When it comes to the moral legitimacy of repressing the spread of false doctrine within the Christian commonwealth, however, we are faced with a solid block of near-unanimous and unwavering insistence, for over a thousand years, on the part of the pastors of the universal Church in communion with Peter's successor. We are talking about a doctrine which Pope Leo XIII declared personally in the encyclical Immortale Dei to be "the necessary growth of the teachings of the Gospel." 6 In regard to the contrary doctrine (i.e., that government repression of anti-Catholic doctrine for the sake of the common good is intrinsically evil and unjust), Pius IX declared that this "evil opinion" must be "absolutely held as reprobated, denounced and condemned by all the children of the Catholic Church." 7 We are looking at a doctrine to which the Bishops of the Catholic world gave their absolute and zealous support, endorsing its enforcement by the civil arm, with varying degrees of severity, for century after century; a doctrine with the gravest practical implications for the lives of millions of people, both Catholic and non-Catholic; a doctrine which formed one of the pillars of that whole world-view and civilization known historically as Catholic Christendom; a doctrine which the learned and holy Pontiff Pius XII endorsed as recently as 1953, when his Concordat with the Spanish government prohibited all exterior manifestations of non-Catholic religions in that nation. If the Church had really taught at Vatican II (as is claimed by my critic Anthony Lo Bello 8) that all this was "intrinsically wrong" - an absolute, per se violation of a natural human right - then I say that the Church would have utterly destroyed her claim to be the divinely-appointed interpreter of the moral law, guarded from error in her definitive teaching by the Holy Spirit in every age of history. Roma locuta est, cause finita est would in that event have become nothing more than a hollow boast, a cynical joke, an untenable superstition. How could any intelligent person ever trust a supposed oracle of truth which contradicted itself so calamitously and ignominiously as this? (Father Rev. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D)http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt57.html
I was going to title this post, "An Invitation to Apostasy".
I am a former traditional Catholic, now an atheist (technically, an “agnostic atheist”). Pope Francis led me into atheism, and, in fact, I think that Francis is one of the greatest living witnesses in favor of atheism. Let’s face it, the arguments offered by individuals such as Dr. William Lane Craig are a wash; for every argument that Craig gives, atheistic naturalism provides a firm rebuttal. (For instance, Craig will appeal to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, but yet, within the scientific literature, there are beginning-less, eternal models of the Universe.)
For me, the Papacy was a living witness to the presence of God (the Triune God) in our World, that is, one could look to the Office of the Pope as being the source of the One True Faith. One criticism of religion that atheistic naturalism puts forward is that all religions are man-made, because not only do they contradict each other, they also contradict themselves. With Francis, his teachings are now prima facie evidence that Catholicism is man-made and not divine. If God truly exists, then He must be a perfect Being, and therefore, without contradiction, which means that the Holy Spirit cannot possibly be “guiding” the Catholic Church. With the embracing of societal customs that the Catholic Church used to infallibly teach were mortal sins is proof positive that Catholicism is not divine, but man-made. No justifiable reason can be maintained for continuing to belief in it, much less profess it; as such, I have made the only logical transition possible.
When James Joyce left the Catholic Church, he was, ostensibly, asked if he would now embrace some sort of Protestantism. His reply was, “I have lost my faith and not my mind.” I share his sentiments.
Join me! Stop wasting your time and hard-earned money on this monstrosity called "Catholicism". It is a false, man-made religion, which means that it was never true to begin with. If individuals want to waste their time and money on their Saturday afternoons and/or Sunday mornings, then let them; it's just bread, folks, and nothing more!
