FR GRAYLAND AND SUNDRY MODERNISTS IN THE CHURCH OF NICE RAMPANT

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It's all of a piece. 

Father Grayland's arrant nonsense at St Peter's College Palmerston North - denying the Reality of the Real Presence - Cardinal Dew's soothing noises about the 'great peace' enjoyed by Pope Francis in the face of schism, and the agitating on behalf of the 'powerless and invisible' women of the Church in the Marists' mouthpiece, CathNews.

Not to mention, also in CathNews, the sympathetic report on the denial of Communion to public sinner Senator Joe Biden and the unblinking quotation of Cardinal Timothy Dolan's heretical views on that subject - "Communion is medicine for the soul and all should feel welcome". 

Let's call it all by its name, which is Modernism, or the Church of Nice Rampant, denounced by Pope St Pius X as "the synthesis of all heresies"; the idea that the Church must keep up with the times.

And now let's look at the modernists (or a select few, we haven't time to deal to all that we'd like to).

"[W]e allude...", says the sainted Pope "to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself,... and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church.

"...And this policy they follow willingly and wittingly, both because it is part of their system that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned, and because it is necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the Church in order that they may gradually transform the collective conscience. 

"It must be first noted that every Modernist sustains and comprises within himself many personalities: he is a philosopher, a believer, a theologian, an historian, a critic, an apologist, a reformer. 

Which brings to mind the incredible CV of Father Joseph Grayland. It's seven pages long. I kid you not. He's been everywhere, man. He's worked for doctors, accountants, plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers. He's studied in Germany - and Massey, Otago and Victoria. He's lectured and pastored all over the shop: Auckland, Boston Massachusetts, Hawera, Foxton, Germany.

Three things strike me about Fr Grayland's astounding career:

• No appointment seems to have lasted for long. 
• In accomplishing so much, in so many different places and disciplines, he sounds like a complete and utter Martha. Where would he have found the time to be Mary, devoting to prayer the time that is absolutely essential to the purpose of the priesthood - saving souls? Prayer is the indispensable foundation for the apostolate, and in Fr Grayland, isn't the lack of it painfully obvious?
• The likely effect of such a CV on lay people and fellow priests alike: gosh, he must know what he's talking about. Actually he doesn't. He’s talking about God, who is known only through the experiential knowledge of contemplative prayer, not the theoretical knowledge of degrees and qualifications, even theological.

 "Let those, then, who are great actives," says St John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, "that think to girdle the world with their outward works and their preachings, take note here that they would bring far more profit to the Church, and be far more pleasing to God (apart from the good example they would give) if they spent even half of this time with God in prayer."