"Indifference to Faith" - The Cunning Snare of the Father of Lies

Indifference to Faith is to care for no religion, to consider all religions equally good, or to neglect attending religious instruction.

Our future and true home is heaven. To the ear of the exile there is nothing sweeter than the name of home. What wonder, then, that the name of heaven should be so full of sweetness, since it is our true home, our home forever?

Now, no one can go to heaven unless he knows the way to heaven.

If we wish to go to a certain city, the first thing we do is to ask the way that leads to it. If we do not know the way, then we cannot expect to arrive at that city. So, too, if we wish to go to heaven, we must know the way that leads to it.

Now the way that leads to it is the knowing and doing of God's Will. But it is God alone who can teach us His Will; that is, what He requires us to believe and to do, in order to be happy with Him in Heaven.

Now, God Himself came and taught us the truths which we must believe, the Commandments which we must keep, and the means of grace which we must use to work out our salvation.

To know God's Will is to know the True Religion or the True Way to Heaven. So, not to care to know the True Religion, is to despise God and all He has done and suffered for our salvation.

The sins of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah cried to heaven for vengeance. "The sin of Sodom is become exceedingly grievous. We will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord." (Genesis 18:20)

Now, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in the gospel that those who are indifferent to the True Religion or not caring to know it, and to listen to His Apostles and their lawful successors, are far more guilty in the sight of God, and shall, on this account, be more severely judged than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Whosoever shall not receive you (the Apostles) nor hear your words, going forth out of that house, or city, shake off even the dust from your feet for a testimony against them. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgement, than for that city." (Matthew 10:14-15 and Luke 9:5)

This severe judgement is executed even here below upon those who are guilty of the sin of indifference to the True Religion. Their prayer, says the Lord, is an abomination. "He who turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayers shall be an abomination." (Proverbs 28:9)

St. Paul goes on to tell us in plain words, in what the judgement consists which God passes and executes upon those who are indifferent to the True Religion. He says that "those who did not like to have the knowledge of God were delivered up by God to a reprobate sense to do such things as as unbecoming, to become filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, hateful to God, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy" (Romans 1:28-32)

Now, as there is and can only be one True Religion, then all the others must be false and opposed to God. Therefore, that which is false and opposed to God cannot be good. Consequently, it is false to say that all religions are good.

To maintain that all religions are good, is to maintain that truth and falsehood are equally pleasing to God; that God is just as well pleased with those who blaspheme Him as with those who honor Him. That to adore the devil is just as pleasing to God, as to adore the Living and True God Himself. It is just as absurd to believe the God Who can neither deceive or be deceived has established so many denominations that all contradict either other, yet all make claim to have received their doctrines from the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you love truth and virtue, does not God love them more? If you hate falsehood and crimes, does not God hate them more? Now the more precious a thing is in itself, the more dangerous, the more hateful is its counterfeit. The True Religion is the most precious gift that God has bestowed on man, the gift of Faith and knowledge to know the way to Heaven. Consequently, a counterfeit or caricature of the True Religion must be most hateful to God.

If God sees all religions the same, then why did God forbid idolatry so strictly in the Old Law? Why did He punish idolaters so severely?

What need was there for Jesus Christ to come down from Heaven to become man, to suffer and die on a cross, all in order to establish the True Religion --what need, I say, was there of all this if all religions are equally good, equally pleasing to God?

"But," some one will say, "at least all the Christian denominations are good."

"All the Christian denominations?" How many denominations are there? (Side Note: in the late 1800s there was maybe a few thousand, but in the current day, there are over 46,000 different Christian denomination)

And among all these, how many hold the same doctrines?

How many of them hold even the same doctrines they held a few years ago?

What one of them believes in, the others reject.

Is there even one doctrine in which all the Christian denominations agree?

Now, do you mean to say that Christ, Who is God, can be the author of all these sects? God is the author of peace and unity, while the devil alone is the author of disunity and confusion.

All the truths of religion have been revealed by God. Now, do you mean to say that God would reveal one truth to one class of men, and reveal the opposite to another class?

The Son of God became man precisely in order to establish the True Religion, a perfect religion, free from all doubt and error. He taught and labored for 33 years. He founded a Church, committed to her care all His doctrines, and His Sacraments. He sent to His Church, the Holy Spirit to remain with her always, and teach her all truth. He promised that He Himself would remain with His Church all days even to the end of the world.

The Son of God sent His Apostles to preach to every nation all that He had taught. He confirmed those doctrines by numberless miracles. He sealed these doctrines with His own blood. He sealed them with the blood of millions of glorious martyrs. And yet, you will tell me, after all this, after all that God has done to teach men the True Faith, that it matters little what a man believes.

Jesus Christ says, "He that will not believe shall be damned," and you say, "he will not be damned at all, for all religions are good." If all religions are good, then this asserts that Jesus was a liar.

If all religions are good, then there is no such thing as heresy. And yet, St. Paul warns us against heresy. He classes heresy with willful murder and adultery. He says that the heretics shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Even the Apostle of love, St. John, forbids us to associate with a heretic.

If all religions are good, then what need was there of so manty councils, even from the days of the Apostles down to the present? Why has the Church struggled so long against heretics and innovators? Why has she fought and bled, and suffered so bravely for the perfect maintenance of the truth?

If all religions are good, then all those martyrs who poured our their blood like water for the True Faith, were fools and all those Catholics in Ireland and elsewhere, who suffered and died for the faith, were fools!

If all religions are good, what need is there of your Protestant Churches and Protestant preachers?

If all religions are good, why are Protestants, infidels, and freemasons so bitterly opposed to the Catholic Church? Why do they form secret societies sworn to infiltrate the Church?

The Catholic religion is, after all, a religion -- and if all religions are good, why then the Catholic religion must be good, and if it be good, why did Martin Luther and the first Protestants leave it?

One might also say, "As for me, I respect every man's religion," which is the same to say, "I respect every religion." One who speaks this way means to say, "I believe that all religions are doubtful," or "There is no absolutely true religion on earth," or "The question of religion is one of very little importance."

Those who make use of these expressions look upon themselves as learned men who use the Holy Spirit for interpretation, but I ask you what kind of a man is he who respects or accepts two propositions exactly the reverse or two that contradict each other?

To say, "I respect or esteem all religions," is not only unreasonable, but even blasphemous, for, by it, you assert that you esteem that which God abhors -- you respect and esteem falsehood.

What are you to think of a lawyer who tells you it is indifferent to him whether he wins his case or not? What about a doctor who assures you he is quote indifferent whether his patient recovers or not? How about a general who tells you that he cares little whether he conquers or is defeated?

Now the man who is indifferent with regard to religion is even far more blameworthy.

Moreover, the man who boasts that he has no religion insults the good and holy God who made man to know, love and serve him. He insults that God Who, as our Creator and Lord, has a perfect claim to our entire worship and obedience. What would you think of a woman who boasts that it is indifferent to her whether she lives with her husband or with another? What would you think of a son who boasts that he has no more respect for his father than he has for his enemy?

Now, the man who boasts of his religious indifference is a thousand times worse. He has as much respect for the synagogue of satan as he has for the Church of Christ, and as much respect for the private interpretations of thousands of contradicting denominations as he has for the Doctrines of Christ and the Apostles.

Source:

God Teacher of Mankind

Original 1885 Publication

Fr. Michael Muller, 1825 - 1899

CSSR or the Redemptorists founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori​​​​​​