By Scott Pauline
There is no need to inform the reader of the awful tragedy and sorrowful offense that stands before us in this current time of our Church—the terrible and despicable crimes committed against children, adolescents, and young persons as a result of an infusion of enemies into our Divine Community beginning many decades ago. We are in pain, hurt, anguish, anger, and helplessness. To be sure, in part, it seems all that we can do for now is abandon ourselves and the tainted, wounded Church into God’s hands and pray that some sense of justice and healing can come to the poor and scarred victims, their loved ones, and all those who weep with and for them, saying, “Why?!”
Sadly, too, one the great tragedies that emanates from the horror of scandal is not merely the possible loss of salvation (or derivative ages in purgatory) of those giving scandal but also loss of faith in the scandalized. Indeed, scandal is one of the most potent and powerful weapons at the disposal of the apocalyptic dragon: make the legitimate shepherds look bad, or actually bad; that is, gravely disfigure and distort the image of authentic and loving mediated fatherhood in the clergy of the Church so as to cause a rejection of their authority.
This, in fact, forms the historical basis out of which a parallel epic challenge to the Church exists today. More specifically, for about the same time that this most diabolical activity of scandal in modern times has been taking place, the Church has had to face a world that largely regards her as dead, a world of the irrational and godless atheism, nihilism and relativism. It is a dark time indeed. And the root of this historical trajectory into the effectively minor apostasy that we now dwell in, once again, goes back to, in any serious inquiry, scandal.
Frankly, the analysis is not difficult. Firstly, in secularism, man is estranged from God, and so has not peace with Him. Yet, man has not peace with God to the degree that he does not accept the Gospel. But, how does man lose the Gospel? Alas, the answer comes forth per the mystical words of the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Our Lord, according to the loving witness of his beloved disciple, Saint John:
John 17:
And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me; That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. ...that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me,.
Behold, this mystical text reveals a central mystery of the Eucharist, of communion, of unity: the efficacy of the Gospel in the world is intrinsically bound up with Christian unity. That is, to the degree that Christian unity is ruptured, the world will have difficulty believing on the Son; and to the degree that the world has difficulty believing on the Son, humanity's peace with God will be ruptured; and to the degree that humanity’s peace with God is ruptured, secularism and spiritual darkness engulf the world.
And yet, now, we ask once again, what holds back the serious division of Christians? Alas, none other than the Apostolic College. The binding element that withholds the flood gates of Christian confounding of the message of Christ is the college of bishops, the legitimate successors of the Apostles, those men who succeed the perennial and original witnesses to the life and teachings of Our Divine and Loving Savior. For herein is Christian stability, the guidance of the Spirit into all truth, and the sure mode of interpretation of Scripture and Sacred Tradition, which those same Bishops preserve by the self-same Divine Spirit. Hence, the devil must tear through this great wall of solid veracity to let loose the flurry of locusts that will go out and torture innocent non-Catholic souls with countless and fiery competing doctrines and factions, somehow reminiscent of the fifth trumpet of Apocalypse (Apoc 9, beginning sections), which has been seen by some Catholic scholars as Protestantism. (The Book of Destiny, Fr Kramer, Tan Books, Commentary on Apocalypse 9). And from there, all else follows.
Hence, the great moral laxity and scandal of Catholic leadership in the late Middle Ages paved the way for the wholesale rejection of such college’s authority and burst forth into the incomprehensible Christian disunity that became the unfathomable catastrophe that was Protestantism. Subsequently, the aftermath of this avalanche corroborates our previous discussion above: the prima causa of the world’s descent away from Christendom and toward the modern age of near total godlessness in the former Christian lands has been, clearly, disillusionment with Christian division. For, when a message is unbelievably confused, as it was in Protestantism—myriads of competing factions in mass, mutually-conflicting interpretations, hating and betraying one another’s theologies and universally excommunicating one another to perdition—what can we say except that the message will be rejected, or at least the Messenger.
