St. Paul on His World and Our World

A lot of people today have been writing a lot of words telling us what’s wrong with our world. Some of them have got it right, some only half-right, and others are completely wrong. Of course, assigning a writer to one of these three categories is based entirely on how closely his thought and beliefs mesh with my own...OK, and with the teachings of the Church. But I read them all, whether or not I agree with them. 

This evening, as I was mulling over some of the things I had read recently, I suddenly remembered St. Paul and his remarkable letter to the Romans. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read Romans, but I turn to it frequently because it’s so rich in spiritual truths. But it’s also rich in truths about our world and it’s problems. When you read Romans you discover that human nature hasn’t really changed in 2,000 years. The problems of today’s world, although they are packaged differently, are also remarkable similar to those faced by St. Paul and his contemporaries.  

I suggest you read the the following passage from the first chapter of Romans. With these words Paul describes with remarkable clarity the world of the Roman Empire in the first century, while prophetically describing the world we face today, along with its many evils. Perhaps I’ll delve into these verses at some point, but I’m pretty sure you will see the connections between Paul’s words and our world.

The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for likenesses of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them [Rom 1:18-32].

That's quite a collection of evils, isn't it? These, and many others, are the sins that nailed our Lord Jesus to the Cross on that first Good Friday -- sins of the past, the present, and the future.

Many people today, sadly, even many Christians, don't like to hear St. Paul's words because they have succumbed to the spirit of the age, which, by the way, is a spirit of evil. Others recognize the truth in what St. Paul tells us, but to openly proclaim and live a life that contradicts the world's evils demands more courage than they can muster up. So they keep quiet and ignore it all. Paul, however. is not calling us to fight evil with another evil. He's telling us to despise the sin, all the while loving and encouraging and praying for the sinner. Believe me, it isn't easy, but we don't do it alone.

 

Future Gulags - Part III

I could go on and on writing about Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and its remarkable blend of the historical and the prophetic, but you need only open the book yourself, give it a read, and measure his portrayal of the reality of Soviet socialism against the guile and hatred expressed by today's leftists who, like their Soviet mentors, crave power above all else. You don't need me to point this out.

But because I'm on kind of a roll, in this last post on the subject I'll just leave you with a few more of Solzhenitsyn's observations that particularly struck me as I reread the book over 40 years after my first reading. 

The Usefulness of the Mob. Let me begin by starting a truth about the lack of truth: the left must always lie. In fact, the lie is perhaps their primary rhetorical tool. Because their ideas are bankrupt and have led consistently to failure, the left cannot justify or even support them through rational argument or in a debate. And so, they lie. They lie repeatedly and loudly, and they do so in concert; i.e., they all join in to ensure we all hear it. Bombarded with the lie from every direction, the uninformed and unthinking begin to believe it.

Stalin realized the mob could be useful in spreading the lie, because the mob, all screaming the same thing, provided a public legitimacy to useful lies. To this end his minions created mobs to storm the streets and shout the lie.

Solzhenitsyn offers an example related to the famines that struck the Russian people and led to so many deaths. Of course, the famines resulted directly from Stalin's policies, but that truth could not be admitted. He, therefore, found convenient scapegoats, and before the predetermined court verdict mobs were formed:

The workers and employees wrathfully voted for the death penalty for the scoundrels on trial. And by the time of the Promparty trail, there were universal meetings and demonstrations (including even schoolchildren). It was the newspaper march of millions, and the roar rose outside the windows of the courtroom: "Death! Death! Death!" [GA, p. 48]

Yes, the people demand it! And the "newspaper march" indicates how useful it can be for those in power when they also control every media outlet.

Today many of our cities continue to be plagued by the rule of the mob, mobs of Antifa and Black Lives Matter supporters, a mob that strikes fear into the hearts of weak, leftist officials. And so, these mayors and governors dishonestly label the mob's destruction and murder as "peaceful protest" and then cave to their demands. The media, of course, ignores it all because the chaos comes from the left. It wasn't until the January 6 debacle at the Capitol that the media rose to the occasion and sharpened its pens to attack the rightist wackos who accomplished nothing. But the left and the media screamed: "Insurrection!" These "Trumpers" were obviously planning to overthrow the government. Exactly how they could accomplish this has never been explained. 

