'They can't cancel us - so save the Church'. Reflections on 'Dignitas Infinita" Ashenden scripted

“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and your religious act like religious.”
Monsignor Fulton Sheen.
“I expect to die in bed; my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”
Cardinal George
AM9UGNTE7XOZJDMX

[@johnharkness6304]

Had the immense privilege of serving Mass in my native Dublin when Bishop Sheen came to Ireland in 1968, possibly 69 not absolutely sure. He preached at the Carmelite Church in Whitefriars St where I was an altar boy in the late sixties. What a magnificent example for todays Bishops.

[@aseeker2109]

To downplay the seriousness and effects of original sin is to downplay the need for the Passion and Death of Christ as the means of our salvation. To downplay the Passion and Death of Jesus is to downplay the unfathomable Divine Mercy of the Most Holy Trinity. If we do not rightly appeal to Divine Mercy for our salvation, which is through our repentant heart for sin, we shall surely suffer the fullness of Divine Justice. For the Church and the salvation of souls... ❤🙏🙏🙏❤

[@joecascone8113]

They can't cancel us. That is as true as it is enboldening. But if you think about it, this pope and some of his bishops and priests try to, don't they? They try to cause us to despair and even leave Christ's Church with all its richness, the sacraments, doctrine, and most valuable, it's Mother and the Communion of the Saints. Stay strong, soldiers of Christ. Be the Militia of the Immaculata. Remain steadfast.

[@tomthx5804]

The great thing about Sheen was his ability to get EVERYONE to listen to him. His Emmy winning show, "Life is Worth Living" combined theatricality, humor, and solid Catholic teaching. What was amazing is that people in the bars of New York City, every time his show was on, insisted that the bartender tune the TV to Sheen's show so they could watch. When you get the people hanging out in bars to listen to you, you really have a gift. The good thing is that many of his shows are now on youtube and EWTN

[@murphyorama]

Thank you Gavin, wonderful words of Truth and wisdom.

[@clareg845]

Thank you Dr Ashenden, for this profound reflection, Our Hierarchy appear to be afraid to speak out and inspire. I have a great devotion to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, like you this Priest spoke with authority about truth and morals with utter conviction!!

[@moleasuarus]

Don't be so sure that they can't cancel the dead. Bishop Sheen's beatification has been canceled for spurious reasons.

[@mooncat4965]

The Devil hard at work

[@DrGAshenden]

That’s true.

[@robertkravchuk3080]

It pains one that such a public advocate for the Faith when he lived, is treated so in death.

[@jenyoung2473]

Yes but if he is a saint in heaven they cannot cancel that. We can ask for his intercession whether he is in purgatory or heaven and they cannot cancel that!

[@philsdon8932]

Thank you Dr. Ashenden! I had showdown with a priest on this subject. I didn't say one thing that was insulting or unkind, but he completely lost his composure and went on the attack. Was I right? I was very troubled. Who am I to challenge a priest? My sin was that I made sense and wouldn't back down. Anything can be finessed. The catechism is there to guide and protect us, not to deprive us of fun.

[@andrewvavuris8789]

Well done, Brother! Keep it up! You are doing important work. That priest will think twice before he abuses his captive audience.

[@soniavadnjal7553]

If you yourself were not insulting or unkind, and kept your composure, you were right to challenge him, priest or not. The priest has authority, but if he holds wrong or mistaken ideas, and expresses them to a captive audience (let's say, a congregation) they can do harm.

[@philsdon8932]

@@soniavadnjal7553 It's worse than you can imagine. The church is in Hollywood and there is a real push for LGBT inclusion. I'm fine with the LGBT community, but I don't prioritize it. I received communion from a young man in a muscle shirt and booty jeans. Clearly dressed to attract sexual attention. So at what point can a priest justify shrugging off his vows of chastity? I asked him that. He was outraged. In San Francisco they had a Beyonce Mass. Shouldn't they be reaching out to young men and women who are capable and willing to have children? With an alternate life style congregation, the Church will die when they die.

[@kg3718]

The voice of Bishop Fulton Sheen sounds to me like the voice of God whenever I hear him speak

[@marksargent2440]

I am not a Catholic my self but I am a fellow in beliver jesus christ. He said we need to be aware of wolfs in sheep's clothing we are all sinners saved by grace alone. not by works we are definitely in a moral decay and spiritual decline we need to seek his kingdom first God told us man's wisdoms foolish and he's come to restore what we have lost. Lord keep us all safe in what's happening in this world and awaken us to your word once more

[@philiphumphrey1548]

For many, there are three stages of growing up. 1) My parents know everything. 2) My parents and their whole generation know nothing. 3) Maybe my parents were right about a lot of things. Francis and his cabal seem to be stuck in stage 2).

