I Know This Has Been Talked About A Little...

[ThomasPeter]

it has to do with the SSPX. as i have struggled on my walk "home again" to the Church i have had stumbling blocks around many protestant issues. but now taht im so much closer "Rome Sweet Home" im finding those blocks coming from those so close to mother church. manly arguments from the SSXP and others liek them. charging Rome has unlawfuly done away with the mass, that the last few pope (either vailid or not) have done things that show they are leading the church astray at best, leading his followers to damnation at worst. etc... this is a link to a site that sums up a bit of what im talking about, it even has some cartoons that show their attitude (of whitch i am sure you already know better than i). [url="http://www.bcshops.com/sspxca/Angelus/2002_May/Rome_Campos_Assisi.htm"]http://www.bcshops.com/sspxca/Angelus/2002...mpos_Assisi.htm[/url] I am on a quest for the truth. i am trying to over come protestent ideas still. but it deeply trubl;es me taht Catholic brothers in faith are saying that, at worst, the current Roman church (under JP2) is almost diabolical. i do fear greatly for mine and alls' salvation. thats why i feel i must comtinue investagating what and where Christs church is. i know this has been a sort of convoluted post, maybe im not in the proper state of mind to be asking this stuff. but i still feel i need to know, for my conscience which must be obeyed. i guess what im asking is this; you are catholic, what is it that you know that keeps your conscience calm at night whan you hear all the things they say on that site and the hundreds of people/articals like it. why are you able to feel it unessasary to delve into history and the councils, scripture and to look at the current vatican? what do you know taht they dont? and whay dont they know it?
i respectfully ask that this be posted, it is important to me that i hear any kind of responce to this. thank you and God bless.
Tom

[Laudate_Dominum]

Dear ThomasPeter,

I can relate to what you are describing. I had similar experiences early on in my conversion.

The site you gave a link to is clearly a vile polemic against the Church. I would recommend avoiding such things as the fruits this sort of thing bear are confusion, bitterness, suspicion and lack of peace.
I will not pretend that there are not problems in the Church, there always have been and always will, but this sort of thing is not a balanced assessment and is in fact quite distorted and nasty. It would be one thing to humbly raise questions regarding some vatican decision or something, but to create cartoons depicting Pope John Paul II being condemned to hell by Christ is hardly the mark of charity or of Catholicity.
The Pope is the vicar of Christ. Who are you going to listen to, the Pope, or some angry people with a website?
It would be better to study the faith, orthodox writings that are in line with the Church and loyal to the Pope. That way you will develop a strong foundation and will be able to see through much of this kind of thing.

Here are some links you may find interesting in the meantime:

[url="http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ389.HTM"]http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ389.HTM[/url]
[url="http://jloughnan.tripod.com/index.htm"]http://jloughnan.tripod.com/index.htm[/url]