“And if the canonization does come about, you'll have to retract the entire book, I would imagine, or at least remove it from the market, as canonizations are infallible.”
One evening when my book was being prepared by my publisher the interior designer of the book gave me a call. He was very frustrated that evening because his formatting software wasn’t cooperating with my text. He said to me, “Mark, do you know how many footnotes you have in this book?” I said I had lost count. He said, “You have almost 1600 footnotes in this book!” I tell you the story because those footnotes are mostly in reference to the quotes of the popes, fathers, doctors, saints, councils, and the Scriptures. What part of those writings do you wish me to retract? You see my book is more than a book about Mother Teresa; it is a book about the qualifications for a Saint and canonization. It is, also, a catechism of the faith.
I learned a long time ago that it is vital to have confessional parameters that are sacrosanct. If I did not have confessional parameters that are sacrosanct I would have been an ordained priest living in a religious community long ago. My vocation was confirmed by liberal, conservative, and traditional priests and religious alike. Many of the men I knew whose vocations were confirmed had the idea that it was their duty to get ordained and thought they could play the game to get through seminary. They were not the same men when their day of ordination arrived. They had become, or were on the way to becoming, the very people they saw as the destroyers of the Church when they entered seminary or religious life. What happened? Simply, they made the vocation an idol. A priestly or religious vocation is for the service of God, it is not end in itself. A Catholic is not called to the priesthood or religious life to see God be mocked it those environments only to say, “Someday I will defend you Lord!” That day is the day God give you the grace to know that he is being mocked; and if you are banned from the ordained priesthood or religious life because of your fidelity that is the will of the Lord and your vocation. Because these men rejected the grace of fidelity when given, God rejected them as his servants.
This same principle applies when addressing the larger picture of confessional fidelity. Dogmas and doctrines of the faith are not mysteries that a Catholic needs some special Gnostic knowledge to figure out. The dogmas are assessable to everyone; and the historic understanding of how they have always been understood takes a little work but is not outside the ability of someone who wants to know. I know what the dogmas of the faith are and how they have always been understood. I have drawn a line in the sand and will not cross it. I will not engage in tortured mental gymnastics to reconcile a teaching of a pope not in union with the declarations of the Holy Spirit just because he is pope. If that makes me not a Catholic then praise God, I am not a Catholic! We all have to decide of ourselves were viability dwells. Each of us will stand before the Lord and have to give an account for ourselves. Today could be that day. My conscience is informed and clear on this issue.
If you are a Catholic, how far will you go in obeying Rome? Where do you draw the line?
What do you do when the Church teaches that God is not God? Can’t happen? The Church is already teaching error about God, look at Nostra Aetate 3:
The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
What will you do if Rome teaches and defines:
Canon 666. If any one saith, that Moslems do not adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; let him be anathema.If these hypothetical decrees and canons of Rome are heretical hypothetical decrees and canons, now and forever, then so is a St. Mother Teresa, for she embodies all those errors in her person.