[@tylerfoss3346]

"True goodness is unconscious......Let's tell the Truth!" Bravo! BRAVO!!!

[@paddyearly]

God has raised you up as a powerful convert and stunning advocate for the truth🙏 Glory to God🙏

[@applin121]

A lie is best hidden between two truths.

[@declancronin437]

Thank you for your wonderful and clear teaching. We are all called to be Saints which starts with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit as was with the Apostles in the upper room. I pray for many Catholic Saints and a new Pentecost in the Church. Jesus I Trust in you 🙏 🙏

[@maryannelindenberger6199]

THANK YOU!!!

[@kathywiens9852]

Excellent!! Thank you for these wise words of yours, and especially those of the past. 🙏🙌🙏💝

[@drjohnashfield3915]

Thank you

[@thomasmccafferty8203]

Thank God for Dr Ashenden, we the lay people will stand against the heresy from Rome.

[@Stupidityindex]

One must be insanely arrogant to suggest knowing something of a God. It is by boldness, Moses became the world's worst navigator, by having one foot in some fantasyland. There is a fine line between fishing & standing on the shore, looking like an idiot. Fail to get the Jews to buy it for 2000 years & they should know who their Messiah is. Jesus is a fake, to immortalize the war against the Jews. Jesus Christ is crucified for all time in literature & the subjects of Rome are illiterate. Freud wrote, "The antidote to Christianity is literacy" & the joke is in the scriptures. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:" Galatians 3:13 An improvement on your God & faith; would outlaw indoctrination & abuse of the vocabulary of fiction on children.

[@tessarmitage1813]

Are you a sedevacantist? The Pope cannot approve heresy.

[@mullsyp]

Similar words we’re quoted by the Archbishop of Sydney at the funeral Mass of Cardinal Pell at St Mary’s Cathedral !! RIP Cardinal Pell 🙏

[@388Caroline]

Thank You, Dr. Ashenden 😞

[@arthurkearney6193]

God bless you. Really heartening presentation of beauty of order and tradition. Your work is in the tradition of Pope Benedict and Roger Scruton.

[@applin121]

People: if you don’t know Fulton Sheen do so now!

[@watermain48]

Well said and thank you Dr. Ashenden. Pope Francis truly can't cancel Bishop Sheen, but he can, and has, put a stop to the good Bishop Sheen's beatification.

[@williamreymond2669]

There is a kind of a spiritual succession from Bishop Fulton Sheen to Cardinal Francis George to Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron for Pope! Mark my words, this is what we should want and should pray for if we want a restoration of the Church Universal.

[@BarbaraSippy-nc8bz]

👍💖🙏

[@tomthx5804]

I had no idea that Aidan Nichols (the famous Dominican theologian) had been banished. After Nichols signed an ill advised letter accusing the pope of heresy, or at least something close to heresy, Nichols was stripped of his university job and sent as a simple priest to Jamaica. JP II or Benedict would never have done anything like that. They would have allowed him to stay in his university job, and might have had a dialogue with him to show him where he was wrong. They would have taken his criticism to heart, and carefully examined whether the criticism was justified.. But Pope Francis? Pope Francis the Wicked insured that Nichol's university job taken away from him, and has him banished to Jamaica, where there are precious few Catholics, and a hot climate that will be hard on an old man. Such actions indicate Francis has no intention of acting like a Christian.

[@megschreiber6391]

I love your new haircut Gavin.

[@soniavadnjal7553]

Maybe in honour of the US trip. (And - dare I say - not before time).

[@user-ll9wh4jt2k]

The latest document states a falsehood, then tries to argue that this is the sole reason why a series of 18 social problems can be stated to be right or wrong. The author of this document waved around the code of Canon Law and threatened the priesthood and religious who took vows of obedience to the hierarchy that they must obey this illogical decree. Recently my priest got angry with me and another penitent in the confessional for daring to say that transitioning a child was child abuse. He argued that God accepts people as they are therefore we should accept them. So many people fall into this trap. You can excuse any wrongdoing by thinking that God understands why you do it. It is not only the physical act that i s wrong, it is the motivation behind it. Making oneself vulnerable to exploitation by devaluing sex and making a child vulnerable to exploitation is a huge refusal of God's love for the person. What are we being ordered to accept?

[@andrealewis3638]

God is not the author of confusion.

[@user-ll9wh4jt2k]

@@andrealewis3638 Can you expand on that?

