Do There Exist "enemies Of The Church"?

[mortify ii]

I think she's saying the source was Aristotle...

Yea I got that much, meant where in his writing

[MIKolbe]

iono.. you might wanna try a library

[PhuturePriest]

There is only one enemy of the Church, and his username is MIkolbe.

[arfink]

I think the poll is disingenuous because it asks me to name who I think is an enemy of the Church. Firstly, I do not read souls, and even if I did, I do not think it would be prudent to call the Church's enemies by name. Secondly, I don't exactly see how we should have such deep concern over who are enemies of the Church, as we have been promised by God that the Church will not be prevailed against even by Satan himself.

 

Now Nihil, I'm aware that you've shared your concerns about a pope preaching heresy and all that. And it's a fine hypothetical, which depending on the amount of trad blogs you read could be more or less plausible. But honestly, why should ordinary lay people be concerned over it? We will get no say in these matters, ever. The best we can ever hope for is to approach the judgement seat and account for ourselves, which is hard enough as it is without casting aspersions on anyone by pondering who the Church's enemies are.

[Perigrina]

Now Nihil, I'm aware that you've shared your concerns about a pope preaching heresy and all that. And it's a fine hypothetical, which depending on the amount of trad blogs you read could be more or less plausible. But honestly, why should ordinary lay people be concerned over it? We will get no say in these matters, ever. The best we can ever hope for is to approach the judgement seat and account for ourselves, which is hard enough as it is without casting aspersions on anyone by pondering who the Church's enemies are.

 

 

I don't know much about what has happened on this phorum before I got here, but there was nothing in this thread about the possibility of a pope preaching heresy.  I cannot see how such a topic would even be relevant to anything that anyone posted in this thread.  From my perspective as a new person, this looks like something you dragged in to make Nihil look bad.

[Nihil Obstat]

How is our discussion over whether or not a pope could attempt to teach heresy remotely relevant in this thread?
I do not find the poll disingenuous in the least. The Church Herself has referred to enemies in the past. I am curious if the membership here still considers such references to obtain.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Nihil Obstat

[Lilllabettt]

she has enemies within her and friends outside her.

[Didacus]

Just replied to the poll.

 

Yes, there are individuals and groups who are ennemies of the Church.

 

Those who are damned were ennemies of the Churchf and remain so in hell to my understanding.  The saints tell us that no one is damned alone, thus they certainly exist in groups as well.

 

 

 

[Nihil Obstat]

she has enemies within her and friends outside her.

Indeed. Many, many enemies inside. I am sure it causes our Lord great anguish.

[mortify ii]

"We come to you grieving and sorrowful because We know that you are concerned for the faith in these difficult times... We speak of the things which you see with your own eyes, which We both bemoan. Depravity exults; science is impudent; liberty, dissolute. The holiness of the sacred is despised; the majesty of divine worship is not only disapproved by evil men, but defiled and held up to ridicule. Hence sound doctrine is perverted and errors of all kinds spread boldly. The laws of the sacred, the rights, institutions, and discipline -- none are safe from the audacity of those speaking evil. Our Roman See is harassed violently and the bonds of unity are daily loosened and severed. The divine authority of the Church is opposed and her rights shorn off. She is subjected to human reason and with the greatest injustice exposed to the hatred of the people and reduced to vile servitude. The obedience due bishops is denied and their rights are trampled underfoot. Furthermore, academies and schools resound with new, monstrous opinions, which openly attack the Catholic faith; this horrible and nefarious war is openly and even publicly waged. Thus, by institutions and by the example of teachers, the minds of the youth are corrupted and a tremendous blow is dealt to religion and the perversion of morals is spread. So the restraints of religion are thrown off, by which alone kingdoms stand. We see the destruction of public order, the fall of principalities, and the overturning of all legitimate power approaching. Indeed this great mass of calamities had its inception in the heretical societies and sects in which all that is sacrilegious, infamous, and blasphemous has gathered as bilge water in a ship's hold, a congealed mass of all filth"

 

Mirari Vos, Pope Gregory XVI

 

 

No dear Holy Father, you were mistaken about liberty of conscience and freedom to publish! These are wonderful things that your later successors would uphold! 

[mortify ii]

"But now, as is well known to you, Venerable Brethren, already, scarcely had we been elevated to this Chair of Peter (by the hidden counsel of Divine Providence, certainly by no merit of our own), when, seeing with the greatest grief of Our soul a truly awful storm excited by so many evil opinions, and (seeing also) the most grievous calamities never sufficiently to be deplored which overspread the Christian people from so many errors, according to the duty of Our Apostolic Ministry, and following the illustrious example of Our Predecessors, We raised Our voice, and in many published Encyclical Letters and Allocutions delivered in Consistory, and other Apostolic Letters, we condemned the chief errors of this most unhappy age, and we excited your admirable episcopal vigilance, and we again and again admonished and exhorted all sons of the Catholic Church, to us most dear, that they should altogether abhor and flee from the contagion of so dire a pestilence. And especially in our first Encyclical Letter written to you on Nov. 9, 1846, and in two Allocutions delivered by us in Consistory, the one on Dec. 9, 1854, and the other on June 9, 1862, we condemned the monstrous portents of opinion which prevail especially in this age, bringing with them the greatest loss of souls and detriment of civil society itself; which are grievously opposed also, not only to the Catholic Church and her salutary doctrine and venerable rights, but also to the eternal natural law engraven by God in all men's hearts, and to right reason; and from which almost all other errors have their origin."

 

Quanta Cura, Pope Pius IX. December 8th, 1864

 

No dear Vicar, you were wrong, you were living in a very happy age! For all you fought against would eventually be upheld!

[mortify ii]

"The long-continued and most bitter war waged against the divine authority of the Church has reached the culmination to which it was tending, the common danger, namely, of human society, and especially of the civil power on which the public safety chiefly reposes. In our own times most particularly this result is apparent. For popular passions now reject, with more boldness than formerly, every restraint of authority. So great is the license on all sides, so frequent are seditions and tumults, that not only is obedience often refused to those who rule states, but a sufficiently safe guarantee of security does not seem to have been left to them."

 

Diuturnum, Pope Leo XIII. June 29th, 1881.

 

No dear vicar, you fought an unneeded war, we now know that authority derives from the people and not from God

[mortify ii]

"At so urgent a crisis, when so fierce and so pressing an onslaught is made upon the Christian name, it is Our office to point out the danger, to mark who are the adversaries, and to the best of Our power to make head against their plans and devices, that those may not perish whose salvation is committed to Us, and that the kingdom of Jesus Christ entrusted to Our charge may not stand and remain whole, but may be enlarged by an ever-increasing growth throughout the world."

 

Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus

 

No dear Father, the Church does not have an enemies outside of her... 

[mortify ii]

"With truly lamentable results, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race. Thus it falls into very serious errors, which are even more serious when they concern sacred authority, the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and the principal mysteries of Faith. The fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable. In the name of higher knowledge and historical research (they say), they are looking for that progress of dogmas which is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmas."

 

Lamentabili Sane, Pope Piux X, July, 3, 1907

[mortify ii]

Tell me, does it appear that these Vicars believed the Church had enemies and that they were doing whatever they could to destroy the Church? Were they all wrong?