Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Praised be Jesus Christ.
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Dominic,
founder of the Order of Preachers and friend of St. Francis of Assisi.
St. Dominic was born in the year 1170 in Spain.
The story is told that before his birth, his mother had a dream
that a dog leapt from her womb and this dog was carrying a torch in its mouth
and that it seemed to set the whole world on fire.
For this reason, St. Dominic, in his holy cards and pictures depicting him,
there's often a dog next to him with a torch in its mouth.
In the year 1194, when St. Dominic was about 25 years old,
he became a premonstratention canon following the rule of St. Augustine.
And while he was a canon, he was making a trip one day with his bishop
to southern France.
And it was there in southern France that he first encountered the Albigensian heresy.
This heresy, which is a form of the Manichaean heresy,
and holds that there is one good deity who is the creator of all spiritual things
and there is one evil god who is the creator of the material world.
Amen.
One of the main things advocated by these heretics was,
well, they were against weddings.
They said that marriage was wrong, an evil thing to do.
And they were also in favor of committing suicide.
Okay, if the body is evil, then it should be done away with
so as to liberate the spirit from that prison.
So St. Dominic was very distraught at seeing this heresy
and it was a very difficult time for him.
And he was very distraught at seeing this heresy.
Seeing it so widespread and accepted.
And in fact, one of the things he noticed was
that this heresy was not promoted and promulgated by ignorant fanatics,
but rather it was well-trained and cultured men
who adopted these erroneous doctrines and preached them all over the place.
And so St. Dominic spent the following years there,
in southern France,
working to combat against the Albigensian heresy.
And he did this by preaching, but also by means of the rosary.
It was in the year 1208 that the famous Marian apparition occurred
in the life of St. Dominic.
Our Lady appeared to him and gave him the rosary and said,
Here is how.
Here is how you will overcome the heresy.
By praying the rosary, by preaching the rosary,
and spreading devotion to the Holy Rosary.
Then it wasn't until actually the year 1215
that St. Dominic founded the Order of Preachers
with the motto,
Laudare, benedicere, predicare.
Praise, bless, and preach.
And so his Order of Preachers would continue.
This work against the Albigensians,
spreading devotion to the Holy Rosary,
and eventually that heresy would die out.
St. Dominic himself died in Bologna on August 6th, 1221.
And so we should reflect about the heresy,
or heresies, heretics, that are present in our midst today.
We shouldn't think that heresy and heretics
is something, a thing of the past,
that no longer applies to us.
But we should be aware of what is going on around us,
in and outside of the Church.
Now I'm not talking first and foremost about the Protestants,
but I am talking about those who consider themselves Catholics.
Call them whatever you like.
Call them modernists.
Call them disciples.
Call them dissenters.
Call them liberal Catholics.
Okay?
You can call them all those things,
but the bottom line is, they are heretics.
That is, they have lost their faith,
and they are undermining the faith of others,
as the Albigensians did in St. Dominic's day.
They are undermining the faith.
And if they don't directly deny some teaching of the faith,
the heretics, the Protestants,
the heretics of today,
tend to cast a doubt on the teachings of the faith.
Just I want to propose this as an example.
There's a book,
going through the books in the Friary,
finding out which ones we want to keep,
the books that are donated,
and which ones we want to get rid of.
I found this book called Christ Among Us,
a modern presentation of the Catholic faith.
And this happens to be the third revised edition,
which means it's widespread.
And a lot of Catholics probably received teaching
from this very book.
Well, look at what it says when it comes to the point
of talking about angels and demons.
See, it casts a doubt on the very existence
of angels and demons.
And it does it also in deceptive language.
You know, first explains the traditional teaching,
the traditional teaching about angels and demons.
And then it goes on to say,
today, theology is restudying the whole question
of angels and devils.
Perhaps scripture simply presupposes angels and devils
as part of the biblical milieu,
rather than directly affirming their actual existence
as part of God's revelation.
Nor does the existence of angels and devils
seem to be a part of the strictly dogmatic teaching
of the church.
The numbers and varieties which are mentioned
may well be mythological exaggerations.
Okay, note the language used in this book.
Perhaps scripture, blah, blah, blah.
Devils seem to be a part, et cetera, et cetera.
And are mentioned may well be.
Okay, all of this vague language, again,
not directly denying a teaching of the church,
but certainly casting doubt upon it.
And so this is what Catholics have been taught
for basically the last 40 years
and explains why people lose their faith.
If we're doubting the existence of angels and devils,
well, what about hell?
You know, that's why we get people like Karl Rahner.
Again, an intelligent man.
Just like St. Dominic noted in his times,
they were intelligent men who were promoting these doctrines.
Well, same thing.
Karl Rahner then casts a doubt
on whether there is anyone in hell.
Now, he doesn't go about denying the existence of hell,
because that is dogma.
But if it exists, well, maybe there's nobody actually there.
Going against at least the teaching
found in the Catechism of Trent,
which says that Judas Iscariot is in fact there.
But again, this is, these are the heresies
that have been fed to Catholics for the past 40 years.
And very much explains why only 25% of Catholics in America
go to Mass on Sunday.
There's no angels, no devils, no one's in hell.
Well, why go to Mass?
Why even bother?
The same thing explains why there are Catholics for choice.
You know, more than 50% of Catholics call themselves pro-choice.
Again, disaster.
Complete disaster and loss of faith.
And so we need to be aware of these things.
The presence of the heresies of our time,
the heretics of our time.
And use the same means.
Let's use the same means that St. Dominic used
to overcome the Albigensian heresy.
First and foremost, priests have to preach the truth with clarity.
Catechists have to teach what the Church teaches.
And then, let's pray the Holy Rosary.
Let's take the Rosary in hand.
Pray it every day, asking for Our Lady.
Because as it says in the office of Our Lady,
She alone has destroyed all heresies.
Our Lady will overcome and will replace again,
put in the hearts of the faithful and in their minds
a true knowledge of the truths of our faith.
St. Dominic, pray for us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The Holy Rosary.