[@TuckerSP2011]

There is a Coalition for Canceled Priests here in the USA. Its becoming more common for Francis to pull the good shepherds away from the sheep. I think he is a very dangerous person. I find it very hard to pray for his intentions because I don't trust his intentions. I can only pray that Mother Church will recover but something tells me that things will only get worse. Pope Benedict XVI spoke often of a smaller remnant church. Lets hope Dr. Ashenden is correct that the people of God will bring the Church back.

[@soniavadnjal7553]

We have the Lord's promise that the "gates of hell" will not prevail, and that He will be with us til the end of time.

[@yootoobabble]

I think it is safe to pray for a bad Pope's intentions, trusting that God in his infinite wisdom is not constrained to endorse a person's bad intentions, and that even the worst people have at least a few goid intentions!

[@kelzandorje]

Thanks a lot for your words, Dr. Ashenden.

[@karinmaryturner]

May we remember that our good Pope is Italian and may be interpreted according to the Media Press, who are on the look out for news all the time ..................

[@michelleburke5674]

Thank you for this message. I respect you and Bishop Sheen very much. Also Bishop Strickland, Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Sarah. Also Cardinal Zen and Cardinal Müller. Also Bishop Athanasius Schneider. They speak against the modern corruption of Marxist and woke thought which has entered the church with Pope Francis.

[@marycrawford1594]

Being a revolutionary is heady stuff. I was a child during the Vatican II changes and even though time seemed much slower to me then the rate of change seemed needlessly rapid. What I remember is one group of clergy and religious positively intoxicated with what they assumed was the Holy Spirit and another group silent and tired. I also remember many many people leaving the Church disillusioned. One thing I noticed as I entered adolescence and became critical, was that while the clergy kept on insisting that Vatican II put the laity at the heart of the Church, they also kept on ignoring the pleas of those who missed the rituals and the Latin mass. No matter what the hierarchy may now claim, they did suppress the Latin mass, whilst high on the righteousness of their own 'vision' for the future. And very few have ever admitted that mistakes were made, or that the destruction of tradition was the cause of the exodus of people from the pews. [I must add the proviso that many good priests did their level best to make things work, and it is their tireless efforts that saved the mass during the 80s, 90s, and the new century.] Ironically, I am coming to suspect that now IS the time for the laity. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when all seemed lost, the women stayed strong. The people in the pews, the people sticking to sayng the rosary, the people turning up for morning prayers, are the backbone of the Church, and can save it.

[@wendyfield7708]

Bishop Sheen’s beatification was delayed not cancelled. With God and the Church everything takes a long time. People want everything in a hurry today. Learn to cultivate Patience! +

[@Mark3ABE]

It is useful, sometimes, to contemplate the history of the Church. Is a Pope essential? For three years, there was no Pope at all. At another time, there were two Popes - in an effort to resolve the impasse, a third was elected! The Church survived with no Pope. Could the Church survive with no Clergy? After the Missionaries established the Church in Japan, the Mikado closed Japan to the West and expelled all of the Missionaries. Only Japanese Catholics, with no Clergy, remained. However, the Missionaries had appointed Catechists, who had authority to Baptise and to teach the Faith. So, the Church in Japan survived for over a hundred years with no Clergy. The Faithful attended Mass, said by a Catechist, and made a spiritual communion, which, in a case of necessity, as we found during the pandemic, is a valid way of receiving the Eucharist. As Jesus said when establishing the Eucharist, “it is the Spirit which gives life, the flesh is unavailing”. So, if the Church does have to go underground, it could survive. As long as the Faithful have the Sacred Scriptures, the Divine Office, the Lectionary, the Missal, the Catechism (1994 edition!) the writings of the Fathers and the dogmatic definitions of the Councils, they can survive as the Church, without a Pope, Cardinal, Archbishop, Bishop, Priest or Deacon. It is not the Lord’s perfect plan for the Church, but, as the Japanese Catholics found when deprived of the Clergy and the Hierarchy, the Lord always has a “Plan B”. He has promised that his Church cannot fail, come what may - so it won’t! Could the Church survive without Fiducia Supplicans and Dignitas Infinita? Of course it could. They contain no dogmatic definitions. They are Cardinal Fernandez’s personal opinions. Some useful commentaries on existing dogma, some not so useful. Remember, Cardinal Fernandez (who for all practical purposes now exercises the Petrine Ministry) has now formally confirmed that the Pope will never invoke Papal Infallibility to teach on matters of faith and morals. Pope John XXIII after his election in 1958 formally confirmed that, as far as he was concerned, that dogma is a dead letter. Since its unfortunate, hurried, introduction in 1870 it has never been used. Cardinal Fernandez says that there are now two Theologies - the “Theology of Tradition” and the “Theology of Francis”. Cardinal Fernandez does not propose to use Papal Infallibility to destroy the “Theology of Tradition”. He simply instructs the Faithful (the “Faithless?”) to abandon it and to embrace the warm, cuddly, non challenging, non threatening, walking with and accompanying sin and error of the Theology of Francis in its place.