The process continues as this excerpt from a previous article explains [Armageddon and the Kings from the East]:
Moving on, if it was true that there were practically as many forms of Protestantism as there were Protestants, it is equally safe to say that there were practically as many forms of supernaturally dead infidelity as there were supernaturally dead infidels (deists and rationalists) [Tan Books, Church History]. Hence, merely natural religion according to reason, confounded ad infinitum like Protestantism, gave rise to a rejection of even religion itself, and a descent into merely worldly reason, an attempt to find the meaning and solution to human problems purely with reason apart from religious considerations. This eventually paved the way for ideologies and systems of thought that, especially in politics, utterly betrayed even reason and became dark, particularly the diabolical left and right.
More specifically, communism, based on atheism, denied God’s very existence itself, contrary to Vatican I that asserted that reason testifies to God’s existence, and, in addition, proposed a hyper-corporal-works-of-mercy solution to poverty, except one that forcefully and viciously used the state as the instrument of “mercy,” like Judas, who complains that the expensive jar could have been sold for much and given to the poor, yet himself ultimately planning to betray all that is of God, yes, the God-man, in exchange for mere money.
Secondly, Fascism and Nazism seemed to swing to the contrasting scene of the woman with the alabaster jar, the Pharisaical episode, where instead of Judas, a Pharisee complains—judges persons: what kind of persons they are, who they are, and that they are sinners, unworthy of mercy. This implies bigotry, superiority complexes, and judgmentalism. … Nazism was very much a twisted, secular perversion of Pharisaicalism.
Certainly, too, out of these depraved systems of secularism of the early twentieth century, which a pope at the time was lamenting and warning against as a rising threat, two world wars ascended, which were minimally minor Armageddons: in the introductory portion of the film The 13th Day, the narrator, taking on the voice of a young Sister Lucia (eldest Fatima visionary), says mystically of World War I, “the innocence of the world was spent.” [i]
Aimless History?
In light of this discourse, we can remind ourselves that liberals tend to believe that history is aimless and without form or structure, for whatever reasons, but this religious process above, this fall from grace in human history as it were, most certainly shines with psychological theology on a macro-scale. No doubt, it shews forth that, at least here, history is not random but follows a spiritual trajectory that is logical, rational, and sensible. Yes, this is true if only because even though evil is chaotic like the roaring sea—with its insatiable passions and arrogant and brute ambitions--nevertheless, when the devil acts, he cannot be creative, only plagiarizing, as in taking what God has already made good and twisting it, negating it, or mutating it into a false, deceptive caricature of what the thing really is, or is supposed to be. Toward this end, we will see momentarily that if there is an order or structure to some dimension of God’s truth, grace, or other good essence, then the devil, if seeking to derail it, may have to work with that model in some sense in order to attain his goals, hence showing, again, that evil may be forced to move in history with a certain structure at times to attain the destruction of such most efficaciously.
Now, what do we mean, specifically in this case, by structure or model? Let us probe it. To reiterate the theology of the movement of this history we have considered thus far, we have:
So the process is coming together: we have Magisterium and Tradition -> Scripture -> Reason -> Apostasy, or godlessness. Yes! This is a structure! How? Well, the dragon is descending “sources of Catholic truth” in order of reliability. This can be seen briefly by starting at the top: the Magisterium is the supremely reliable source of truth on earth, since it compiles and interprets the Scripture and Tradition into doctrine. Admittedly, it is the servant of these and not the master, and yet, as the slave, ends up working out the doctrine that is served to the faithful at table. With further consideration, the Sacred Tradition, rejected midway along with the Magisterium as a whole, is seated in degree of reliability just beneath the Sacred College and above Scripture, since the Tradition is far more explicit about truth than Scripture, which, without that same Tradition, is highly susceptible to misunderstanding. Finally, it is clear that Reason lies below Scripture [Scripture at least has a plethora of implied Divine Revelation, whereas Reason has merely natural truth, as in, mainly, monotheism and some essence of natural moral law].
