The church is not an inn of affection, but the threshold of eternal judgment
⸻
I. THE MODERN DOGMA OF INCLUSION
There are phrases that, because they are endearing, become dangerous. “There is room in this Church for everyone,” it is said with a sweet vinegar smile, like someone offering peace in exchange for doctrine, or mercy without the price of conversion. It is a phrase that sounds like the gospel, but it is not. Or rather, it is an apocryphal gospel: good news for ears tired of the cross, but not for souls seeking to be saved.
Because no, not everyone fits in the Truth, and this is not an arbitrary exclusion, but an affirmation of reality. The Truth is not an elastic room where all ideas can be accommodated, nor a democratic dining room where everyone brings their spiritual recipe. The Truth is a Person—Jesus Christ—and only those who convert enter. Not those who accommodate, not those who assert themselves, not those who demand to fit in without giving up.
The Church is universal, but not relativist. Catholic, but not chaotic. It embraces all who wish to cease to be what they were without Christ. It does not accept conditions: only souls who, falling, cry out to be lifted up. But today, as if we were on a television set, the Church is intended to be the stage for reconciliations without tears, weddings without sacraments, blessings without obedience, and heavens without hell.
⸻
II. FEELING WITHOUT JUDGMENT: THE CULT OF EMOTION
The modern soul does not seek to be redeemed: it seeks to be validated. It does not want to hear: "your sins are forgiven," but: "your sins are not sins." It is an emotional liturgy, where conscience is replaced by consent, and fraternal correction is confused with symbolic violence. If you tell it the truth, it is offended. If you offer it a cross, it demands a sofa.
And so we have created a "pastoral ministry of welcome" where welcoming is synonymous with surrender, and tenderness has become the sacramental form of surrender. But charity without truth is the cruelest of lies, and tenderness without form is the mother of disorder.
Saint Thomas taught that truth is adaequatio rei et intellectus: the adequacy of the mind to the thing. Postmodern sentimentalism, however, demands the opposite: that the thing be adapted to the emotion of the moment. And so we have replaced the Logos with the like, doctrine with empathy, and penitence with applause.
⸻
III. THE CHURCH AS A HOSPITAL FOR SOULS, NOT AS A HOSPITAL FOR ERROR
The analogy we like to repeat—and which is true in itself—is that the Church is a hospital. But not a hospital like those of today, where the patient imposes the diagnosis. It is not a spiritual self-help clinic. It is rather a field hospital under the banner of the cross, where the doctor is Christ, and the treatment is grace, not tolerance.
The Church welcomes those who arrive broken, but heals them with the surgery of truth, not with a compassionate pat on the back. The wounded are welcomed, but their wound is not flattered. For if the leper is told that leprosy is part of his identity, he is denied the cure and condemned with sweet words.
And there are those who quote "come to me, all of you," as if Christ had said: "and remain as you are." But they forget that after the embrace comes the imperative: "Go, and sin no more." The Church is not a place where all doctrines fit: it is where false doctrines die, burned by the light of faith.
⸻
IV. THE CHURCH DOESN'T EXCLUDE PEOPLE, IT EXCLUDES LIES
Whoever says the Church excludes has not understood its heart. The Church does not exclude anyone because of their history, their wounds, their sin, their past. But it does reject heresies, errors, and pacts with lies.
The confusion arises when one believes that every idea has the right to citizenship in the Catholic soul. But the Church is not a marketplace of opinions: it is the custodian of a sacred deposit. It does not administer consensus; it guards mysteries. It does not debate its identity: it proclaims it.
Therefore, not all ideas fit into the Church, just as not all poisons fit into a healthy body. It is not that dialogue is denied: it is that the truth is denied as a matter of opinion. There is a difference between evangelizing and negotiating.
⸻
V. A MOTHER WHO CORRECTS, A TEACHER WHO TEACHES
The image of the Church as a mother is true, but dangerous if separated from the other: that of a teacher. Because a mother who only embraces, but does not teach, raises orphans of the soul. And a teacher who does not correct, perpetuates error.
