The three grave sins against the Church. 1: Despair. The sin of despair presumes the Church has fallen, which is akin to presuming Christ has been defeated. Presuming the Church has fallen into heresy or that the Chair has been overcome are common manifestations of this sin. 🧵 2: Doctrinal Relativism. The sin of relativism presumes a failure of the Holy Spirit to make clear all truth, and so purposely accepts errors for the sake of unity, as if God has not spoken, or cannot be truly known and understood perspicuously. The Papacy prevents this.

JRR Tolkien and Cardinal St. Newman, who once said “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant,” have an uncanny connection very few people are aware of. 🧵 When Tolkien was a boy growing up in South Africa, he and his brother were baptized into the Anglican church. Tragically, their father died when JRR was only 4 years old. They relocated to England, where Tolkien’s mother’s family resided.

In this thread, I translate Western Church into Eastern Church. West: State of Grace
East: Communion with God (also, Participating in Divine Life)

St. Ignatius of Loyola