by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
A man who is led by the spirit of truth seeks the truth and investigates facts and laws to find the truth, as is necessary. He trusts but seeks confirmation and verification.
A man who is led by the spirit of falsehood seeks his own will and ignores truth and facts and laws so that he can sustain his own will, as necessary. He mistrusts and does not seek but to undermine and vilify all who disagree with himself.
A man who is led by the spirit of the truth, even if he has read all of Scripture, and all of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, he never puts himself forward as an authority, because he knows that God, Who is Truth, is the only authority, and that authority comes to us through the offices God Incarnate has handed down to men.
A man who is led by the spirit of falsehood, even if he has not read all of Scripture, nor any of the Fathers or Doctors of the Church, always puts himself forward as an authority, because he recognizes no god, as his Truth, but himself, and thus is willing to challenge or deny the authority of all who received offices from God Incarnate.
A man who is led by the spirit of truth, assents immediately to the teaching of God in Scripture, of Christ, of the Apostles, of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, of the perennial magisterium and of Canon Law. He also accepts Catholic philosophy and the natural truths of human language and all reality as it is. He considers it shameful to act in any other way.
A man who is leg by the spirit of falsehood, withholds his assent until he can calculate whether it is useful for him to assent, for he never will put in risk his own personal authority or the goal he seeks, whether that is to defraud you of your souls, money, property, family, or religious liberty. He considers it foolish to act in any other way.
We should keep in mind these two spirits and when reading the reports of any journalist, Catholic commentator, whether Cardinal, Bishop, Priest, Religious or layman, to check to see of which spirit they are, because many are the false apostles who go about today teaching things of which they have no authority to teach.
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CREDITS: The Featured Image is Christ teaching the Doctors of the Temple, by Paolo Veronese. The image is in the public domain. The painting is at the museum of the El Prado, Madrid.
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That’s very powerful. Thank you! And if you don’t mind, I’d like to add that we should be fearful of no-one and nothing but God. To bend to falsehood out of fear is therefore to betray God and shows a lack of true trust in Him.
We are told to defend without fear the true doctrine.
The wrath of God will indeed be directed against those who suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). Also, “The courage of the truth is, in my eyes, a criterion of the first order of sainthood.” PBXVI.
This editorial is refereshingly sane, Br. Bugnolo. Thank you! I intend to print off copies and pass them out.
How easy it is to think we are truly serving God when one’s motives are primarily one’s own human self interest. How easy we can forget that serving our own self interests is the human default position and that to transcend that we must face the sacrifices of those self interests in any true service to God. To avoid those sacrifices the denial of truth will always be required. St. Paul speaks to what we are all being called in Romans 12:1-2
As the coming of the Christ was “set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel,” with “the thoughts of many hearts” being “revealed” so in our day, the world, having now turned its back on the Christ, will find the coming of the Anti-Christ being “set for the fall and rising again of many” in the Church and world.
Thank you for expressing this so clearly. There was an interview today with Abp. Schneider from Kazakhstan and Taylor Marshall, in which Schneider seemed to present the spirit of falsehood very, very, well.
I don’t understand how a bishop like Schneider, so championed for being traditional and orthodox, can come to the following conclusions about the claim that Benedict is still pope or that his renunciation is invalid:
That such claim is against “common sense and evidence”.
That Benedict had stated several times that Bergoglio was pope and using a supposed quote from Benedict’s last meeting with Cardinals of which there is no such quote.
That Benedict’s letter to Andrea Tornielli of La Stampa, in 2014, in which Benedict says “Petrine ministerium” (again), was evidence that it was clear then that Benedict was “clearly not pope”.
That the thesis of Benedict XVI’s invalid resignation was “going simply to absurdity” and that Benedict is “clearly not pope” because according to their thesis, “we will be 6, 7, years sedevacantists, the entire church, without a pope…against the divine constitution of indivisibility of the church”. [Huh?],
That Taylor Marshall’s argument about Benedict celebrating mass in schism with himself by mentioning himself as pope, was a good argument.
Where is the evidence you said there was about Benedict not being pope, your excellency? What about 1983 Canon Law which invalidates Benedict’s act of renunciation? Has Schneider become so senile or outright stupid? No, he simply proceeds to please himself and like minded people with a spirit of falsehood, and appear as one with a spirit of Truth.