In KIKO'S DEFORMED VISION, PT 4: PRIDE DISGUISED, we finally addressed the problem of pride as the evil fruit (among a whole vine of evils, in particular injustice) flowing from Kiko's theology and practice.
And that's why we must be clear on what we mean by the evil fruit of the NCW.
In Part 4, we talked about injustice and pride, but there is one little point that we need to remember when talking about pride as THE fruit of the NCW: it’s a pride born from devotion. It’s not intentional, and I seriously doubt they can see what to us is as obvious as can be. Just as all heresy flows from an overemphasis on one doctrine to the detriment of another, so evils must flow from this deficiency.
But one commenter touched on something that I said, and I want to be sure that readers understand Church teaching on something: the nature of evil. It’s a big topic, but I’ll be brief as possible.
In Part Four, I made this statement [relevant text in bold]:
- “Love of neighbor that is born from the love of Christ seeks the good of the other and does not keep score of such things. It elevates the other according to his dignity, even if he is those things. As Christians, we are called to love our neighbor because he is good, despite the fact that sometimes he does not do good.”
This phrasing that my neighbor is good seems to have caused a bit of confusion. We are sinners, after all, so we are not "good." Likewise, Christ Himself once when called good asked, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but the Father in heaven.”
So why call my neighbor good? It’s because Man was created good. He has being, which he received from God who loved us into being, and anything that has being has ontological goodness. As a crass slogan captures it, God don’t make no crap. Anything created--which is everything but God--is intrinsically good by virtue of its existence. So that’s’ what I mean by my neighbor is good--ontological goodness, or the goodness that is convertible with being.
On the other hand, “he does not do good” indicates moral goodness. This is an entirely different story. This is the kind of thing we mean when we refer to a thing as evil—it is morally not good.
So what makes something evil? The Tradition tells us in clear terms that evil isn't actually a thing or a person all all. Instead, evil is a deficiency in what is good. In other words, a thing is evil if it takes away (or attempts to take away) that which is good.
To use a Pope Francis example: poverty, famine and drought, and plagues are evil. Why? Because Man was meant to have the necessities of life, and poverty is a lack of that. Man was meant to have proper food and drink, but famine and drought are deficiencies of that. Man is meant to be healthy, but plagues and disease corrupt that health.
It’s pretty simple. Now when we speak of moral acts, evil is that which detracts (or seeks to detract) from the goodness of God or ourselves or our neighbor. Blasphemy is evil because it seeks to take away from God’s glory; it’s also evil because it perverts our innate desire to give honor to God out of our natural inclination to justice.
The same is true for murder, adultery, calumny and detraction, and so on. All of these take away from the goodness of things—usually on a bunch of levels. That’s why I keep saying that genuine justice is the restoration of a corrupted thing back to its beauty. Evil perverts; justice restores.
This is why we need to be reconciled with God in the first place. Kiko follows Martin Luther in being concerned just about forgiveness and justification, while we (and the Eastern Orthodox) see it also about restoration of us to what we were made for: sharing in the Divine Life.
And the same holds true in the human realm. Apuron's sins (that's the kindest word I can think to use for it) against youth in his charge as well as against the Archdiocese and his brother priests require more than forgiveness; they require a degree of restoration. That's what penance is all about. Nothing can undo what we done to these four men (and who knows how many others), but that doesn't mean an acknowledgement and apology are worthless either.
Apuron's done none of that. He sees himself as forgiven, and since that's that, no one can touch him now. Whatever. He's not the first bishop in the world to paint himself in to this tragic, hubristic corner.
Likewise Fr Pius. Jungle Watch isn’t demanding an end to his influence and his regime of corruption because “he’s mean” or “he doesn’t like the Latin Mass” or "he thinks he's better than us." That would be ridiculous. We demand he be held accountable because he twists the faith of the innocent, manipulates all under him, and acts as a debt collector/enforcer for Kiko and Gennarini. In other words, he perverts what a priest should be. He perverts what a teacher should be. And by his efforts, he helped pervert what an archbishop should be.
This is far beyond any personal failings. Ours is the call for justice and restoration of the good that has been so defiled and degraded.
Remember: there’s a reason that after a Catholic church has been desecrated, it actually must be re-consecrated—the spiritual damage is so grave that Mass cannot be said there until the stain of the desecration is removed. How’s that as a lesson for us all?
So all of this must be understood if we are to really get the problem with the NCW (and as we’ll see in Part 5, with the bishops). The theology of the NCW must always lead to evils (as all bad theology does), and these evils take away from the goodness of those under its spell as well as the Church.
At the forefront of this (as was said in Part 4) is not only a breakdown in justice, but the profound explosion of pride. It’s the natural fruit of their theology, their method, their reality. And given their persecution complexes and us-vs-them worldview, they can’t see their pride. So darkened is the intellect that even the gentlest counsel is met with the pride of presumption, the pride of superiority, or the pride of basking in the glory of being God’s preferred.
Love of Christ never takes this on. This is EXACTLY why we have been saying all along that this community love that Kiko is so fond of extolling is wrong-headed. Human love on its own always falls short. The Holy Spirit—who is Love Itself—takes that weak human love with all its sentimentality and ambition and transforms it into genuine godliness. And that’s the miracle of miracles.
On a final, darker note: I have been speaking here of the average person who has spent considerable time in the NCW for whom their conversion has actually become the source of vice in them—they have exchanged, say, their adultery and alcoholism for sober, chaste contempt of their neighbor. That’s not conversion; they’ve only exchanged one instrument of damnation for another.
As for the leaders of the NCW--Kiko, Fr Mario, and Carmen (RIP)--I cannot truthfully say I know their hearts. Perhaps they are true believers in their own bad theology. But their world-wide actions, speeches, and manipulations point to a far more demonic intent than most of us are comfortable admitting publicly. We can’t prove a wicked heart and we don’t want to sound like conspiracy theorists. But if it's true that you know a tree by its fruits, then these grapes produce the wine of blindness and moral paralysis. That's tells me quite enough.
And what of the local leaders, from Gennarini to Pius to Apuron and Adrian and Lurch and the others: well, that's why we're here, isn't it? I think their love of power and contempt for the True Faith is enough proof that they in particular are the worst sort, since they not only do evil but promote it in those entrusted to their spiritual care. Indeed, they proclaim this destruction of the good to be a good, and there's no way that is ever consonant with Christ and His Church. I don't care how many cardinals they've bought.
For now, let us rather be watchful. Far too often, it is at night that the lions go out to hunt.
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