I guess mobs are handy things, but it really depends on whose mob it is.

Crush Them All. Solzhenitsyn, in a masterful description of Article 58 of the Criminal Code of 1926 [GA, p. 60-67], shows his readers how this all-encompassing code could, in effect, convict anyone of anything or of nothing. For example, the interpretation of Section 10 of Article 58 was particularly broad. It stated:

Propaganda or agitation, containing an appeal for the overthrow, subverting, or weakening of the Soviet power...and equally the dissemination or preparation or possession of literary materials of similar content [GA p. 66].

In describing Section 10's application, we are told:

The scope of "agitation containing an appeal" was enlarged to include face-to-face conversation between friends or even between husband and wife, or a private letter. The word "appeal" could mean personal advice...  "Subverting and weakening" the government could include any idea which did not coincide with or rise to the level of intensity of the ideas expressed in the newspaper on any particular day. After all, anything which does not strengthen must weaken..."preparation of literary materials" covered every letter, note, or private diary...Thus, happily expanded, what thought was there, whether merely in the mind, spoken aloud, or jotted down, which was not covered by Section 10 [GA, p. 66].

Interestingly, Article 58 also treated the murder of a Party activist far more seriously than the murder of an ordinary citizen. Solzhenitsyn explains:

If a husband killed his wife's lover, it was very fortunate for him if the victim turned out not to be a Party member; he would be sentenced under Article 136 as a common criminal, who was a "social ally" and didn't require an armed escort. But if the lover turned out to have been a Party member, the husband became an enemy of the people with a 58-8 sentence [Article 58, Section 8 would likely result in execution instead of receiving a 10-year prison sentence. GA p.65]

Solzhenitsyn sums it well up by quoting the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky:

        And he who sings not with us today

            is against

                        us!

They go on to arrest the innocent, especially those who innocently speak the truth. Indeed, the very concept of guilt or innocence are "out of date concepts" that mean absolutely nothing. It's all related to the "social prophylaxis" mentioned in my previous post (Future Gulags -- Part II). One wasn't arrested for what one had done, but for what one might do. At the end of World War II, those Soviet citizens who had lived under German invading forces were given 10-year sentences, just as captured Soviet soldiers who were POWs were sent to prison for at least 10 years after they were liberated. 

Solzhenitsyn also mentioned Stalin’s apparent willingness to learn from Hitler when it came to Jews. Like his other internal targets, the innocence of Jewish citizens was ignored because of their “social origin” and their religion with its international presence. To be “cosmopolitan” was to be anti-Soviet, and a crime in itself. Solzhenitsyn describes another “wave” of arrests, this time of Jews.

During the last years of Stalin's life, a wave of Jews became noticeable. (Form 1950 on they were hauled in little by little as cosmopolitanites. And that was why the doctors' case was cooked up. It would appear that Stalin intended to arrange a great massacre of the Jews.) 

But this became the first plan of his life to fail. God told him -- apparently with the help of human hands -- to depart from his rib cage [GA, p. 92].

Yes, Stalin died in 1953, probably helped along on his journey by those tired of his capriciously deadly ways. 

Sadly, those who aide and abet the ideological left forget or have never thought about all of this. Once the revolutionary left seizes power, the first ones they come after are usually the liberals, those who helped them get there. These are the most dangerous, the ones who know too much, the ones who must be silenced, must be crushed. I’ve written about this in another post (Madness Rising) describing the dozen years preceding the 1917 Revolution.

It's All About Power and Evil. Solzhenitsyn addresses the first, as the motivator, and the second, and the underlying attitude. 

Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote [GA, p. 147].

And speaking specifically of those in the Soviet Security Services, those who had near-ultimate power over others, he writes:

You have a power over all the people in that military unit, or factory, or district, incomparably greater than that of a military commander, or factory director, or secretary of the district Communist Party.  These men control people's military or official duties, wages, reputations, but you control people's freedom [GA, p. 148].

