Saying it Like it Is

I listened to a Catholic man answer a question recently and it was painful to see him squirm. He clearly believed what the Church taught, but he had been so filled with compromised teaching for most of his life that he was unable to give a clear answer. This is the end result of decades of clergymen avoiding speaking the truth.

I love my fellow priests, but many of them (even still today) are afraid to speak the truth for fear of offending someone. Others are willing to say what is right, but are crippled by Bishops who will "discipline" them if they take a stand for the faith. With all the soft theology that people are being force-fed in many Catholic parishes these days, it is always good to have a reminder that there once was a day and age when Catholics spoke clearly and directly.

Yesterday was the feast of St. Bernardine of Siena. He lived in the fifteenth century; that was back when people knew what it meant to die for the truth. I came across this quote from him late last night, but felt it really needed to be read, so here it is today:

No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God.… Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy.… They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy…. Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others. He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin (Prediche volgari s. 39).

Hmmmm . . . I wonder what he really thought. He might be beating around the bush!