[@JasVmitten]

downplay original sin, likewise free will...is liberty next?

[@Zachary-Nichols]

the Orthodox Church will never change for the world like the church of man that is the roman Catholic Church for our church is the original church founded by Christ our king and God and was not built on document forgeries and additions to the creed which violated the echumenical councils I urge anyone reading this to do research and come back home to orthodoxy☦️

[@CornerTalker]

When no absolute is above the state, the state becomes absolute.

[@lorettakristina6960]

❤

[@mavisemberson8737]

I'm Orthodox in belief so it is interesting to compare the Orthodox opinions on the internet which are not always what they should be !

[@CatholicZealot]

Since you quote Sheen, let me quote a great theologian, who said this about converts to Catholicism: “The remark has frequently been made that it is chiefly converts, with little theological cultivation, but plenty of youthful zeal, who surrender themselves in willing and joyful mental slavery to the infallible ruler of souls; rejoicing and deeming themselves fortunate to have a master, visible, palpable, and easily inquired of.” You would have made a great editor at Pravda, Gavin.

[@user-ws2xy4xh3x]

Not yet, but how long have we got?

[@angelamalek]

The one who will save the Church is Our Lord Jesus. He asks for obedience even to our fallible leaders and to trust that the Church will prevail despite whatever chaos they may produce.

[@user-ll9wh4jt2k]

I will not be jumping off the roof of the Temple with you. Jesus never asked us for obedience to those who demand that which is obviously wrong, so why are you demanding that we obey Satan?

[@angelamalek]

@@mn17771 To follow the Vicar of Christ is to follow Christ: ‘whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven.’

[@angelamalek]

@@user-ll9wh4jt2k I would never follow any leader in sin, but we are asked to obey them even if suffering is involved. Jesus obeyed until death.

[@angelamalek]

@@mn17771 Priests have an indelible role instilled in their souls upon their ordination. Our opinions and private judgements are immaterial.

[@user-ll9wh4jt2k]

Allowing yourself to become a victim can be a way of attention seeking. You may be trying to change the behaviour or appear attractive to a person to get their attention, like a woman who is a victim of domestic abuse does. She thinks it is the only way she will be loved. Jesus didn't do this to get attention or manipulate people. This is the part of so called "following Christ" that is playing on your feeling of being unloved and therefore deserving of suffering. Actually this is a lack of faith in God's love. Grow in your faith and stop guilt tripping others.

[@Nuts-about-Nature]

Hell might be empty 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Heaven will be soon unless people start to act morally.

[@johnkennedy4023]

A heaven with Stalin, Mao, and Hitler is no Heaven. There's sin. There's probably unforgivable sin

[@antonralph6947]

Pope Judas 1st.

[@CatholicZealot]

Poor Gavin! If, as Bishop Sheen says, it is up to lay people to save the Church, then the whole point of having bishops, priests, religious and THE POPE is window dressing... in fact counter-productive! 😂😂😂

[@Pacdoc-oz]

Gavin, my brother, you have it as wrong as a layman as when an Anglican cleric. The "Church" is the vehicle of salvation and healing and has no need of being protected, defended or cosseted. "Church" is the fellowship of believers, you and me and I am sure I do nor need to remind you, Jesus from Gethsemane did not defend himself but submitted himself to the worst that the devil could manage to throw at him. The Borgias did their worst, how much did that matter? The Scriptures are the word of God in the words of men, the Catechism is the words of men about the words of men about the words of God. Jesus let us know that He is the way, the truth and the life. All the rest of us are sinners, ALL; you and me and every presbyter, bishop and pope and no efforts by you, me or others in our own strength are going to change the hearts of any of our own brothers and sisters. Focus back to the Good News, forget sociology and psychology, remind all who are in earshot of the reality of the realm of the spirits and of the Pentecostal Spirit.

[@soniavadnjal7553]

We should defend our Christian faith from attacks as we would any beloved thing. Are we not part of the faith community, the Church (in a broad sense) part of Jesus's family? We defend the family faith when it is attacked.

[@DrGAshenden]

I was quoting Bishop Sheen. You need to tell him he was wrong - not me.

[@clareg845]

I agree with Dr Ashenden, he speaks the truth

[@CatholicZealot]

Gavin is now a Roman Catholic. He has to use arguments from authority.