Questions and Answers, Episode 1: How to Interact with Members of the Novus Ordo Sect?
Edward Peschi, a longtime supporter of True Restoration, calls in to ask Bishop Sanborn, “How should we interact with those Catholics in the Novus Ordo religion?”
With regard to the members of the Novus Ordo sect, Bishop Sanborn says, “The Catholic Church can tolerate a lot of error as long as you’re disposed to believing what God has revealed and what the Church teaches.” He then proposes a solution to heal the disruption/destruction caused by Vatican II: Novus Ordites ought to be treated as new Catholic converts requiring various levels of catechesis, depending on their depth of understanding of the problems in the Church.
Members can be designated into three categories:
- If a Novus Ordite accepts Vatican II, and rejoices in it, they must be treated as a non-Catholic in need of full conversion to the Catholic faith. This is approximately 85% of them.
- This Novus Ordite still has the Catholic faith, but they are falling into error believing what Vatican II told them to believe. They need to be alerted to the problems.
- Novus Ordite Conservatives are the rarest and most guilty in their good conscience. They feel desperate to believe that things have continuity, and struggle to purport absurd theories about the unknown formulas connecting pre-VII to post-VII. We want to convert them right away! True Restoration aims to do this by airing the arguments Catholic "conservatives" need to hear.
Every new Catholic convert is charged with the responsibility of learning the religion through catechesis, since conversion can’t happen without fully understanding certain principles of Faith. It’s dogmatic that conversion is continual and, as such, ever-deepening. When Our Lord says “Repent and believe in the Gospel” we are to hear His words in perpetuity: repent, believe... repent, believe... repent, believe... etc. It’s most important for Novus Ordites to learn that remaining at the same level of faithfulness isn’t proper to the Catholic Faith and goes against Christian teaching all across the board. It can be proposed that the depth of faith that any Novus Ordite would seek outlines the path of return to the traditional Catholic religion of all time.
Bishop Sanborn says continuity is proper to the Church, and therefore She has the right to demand that continuity from its history and doctrines. This is in line with the beauty of Catholicism, that is objective. He also states a theological truth: “The Faith by nature never changes.” This is yet another crucial truth for Novus Ordites to learn… but it would take a good theologian to teach it to them. Thankfully, the quality of “being theological” is inherent to the virtue of faith possessed by all true Catholics who believe in order that they may understand.
The Dominican theologian Father John Baptist Ku, O.P. defines theology as “Faith seeking understanding that leads to contemplation by way of purifying.” Certainly all interactions between Catholics and other believers should seek to purify the Church in all her beautiful continuity.
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