Many have a deep hatred for the idea of “right” and “wrong”. They hate instructions and standards that flow from the idea that there is a right and wrong. Human history is, in a sense, merely a record of how people either fled from God and His standards or justified worship of self. When we see the endless public works of the vain, including pyramids, great walls, and endless graves, what we are seeing is wasted lives and lost souls.
Those whose lives are centered on accumulating things in this world have, as their only duty, the gathering of more. This can become the raison d’ etre of their lives, justifying all that they do. When they see, “Thou shalt not steal.”, there’s a tendency to say, “I’m really not stealing.” The more hardened self-lovers say “So what?”
Operating Systems.
When our computers’ operating systems are corrupted, they don’t give us the right answers. Similarly, when our own, individual, human operating systems are flawed, our lives don’t go as well as they could or should. The individual operating system that we have compiled and downloaded within our own mind determines how well we do in this world and in the life to come.
Most people in the West have downloaded, in widely varying degrees, some of The Roman Catholic Church’s beliefs. It is the oldest of the Big Operating Systems, and the only one that promises, through the Sacraments, direct availability to the Will, Mind, and Body of its Programmer.
Protestants have Operating Systems that differ from the Church’s. Protestants who are extreme have operating systems that are in direct opposition to Her.
We do not usually think of Moslems as protest-ants, but The Church was 600 years old when they began, in largely Christian areas. They, as many before and since, protested against Her. In fact, anyone who protests against The Church is, technically, a (small “p”)protestant .
Capital “P” Protestants, like Lutherans and Presbyterians, generally believe in The Trinity, Virgin Birth, etc., but prefer to be “unencumbered” with any Catholic teachings, like the need to go to Mass every week, or the perennial Primacy of Peter, that they find to be inconvenient. Such Protestants, if able to find a sufficient number of similarly-thinking people, are able to begin their own semi-Catholic denominations.
The Church’s operating system was downloaded on earth by Jesus Christ. He, by the laying on of hands, gave His disciples direct access to some of The Source Code. That provided the authority through which they could ordain future priests and bishops so that The Body of Christ would always be available to help those who wanted to download the same operating system and obtain the same access to the Source Code as that utilized by the first disciples.
That download requires an initial two passwords that we enter with both our prayers and our actions, “Belief” and “Obedience”. Those two passwords are also be described as “Faith” and “Works”. We may think of them as we do our feet, putting one in front of the other and then repeating as we move closer to God. Moving forward in this way requires the continual re-programming and upgrading of our own operating system. Information about the right way to download such upgrades is available at the nearest rectory.
It is not necessary, and may only cause confusion, to speak with a priest, or any other professional Catholic, about Catholic Fundamentalism. They’ve done quite well without it, and most see no need for any new approach to God and His Church. It is only a few of us, fleeing a world overwhelmed by flawed operating systems, who might see it as a new road to Rome.
