Real leadership does not involve figuring out the direction in which the crowd is going and then rushing to the front of the crowd, so that it appears that the crowd is following you. This conduct is contemptible and is devoid of principles.

Real leaders don’t act that way. Politicians do. An example of such lack of principles is exemplified by a saying attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, a British Prime Minister during the 19th century:

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
http://www.famous-quotes-and-quotations.com/leadership-quotes.html

To see examples of real leaders, look at those whose lives really mattered. They should be our models.

Our Lord Jesus Christ

Our first model in this and in everything is Our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Truth Himself and He came to stand up for the Truth. He declared:

For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth.

St. John’s Gospel, 18:37.

Because Our Lord told the truth without compromise (on Faith and Morals), He was attacked and was abandoned even by His friends. Here are His words, in a Messianic prophesy:

My friends and my neighbors have drawn near and stood against me. And they that were near me stood afar off.

Psalms, 37:12.

Besides His Holy Mother, everyone abandoned Him in His Agony, in His Passion and Death.

The history of the Catholic Church is full of saints (especially the martyrs) who stood alone for the Truth, suffering abandonment, calumny, and attack. Here we give only one (of countless) examples.

St. Athanasius, Doctor of the Catholic Church

St. Athanasius led the fight against the Arians. One way to describe his fight was that he refused to agree to add to the statement of the Faith even the smallest letter (the Greek letter ι—called “iota”), because this addition weakened Catholic doctrine. Persons with less zeal for the Truth would surely have considered his fight nit-picky and petty.

St. Athanasius defended the truth of Christ’s Divinity, even though his defense of the Truth caused “disunity” and “disharmony” with those who opposed the Truth or who sought an “accommodation” to maintain “unity”.

St. Athanasius was exiled five times, for a total of about twenty years. He was attacked, calumniated, and abandoned. The abandonment he suffered was so extreme that he became the most prominent example of a Catholic leader that stands up against error despite the resulting “disunity” and “disharmony”.

St. Athanasius stood for the Truth even though he was virtually alone. Our admiration for his solitary stand for the Truth is captured in the expression: “Athanasius Contra Mundum”—that is, “Athanasius against the World”.

Catholic Tradition Needs Leaders!

Catholic Tradition needs leaders now:

Who stand for the Truth, when no one else is doing so.
Who have the courage to stand alone and not back down from the Truth.
Who have the courage to make tough decisions.
Who know the way, who go the way, and who show the way—regardless of whether anyone follows them.
Who seek to develop others to also lead.
Who sacrifice themselves for the good of others.
Who lead where people ought to go, not where they want to go.
Who do not worry about getting the praise and “credit” for what they accomplish. Such leaders also don’t worry about being calumniated.

Such leaders have the conviction of the Truth. Only such leaders change the world and only they ever will.

It is our Duty to Separate from a parish which compromises the Faith or debases Morals

We must not silently “go along” in order to “keep the parish united”. When the Truth is at issue—in Faith or Morals—we must not worry about causing “disunity” or “disharmony”. Also, we must never compromise the Faith or adulterate Morals in order to obtain the sacraments.

We must not succumb to compromises by little steps. We must not say that the compromises about which we are now remaining silent are only “little matters” and that “surely” we would stand for Faith and Morals if the matter were more important! This is the trap of gradualism! The only safe course is to stand firm when the first “little” compromise is being foisted on us!

Further, we must not deceive ourselves that we are avoiding compromise through remaining ignorant of the compromises our group makes. We are still compromising by association and by support, even if we don’t read our group’s liberal publications, or even if we attend the Masses of the group’s more “conservative” priests who don’t themselves promote the errors of their more liberal colleagues.

St. Paul lays down our principle to live by: we must separate from those who do not hold Catholic tradition, in all Faith and in all Morals. Here are his words:

And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us.

2 Thessalonians, 3:6 (emphasis added).

St. Paul is not merely talking about avoiding drunkards. He charges us to avoid those who do not carefully hold all of Tradition, viz., the entire uncompromising Catholic Faith and all unadulterated Catholic Morals.

We must always boldly stand for that Faith and for those Morals, even when such a stand means leaving our parish or even when standing up imperils the “parish unity”.

There are three reasons why this is crucial:

We endanger our own uncompromising Faith and unadulterated Morals if we stay with a parish or group which compromises on these matters. This is because we inevitably weaken when we remain silent in the face of error.

If we think that we can remain in a parish which is weakening, without ourselves also weakening, then we are over-confident and have not learned anything from the history of the last 50 years.

After Vatican II, the majority of people did not like some (or all) of “the changes” occurring then. Nonetheless, almost all of them remained in their parishes. They rashly thought they were “strong enough” to not weaken while staying among those who were weakening.

They rationalized and salved their consciences for their inaction, naïvely supposing they could “fight from within” and resist the increasing liberalism in Faith and Morals. Those people tragically (and fatally) over-estimated their own abilities. Few of these people woke up in time to leave their compromise parishes. Most of them became liberal themselves, by small, indiscernible steps.

Do we think we are stronger than those people were? Do we think that we will withstand a gradual weakening at our parish because we are so strong that we are “another St. Athanasius”? If we are, then we would do what St. Athanasius did! We would stand up! We would boldly fight for the Truth, even if we are alone! On the other hand, if we are not a “St. Athanasius”, then we are too weak to remain among those who will weaken us further!
It gives other people a bad example, making it more likely they will fail to do the right thing. We must not remain silent while Faith is compromised and Morals are debased. A maxim of the moral life warns us: Qui tacet consentire videtur. That is, our silence shows our consent—however much we wish to rationalize that it does not.

It is so easy for us to rationalize compromise by saying that it will not give bad example to our own circle of friends because among these friends we (privately) speak our mind. However, regardless of our words to them, those friends would understand that the uncompromising Faith and unadulterated Morals are not our highest priority (as they should be). “Actions speak louder than words.” If uncompromising Faith and unadulterated Morals were really our highest priority, then we would not maintain a public silence about error. We would boldly fight every attack on the Truth.

In this way, regardless of what we say, we give bad example to all of our friends, both those stronger and those weaker than we are, and both those at our parish and those outside our parish who know what occurs at our parish.

Further, it is naïve to suppose that the only people who would receive our bad example are a few friends to whom we (privately) speak our mind. We are a bad example (of weakness) to everyone who sees us silently “going along”. They either conclude that what goes on at our parish is good or that it is not wrong for a person to remain silent as Faith or Morals are weakened. Because people are social creatures, they tend to act as they see us act.
Bad example, i.e., scandal, is giving the appearance of evil which makes another person more likely to sin. Summa, IIa IIae, Q.43, a.1, ad 2.
We wrongly put unity with people above Our Lord. When we put parish unity (or access to the sacraments) before uncompromising Faith and unadulterated Morals, we are putting unity before Christ, since we are putting other people’s respect and acceptance for us, ahead of the Truth (which is Christ).

Our Lord told us:

Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.

For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And as a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

And he that taketh not up his cross and followeth Me is not worthy of Me.

St. Matthew’s Gospel, ch. 10, vv. 32-38.

Conclusion

Don’t be one those who serves Our Lord only after first “counting the cost” of that service!

Soldier of Christ, your King calls you to be a bold leader!

Stand up for Him wherever you are, in whatever state in life He has placed you!

Stand up for the uncompromising Catholic Faith and unadulterated Catholic Morals!