Teaching All Nations
Today is Mission Sunday, and what better time to reflect on why it is so important to have missionaries going out from the Church to teach and baptize the pagans of faraway nations. To send out missionaries to spread the faith is to follow the precise instructions of our Lord himself, when he told his apostles, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” His reasons for wanting to convert all nations to the true God should be clear to all believers—if our Lord Jesus Christ is truly “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” and if as he says, “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” then it is perfectly obvious why we should give our highest priority to spreading the Gospel to the world’s unbelievers. It is by far their best hope of salvation, and we would be remiss in our Catholic duties if we didn’t do all in our power to make sure they have the opportunity to know and follow the true faith.
When missionaries sacrifice their comforts by deliberately placing themselves in great hardship and danger, when they even sacrifice life itself at the hands of hostile pagans, we view such men and women not as reckless fools but with profound admiration. How many saints in heaven died as martyrs in their attempt to bring faith to the infidel? Their sacrifice was one of holy divine mercy, showing compassion for the ignorance of the pagan, eager to give of themselves so that others may find heaven. The missions have always been the top priority of the Church.
It comes then as one of the saddest features of the Conciliar Church that they no longer understand the need to reach out to the world in the true sense that Christ gave us, teaching them and baptizing them. The current head of this church, Jorge Bergoglio, has even gone so far as to condemn the proselytizing of non-Catholics as “solemn nonsense.” In an interview conducted with a non-Catholic, he proudly announced that “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.” How far removed is this from Christ’s command to teach others! Our Lord told his apostles in no uncertain terms that they had the authority to teach others, not to listen to their erroneous opinions in some worthless dialogue that merely allows the “missionary” to learn more about the world around him.
With Vatican II’s emphasis on false ecumenism, the idea that the Catholic Church can learn something from the errors of non-Catholics, that these errors can actually help save the souls of our non-Catholic friends, we should not be surprised at Bergoglio’s scorn for converting souls to the Catholic Church. His idea of spreading the Gospel is merely to allow truth and error to co-habit in peace, not to convert those in error to the truth. This new “improvement” on Christ’s instructions is an act of cruelty to those Bergoglio would abandon to their false opinions and beliefs. Instead of improving the lot of humanity, it serves instead to sentence those outside the Church to the likelihood of an eternity in the fires of hell. While he condemns the missions as merely attempts to create new Church members, he fails to follow our Lord’s words, which clearly show the importance of baptizing those whom we first teach.
We are called upon first to know God, then to love him and serve him. By teaching those outside the Church we bring them to the knowledge of God. It is then incumbent on us to baptize them, and equally incumbent on them to be baptized, to become members of the true Church Christ founded. Only in this Church can we truly serve God as he himself wishes to be served, in following the commandments and receiving the sacraments. Pray that the cruel tyrant in Rome may himself be converted to the truth of Christ’s Church.