As for the presence of evil and its perception by those captivated by it, Solzhenitsyn rejects the usual depictions of evildoers found in literature, citing Shakespeare, Dickens, and Schiller:

The trouble lies in the way these classic evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers...Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate...Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble — and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short of a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. [GA, p. 173]

Rejecting these literary evildoers, Solzhenitsyn then describes the very different kind of evil driven by ideology:

But no; that’s not the way it is. To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions. [GA, p.173]

Ideology — that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors...Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, not passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed those millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago. [GA, p. 174]

Only the ideologue can take an active part in the slaughter of millions and do so willingly and without remorse because his ideology justifies it. This is the danger of ideology, whether of the left or right. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Xi Jinping, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jung-un, and so many others, including their thousands of followers, are happy to kill entire populations so long as it supports their ideological ends. Ideology permits anything. In the same way the pro-abortion zealots — who perpetrate the lie by calling themselves “pro-choice” — inevitably align politically with leftist ideologues. As I have often stated, someone who supports abortion will support absolutely any evil.

Enough! 

Read Solzhenitsyn as he describes the last century and learn about the century we’re facing today. And as you read, pray for our world and its conversion. Only the hand of God can heal us.

Modern Gnostics

(This is the second -- and probably the final -- post on gnosticism and its presence in today's world, a sequel to my earlier post: Roots of Modern Gnosticism)

_____________

When we examine ancient gnosticism's modern successors, we encounter a change, or a progressive movement that renounces God, or really any belief in a vertical, other-worldly transcendence. Gone, then, is the “hidden God” of the ancient gnostics, replaced by a horizontal belief in a closed historical process manipulated by a revolutionary elite. According to these elitists, these modern gnostics, only they can understand the process as history moves inexorably forward, one step after another. 

For the gnostic, the old world -- that is, traditional society and its institutions -- must be destroyed to make way for the new. Change, then, means destruction. This transformation will take place thanks to the knowledge -- the gnosis -- possessed by the elite who will manage the process. We see shades of this gnostic thought among politicians, intellectuals, academics, revolutionaries, media pundits, and others who desire to transform the world through programs run by experts, by those in the know. In other words, the gnostic, rejecting the God who acts in and redeems the world, believes in self-salvation through human knowledge.

Eric Voegelin, one of the more stable and believable 20th-century philosophers, reminds us of the gnostic's "prohibition of questions." Using Karl Marx as an example, Voegelin describes Marx's unwillingness to answer questions as central to his philosophy. To paraphrase Marx: For socialist man, questions become an impossibility. When socialist man speaks, man must be silent. Indeed, for Marx, questioning his thought "becomes a practical impossibility." 

Interestingly, Rudolf Hőss, the commander of the infamous Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, when asked at trial why he did not question or disobey the horrific extermination orders, replied that such a thought would never even occur to him. "Something like that was just completely impossible...I had to carry it out," he said. Yes, indeed, for all socialists questions become "a practical impossibility." It matters little whether they are communists (international socialists) or Nazis (national socialists) or run-of-the-mill socialists (democratic socialists), since they employ identical tactics -- some just more subtle than others -- when it comes to exerting power over others. Too many people have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, that the word, “Nazi,” was shorthand for the full name of the political party founded by Adolph Hitler, the Nationalsozialtische Deutsche Arbeiterpartie, or the National Socialist Workers Party. There is really very little difference between extremists on the left or right. 

[Note: If you have about 22 minutes to watch a homily that addresses the role of Divine Mercy in the conversion of Rudolf Hőss before his execution, watch the video I've embedded below. As my eighth-grade teacher, Sister Francis Jane, often said, "You might be surprised whom you meet in heaven...assuming you get there."]

We see this prohibition of questions, too, in the response of today's leftists to serious questions, a response that inevitably centers on attacking the questioner. The gnostic mob -- regardless of what it calls itself -- silences its questioners with personal attacks, both verbal and physical, and with noise. It screams it’s irrational chants as it tries to destroy the symbols and ultimately the foundation of the existing society.

The gnostic "spirit", however, is largely a revolt against God. Marx, in his doctoral dissertation, provides us with the perfect example of this. Like Prometheus, Marx writes:  

In a word, “I hate all the gods” is its own confession, its own verdict against all the gods heavenly and earthly who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the supreme deity. There shall be none beside it.