This is indeed pushing us in the right direction. Now, I would like to ask the reader to pause and, if it were possible, “back up” in history from our beginning to see if a further digression might be possible, in order that we might quite possibly frustrate the liberal bias to a greater extent. Here, I would say that if we confine ourselves to the big picture, and noting of course the age immediately prior to the Protestant Rebellion is the Middle Ages, we can argue that the preceding great assault was the Great Schism between East and West. We are able to argue this by considering, firstly, that as for the Middle Ages, Albigensianism or Catharism were minor and non-persisting compared to what was the clear continuing trajectory of the opposition to the Church, which was, again, the growing laxity in the Catholic hierarchy, a laxity that was even beginning to spawn proto-forms of Protestantism (Wycliff, Hussites, Waldenses).
One would interject, what about Islam, as we have the mega development of the Crusades? Here, we must clarify that we wish to confine ourselves to events that originate the disturbance to the Church, so that the Crusades do not count since Islam came into being 400 plus years before (and, moreover, in a moment, we will deal with Islam and its precursor heresies against the Trinity and Incarnation, but let us not get ahead of ourselves.) Hence, we can make the case that the Great Schism between East and West is the preceding epic doctrinal affront to the Church to the Protestant Rebellion.
The liberal will start to get agitated, since it only further supports our suspicions: if it is true that Protestantism was a whole-scale rejection of the entire Magisterium, that of Pope and Bishops alike, Orthodoxy is only a partial slight against the College; it jabs at Peter but not his general brothers, which is to say, Orthodoxy’s main beef with us is not bishops in general, which they have [along with Tradition], but just Peter, the supreme Bishop, the highest and most binding component of the leadership of Christ’s Kingdom on earth. Hence, now we have Supreme Apostolic Successor -> General Apostolic Successors and Tradition -> Scripture -> Reason -> Godlessness. We are done, right? Well, maybe not yet; first of all, we are in the midst of a period of light [with a lot of gray and clouds and rain, but still light compared to pagan Rome] that began with Constantine, more or less, so it questionable whether the dragon started attacking the Church’s doctrine in a primary way only some 700 years after the darkness of pagan Rome gave way to the Church’s epic freedom to begin practicing and working out doctrine unrestrained by fear of a total annihilation of the self-same Magisterium [by Roman soldiers, should they gather together as a near whole].
But someone will now say, what can we do? There is no one above Peter. The buck stops with Peter. There are no other sources other than Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, and Peter rules the Magisterium. Well, all this is true of EARTH. But in heaven, Peter has met his match in his Triune and Incarnate Maker! And God IS the supreme source of truth, in fact, the ultimate source. All others are effectively mediated (saving Reason, which is naturally intrinsic to the human person). Moreover, the Church has taught from time immemorial that the doctrines and nature of God as a Trinity and Incarnation in the Second Person are themselves “the central mysteries of faith.” And as hinted above, this puts the final and first piece of the puzzle in place. How so?
Well, let us just go for it. Let us assess, what are the primary heresies from the Apostolic Age down to the Schism, non-inclusive, which is to say, roughly the first Millennium? In short, they are, in majority, assaulting God in His Nature, whether starting largely with dualism [which assaults the Incarnation because of its pitting the spirit against matter, as well its clear assault on God by asserting a dual war within God, one a good god of the spirit, and the other, a bad god, of the material order], or developing into the Trinitarian and Christological heresies. For brevity and for illustration, let us delineate first the main dualistic heresies, or at least ones that have dualistic elements, and their approximate times of origin [so that we can follow, at least approximately, the historical trajectory], and then the Trinitarian and Incarnational ones.
Dualistic Heresies:
Trinitarian and Christological Heresies:
These heresies conglomerately span, dare we say, the primary spaces of error from St John to the Schism, non-inclusive. Residual heresies are present, including, for the main portion: Antinomianism, Audianism (which is actually especially an affront to the divine since it ascribes a human form to God), Novatianism, Donatism [possibly only schism], Ebionites, Montanism, and Pelagianism and Semipelagianism, but the main brunt are an assault on God.
