Are Today's Seminaries Catholic?

An excerpt from an interview with three seminarians

B:  About how many students are there at St. Peter's?

J: About one hundred and ten, something like that. Divided about half and half with philosophy students and theology students.

K: And there's about, I think, fourteen deacons. There's usually more than ten deacons every year at the seminary.

B: Let's go into the specifics of the different positions that the seminary teaches, and I think an important place to begin is with Christ Himself. How do they represent Christ and His role towards mankind?

J: Christ is our friend, Christ is our buddy. If you want to pick an image, I guess you'd have to say the "Motorcycle Jesus." The kind of buddy-buddy Jesus. He never gets mad at anybody. Just, you know, kind of a huggy bear and everybody likes Him.

K: There's great emphasis on "Social Justice Jesus" too. There's a heavy emphasis on Jesus as social activist, coming to rescue people not from sin, but from each other, and from social oppression, and from the rich.

B:  What about the representation of what the Church actually teaches, that Christ is the Redeemer of mankind, to save him from his sins, and to come back to save man as a result of what the first sinners did, Adam Eve?

K: Well, I think there's been a great de-spiritualization, especially at our seminary. We used to think of Our Lord on a supernatural plane, and see Him as Ruler, as Redeemer, as King, who died for us, and for all men, on the Cross, so that many might be saved. There was a great emphasis on original sin, on Our Lord's Redemption. Now, I think, there's more of an emphasis on the natural plane. He's been "humanized," they've taken away Our Lord's Divinity. Before it was always taught that Our Lord assumed a human nature to Himself, and now we've forgotten the Divinity, especially at the seminaries, and at Catholic institutions. There's a great stress on the humanity of Our Lord. He becomes just an ordinary Joe, one of us.

B:  So He's not Christ the King, Lord of the World?

K: No, not by any means.

J: No, it's very deceiving because they will not directly deny that He is Christ the King, or they won't deny that He's Divine, but they'll never tell you that. So it's kind of an error by omission.

K: A good example would be—we have a Catholic college, nearby the seminary at which many seminarians take courses in philosophy, and before the Second Vatican Council the college was called "Christ the King" College, and after the Second Vatican Council it was called "King's" College. They took "Christ" out of the college basically. And instead of Christ the King as the motto, or emblem, or the guide of the college, they now have the "King of Id" who's a cartoon character. So it has just become the king, the "King of Id." We've desacralized the Church, and the institutions of the Church that are forming our men to be priests.

B:  OK, you've mentioned the desacralization process. How does this relate to the seminary's concept of the Church? Christ, then, founded a Church. How do they represent the role of the Church in the world?

J: Well, they say that "the Church" is merely the conglomeration of a group of people. It kind of exists as a democratic body, and all power comes from the people, more of less; it comes from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.

B:  In the past the Church has been a hierarchy, of course, with Christ at the top, on earth He has His Vicar the Pope, and then through the Bishops, the priests and the laity. What is the seminary's position on this teaching of the Church that it is a hierarchy?

K: They don't like the word. I think they put a great stress on the laity, and recently I read an article in the Alumni magazine of the seminary and it was entitled "The Emerging Laity." The laity are emerging in such a way as to submerge the hierarchy, I think.

J: I also heard of some seminarians who are saying that it's good there aren't so many priests because now the laity can take over.

M: I've even heard it claimed that the Holy; Spirit caused the crisis in vocations so that the lay people could take their rightful place.

B: I think that one of the agendas of the modern Church though is to have a pluralistic faith. Do you see that at the seminary?

K: Yes, there's pluralism in all things except in Catholicism. They allow all sorts of ideas as long as they are not seen as stemming from Rome, or from traditional Catholicism, or the "piety of the fifties." Anything goes from Buddhism to the charismatic "renewal," except traditional Catholicism, and the concepts and beliefs and teachings of the Church prior to the Second Vatican Council.

B: And that is a point which we will return to. Now what about the Catholic Church as the One, True Church? Pope Pius IX said it was an error to say anything otherwise. How does the seminary represent this teaching?

J: Hmm, very slurred and distorted. I've heard one seminarian say that if you got the professor and put him up against the wall, and you had your hands to his throat, and you said to him, "Now, is the Catholic Church the True Church?"—he would admit it, but then as soon as you let him go he'd go back and say what he wanted. Basically, they are very ecumenical in outlook. They are very reticent to say—they'll say anything except that the Catholic Church is One, True Church. In fact, they're not just ecumenists, but they're "ecumaniacs." They're going forward with this ecumenism to such a large extent that they're totally forgetting that the Catholic Church is the foundation of...

B: Could you give some examples of that "ecumania?"