The Marxist, a true modern gnostic, rebels against the cosmic order created by God and, therefore, rebels against God Himself. But today's gnostic knows that such a revelation might well undermine his legitimacy in a world that still largely accepts a transcendent God who cares for His creation. And so, the gnostic must deceive, knowingly deceive, and perpetuate an ideological shell game. It's a game that cannot  succeed in the long run; but in the short-run some very nasty things can happen, as they have in the past and are happening in the present.

Fascism and communism are both manifestations of the modernist and socialist ideology that rejects God. In a sense they embrace the first sin in Eden — “you, too, shall be like gods” — and like all evils attempt to imitate good but ultimately embrace the culture of death. From the beginning of recorded history to 1900, governments murdered an estimated 133 million of their own citizens. Between 1901 and 1987, governments killed nearly 170 million of their own citizens. Stalin slaughtered 41 million, Mao 35 million, and Hitler 21 million. Another 38,5 million died in state-sponsored wars during the same period. 

If you can make your way through such modern philosophers as Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Marx you will encounter the core of modern gnostic thought. Marx was probably the most influential, although Nietzsche was certainly the most readable. Yes, they were all intellectuals, but those who took their ideology into the streets — Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and all the rest — were really just thugs. In fact, once the thugs gained control, the intellectuals and the academics were usually the first to go. During the so-called “Cultural Revolution” in Communist China (1962-1976), Mao first adopted the slogan, “Never Forget Class Struggle.” Under this slogan Mao encouraged the students to rise up against their teachers who were labeled bourgeois intellectuals. The students, who evolved into the infamous and brutal Red Guards, beat and imprisoned their teachers. Mao even attacked the party itself because he believed too many of its functionaries were insufficiently revolutionary. This phase was spurred on by the slogan, “Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons.” Mao later demanded the Red Guards erase all vestiges of the old culture, which led these young thugs to attack virtually everyone. Destruction was universal — churches, temples, shops, libraries, cemeteries, museums, monuments, statues, even pets were destroyed — and countless people were slaughtered. The entire process was orchestrated by Mao as a form of directed anarchy, violence from below but with approval from above.

Under Marxism — and, folks, socialism, even Bernie’s and AOC's so-called “democratic socialism,” is founded on Marxist principles — human beings are seen as socially determined by their historical and material circumstances; they are not defined by their infinite worth before a transcendent God. According to Marx himself, Marxist revolution implies “the replacement of religion by politics as the source of man’s liberation, since evil is a consequence of society...and not of an original sin,” and it ultimately leads to an ennoblement of violence and the extinction of ethics. 

Revolutionary ethics sees its own version of violence as liberating, unlike what it claims is the repressive violence of the established order. Marxism approves of the former as the means to overcome the latter. We will continue to encounter this "liberating" violence so long as those who should know better continue to support and bankroll violent revolutionaries.

Barack Obama called for the "fundamental transformation of America" but to the far left these words simply mean total revolution. And in total revolution violence becomes just fine, a necessary tool to achieve the complete alteration of the society. Ethics, too, at least ethics as we know it, becomes meaningless, since such concepts as justice, freedom, and morality are incompatible with revolution because they represent and legitimize the existing order which must be destroyed. Oh, these words and others like them will be parroted to recruit those who believe society is oppressing them, but to the revolutionary they mean little. 

Because the modern gnostic elites believe they know better than the masses, they really can’t stand the thought of the uninitiated being free to use the gifts God has given them. For the same reason, elitists, whether of the liberal or revolutionary variety, always crave power. For the revolutionary, the only acceptable form of democracy is mob rule, the democracy of violence which for them is the pathway to power. Liberal elites are more subtle and strive to convince the masses to trust them because they know better, all the while working within “the system” to undermine the people’s freedom. Publicly they minimize the violence of the revolutionaries, although they fear it could get out of hand and threaten their personal power. And yet this same fear leads them to continue their quiet support of the revolutionaries.

A recent Rugters University study found that the social media profiles of some anarchists gained hundreds of thousands of followers since May. According to Pamela Paresky, one of the study's co-authors:  

"The systematic, online mobilization of violence was well-planned, coordinated (in real tme), and celebrated by explicitly violent anarchy-socilaist networks that rode on the coattails of peaceful protest...The ability to continue to spread and to eventually bring more violence, including a violent insurgency, relies on the ability to hide in plain sight -- to be confused with legitimate protest, and for the media and the public to minimize the threat."