Consequently, having made a good case for this, the full picture now backs up with God as One, Trinity and Incarnate seated above Peter in our path of doctrinal attack:
God as One, Triune, and Incarnate -> Supreme Apostolic Successor -> General Apostolic Successors and Tradition -> Scripture -> Reason -> Godlessness
Now, finally, we come to the thesis of the article, to look deeper into this trajectory for a more profound probing of meaning and structure. Subsequently, we ask, is it possible that this historical path of the Church’s doctrinal development has, in fact, a form or structure according to a theological model and an analysis of the very sources of Catholic truth themselves that we see above? I certainly believe so and would like to present the evidence forthcoming. Where would we start? Well, allow me to introduce the primary mystical imagery that will form our backdrop, the Catholic “pyramid”!
The Pyramid of the Catholic Sources of Truth
In antiquity, the pyramid was an ominous sign. It shewed forth the continuation of Babel, that blasphemous materialistic grandeur pursued in the place of God and ascending to God that the Lord had vanquished temporarily by confounding the human tongue. More specifically, Egypt, a beast as it were, simply picked up where Babel had left off, only in the form of a single nation and a single tongue, rather than the whole of humanity under one universal language. The great worldly wonder and spectacle symbolized the tyranny of pagan man—selfish, polytheistic, and self-deifying—then using God’s only Chosen Ones to build their magnificent edifices, and oppressing them in slavery, much like the renewed Babel of Pagan Rome, who persecuted God’s Chosen Ones in the Incarnate One’s Covenant.
Yet, the beauty of God is that He can take the things that pagans distort and use them for His own holy purposes. Toward that end, what we will now probe is that this frightening spectacle of arrogant materialism has a profound analogy for a great holy reality: a theology of the hierarchy of sources of Catholic truth above; here, we will observetwo key characteristics of a source: on the one hand, the degree of truth and reliability of the source and, on the other hand, the evidence for the source as legitimate. This mystical pyramid will involve a probe of the sources of Catholic truth that partially differs from the traditional way, yet retaining all truth intact. It will be necessary to establish this hierarchy first before forming the spiritual pyramid. For this, we must revisit the historical summary we have.
The Hierarchical Descent
Firstly, the history we have just discussed; the process went like this, in brief:
This of course leads to the hierarchy we have:
Now, how might we realize this five-fold list above as an alternative the extant three? As follows; when speaking of the sources of Catholic truth, we traditionally think of, again, three sources of truth:
However, we have, again, seen that God Himself as Trinity and Incarnation is a source, too, His elusive Essence being the central mysteries of our faith. Additionally, as we have seen, Reason is a source of truth, since even from natural wisdom, we can know monotheism and natural law in some sense, if even with difficulty in some cases.
Moreover, the Magisterium has two degrees to it: general Apostolic Succession, or the collection of regular Bishops, and then the supreme Apostolic Successor, Peter. Also, Tradition never exists apart from a valid Bishop. Where the valid Bishop is, there also is Tradition. And Tradition is the property of the Bishops, who are its custodian. Therefore, Bishops and Tradition go together always. Hence, a more accurate rendering of the sources of truth, is, as we conjectured,not merely three but five:
This renewed list of five sources rather than merely three, the Traditional way, enables the major steps of doctrinal history to be placed in perspective, and, as well, provides the theological order to correlate to our pyramid.
Having established this hierarchy of sources, let us review once again the historical trajectory to provide backdrop substance for our model. The journey of doctrine in the Church bears this out completely, descending the list perfectly!
A Structural and Theological Nature
Finally, let us progress to the pyramid. So we have a source hierarchy and a historical analysis. How can it correlate? Well, look closer! A definitive decline subsists. In short, each of these steps is rejecting the associated source of Catholic truth, and the sources are decreasing in reliability of truth. That is, as we descend the list from top to bottom, the sources of truth in bold becomeless reliable in truth as a source when taken by themselves than the ones above. Yet, on the other hand, as we likewise descend, the sources become more evident as legitimate. This will mean that if these sources are arranged on a pyramid, height on the pyramid will represent degree of truth, and width will represent evidence that the source is legitimate. Hence, in lesser terms, as you ascend the pyramid, truth increases, but the evidence for the source of truth becomes narrower. The arguments are straightforward. We will startfrom the bottom and work upward:
What we have shown is that as you ascend the pyramid of sources, the truth increases but the evidence for reliability decreases, and down the pyramid, vice versa.
