dysfunctional

If there was one group of people I would choose as the one I'd least like to run into, it would be followers of the Society of St Pius X. Yeah, they're here. At Hillsdale. Lounging around with the monarchists, as you might expect. My pastor point blank told me not to argue with them, which is something I will have to bear in mind as these next months stretch on. It's a terrible thing when you are driven back to the Catechism, Church Fathers, and the Bible, not to strengthen yourself, but to protect yourself from other Catholics. The Society leaves a wake of bitterness and anger, and the rotten fruit I gain in debate with them is a horrible spiritual aridity and weakening of my faith. There is a point where you have to admit you simply aren't strong enough; argument in this quarter causes depression, anger, exhaustion, and cynicism. My Kenyan friend Gladys was appalled at what she had seen. She had never before seen Catholics arguing, desperately fighting with themselves. "God is watching over the Holy Father. It will be alright", she said. And that in the end is what we have to cling to. Arrogant legalistic arguments thrown to the wayside, let us drop to our knees in simple childlike faith that the God who made us will not abandon us or His Church. That it is all in His hand, that it always has been and always will be, and that we cannot save it ourselves. Had it been up to us from the beginning, we would have had as much success as if we were battling the ocean. Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is Christ. Where Christ is, there may I be, now and forever.