As I mentioned in a recent post -- Madness Rising -- the similarities with the early years of the Russian Revolution are striking. 

What’s behind it all? For the true believers, it”s driven by their ideology and their quest for power. For the followers, Lenin’s “useful idiots”, I really believe that too many today simply refuse to recognize that which is good, that which is beautiful. Modern education has taught them that the world of man lacks goodness, and the wonders and beauty of God’s creation escapes them. Lacking moral imagination, the concept of sin and disorder in the human soul means nothing to them. How can it, since they reject the very idea of the goodness of creation by a transcendent, loving God who acts in the world? One gets the impression they’re just bored with it all.

There is much evil in the world today, but that’s nothing new. The evil — and that means Satan and all his followers — are unable to fathom the motives of the good. We see evidence of this in the way so many haters simply cannot understand religious values, particularly Christian values. One need olny read the mainstream media's coverage of things Christian, and especially that related to the Catholic CHurch.

We who believe, though, live on in trust and in hope; and hope is knowledge, the firm knowledge that "all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose" [Rom 8:28]. God will indeed bring all things to good because the good is far more powerful than any evil and will emerge the victor.

“The Evil One Is At Work Here”

The words in the title of this post are words spoken by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone who has had to cope with a mayor and a governor that seem to be doing all in their power to shut down churches, especially Catholic churches, in San Francisco and throughout the state. Of course, Archbishop Cordileone and his brother bishops in California are not alone. Almost all American bishops, and many others throughout the world, have had to cope with some level of anti-religious control from local and state governments. It’s as if the political forces were just waiting for an opportunity to separate the people from the practice of their faith. Evil will, of course, fail at this, but in the meantime the faith of many will be challenged.

The celebration of Mass has been effectively banned in many cities and states. The same is true of most other sacramental rites. To understand how specifically anti-religious these controls are, one need only look at other permitted gatherings. Here’s just one example, In San Francisco even the celebration of an outdoor Mass, regardless of the size of the venue, must be limited to only 12 people, including the priest. And yet Black Lives Matter “protesters” can congregate in the streets, with no separation whatsoever, and are encouraged to do so by local politicians.  

In a recent interview, Archbishop Cordileone stated that there is a definite “spiritual” connection between these Mass restrictions and the defacing and destruction of Catholic statues that recently plagued His archdiocese. He went on to say, “I performed a minor exorcism at the site of the statue of St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park because statues of holy saints are sacramentals; their destruction is a sacrilege. The Evil One is at work here.” The photo below shows the Archbishop blessing the site.

The Archbishop continued by addressing what this means to us as Americans: “To take something as beautiful and holy as the face of Our Mother and desecrate it? What demons these poor, battered souls must be fighting. In the midst of all our troubles, to be deprived of the Eucharist is both a serious imposition on our rights as Americans and a serious spiritual deprivation.” He went on to say, “I’m not sure the governing authorities here in San Francisco really realize the pain they are imposing on people.” The Archbishop is much kinder than I am, for I believe they know exactly what they’re doing and the effect it has on the Catholic faithful. Yes, indeed, there is evil at work here. 

As for the Catholic faithful, Archbishop Cordileone tells them to “Pray, fast, say the rosary. Focus on living your Catholic faith in the home, with your family, praying the rosary as a family, reflecting together on the Scripture readings for Sunday Mass, watching good Catholic programming together. Reach out to help your neighbors. Let your priests know you care about them. And if you must attend Mass via livestream, don’t just ‘watch’ the Mass: worship.”  

Personally, and I am speaking here only as an American and a Catholic, I honestly believe all the restrictions placed on religious activity by government authorities are unconstitutional. Nowhere in the U. S. Constitution does the government have the power to restrict the religious activity of the people. Indeed, exactly the opposite is true. The primary right of the people, the first God-given right mentioned in the Constitution, is the right of the people to worship freely, as specified in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”

Can anyone not see that those who wield governmental power are preventing American citizens of the right to freely exercise their faith? While I certainly respect Archbishop Cordileone for what he is doing, or attempting to do, as he battles the power of evil that confronts the Church today, I believe it's time for our bishops to resist this evil strongly and openly. We are a Eucharistic Church and, as the fathers of the Second Vatican Council declared, the Eucharist is the "source and summit of the Christian life." Because of the interference of secular government, most Catholics today are deprived of the Eucharistic Bread of Life, as well as the graces that flow from the other sacraments.

