What Is Wrong with America?
Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
It is very common today to hear Catholics call a Protestant “a
Christian,” or even, “a good Christian.” In the United States, it was
already a practice before Vatican II because of the tendency of American
Catholics to accommodate Protestantism, whose tonus dominated the
social and business spheres. Then, there was the question of adaptation
as prominent Protestants joined the Catholic faith, or Catholics entered
into marriages with Protestants. It was just easier to call everyone
“Christian.” Supposedly it underplayed differences. It was meant to
create the impression that Catholics and Protestants were cousins in one
big, happy family. Pope Leo XIII condemned this tolerance toward
Protestantism under the name of Americanism, the heresy of Americanism,
to be more precise.
 Our Lord delivers the keys of His Church to St. Peter Pietro Perugino, 15th century, Sistine Chapel |
Every time I hear the term Christian used for Protestants, I cringe. Its
usage clearly nourishes a trend toward a dangerous religious
indifferentism, which denies the duty of man to worship God by believing
and practicing the one true Catholic Religion. It is an implicit
admission that those who deny the one Faith can nonetheless be
Christians, that is, be in the Church of Christ. Inherently it leads to
the progressivist notion that men can be saved in any religion that
accepts Christ as Savior. A “good Lutheran,” a “good Anglican,” a “good
Presbyterian – what does it matter so long as they are good people and
sincerely love Christ?
Regardless of who is applying this usage today, I want to stress that it
is at variance with the entire tradition of the Catholic Church until
the Council. To consider heretics as Christians is not the teaching of
the Church.
Before Vatican II, the Magisterium was always very clear: It is not a
matter of an individual’s character or traits. No one can be in the
Church of Christ without professing the ensemble of the truths of
Catholic Faith, being in unity with the Chair of Peter and receiving the
same Seven Sacraments. The only Christian is one who accepts Our Lord
Jesus Christ and the Church he established. Who can have God for Father
and not accept the Church for Mother? (Pope Pius IX, Singulari quidem
of March 17, 1856) Who can accept the spouse Christ, and not his
mystical bride the Church? Who can separate the Head, the only begotten
Son of God, from the body, which is His Church? (Pope Leo XIII, Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896). It is not possible.
In short, only those who profess the one Catholic Faith and are united
with the Mystical Body of Christ are members of the Church of Christ.
And only those members can legitimately bear the title of honor of
Christian.
The Protestant sect started as a revolt, protesting the Church of Christ
and, pretending to accept Christ without Peter, the authority He
established on earth. With this split, they left the Church and became
heretics. This used to be clearly said and understood, without
sentimental fear of offending one’s neighbors or relatives: A Protestant
is a heretic because he severed himself from the Body of the Church. He
is not a Christian, and certainly not a “good Christian.”
Scriptures confirm this truth
My friend Jan thought I was being too severe on this topic. “You’re
making a mountain out of a molehill,” she said. “Don’t Scriptures teach
us to love our neighbor and not be judgmental?”
It is the same old post Vatican II story, claiming that it is
“judgmental” to correct bad practices and false teachings and arguing
with disputable interpretations of Scriptures.
 Luther and Melanchthon broke with the Church of Christ Lucas Cranach the Younger |
- “He who hears you (Peter) hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects
me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me (Lk 10:16).” It could
not be clearer: the Protestant who rejects the head, rejects Christ
himself, and should not be granted the name Christian.
- Christ establishes one Church with a single head: “And I will give
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19).
- St. Paul is severe in his condemnation of false teachers, e.g.
Protestants: “If any man preaches any other Gospel unto you than that ye
have received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1: 9).
- In another passage he instructs Catholics to remove themselves from
the bad society of non-Catholics: “And we charge you, brethren, in the
name of Our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every
brother walking disorderly and not according to the Tradition which they
have received of us” (2 Thess 3:6).