Finally, in light of this, since God’s sources of truth are ordered theologically, and since the devil must necessarily work with reality as it is, it is no surprise thatthe devil is taking pot shots at the lesser evident sources of Catholic truth and moving down to the most evident sources, and, derivatively, at the most reliable sources in terms of truth, down to the least reliable. In that way, truth peels off little by little, like knocking off layers of a pyramid.
A Scriptural Basis: Apocalypse 10
Admittedly, the pyramid is a historical entity in Scripture, and the analogy here holds well, but one can ask, is there something even more pronounced and appropriate? Absolutely! Consider Apocalypse 10, which surely gives us an insight into the mystery of truth:
“And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was on his head, and his face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth.” (Rv 10:1–2)
Now, what does a scroll contain except writing, and what writing is there in the New Covenant except the truth, the Word of God in all its totality? The scroll, therefore, can image the totality of God’s truth and mystery. Moreover, by common Gospel symbolism, we are called to walk in the “Way” which is clearly the “Way [of] Truth”, as in “follow Me.” Hence, that our feet are called to walk the way of truth could be extrapolated to mean, at least on one layer of meaning, that our feet become images of the truth themselves.
Toward that end, the angel bearing in his hand the entire mystery of truth coupled with the vivid symbolism of his feet resting upon alternate environments could appropriately suggest that our theology of Catholic truth extends into the feet of the angel. Toward this end, the analogy is immediate: first, the strong foot (the right foot, since right, in biblical theology, means the stronger, as in “and he is seated at the right hand of the Father”) rests on the sea, a weak foundation, and the weak foot, the left foot, rests on the earth, a strong foundation. Wondrous! With the feet imaging truth and the foundation thereupon imaging underpinning evidence for the truths, strong sources of truth rest upon weaker evidence, and weaker sources of truth rest upon stronger evidence, just like our pyramid analogy!
The Crucified Feet: a Visual Analogy on the Human Body
While we are at it, a wondrous secondary addendum can be noted in order that any person may see this mystery visually manifested in their feet, as follows: if the foot images the truth, as we suggested above, we note that the foot has five toes. How many sources of truth did we have in the pyramid above? Yes, five. Moreover, when Jesus is crucified, his one foot is placed on top of the other foot, and they are brutally fixated to one another by the nail in such a manner that, effectively, a one-to-one correspondence exists between the five toes of each foot. And lo and behold, if we use the common model of the human toes, which is where the toes descend in length from the big toe down to the little toe, we note that in this crucifixion the toes are in opposite pose for the two feet when the two feet are nailed together. That is, on the one foot, the toes fall going in one lateral direction, and on the other foot, in the same direction, the toes rise. Bingo! This perfectly images our theology: as we traverse the five sources of truth, truth falls, but evidence for legitimacy rises, just like the toes! [ One can see these images]
Telling the Story of Salvation to Children and Young Persons
To reach toward the close of our discourse, one could understandably ask, what use can we possibly make of these analogies? I have one word: catechetics! What do we mean? We mean that, firstly, knowing Church history in its essentials and the various religious dispositions that exist today and how they relate to the fullness of truth in our Catholic Christian faith is an indispensible necessity for our youth today. More specifically, in order to do battle with the diabolical relativism that assaults our culture, it is all the more imperative for young persons to understand the various basic religious types [or lack thereof] and how to explain their strengths and weaknesses. Without these gravely vital tools, a young person will be lost in navigating through this world of lies and confusion, unable to harness the beautiful spiritual gifts of their confirmation to discern the truth and the right path to follow.