It’s time for our bishops to stand tall for religious freedom. "Blessed are the meek," Jesus promised, but the meek are not the indifferent. We don’t need the government to dictate how we may worship, and should resist their attempts to do so. The Church can care for its own people and devise safe conditions to ensure the health of the faithful. Our bishops should demand the freedom to exercise the Church's First Amendment rights and do so safely. They should also be willing to suffer the consequences, even if it means imprisonment and fines. Over the past 2,000 years, beginning with the Apostles themselves, many bishops, in a spirit of courageous meekness, have paid a far greater price for such courageous acts of faith.

Remember, too, how Jesus completed the Beatitudes, this time speaking personally to His disciples:

"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me..." [Mt 5:11]

Years ago I used to conduct a course on negotiating for businesspeople, and one of the more effective strategies was that used by those who were perceived as powerless: the power of no power. If you are willing to accept whatever consequences your opponent can inflict, you have just given yourself significant power, especially in the court of public opinion. Here's a wonderful example...

Perhaps our bishops and all Christian churches should look to Evangelical Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles County (photo at left). Pastor MacArthur has been threatened with jail time and fines because he refuses to accept Governor Newsome's restrictions that prevent his church from conducting in-person services. 

According to the pastor, "We believe the governor, the county, the city, and the health department are going against the Constitution. And just to remove one obvious question, the rate of COVID in California is 1/100 of 1% of 40 million people...and that eliminates freedom of worship from the entire state?"

The pastor went on to explain that his church has "been meeting together now for weeks and weeks and weeks, and...nobody in our congregation has ever been to the hospital with this...There's another virus loose in the world and its the virus of deception, and the one who is behind the virus of deception is the arch-deceiver, Satan himself. And it's not a surprise to me that, in the midst of all this deception, the great effort that is going on is to shut down churches that preach the Gospel." How did Archbishop Cordileone put it? "The Evil One is at work here."

Pastor MacArthur then added, "We received a letter with a threat that we could be fined or I could go to jail for a maximum of six months. Of course, my Biblical hero, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, is the apostle Paul...so I don't mind being a little apostolic if they want to tuck me in jail. I'm open for a jail ministry. I've done a lot of other ministries and haven't had the opportunity to do that one, so bring it on."

You have to love the man. And as Catholics we should join hands and minds and hearts with other Christians, with men and women like Pastor MacArthur, as we fight the battle against the powers of the world. I really believe that it will be through our common suffering and persecution that the unity Jesus Christ longs for will come about.

Election Thoughts

The Good News of the Gospel encounters a lot of competition these days. Open the morning paper, browse the headlines on the web, watch the evening news. More often than not, the reports you encounter are less than comforting: wars, terrorist attacks, riots, vicious crimes, unemployment, deficits, religious persecution, drought and famine, natural disasters...Subjected to this constant stream of bad news, it's easy to become overwhelmed and overlook the good news, especially the Good News of Jesus Christ. Indeed, one cannot help but notice the dour expressions on the faces of many Christians, people who instead should be filled with joy regardless of the state of the world.

Too many Christians resemble the seed sown on rocky ground [Mk 4:16]. They hear the Good News preached on Sunday and "immediately receive it with joy", but because their faith lacks roots, "when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately they fall away." This same lack of roots undermines not only their faith but also their understanding of the moral life. As they "fall away" from God's Word, they turn increasingly to the word of the world. This is perhaps most evident in their approach to politics and the upcoming election.

I have, on many occasions, been accused of being a "one-issue voter." I suppose there's an element of truth in this accusation, but where I and my accusers differ is on the nature of that one issue. Because I am strongly pro-life, they assume abortion is the one issue that directs my voting. They're wrong. For example, I would not vote for a candidate who declared his opposition to abortion, but at the same time supported same-sex marriage or the funding of embryonic stem cell research or physician assisted suicide. These are all intrinsically evil acts and this is the one issue that motivates my voting. I will vote for no candidate who supports anything that is intrinsically evil.