- The Apostle St. John forbade any intercourse with heretics: “If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house or welcome him” (2 Jo 1:10)”
Popes reiterate this teaching
The traditional Papal Magisterium was also clear on this topic. Let me offer a few texts by way of exemplification.
 Pius IX: “He who abandons the Chair of Peter is falsely persuaded that he is in the Church of Christ” |
Leo XIII makes it plain that separated members cannot belong to the same
body: “So long as the member was on the body, it lived; separated, it
lost its life. Thus the man, so long as he lives on the body of the
[Catholic] Church, he is a Christian; separated from her, he becomes a
heretic” (Encyclical Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896).
Emphasizing the fate of those who break away from the one Faith, he says: “Whoever
leaves her [the Catholic Church] departs from the will and command of
Our Lord Jesus Christ; leaving the path of salvation, he enters that of
perdition. Whoever is separated from the Church is united to an adulteress” (ibid.). Certainly, they do not share with us the same title of Christian.
Pope Pius IX stated: “He who abandons the Chair of Peter on which the Church is founded, is falsely persuaded that he is in the Church of Christ” (Quartus supra of January 6 1873, n. 8).
In the Syllabus of Modern Errors, the proposition that
Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true
Christian religion was specifically condemned (Pius IX, n. 18)(1).
Therefore, there is only one Christian Church, the Catholic Church, and
only those who belong to it should rightfully be called Christians.
 Only inside the Catholic Church can true union be achieved |
Many persons ask me: What can I do to fight Progressivism? Others have
requested: Give me some specific examples of how I can combat
Americanism.
Let me offer one concrete way to fight in yourself the tendency toward accommodation with Protestantism.
When you catch yourself calling a Protestant a “Christian,” stop and
correct yourself. Call him a Protestant. It is a way to affirm that you
do not accept the Protestant errors and that you acknowledge it for the
terrible thing it is: Protestants denied many Catholic dogmas and for
this reason caused that first major crack in the unity of the Catholic
Church that caused untold damage to Christendom and the perdition of
those souls adhering to it.
It is a small thing, but by such small customs we as a people have been walking steadily toward religious indifferentism. It is time to set some roadblocks on that path. We should not veil in ambiguous terms our love for the ensemble of the Catholic Faith. The only true union possible for Catholics with Protestants is by their return to the one true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church. Only with such a return can they rightfully call themselves Christians.
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POINTERS -The Point Magazine For January, 1953
Edited Under Fr. Leonard Feeney M.I.C.M.
John Foster Dulles, our newly-appointed Presbyterian Secretary of State, has lately been photographed with his Roman-collared son, thus revealing that the Dulles family and the Catholic Church have something in common: a member named Avery. Under the spiritual direction of his prominently Protestant father, Avery Dulles had grown up to be an atheist. Then, by involved intellectual processes which he wrote a book about, Avery abdicated to the overtures of “Omniscient Love” and became a Catholic and a Jesuit.
The family of John Foster Dulles, Presbyterian Secretary of State
Included also in the photograph were Presbyterian Mrs. Dulles and daughter, the total pictorial effect being a splendid Interfaith testimonial to the wisdom of Father Keller’s dictum, “The family that votes together, gloats together.”
Some months ago, Archbishop Cushing surprised the firemen of Boston by telling them that, according to his latest theological theory, anyone who is killed while trying to put out a fire goes straight to Heaven. This past month, the Archbishop spoke to the mothers of boys killed in the Korean war. Still seeking to provide more generous ways into Heaven than the single way Our Lord ordained, Archbishop Cushing told these mothers that their sons were “genuine martyrs,” that all soldiers who die in Korea go immediately to Heaven, and prayers for them are unnecessary.
After defining this new dogma, Archbishop Cushing established a new devotion. Fancying that the bereaved mothers of Boston would find comfort in his willingness to violate the singularity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the archbishop bestowed on Our Lady the title, “First Gold Star Mother.”