K: Well, I remember in class once our professor was talking on the topic of the Church, and he was constantly affirming graces, all sorts of truths in the Protestant churches, and he was affirming the truth, the truth, the truth in other "churches," and yet whenever he referred to the Catholic Church he just said we had the fullness of grace and truth. It was always everyone is attached to the Church by degree and we never say that the Church contains the Truth, and that there is falsehood. We constantly affirm the truth, the truth and we never ever mention the error. And that's very dangerous because, I mean, the Church is the Body of Christ, the One, True Church and if you affirm all as being the One Church then obviously the gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church.

J: It's kind of a naive view because the supposition is that the Church has no enemies, and so basically everybody is of good will and everybody is a friend and we'll just all invite them in. But in fact the Church does have enemies, the devil is constantly at work against the Church and so it's kind of a naive view that everybody's equal and that all religions are OK. But that's what we have at the seminary.

B: Do you have "inter-faith" liturgies there?

J: Well, twice a year we get together with the Anglican seminarians—well, theology students—who are studying at Huron College in London. In the fall, they come to visit St. Peter's, and in the spring we go and visit them. We have prayer sessions together, and, you know, it's all very nice.

K: On one occasion at St. Peter's, in the fall, we had an ecumenical meeting between the Anglicans and ourselves. We brought out as the "pride and joy" of Catholic liturgy, liturgical dance; something that is probably beyond the Anglicans, I don't know. That was how we manifested our Catholicity by dancing, by having women dancing in the sanctuary. It was very, very disturbing.

B: But what happens, let's say, when you mention that Christ Himself said that only He is the Way to the Father — "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and there is no way to the Father but through Me..." What happens, then, when you state this?

J: If you try and insist that the Catholic is the One, True Church, you'll get one of two reactions, either "Well, you are rigid, and you are pre-Vatican II, you are living in the past," or they'll say "Well, if that's true for you that's fine but it may not be true for someone else;" they'll kind of relativize it.

K: Or I remember in another class—it says in the Second Vatican Council documents that the One, True Church subsists in the Catholic Church, and they'll take that word "subsists" and they'll play with it so as to give it another meaning than that which has been traditionally taught in the Church. They'll say that "subsists" means it (the Church) subsists in its greatest part, or with the fullness of truth, or all sorts of things. It's interesting, in the Council documents—in another document on the Eastern Rites—it specifically says, or restates the traditional Catholic teaching that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. They'll give all sorts of new interpretations to it and they'll ignore Church teaching. It's very underhanded.

B: So they don't repudiate Church teaching outright they sort of manipulate language and they enclose some half-truths, and they do it in a very sneaky way, it seems.

K: Yes, it's very underhanded, as I said. They're constantly taking Catholic words, or words that have always been understood in one way, in a Catholic way, through the tradition, and distorting them, or placing a new meaning in them, giving them a "new life" or "vitality," that has never been seen before in the Church. And it's always a Protestant meaning; it's never more Catholic. It's always an emptying of the Catholicity, and replacing it with error.

B: So the heresy is well camouflaged.

K: Very well, and in fact if you went in as a neophyte, as one educated in our Catholic schools, not knowing the subtle distinctions that one has to make when dealing with Catholic truth, Catholic dogma—the subtle emphasis that must be placed on one part, and on another part in order for there to be a harmonious equilibrium, if you're not used to doing that, and you're not used to thinking, then the professors will take your ignorance, and twist your mind and your faith until there's nothing left, and you'll just be a Roman Protestant.

B: Let's apply that principle to one of the teachings of the Church. Let's say that of the Resurrection. How would they approach the Resurrection?

J: Well, they would talk constantly about the "Risen Lord," and they would say, "Well, the Apostles experienced the Risen Lord." Now if you are a traditional Catholic you would think that when they say that "the Apostles experienced the Risen Lord" that they would mean "'they saw Jesus risen from the dead in the flesh." That's the traditional interpretation. But, in fact, when they say that "They experienced the Risen Lord" they mean that "They had some sort of charismatic experience that made them feel all good inside, and they felt like Jesus was alive again and felt inspired. "

K: The "Experiential Jesus."

B: Once again you have the rejection of the supernatural. Let's look at that rejection of the supernatural; what do they teach about the Blessed Virgin Mary?

J: She was an ordinary peasant girl, a Hebrew peasant girl living at that time. She was very ordinary, and she had a boyfriend named Joseph. She had this great experience that she was called by God to something special. She had this child and she taught Him all kinds of things. It's very desupernaturalized—their view toward Mary. She just a very ordinary girl to which something extraordinary happened.

B: She wouldn't be the Queen of Heaven or have titles like that?