Children, adolescents, and teenagers can seem overwhelmed in studying Church history with all its details and seemingly mundane progression from who knows where to who knows what. Life today is so chaotic and fast, that we, too, like the precious youth, can be tempted to give in to that blasted liberal attitude we saw above: that our lives and our history are aimless. But God is in control in our chaos, guiding a fallen and imperfect world toward its ultimate redemption, and these pictures—of the pyramid, angelic feet, and crucified feet—beautiful yet simple imagery, majestically image a deep theology of our doctrinal heritage and can portray, dare we say, even to children of age 10, a model for the phenomenon of these ages of dogmatic development with excellent appropriateness, giving them visual aid into, again, a very significant component of our faith, even as human persons, especially children, work well with visual forms. These pictures can help them encapsulate important concepts of our legacy. They show that God’s truths are not vague or random, but ordered and purposeful.
Addendum
One final point regarding this. We know that throughout all the drama of the Church boldly bringing the Gospel to a fallen, stubborn, and sinful world, the Church has had that magnificent apocalyptic blessing we are all familiar with, issued from Our Divine Lord as He was about to leave the earthly plain and delegate the salvation of the human race to His Bride, that same Ecclesial Woman who proclaims, like great trumpet blasts, [Apocalypse chapters 7-9, etc. ?] the truths and teachings of our Lord Jesus down through history: “And behold, I am with you always, unto the end of the age!” [Matt, close, 28:20]
Indeed, out of all the spiritual types described above, children must know and be taught to, with God’s grace and loving guidance, repeatedly assure and convince themselves that Catholicism stands alone: Only Catholicism is protected from the stain of error in teaching and morals. Only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the understanding of the moral law and is able to provide the same fullness of the means of help to live it, the sacraments. Only the Catholic Church is able to fully protect her members from the wiles of the devil—to keep, by Divine decree of an infallible Deposit of faith, the dragon from tearing through the “forehead” of the soul with his diabolical claws and there infusing into the mind, the intellect of the same soul, lies, heresies, falsehoods, and the like. [Apocalypse 7:1-3?]
Indeed, when pagan Rome fell and the Gospel triumphed over that same vile godlessness, our glorious pyramid of truths stood before the dragon ominously to taunt him at the victory God had won over him and his angels, now having brought the greatest temporal civilization known to man into the Person of Christ. The dragon would have to tear it down if he wished to bring humanity full circle back to darkness. But darkness he did restore, even if it took many centuries. And now, in wicked and stark contrast to our pure Seal of God that started the process—the utterly immaculate fullness of the Gospel, Catholicism—the dragon has raised up, veritably per our dear St. John Paul II, “the full anti-Gospel.”
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine Providence; it is trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial of not only our nation and the Church, but, in a sense, a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all of its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations.” [ii]
Here, I feel that this diabolical spiritual climate can be likened to a certain, sinister “mark of the beast.” What do we mean? To be sure, we speak most certainly NOT of micro-chips and any other such physical nonsense, but a transcendent quality, the antithesis of the Seal of God above. More succinctly, just as the Seal in the forehead can represent the protection of a mind in full purity of doctrine and truth, so the mark of the beast can represent the full absence of truth, whether through implicit or explicit rejection of it in full [as in atheism or nihilism] or indifference to it [as in relativism]. In this view, the mark in the “hand” is straightforward as well: that the person may make the “works of his hands” evil, rejecting the moral law of the Christ and living as he wishes.
This is the battle our youth face. Let us therefore arm them with our Faith to protect them from the evil one, that their minds may contemplate the treasure of our faith and so remain pure in the truth, living lives in the love of God and neighbor!
[i] Scott Pauline, “Armageddon and the Kings from the East: Probing Deeper into the Meaning of Strife”, https://www.hprweb.com/2017/11/armageddon-and-the-kings-from-the-east/,
[ii] Paul Kengor, " John Paul II’s Warning on ‘Final Confrontation’ With the ‘Anti-Church’", http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/john-paul-iis-warning-on-final-confrontation-with-the-anti-church, National Catholic Register, Oct 5, 2018