Catholic Fundamentalists often feel like orphans. Most Catholics look with suspicion on Fundamentalists. They remember persecutions, going all the way back to the 1500s, when Fundamentalists attacked The Church.
In this country, self-styled Fundamentalists, beginning with the Quakers, and continuing through the Mainline Protestant denominations, engaged in anti-Catholic activity. Our governments, as did most others, aided and abetted them in trying to first undermine, and then destroy, the Body of Christ on earth.
So, some Catholics are suspicious of Fundamentalists. Other Catholics regard themselves as “enlightened”, “educated”, and “current”. They believe themselves intellectually superior to Fundamentalists, and tend to look down on us.
So, Catholic Fundamentalists have half a name that, in and of itself, is offensive to many Catholics. We are made aware of that when we begin a sentence, “I’m a Catholic Fundamentalist. . .” and see a slight cloud of disapproval, a narrowing of the eyes and wrinkling of the space between them, especially when those words are heard by a person of liberal inclination.
Conversely, when a Protestant Fundamentalist hears about “Catholic Fundamentalism”, the initial, knee-jerk reaction is usually “How can a Catholic be a Fundamentalist?”
Both these reactions, dear friends, are an opportunity for us “orphans” to show that we are Children of God. Negative responses to Catholic Fundamentalism give us opportunities to indicate that their partial views of reality may be obscured by fear and/or vanity.
A Catholic who does not recognize God’s power to program particles and energies, compile them into systems and beings that He downloaded in The Creation Program has a limited view of God’s power. That attitude comes from giving in to the corrupting spirits of virusville. They spend their time trying to distance God and Creation from us by billions of years.
A Catholic who understands, or even recognizes, Catholic Fundamentalism’s idea of God’s power realizes that He downloaded the entire Creation Program to give us free will. His immense Creation Program requires things like fossils, carbon-14, black holes, and all the things that many choose to take more seriously than the more powerful Loving Programmer. Thinking about His great power to program and download The Creation Program, along with the Hierarchy of Programming Assistants who keep things going, makes us better Catholics.
Similarly, a non-Catholic who claims to be a “Fundamentalist” and does not recognize the obvious meaning of “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood, you do not have life in you.” is living in contradiction. If Scripture is true, and passages like that, and much of John, Chapter 6, are ignored, then it is our duty to gently make such oversights obvious. While all faith in Christ is to be applauded, the most complete faith, believes all that He taught. Today, only Catholic Fundamentalists can make that claim.
We may mention, when appropriate, that we human programs run better if we have no internal conflicts. We think and act more effectively if we avoid a multiplicity of operating systems. The Fundamentalist may reduce contradictions and conflicts by believing all of Scripture. That, we may suggest, is most easily done by being a member of The Church that Christ solemnly promised to build on the rock of Peter. (Matthew 16:18-20)
