So when I read his post and the links within, I’m required to act.
So What I’m doing is going to the site of the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (St. Robert Bellarmine is the patron of our pastor, he is always quoting him). Where I found this action page and this collection note.
I printed out this page and will include it in the collection and just double up on the collection to the parish.
Knowing my pastor he will ask about this and that will lead him to this page, there are plenty of local charities that need the money so it’s not like it will be a problem.
It is vital for Christians in General and Catholics in particular to remember that the primary duty is Worship of God, avoidance of sin and the goal of heaven. All we do in charity is in keeping with that goal. One is in danger of losing sight that Christ is the means to the end, when people use Christianity as the means to a different personal end it will likely lead to a bad end. There is a reason why the 1st commandment is the 1st.
As the Gospel says:
When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head. There were some who were indignant. “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil? It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.” They were infuriated with her.
Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. She has anticipated anointing my body for burial. Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them. Mark 14:3-10
It is interesting to note that directly afterward being rebuked for putting a cause (even a good cause) before Christ that Judas goes off to deal with the chief priests.
Something for these guys to consider.
None of this should be a surprise, Christianity in general and the truth of the Church (one and the same) will always be attacked from without and from within by the enemy, from without to keep people away from the truth and from within to disillusion and deceive those who have found it. A roman collar is not a guarantee of salvation any more than membership in another church is a harbinger of damnation.
