A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus said to Thomas, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my father also. From this point on, you know him.
You have seen him. Lord, Philip said to Jesus, show us the father, and that will be enough for us. Philip, our lord replied, after I have been with you all this time, you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say, show us the father?
Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? The words I speak are not spoken of myself. It is the father who lives in me accomplishing his works. Believe me that I am in the father, and the father is in me, or else believe because of the works I do. I solemnly assure you, the man who has faith in me will do the works that I do and greater far than these.
Why? Because I go to the father, and whatever you ask in my name, I will do so as to glorify the father in the son. Anything you ask of me in my name, I will do. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
Today, we are celebrating the feast of feast of saint Philip and James, apostles and martyrs. Did you notice how you prayed to follow in their footsteps? Anyway, I hope our martyrdom isn't today. But whenever I think about these apostles, a few thoughts come to my mind. I don't often get them, but they do come occasionally, and I welcome them as kind of strangers.
Anyway, our blessed lord spoke to his apostles and said, going therefore, teach ye all nations, and I will be with you. Now notice, he didn't say this to a multitude. He said this to his disciples, to his chosen ones. And it's those chosen ones who have their representatives in the church today in bishops, in bishops. And I repeat, in bishops.
Now today, some people are express great confusion. They say, I don't know what to believe. Well, of course, in a certain sense, that is absurd because there are plenty of things, I mean, all the necessary things, which are perfectly clear. If there's confusion in the church today, for the most part, it isn't because of the holy see or because of the of the bishops as a collective body, nor is it because of what we call the teaching authority of the church, the magisterium. If there is confusion in the minds of some people, it's because of certain theologians.
And the three that I have in mind, of course, are father Schillebeck, the Dominican, Hans King, and his teacher Karl Rahner. These three men, all three have come under the suspicion of Rome, more or less. And Hans King, I don't know where to put him. He's the worst of the three. Now these men these men are these men are embraced by our separated brethren.
I just saw two articles in the New York Times Magazine separated by several months. And one of the articles was by a friend of mine, father well, he left the priesthood, Eugene Kennedy. Doctor. Eugene he left it in good order. Well, he's a psychologist and a good one.
He was a merry knower. He was a clinical psychologist. Now he wrote an article in the New York Times about, father Carl Rauner, SJ, Society of Jesus, and he compares him to Thomas Aquinas. Well, of course, you can compare anybody to anybody. Who's going to disprove it?
Thomas Aquinas isn't around to bow his head and say, yes. He's better than I am. And here you have a picture in the Times Magazine of the of men, three of them. One of them is Aristotle. Aquinas is there.
Karl Rahner is there, and the other three are non Catholic theologians. You can tell a person by the company he keeps. If these people, if these men are being embraced by Protestants or non Catholics and non Catholic theologians. Why? Why?
Anyway, the point I'm making is I have respect for these men for the men. I have respect for the what they're trying to do, but that isn't the issue. The issue is god's truth. Now where do you get that truth? It isn't all that hard.
There are three sources of Catholic truth, and one of them is the bible, of course, and tradition, secondly, and the teaching church, third. The three. The bible, tradition, and the teaching church, three. Now I said the teaching church. You have for example, I I'm so personally impressed with what I'm going to say because I've I'm speaking from absolute firsthand knowledge.
When you talk about the church and the second Vatican Council, and then you read what is imputed to the second Vatican Council by some people who managed to get into print and become the darlings of the media, you will not find any correspondence. You won't find it in the second Vatican. Let me give you just one example. All this talk about the mass today, which separates it from sacrifice, which talks about it as an agape, which talks about it as a celebration, which talks about it as a as a meal, which eliminates the altar, which downgrades the priest to a presiding president. You will find nothing of that in the second Vatican Council.
None of it. And I say again, none of it. The Vatican Council is perfectly clear that the that the mass is a sacrifice and a supper, and it's primarily sacrifice. The priest is Christ, and the Christ is the victim. The priest, That's what the council says.
Yet what do we hear so much today? I'm giving you this just as an example. So cath that is the doctrine of the Catholic church is not the doctrine of theologians. It's not the doctrine of philosophers. It's not the doctrine of writers.
It's not the doctrine of Sunday supplements. It's not the doctrine of anything but the Catholic church, the bible, the tradition. They are your three sources. But people don't go to sources. They don't go to them.
They do not go to them. How many people who criticize Paul the sixth and his encyclical, all they know about that is he had something to say again contraception, and that must he must be wacky. And that's it. Period. Here's a it's a document.
It's it's a it's a little book, but no one they don't read it. So when we talk about the apostles, let us remember we are talking about the bishops, the teaching authorities of the church, and that doesn't go to their delegates. Christ told his disciples, I will be with you. He will be with his church, not with maybe with individuals, but with his church when the church speaks. And as I've said many times, Christ did not leave us a book at all.
The the bible doesn't stand on its own. The bible, it stands because there's a church behind it. And so as we celebrate the you see, how often do we think of the apostles today? Are they active in our lives? We say, oh, they're saints and martyrs.
We prayed here to follow in their footsteps. We all wanna be martyrs. You know? That's what we prayed for. Go back and read it.
And we said we wanna be martyrs and following the example of Saint Philip and James because we wanna share God's eternal life in heaven. Do you know that is the theme of the Catholic church, that we are wayfarers here. We aren't here to make this a better world, a better world to live in. Supposing we have all these things we pray for, peace and money and children and a good home and a superb education and a good job and a good bank account and a good car and, you know, all supposing you have all of them, are you any nearer salvation necessarily? Are you?
Let's think about that. Christ came to save us from sin and to preserve us for eternity. That's what he came for. And it's perfectly clear what he came for. No doubt in the there's no not at all.
Unless you get into this liberation theology, which started with father Karl Rahner, I understand. And that's something totally different. But where's the proof for that kind of business? How do you justify it? How on what basis is this offered?
Because some man says so? May the lord preserve me from what men say and also from what women say. If I'm talking about the church of Jesus Christ, I want one thing only, his church and his truth. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.