K: It's funny, when you mention Our Lady in her glory, as the Mother of God reigning over heaven and earth, as she is in heaven, whenever you speak of Our Lady of Fatima or her with any of her titles, they downplay it—they have a violent reaction against it because it challenges their modernist notion of who Mary is. Mary, for them, is not the Queen of Heaven and Earth whose Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end—they don't see her as having a role in our redemption, as having a role in our final salvation. They are always downplaying Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of La Salette, Our Lady of Lourdes, any of the apparitions that show the glory of God, and the power given to Our Blessed Mother through Jesus Christ.

B: What about praying to Mary?

M: Discouraged. I see it as very discouraged. All the traditional Catholic Marian devotions are downplayed as non-essential; argued that because they stem from private revelation they are non-essential. So they stand on the rule of the law to take away a very great gift that Jesus Christ has given us, the gift of His Mother as Mediatrix. They're constantly downplaying Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces between us and Christ. They're developing a very Protestant notion of "You go straight to Christ and that's it," and Mary has no role. She's just very nice there in heaven, and that's wonderful. You can pray to her once in a while, but leave it at that.

B: Let's look at some of the other devotions—let's say like Benediction, or the Stations of the Cross. What is their approach to those devotions?

K: The Stations of the Cross, for example, they'll have during Lent, and they'll get one of the groups in the seminary or a deacon to do it, but in a way in which they destroy the true devotion of the Way of the Cross—suffering with Our Lord, seeing how our sins caused Him to fall. The way they destroy the traditional notion of the Way of the Cross is by encouraging "creativity," for you to create your own Way of the Cross. So each group will be responsible for composing these lovely prayers to accompany our brother, Jesus, along the way to His glory. With Benediction it's even funnier. The Liturgy at St. Peter's Seminary is, as was admitted by our liturgy professor, specifically designed to discourage "conservatism." So Benediction, for example, they'll allow it—only after the conservatives have for a long time protested and asked for it. But when they do have it, they make sure they start Benediction with a Glory and Praise hymn on guitar, they'll have the Latin hymn Tantum Ergo, and at the end they'll have another Glory and Praise hymn. Also, they'll put the Word—you know, the "Word," that is Scripture, now; it's the new interpretation of "Word" in the sanctuary, and we'll have a reading—so there's emphasis... they want to be balanced. Our focus at Benediction should be the Word, the Word made Flesh. Our Lord and God present, and they do everything to distract from, and make ridiculous Benediction. I've heard it at various seminaries called "Cookie Worship." There's a great downplaying, and a great reluctance, and there's no reverence, because they don't know how to do it basically. They do it so rarely that they don't know how to do it anymore. So it's a real farce.

B: Would they be able to do it if their belief isn't there?

K: I think they'll go through the motions. I think a lot of priests are still going through the motions, through the externals, but because they've lost reverence, and love for Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, it's just a motion, an action, and there's no depth to it. It doesn't strike their souls. We saw that very much at St. Peter's, it's just going through the motions, especially in the traditional devotions. Get them done, it's an action, it's not an action of love or of uniting ourselves with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

M: It's a veneer of Catholicism, basically.

B: It's a camouflaged apostasy.

J: Yes, they would take the Stations of the Cross, and they would make the "Social Justice Stations of the Cross," or the "Suffering Women Stations of the Cross." They'd use devotions like that to promote some kind of...

K: That's right, instead of adoring God in the Blessed Sacrament, per se, for Himself, in His glory, they'll attach a theme to any particular devotion. So that the end is no longer to adore God in the Blessed Sacrament, but to use God as a means to push your social justice theme, or whatever theme you have.

B: Again, it comes back to desupernaturalization.

K: Yes, again that's right.

B: How would they approach the Eucharist?

J: It's a meal.

K: We have to be casual.

M: Yes, very casual, kneeling is out of the question, definitely. You would be severely disciplined for that. Or for any kind of Thanksgiving after Mass. Keith and I were both forbidden to do Thanksgivings after Mass, rather (it is more important) to be on time for that community meal, which is very conveniently—Bang! Bang!—right after the Mass. Very irreverent. The whole community would go up (into the sanctuary) after the Intercessory Prayers, and stand in the sanctuary around the table altar; it's the "table-altar theology"—basically the Protestant theology. The Mass ceases to be the re-enactment of the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary, and it becomes merely a meal—the community sharing a meal. Very irreverent.

B: Did you see any abuses in the Liturgy?

K: Yes, many times I would receive the Blessed Sacrament, and because they use a crumbly sort of bread—I'd receive on the tongue, and I'd see crumbs of Our Blessed Lord fall on the ground, and afterwards I'd come up and purify the spot when no one was around. Many times during "Group Masses" you could see that there was no reverence for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. They always broke the Host as if it were just bread, and nothing more, and letting the fragments fly where they might. I remember seeing a picture of my group leader celebrating Mass around an ordinary dinner table that was set for dinner with dinner plates. He was wearing a stole that must have been two inches wide, and alb. There was salt and pepper, and afterwards I saw another picture of the same table with them at the table eating dinner. Thus at the same place where they had the "Eucharistic meal" they just replaced it with a spaghetti meal, or with something, I don't know. You can see that because they're constantly treating Our Lord as if He were not there, indeed I think He might not be there, but if He is He is being ignored. The "community," and casualness, and brotherhood, and friendship is stressed at the expense of Jesus Christ. Our Lord suffers, basically, at Mass.