While Boston’s flashbulb Archbishop was getting local newspaper applause for his patriotic heresies, another American prelate was getting nationwide publicity for his words of encouragement to infidels. In Washington, D. C., Archbishop Patrick O’ Boyle sent his warmest greetings to Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld, rejoicing with the rabbi that Judaism has become successful enough in the nation’s capitol to build a new temple.
In contrast, and in answer, to Archbishops Cushing and O’ Boyle, we print the kind of uncompromising statement that marks a bishop as a saint. Says the Bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine: “No man can find salvation save in the Catholic Church. Outside the Church he can find all except salvation. He can have dignities, Sacraments, can sing ‘Alleluia,’ answer ‘Amen,’ accept the Gospels, have faith in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and preach it, too, but never except in the Catholic Church can he find salvation.”
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., was the first U.S. theologian named to the College of Cardinals, and was known both nationally and internationally as a preeminent Catholic scholar, teacher, and theologian. His writings over the past half-century have helped to shape the face of theological reflection in the post-Vatican II Church. He died in 2008, at the age of 90.
The Starving Children of America
The United States of America is dedicated to the sublime realization that, two thousand years ago, a child was Immaculately Conceived in the womb of Saint Anne. The United States of America is aware that Saint Anne’s child became the Mother of God, when God became a child. Yet, the United States of America is not a good place in which to be a child.
Our nation was established by European Protestants who did not want an Old World kind of childhood for their children. Consequently, the boys and girls of early America were of a kind all their own. They were the children of log cabin and covered wagon, who never saw a French child’s cathedral. They were the sons of buckskin and bronco, who never knew the wonder of a Spanish boy’s Christmas. They were the daughters of home-spun and calico, who never could have dreamed of the First Communion lace on a little Italian girl’s veil.
As America and her children grew up, there was a corresponding growth in the number of Protestant sects. For, in hopes of keeping her offspring away from all “Roman” practices, Protestant America has made available an abundant variety of heresies.
Here in Boston, for example, a Protestant child can now aspire to Christian Science, a system in which Christ survives as an anesthetic, and whose founder had a telephone installed in her mausoleum, so confident was she that she would not be dead when she died.
To the more fastidious young Protestant, one who feels that God is much too fine for a Bethlehem manger, Boston offers Unitarianism, allegiance to which consists in denials of belief in the Divinity of Christ, and professions of faith in the fertility of the dollar.
If Christian Science and Unitarianism are not to his fancy, the youthful untruth-seeker has an alternative in Congregationalism, Boston-style. This is bare, raw Protestantism, the kind that has kept America so militantly Protestant, and has muzzled Catholicism in this 70 per cent Catholic city. The current impetus behind Boston Congregationalism is Doctor Ockenga, whose newspaper and pulpit anathemas against the Virginity of the Mother of God have long since established him as Protestantism’s most valuable local voice.
America is a Protestant country, and its regional religions, like the three foregoing Boston ones, are calculated to keep America just that way. Religiously, America is not a good place for a child, and whenever a Protestant child revolts, that is his message to the nation. He may imply it in his novel or shriek it in his suicide. Once a Boston boy put it in his poetry, and got a Pulitzer Prize for complaining in the following way about Boston (while invoking a strictly literary Blessed Lady):
“Mother, for these three hundred
years and more
Neither our clippers nor our
slavers reached
The haven of your peace in this
Bay State:
Neither my father nor his
father. Beached
On these dry flats of fishy real estate ... ”
Protestant America is a land where children are either pampered or prevented, and grow up to be either divorced or mercy-killed. It is a land which, having many religions and no certitudes, demands that a child get dogmatic about democracy and make a creed out of the slogan that creeds are of no importance.
Church Is The New Israel
Jews Are Not Israel Or The Chosen People
The Church that Jesus founded on Peter is the new Israel.
Donzio
Yes, this is taught in Scripture and by the Church: The Catholic Church Is The Spiritual Jerusalem (Acts Of Nicaea II).
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Hayley Westenra - Peace Shall Come
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The Communist and Masonic Infiltration of America and the Catholic Church
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