On Faith

This 2015, I've set up goals for myself. One of them is to improve my faith. So when I heard from my aunt that a well-known priest of the Traditional Catholic Faith would be going to have a talk, I signed up right away without second thoughts. 

The conference was held at Sta. Ana, Manila on January 31, 2015. It had the a picturesque view of the Pasig River. The cool breeze was perfect, too! 

The spectacular view of the Pasig River

The view from my seat

The speaker, Fr. Paul Kramer, is an advocate of the Traditional Catholic Faith. He has written various books about the Faith and has tackled in-depth issues concerning the church, such as The Mystery of Iniquity and The Suicide of Altering the Faith in the Liturgy.

Fr. Paul Kramer

The talk was entitled "Ecclesiastical Freemansonry and the Crisis in the Church". It is about the influence of Freemansonry which has infiltrated the church. 

Fr. Elijah gave the opening remarks. He gave us a quick overview of what the topic would be by telling us a bit of History: In 1917, the Freemasons rallied in Rome and cried out, "Satan will rule over Vatican and the pope will be his slave." 

Fr. Elijah giving the opening remarks

The conference was then started. Let me share with you some of the topics...

Fr. Kramer tackled the Pagan religions, the ancient religions, which gave us an introduction about where the Masonic faith is based. This is opposed to the Transcendent God that the Catholics believe. 

The Masons want to build a dogma-free religion, to do things only in accordance to what you think is good or bad, and not follow certain rules. But God, as He said in the Bible in John 14:15: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." 

Catholics should believe and follow in what God, Himself, revealed to man. The Catholic religion is a dogmatic religion. Any form of changes results to heresy. However, discerning truth from error is very difficult. As sometimes, error is concealed beautifully in deceptive words. 

Well, the topic was very heavy and it required understanding on deep Philosophical and Theological understanding. But Fr. Kramer was able to explain it in simple terms that ordinary people can understand.

We all listened intently, pausing for a short while when a Pasig River ferry passes by with a loud engine roar. Hehehe...

The audience listening to Fr. Kramer. Photo by my aunt.

The talk lasted for about two hours and an open forum followed. The conference ended at about 8:00 PM. We all went home with new knowledge of our faith and the desire to further deepen it.

My aunt and me with Fr. Paul Kramer

One thing I have learned from this talk is that my faith, the Catholic Faith, is not a 'feel-good' religion. Rather, it is a religion of the Truth. And the truth hurts.