J: Yes, in our Eucharist class I've heard it said that we're encouraged to invite non-Catholics to come to Mass, and to give them Communion. That's totally sacrilegious! But the reasoning was that it's more important that everyone get together than the fact that everyone doesn't believe that it's Jesus. It's a unity over truth.

B: Now, does it bother them that they are deliberately rebelling against the authority of the Pope in this matter?

J: Oh no, they see it as inevitable that the Pope will realize that he's wrong, and he'll come in line. You see once they've engrained this democratic view of the Church it's only a matter of time—"This is happening at the grassroots level and eventually the Pope will realize that all the people want it and he'll change the teaching to correspond to that." So it doesn't bother them at all—to them it's just a matter of time before the Pope changes the teaching.

M: Each priest is his own Magisterium.

K: That's right, he's his own Pope.

J: Everyone can be the Pope except...

K: The Pope.

B: It would seem then that what you have is a schism in actuality even if it's not official.

K: It's undeclared schism. It's a material schism—it exists, it's a reality, it just hasn't been declared, and they like it that way. They like hiding behind their Roman collars. They like their pensions, they like their salary, they like their seminaries, they like their power. They like hiding behind the "Bureaucratic Catholic Church," and yet pushing their alternate religion, which is a new religion, and altogether not Catholic.

M: The priesthood is a device to attain their own ends.

B: It would seem then that they are putting themselves let's say above two thousand years of tradition and the teachings of Christ, Himself. What would happen, let's say, if a seminarian would reproach one of the professors at the seminary on that line?

J: Well, he might get away with it once but it he persisted in doing that he would soon find himself kicked out of the seminary.

K: He'd be on the "habitual offender" list, and he would find himself removed from the seminary.

B: But I thought they were calling for flexibility and openness.

K: Again, flexible in all things but that which is on the right.

J: Yes, you can't be traditional, that's the only thing you can't be.

M: They're very dogmatic about their liberalism.

B: I see (laughter). Now the purpose of the Church has always been the salvation of souls. What it tries to do is to obtain as many souls as possible so that they'll achieve their salvation in heaven. What is their view of the after-life, of the four last things?

K: In philosophy, we have lectures given by a priest who is the liturgy director of the Diocese of London. We call them "Heresy Lectures," because you're always bound, every couple of weeks to get something that contradicts the Church's teaching. I remember in one case, he was talking about heaven—this particular priest—and he said that in heaven when we come before God we will become one with God. And one of the seminarians asked him, because it was so strange: "Does that mean we will lose our identity, our substance—that we will merge with God?" The priest said: "Oh yes! We will become one with God. We will merge with God." This particular seminarian, who was by no means conservative, said: "I have never heard anything like this before. What is this merging with God stuff? I thought we were before the Beatific Vision, before God, in God's glory, but becoming one with God?" It's very Teilhardian, very evolutionary. Everything is evolving into God, and God is the "world spirit."

B: What would they say about hell?

J: Hell is made for capitalists and rich land owners.

B: If it exists at all.

J: If it exists at all, yes.

B: And, of course, the other place is purgatory. Is that mentioned at all in the seminary?

K: No. I remember we had All Souls' Day. And, you know, it was funny. We were listening for a good Catholic sermon. We were expecting to hear about where those souls go. I mean why do we have All Souls' Day unless we are to pray for them otherwise they would be before God. And in this whole sermon, this priest, who had been wholly educated in the post-conciliar Church—he was a new product, a new professor—he didn't mention purgatory once; not once in a whole sermon, he didn't even allude to it. He talked about everything else in the book but he didn't talk about purgatory; the very purpose of that Mass. And the very purpose of the Mass, in that respect, is that it's propitiatory—to pour out graces upon the whole Church, and that is the souls in purgatory as well. To apply the Redemption, the redemptive graces won by Our Lord, and re-applied in the Mass to those poor souls. We never heard about the poor souls, because he doesn't believe there are any.

M: It's part of the whole over-emphasis on the mercy of God at the expense of His justice. It's not the two equal scales of mercy and justice. There's just mercy, because God is all love so how could he condemn any of these poor people. Why should you have to suffer? You shouldn't have to suffer for your sins because there's all kinds of psychological, humanistic reasons why you do things. There shouldn't be any kinds of repercussions, and God wouldn't be a big, bad meany, and all that kind of thing.