The root of liberalism
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
Who are the liberal theologians? They are not men of faith nor defenders of orthodoxy, nor people of deep spirituality and prayer, nor people righteous before God who observe the laws of God without distorting or circumventing it.
Liberal theologians disregard the true
spiritual life and spiritual struggle for the salvation of immortal
souls. They do not care about a personal relationship with God. They do
not show true repentance – admit neither their sin nor sinfulness before
God. On the contrary, they conceal sins, sanctify them and make
sinfulness the norm. They thus remove God’s law and establish the
teachings of men (cf. Corban; Mk 7:11). Moreover, they are people who do
not truly love their neighbour because they do not seek his greatest
good – that he may truly know Christ and save his soul. They do not
follow Christ themselves and if anyone wants to follow Him, they
ridicule and intimidate him. They do not know what true wisdom is which
is mindful of death, the judgment of God and the reality of eternity.
They are eloquent preachers but their preaching kills the truth, so it
loses a motivating force. These theologians (false prophets) belabour
the letter of Scripture and it is true about them what Jesus said: “The letter kills.”
They have the spirit of heresy, a spirit of false love, which dilutes
the divine truths and boycotts the mystery of God. They explain them not
in the Spirit of God and the wisdom of God, but by their own
reason. Their fruit therefore is not true repentance and conversion but
rather justification and false toleration of sin. They thus want to have
lukewarm Christians to sponge on. Instead of bringing them to God they
catch them into the trap of apparent wisdom to make them think that they
have a thorough grasp of thousands of so-called theological problems,
in order to divert them from the substance, i.e. repentance and the
following of Christ. These theologians (false apostles) represent the
spirit of lies, the spirit of antichrist. The entire historical-critical
theology makes a mockery of true exegesis which must have the same
spirit as the sacred authors, i.e. the Spirit of Truth – the Holy
Spirit.
How can someone explain the mystery of
God without de facto having any experience with God, following Christ or
having the Holy Spirit? His interpretations, even if they are seemingly
logical, are heretical and do not lead to a life with God. They cause
moral decay and spiritual death. Therefore, every liberal theologian
must repent – turn away from the spirit of atheism and the spirit of the
world as well as from the whole heretical system. He must receive the
same Spirit as the Apostle Paul and other apostles or sacred authors. On
this path they must be rooted in the life of prayer and rely on God in
their everyday life. The Church does not need heretical theologians; in
the present critical situation she needs people of God, prophets,
evangelists, missionaries, martyrs for the truth. This cannot be said
about contemporary theologians. And these theologians represent the
highest authorities in the Church as bishops and cardinals. After
Vatican II, they took up all ecclesiastical posts and brought the Church
of Christ to total collapse. They allow everything in the Church, only
the truth of the Gospel cannot be proclaimed. They promote a variety of
spiritual streams among the students of theology, including decadent
ones – homosexual and paedophile, occult and heretical – only to prevent
students from receiving and clinging to the Spirit of Truth. That would
be a reason for expulsion from the seminary. They have a choice during
their five-year studies – they can either choose to renounce the Spirit
of Christ or to be expelled, or at least not admitted to ordination. It
is a sine qua non condition today set by the spirit of heresy which
dominates the Catholic Church. The Word of God, by contrast, says
clearly: “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
All the apparent erudition is basically a trap to distract from the
essence, from true prayer, from true repentance and from the following
of Christ. And if some are converted but do not persevere on this way of
following Christ, they can even work wonders but in the hour of death
they will hear the words of Christ: “Depart from Me, you who practise lawlessness, I never knew you.”
(Mt 7:23) The path of divine mercy is open only to those who show
sincere repentance. Not to those who presumptuously rely on God’s mercy
and speechifying about God’s mercy commit even greater sins and crimes.
The Word of God says to them: “Woe to you!” (cf. Mt 23:13f) and their end is eternal destruction.