Mary is the Mother of Mercy, yes, but she is also the Seat of Wisdom. And her tenderness is full of clarity, and her sweetness does not adulterate the truth. Does a mother who sees her son walking toward the abyss remain silent for fear of hurting him?
The Church is sweet as the song of the Magnificat, but sharp as the words of John the Baptist. She is the cradle of converts and the executioner of idols. She is the mother of repentant sinners and the sworn enemy of justified sin.
⸻
VI. ALL ARE CALLED, NOT ALL RESPONSE
Christ died for all, yes. But not all want to live for Him. Christ's blood was shed for all, but not all desire to be washed clean. And here lies the modern tragedy: God's love is expected to be effective without freedom, and salvation is automatic without struggle.
God wants all to be saved, but He saves no one by force. And the Church, His bride, cannot lie to the world by telling it that it is already saved, without repentance or conversion. True inclusion does not mean allowing everything, but calling everyone to the Truth, whatever the cost.
⸻
VII. IN THE CHURCH, THERE IS NO PLACE FOR WHAT CONTRADICTS THE TRUTH
There is no place here for sentimentalisms that deny reason, nor for emotions that canonize error. There is no place for justified sins, nor for ideologies disguised as compassion. There is no place for those who believe that to love is to silence, or that to teach is to exclude.
Because the Church cannot contradict itself. And Truth cannot be denied without ceasing to be. Here comes the firmest principle of all philosophy, proclaimed by Aristotle: "It is impossible for something to be and not to be at the same time and under the same consideration." The same doctrine cannot be true and false. The same conduct cannot be virtue and sin. The same teaching cannot be Catholic and heretical.
And if this is true for logic, how much more so for faith, which touches the eternal? The Church cannot teach that what was sin yesterday is virtue today. She cannot declare blessed what God has called disorder. She cannot call pastoral care what is, strictly speaking, a betrayal of the Gospel.
The Church is not here to adapt, but to faithfully proclaim the Truth that does not contradict itself, that does not change with the winds of the century, that does not become flexible so as not to cause discomfort. Christ died for all, yes. But not all want to live for Him. Christ's blood was shed for all, but not all desire to be washed clean. And here lies the modern tragedy: God's love is expected to be effective without freedom, and salvation is automatic without struggle.
God wants all to be saved, but He saves no one by force. And the Church, His bride, cannot lie to the world by telling it that it is already saved, without repentance or conversion. True inclusion does not mean allowing everything, but calling everyone to the Truth, whatever the cost.
⸻
VII. IN THE CHURCH, THERE IS NO PLACE FOR WHAT CONTRADICTS THE TRUTH
There is no place here for sentimentalisms that deny reason, nor for emotions that canonize error. There is no place for justified sins, nor for ideologies disguised as compassion. There is no place for those who believe that to love is to silence, or that to teach is to exclude.
Because the Church cannot contradict itself. And Truth cannot be denied without ceasing to be. Here comes the firmest principle of all philosophy, proclaimed by Aristotle: "It is impossible for something to be and not to be at the same time and under the same consideration." The same doctrine cannot be true and false. The same conduct cannot be virtue and sin. The same teaching cannot be Catholic and heretical.
And if this is true for logic, how much more so for faith, which touches the eternal? The Church cannot teach that what was sin yesterday is virtue today. She cannot declare blessed what God has called disorder. She cannot call pastoral care what is, strictly speaking, a betrayal of the Gospel.
The Church is not here to adapt, but to faithfully proclaim the Truth that does not contradict itself, that does not change with the winds of the century, that does not become flexible so as not to cause discomfort. She is a mother, yes, but a mother who forms. And she is a mother precisely because she teaches.
Therefore, not all ideas fit here. Not all spirits fit here. There is no room here for the logic of the world. Because there is no room here for anything that contradicts the Incarnate Word.
The door is open to all people, but closed to error. The Church does not exclude people, but it does reject everything that denies the Logos, because in Him is the truth, and outside of Him there is only confusion, contradiction, and death.
Yes, in this Church there is room for all...
all those who humbly seek the truth that saves, not the truth that flatters; the truth that burns, not the truth that lulls.
Because in this Church there is no room for all voices,
but there is room for all hearts that surrender to the one Word.
OMO
Posts
