The Biggest Problem...

Have I mentioned before how much I like Fr. Jim Tucker? Other than his weakness for Libertarianism he has some very sound ideas.

Here is an example of one of them.

I have said in the past that the greatest evil facing the Earth is the push to ordain women. I would rather have a toxic waste dump in the middle of my neighborhood, I would rather every meal be Boston Market, I would rather have every painting in every museum be painted by Thomas Kinkade than to see a woman standing at the altar of my parish. Or any parish. All of the evils listed above are the sorts of evils that we can survive. They can be dealt with. Once you start tinkering with the sacrament of ordination, you block all of the other sacraments, and without sacraments, pffft! That's all folks.

I still stand by this, but Don Jim takes it to the root of the problem when he says, "the single biggest problem and the root of countless errors is flawed ecclesiology." We wouldn't even have the strange and hideously evil notion of ordaining women on the table if it weren't for the pioneering work of diabolism by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, et alia.

Anyway, this is the opening salvo of my Week of Prayer for Christian Unity posts. You will get enough blather on "let us see how we have hurt one another and begin to discuss our commonalities..." in your parish. You will get plenty of talk about dialog and all of that in the bishop's newsletter. And all of that is probably fine and good since we really have been shits at one time or another (while he chose a horribly wrong road, Luther started out with some valid complaints), and will probably continue to be shits.

However, if we really want to help these poor people wandering around in the wilderness, we need to say loud and clear, "lay down your pride, abandon your vile heresy, end your schism and submit to the Roman Pontiff. Or go to Hell." That last sentence is most important. More is at stake than boosting membership in a club. We might be shits, but we are shits with access to the Sacrament of Confession. What is a poor Calvinist sinner to do? Quake and shiver and await Hell or just enjoy life while he can? Ah-hah! Now you might understand why I blame our pornographic culture on the Calvinists!