have always appreciated this verse! I am not an intellectual. I would have flunked philosophy if the philosophy teacher believed in giving grades. I tried college but dropped out for financial reasons after a year or so and didn’t miss it. I later entered the Discalced Carmelites, so that the only letters after my name express my religious profession and not my intellectual attainments. Like St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, I identify myself as one of the little ones and most certainly not as among the “wise and the intelligent.” And I have always found it very attractive that God shows Himself to the little ones who are usually overlooked and set aside in this world. In Western culture, at least, knowledge is power, and those who lack knowledge also lack power. A God who favors those who are not clever or powerful is a God worth trusting, someone that it is safe to approach, one who will not manipulate you or use you to attain His own ends.

This is the God to whom I promised chastity, poverty, and obedience more than 40 years ago, believing that I was giving myself to someone I could trust. I committed myself totally to live as a contemplative nun in the Roman Catholic Church founded by the Jesus who praised His Father for revealing Himself to little ones, a Church established on a rock against which hell itself was powerless.

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’” (Mt 16:13-19)

A Church that hell itself cannot overcome is a Church that I, someone who is not wise or intelligent, can trust to lead me to union with God.

But apparently, I was mistaken. Recently, the Priestly Society of St. Pius X published a video, “Resisting an Infallible Pope?” explaining that it is necessary to go against the Roman Catholic Church because the rock on which Jesus Christ established His Church has splintered. Papal infallibility was declared a dogma in 1870 during the First Vatican Council with the document Pastor Aeternus. The Society of St. Pius X firmly holds to this belief but explains in the video and the accompanying statement that “we must understand that there are distinctions and subtleties that escape too hasty an analysis.”[1] The webpage gives a minute presentation of these “distinctions and subtleties,” quoting various doctors of the Church in support of this.

The first thought that came to my mind as I considered all this was that this is way over the head of people like myself, who are not trained theologians or philosophers. I remembered St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who found her spiritual nourishment in The Imitation of Christ and especially the Gospels. Would she be able to follow the reasoning laid out by the SSPX? I certainly couldn’t. If Jesus was speaking the truth that God reveals Himself to little ones, and believers must be able to follow the guidance laid out in this statement, then I am not even a little one. I clearly have no faith at all if I can’t follow such a complicated presentation of an essential matter of the Catholic faith.

Of course, I could just trust the priest giving the presentation and accept in blind faith what he is teaching. But the presentation itself insists “that we should not have a naive view of obedience or infallibility.”[2] So if I should not have “a naive view of obedience or infallibility,” should I naively accept what this presentation states, since I don’t have the intelligence or the training to follow when and why I should reject the pope’s teaching?

To believe what the SSPX teaches, that one cannot trust the Successor of Peter in order to know the true faith except by complicated reasoning, means that Jesus lied when He said that God reveals Himself to little ones. Even more importantly, He lied in stating that the gates of hell would not prevail against the rock of Peter.

A final shock to me in reading the SSPX presentation is that Jesus has let the Successors of Peter teach heresy for more than half a century. This means that He has let more than one billion Catholics believe heretical teaching, since apparently only a small group like the SSPX still holds to the true faith. This is a Messiah who doesn’t care about people. He doesn’t care if they go astray and get lost. He doesn’t really protect His own followers. He only reveals Himself to a small group. For the rest, He literally doesn’t give a damn.

My mother once commented that, if it weren’t for the Eucharist, she would be a Buddhist. But why should we believe in the Eucharist if we can’t trust the pope and the Magisterium? Why bother being a Christian at all, if, according to the SSPX, the Founder of Christianity can’t be trusted?

The video and its presentation seek to drive a wedge between the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the beliefs held by the Priestly Society of St. Pius X. Actually, what it does is destroy the foundation of Christianity by showing that Jesus Christ is a liar, since it believes that the gates of hell have prevailed against the rock of Peter.

Fortunately for me, I had already tested this and other matters 60 years ago. As a teenager, I found what I was told by various people so confusing that I decided to clean house. Just as when one cleans out a closet, one takes out everything down to the bare walls and floor, cleans up the closet, and then puts back in only what one wants, I decided to throw out everything and put back only what I chose to believe. I did set one condition: I would throw out everything unless I had to tell a lie to do so. I found that I would have to lie in order to throw out the faith. I would have to deny the reality that the faith had been infused into my soul, and I could not get rid of it except by lying. I found that I do believe what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, and that belief has continued to grow over the past 60 years and it is the foundation of my life.

As an epilogue, I can also say that Jesus did speak the truth: God does reveal Himself to little ones. In a comment to an article in Catholic World Report, I shared this information from our Carmelite saints:

As a Discalced Carmelite, I trust the teaching of my Foundress, St. Teresa of Jesus, who never needed to look for such “distinctions and subtleties.” As she writes, “As often as the Lord commanded something of me in prayer and my confessor told me to do otherwise, the Lord returned and told me to obey my confessor; afterward His Majesty would change the confessor’s mind, and he would agree with the Lord’s command.” (Life 26.5)

July 17 is the Memorial of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne. At their trial, they were accused of being fanatics. One of the nuns, Sister Henriette, asked what that meant, and she was told it was because of their adherence to their religion and religious practices. She said to the other Carmelites, “Let us rejoice that we shall die for our holy religion, our faith and our confidence in the Holy Roman Catholic Church.” I may not end up dying for that adherence and confidence, but I will continue writing to share it.

If Jesus protects one member from going astray by changing her confessor’s mind to correspond to His will, how much more will He guard His vicar from teaching error in order to protect the millions and millions of simple believers around the world.