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On the Ignorant and the Gullible

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JMJ



Sometimes codified as in the 2009 Criminal Code of Canada: "Ignorance of the law by a person who commits an offence is not an excuse for committing that offence." Source

As I write this I have a cold, so I have had time to think about my interactions with Gullible and the blogger of Restore DC Catholicism.

What occurred to me is that ignorance is the root of the issues that motivate both the blogger and Gullible.

The blogger, when confronted with Church Teaching on the required intention for confecting the Sacraments replied:
That's a bit of a stretch that I don't believe.

It is useless to argue facts so I invite the blogger to not take my word for it.  They should look up the facts from reliable sources.

Then they can judge if I am right or wrong.

The same goes for Gullible.

Like most 'resistors' that I've encountered (... NTS: I am making an assumption that Gullible is a 'resistor'), Gullible is hasty in judgement with too few facts.

I would rewrite Canadian Law to this situation: 
Ignorance of Church Teaching by a Catholic is no excuse for denying that Teaching.
If you are ignorant of Church Teaching, then you are in danger of being fooled, in other words you are gullible.

The ignorant are a large at-risk population. However, in this case there is no safety in numbers.

This is a population that I absolutely do not want to be a part of.

That is a population that you absolutely not want to be a part of.

So what do you do?

It is simple in theory, a little harder in practice.

In theory you need to:
  1. Study the faith: Studying the faith, increasing your understanding will broaden your perspective.  This helps to keep from getting blindsided by a false assertion.
  2. Deepen your spiritual life: Do spiritual reading (Lives of Saints, Imitation of Christ etc), meditation (rosary etc), regularly access the sacraments, prayer.
  3. Be grateful for what you have received!  You don't deserve it! (See this article and this one)
In short, you need to practice to your Catholic Faith with diligence otherwise if all you focus on is #1, then you will run out of grace and crash.  By crash I mean make a soul losing mistake, one from which is will be incredibly difficult to recover.

In the last 10 years, I've seen friends and acquaintances make big mistakes. Mistakes that they agreed were logically wrong. Mistakes that were emotionally motivated.

If you don't have a good foundation by understanding the faith and a strong spiritual life, then you are in the at-risk population of gullibles.  You will believe the first person that says something that 'sounds' right, that resonates with your beliefs, even if it doesn't make sense.

Enter Cognitive Dissonance.

Don't dis psychology because of its atheistic founders.  A lot of it works because it is the study of humans as a herd.  If you are gullible, then you are part of the herd.

Let me give you an example:
I heard Pope Benedict XVI make a statement that 'sounded' modernist.  I just took it as that and moved on.

I had a belief that Pope B16 was a modernist and would talk like one.So all was good 😀

Then a month of so later Bishop Fellay said almost the exact same words.😒

Woah Noah, what's going on?😅

I had a belief that the words were modernist and as long as only B16 said them all was happy.  Then when Bishop Fellay said it ... I had a set of choices:  Either the words were modernist or traditional.

I know a number of people who would jump to the conclusion that Bishop Fellay, by his contact with the authorities in Rome had become infected by modernism.

I didn't go down that path, I set aside the emotional response and did the logical thing. I looked it up and found that what Pope B16 had said was a quote from pre-council teaching (Trent if I remember correctly).😇

Wow, this taught me to be more discerning when something simply 'sounds' modernist.  It might or it might not be.  All I had to do was:


Look

It

Up

Passion is not out of place in the Catholic Faith. Passion that is disconnected from the Catholic Faith IS out of place.

If your passion is connected with a continually growing knowledge of the faith and a continually deepening of your spiritual life and a healthy dose of gratitude.

Then you will be a channel of grace.👍

P^3



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