Spiritual Foundations
Everyone can find his way only by truth, not by lies,
nor by distortion. These days, however, truth is made more nebulous than ever.
Therefore, one must first recognize the truth about the Church's situation,
accept it, and act accordingly. This is frequently difficult since it means
parting with ideas of which one has grown quite fond. Thus, the Oratory of the
Divine Truth sees its most important task in today's world as the task of
disseminating the Truth - which the Church has always taught - and comparing
(or contrasting) the manifestations of today's church life with that Truth.
Those not wanting to gain this clarity will fall into the sin of omission. The
longer they persist in their distorted views, the more they will lose their
bearings and wander off the straight and narrow path. The Truth essential for
salvation must not remain unclarified; it is a matter of the soul's life or
death.
Love of the Truth is expressed in sobriety and
vigilance, in observing the times and the signs divulged by God. And those
lovers of the Truth who scrutinize the times and the Church will come to the
conclusion that the End Times are already far advanced and that the events
predicted in the Apocalypse of St. John have, in many instances, already
arrived. Thus, one can count on a great influence of "principalities and
powers" (Eph 6:12). For this reason, loving the Truth is even more
essential. For, as St. Paul taught, the Antichrist will "be marked by
Satan" and will work "in all kinds of counterfeit miracles and signs
and wonders, and every wicked deception aimed at those who are on the way to
destruction because they would not accept the love of the Truth and so be
saved" (2 Thess 2:9-10).
In view of these conditions, the idea of the Oratory
was born. It can be characterized by its three objectives, its special
spiritual foundation, and its special orientation toward spiritual direction.
The first of its three objectives is to defend the Roman Catholic Faith in the
spoken and written word. The second objective is to promote the priesthood (in
a broad sense) for the battle of the End Times. The third objective is to exercise
spiritual direction, whereby special attention is given to the catechising.
Providing the special spiritual foundation are
"The Oratory Catechism", which offers an overview of Christian dogma
and a view of the End Times and of the situation of the Church today, and
"Systematic Truth Theory", which examines the question of Truth in
its philosophical and theological context. From December 1987 until its
discontinuance in April 1996, the substance of the Oratory was addressed in
detail in SAKA-INFORMATIONEN, the official journal of the Oratory of the Divine
Truth.
The special orientation toward spiritual direction
consists of clerics and lay people working together, organized to prepare for
the expected persecution of Christians. What is sought is a strengthening of
the hierarchy of the priesthood. This will also come about when persons who do
not aspire to ordination as priests can be accepted into the Lower Orders, as
was foreseen by the Council of Trent. The orientation toward spiritual
direction should be aided by the administration of "Oratory Water" as
well as through the distribution of "Oratory Plant Water", providing
a service for health and ecological purity.
The Oratory of the Divine Truth is not a work built solely upon clever human
suppositions. On the contrary, in the strict sense, it is a work of God. God
Himself desires that the Oratory helps to erect a dam against the tide of lies
and falsehood gaining force today - so that the Catholic Truth may again shine
far and wide and that the Church, like a city on a hill, may again be
distinctly visible. Only by means of the lighthouse of Truth can a way capable
of saving be found.
Defense of the Faith
The defense of the Faith is the supreme concern of the
Oratory because only Faith can save man from hell, into which he will otherwise
inevitably fall. High dignitaries of the church and theologians try today, in
the most numerous of ways, to dismiss the unequivocal statement our Savior made
before His ascension "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16). In contrast to
their laxness, one must hold fast to the meaning of Faith, which consists of
accepting as true everything God has revealed. Faith is mediated by the Church.
She is the "pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tm 3:15). She is holy
and untainted, even when she includes sinners. The only religion indisputably
standing in the divine Truth - namely the Catholic religion - is lived and
proclaimed in her.
The Vatican Council (1869/70) taught the Faith in
unsurpassed clarity: "Since man is wholly dependent upon God, as upon his
Creator and Lord, and since created reason is absolutely subject to uncreated
truth, we are bound to yield to God, by faith in His revelation, the full obedience
of our intellect and will. And the Catholic church teaches that this faith,
which is the beginning of man's salvation, is supernatural virtue whereby,
inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He
has revealed are true; not because of the intrinsic truth of the things, viewed
by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who
reveals them, and who can neither deceive nor be deceived" (DS 3008).
In the "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation",
the ecumenical "Second Vatican Council" (1962/65) opposed the former
statement and, in so doing, disclosed their own modernist view: "5. The
obedience of faith ... is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which
man commits his whole self freely to God, offering the full submission of
intellect and will to God who reveals..." In this text, at the crucial
point, the word "Truth" is deliberately avoided. The doctrine of the
Vatican Council (1869/70) cited above is accepted in the Vatican II text only
with the obligation to obey - , the connection of the Faith with the Truth is
omitted. So it will pass away into oblivion. Instead, the text emphasizes,
Faith is to be an offering of oneself, made in obedience. This reduces Faith to
be an attitude of trust. At the end, when submission to revelation is
mentioned, the revelation referred to has been given a new meaning since it has
become God's "self-revelation".
The renunciation of Truth here becomes evident. But
Truth is the fundamental reality upholding the Church. Without the repression
of Truth in favor of unity, the Roman ecumenism seeking to bring together all
confessions and religions as equal (and, thus, as equally true) under Rome's
leadership cannot be developed. This rejection of the Truth was the Catholic
Church's doom. What was emerging was the Roman-ecumenical church which, under a
catholic guise, is attempting to destroy the Catholic Faith and the Catholic
life of grace. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the term Faith has been
falsified in almost all realms of the Church - to mean a simplistic trust in
God or in one's own salvation or in a path to follow by trusting. The challenge
to believe in order to be saved has become unknown in the teaching and
proclamation of this church. When the understanding of Faith is undermined,
then one can, at will, falsify the content of faith or push it aside as
irrelevant.
Notwithstanding, Faith is neither a path, nor trust in
God, nor simply an opinion, nor an unreasonable building upon absurd statements
sanctioned by the church. Rather, Faith is the acceptance of the Light and,
thus, freedom from the darkness of uncertainty and sin. Since Truth always
frees mankind, Faith is the most intensive process of liberation - namely,
redemption from the control of Satan - and an elevation to divine insight and
divine life.
How can it be that today's Christians are no longer
challenged to believe in this sense? How can it be that the content of the
Faith is no longer taught, instead being falsified and made unrecognizable?
This fall from Faith can only be understood in Faith. Faith leads to mankind's
highest end and, at the same time, to its most supreme happiness. Taking Faith
away from a person or preventing its dissemination contradicts all reason, justice
and love. In the last analysis, it can only be demonic jealousy that directs
the battle against the Faith. For the demons know that, due to their own guilt,
they can never reach the goal of Faith. So, mankind, too, should not be allowed
to attain such happiness, but rather come under their dictatorship.
In its defense of the Faith, the Oratory fights not
only against bishops and theologians who have forgotten their duties, but also
against all sects and religions seeking to destroy the Catholic Faith. Against
such, the Oratory does not wish to set up a new teaching, but rather to solely
proclaim the content of the unchanging Catholic Faith, laid down by Christ and
the Apostles, and to repulse deception and seduction.
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