Hi Greg,
Does this sound like people you’ve written about in Confessional (sic) Lutheranism?
Alec
(From: Why Father Sullivan Left The Church: A Review of His Recent Book, “Under Orders”. By J. J. Murphy in The Converted Catholic Magazine, March 1945.)
"Shattered Illusions
The ten years Dr. Sullivan spent in the priesthood enabled him to gradually grope his way toward the truth by deeper study of history and theology. But what is more they gave him a firsthand view of the inner workings of the church and its priesthood. It proved a bitter disillusionment. He found that outstanding priests, who were learned, intelligent, sincere and conscientious, were forced by conscience to break with Rome, only to expose themselves to vicious calumnies that the faithful willingly swallowed as an antidote to their personal doubts of faith. He tells in brief the story of a dozen or so ex-priests from Dr. Doellinger of Germany, whom the illustrious Sames Bryce called “that glory of Catholic learning,” to Father David Buel, the Jesuit, who had been president of Georgetown University and courageously left the church at the age of sixty. He gives a telling explanation of why they and others left:
“The fundamental reason for the departure of a reasonably mature person from a system like Catholicism is not intellectual difficulty taken by itself. A man can easily juggle intellectual difficulties into some play of conformity, once he learns that low art. But there is one thing he cannot do. He cannot open his inward eye on the divine and sovereign Truth and Right and imagine that he can serve this Glory by practicing deceit or approving wrong.”
More shattering to Dr. Sullivan than learned priests’ “secession from the ancient shelter,” was his awakening to the fact that priests in high office, within the church, heads of Catholic seminaries and university professors, were led and encouraged by the Roman system to profess publicly dogmas that they disbelieved and ridiculed in private. This was hypocrisy, corruption and immorality, all in one. Worse than the cynical attitude of these skeptics was their deliberate willingness to close their eyes to the truth rather than endanger their comfortable position of security and prestige. Usually without mention of names, Dr. Sullivan parades the immoral wraiths of these men who knew their duty and failed to do it. He mentions one concrete case after another, from Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati, who knew the deceit and trickery of the Vatican Council but was intimidated from keeping his resolution to reveal it publicly, to the seminary president who said he could pray to a triangle as easily as to the Trinity, but led his students in the singing of the Nicene creed the following day and the rest of his life.
Revolting was the word for Dr. Sullivan’s reaction to this hypocrisy in high priests and the church’s complacency in it. He well analyzes the depths of this debasement of many of the more intelligent priests, when he says:
But when a human being puts on a mask; when he mutilates himself, when he abdicates selfhood so as to be an echo, an anonymous phantom, an automaton who has obliterated the distinction between belief and make-belief, he can profess anything and consent to anything. When a man lives by words which his lips speak but to which the deep soul gives no resonance, he is capable of advocating and apologizing for any enormity and styling it the truth of God."GJ -
First of all, I want to note that the Catholic priests I knew at Notre Dame - and the Catholic faculty - were high church Unitarians at best. They often mocked the very things they did. That is why Tillich and Barth were so appealing to them. Both theologians - and those favored Catholic counterparts - could write about God all day, but only on their terms.
When I said Tillich - a pantheist - was virtually an atheist, someone who appalled his Union Seminary colleagues, the professor (now at Harvard) was aghast and said, "Lutherans don't understand Tillich." I said to the class, "Lutherans don't understand a Lutheran?"
So I have been shocked by the LCMS pastors who joined their ELCA pastor friends in running to Rome.
Now that I have seen Church Growth and Objective Justification work on Missouri, WELS, and the Little Sect on the Prairie (not to mention the CLC sic), I can say this -
The rigorous hazing methods, both physical and mental, have reduced the clergy to passive puppets of the leaders -
- Ignorant about Biblical doctrine
- As lazy as their bosses in doing pastoral work
- Losing themselves in booze and other distractions.
I noticed that two of the worst leaders in the Michigan District, WELS, have died. They supported Church Growth absurdities, clergy adultery, and worse! throughout their dark reigns. In fact, I believe they had those rare Bibles called the Wicked Bible where not is omitted from the Sixth Commandment. But question their incompetence, their adoration of Fuller gimmicks? That is the worst kind of sin, making the drunken adulterers look like angels in comparison.
As one New Ulm graduate said to me, with a school-teacher's frown on her face, "You have criticized WELS!"
They leveraged their hypocrisy by gladly working with ELCA and pretending to be so superior to "the liberals". In fact, their coveting of ELCA's size and money leaked out every time they spoke. Have you noticed how WELS adopted the gay ministry ideals of ELCA, complete with self-appointed leaders confessing their mutual lust?
I could on and provide chapter and verse. But the best witnesses are those who contact me, disgusted they cannot find a basic Lutheran church in their community or anywhere nearby. The Lutheran synods - all of them - have become the New Rome. Why leave when it is all there in Holy Mother Synod to enjoy:
- Universalism
- Loathing Luther
- Bottomless kegs
- A five-hour work week
- Smells and bells, or rock and roll, either one or both.