An intrinsically evil act is never moral. It is evil to the core, evil by its very nature. Abortion is one of these intrinsic evils. The willful destruction of innocent human life -- And what can be more innocent than an unborn infant? -- is always wrong. This, by the way, is the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church.

The problem today is that many politicians and the voters that elect them assume a kind of moral equivalence among such issues as abortion, unemployment insurance, food stamps, same-sex marriage, taxation, national defense, medicare, immigration policy, along with dozens of other issues facing our legislators. Our vice president typified this attitude in the recent debate. Most of these issues are open to a multitude of approaches. We can safely and morally disagree on the efficacy of the food stamp program or the income tax. But this is not so when it comes to something that is intrinsically evil. Archbishop Lori of Baltimore said it well when he addressed the Knights of Columbus annual convention in August:

“The question to ask is this: Are any of the candidates of either party, or independents, standing for something that is intrinsically evil, evil no matter what the circumstances? If that’s the case, a Catholic, regardless of his party affiliation, shouldn’t be voting for such a person.”

In 2004, before his election to the papacy, Cardinal Ratzinger was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In this capacity he wrote the following in a Letter to Cardinal McCarrick:

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

Today, then, approaching an election with a properly formed conscience might well force the Christian voter to question his usual party affiliation. Having lived many years in Massachusetts where candidates from both major parties often held similar and morally unacceptable positions on such issues as abortion or same-sex marriage, on several occasions I could not in good conscience vote for either candidate. In every instance I wrote-in a candidate, voted for an acceptable third party candidate, or left that line of the ballot blank.

In that same letter to Cardinal McCarrick, Cardinal Ratzinger added as a postscript:

[N.B. A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.] 

I, however, could never come up with what I believed to be "proportionate reasons." Even when two acquaintances, both moral theologians, suggested that I could morally vote for the "lesser of two evils," I could not bring myself to do so. The faces of millions of slaughtered innocents were far more persuasive than the words of the theologians. A "lesser evil" is still, after all, evil.

This isn't just a Catholic issue. It crosses religious and denominational boundaries. And it doesn't relate only to one political party. Timothy George, writing in the Baptist Press, agreed that Archbishop Lori's concerns apply to all Christians and went on to say:

"There is a difference between Christian discernment and partisan politics. The Kingdom of Christ cannot be equated with any political party. Our current president, a Democrat, is the most pro-choice president in American history, and yet Supreme Court justices appointed by Republicans gave us Roe v. Wade."

And just last month, during his apostolic journey to Lebanon, Pope Benedict told a gathering of government and religious leaders that "The failure of upright men and women to act must not permit evil to triumph. It is worse still to do nothing."

We should, therefore, carry out our civic duty and vote responsibly and morally. We must not abdicate this duty, but neither should we profane it by supporting that which is evil.

Homily: 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings: Ezk 2:2-5; 2 Cor 12:7-10; Mk 6:1-6

Today’s readings are really about three groups of people: the Jews who rejected God’s Word preached to them by the prophet Ezekiel; the people of Nazareth, Jesus’ home town, who rejected God’s Word in the flesh; and lastly, us, the people of today. And perhaps not so obviously, these readings are also about evil.

Evil is a very strange commodity. Sometimes it’s so evident, so blatant, that you can actually feel its presence. Let me give you an example from my own experience.

In 1951, not long after the end of World War II, my family lived in Germany where my father was stationed. Instead of living in Army housing, he felt we should experience the local culture, and so we lived on the economy and went to local German schools. It was a remarkable experience for my brother and me. As a family we also took many short trips to different parts of the country, where I saw the unbelievable devastation that Hitler had brought to his own people, not to mention the rest of Europe.

On one of those trips we visited Dachau, one of the infamous death camps. There I saw first-hand the mass graves, the ovens, the tools of death, all the implements devised by men for only one purpose, to murder the innocents among them. Although it was over 60 years ago, I remember that day as though it were yesterday. The evil, the unbelievable cruelties that had taken place there only a few short years before, was so palpable, so real, I could literally feel it. Evil like that is hard to ignore, even though, at the time, many did just that.

But evil isn’t always so obvious. It often shows up looking clean and shiny, well-scrubbed and well dressed. It can look and sound very reasonable, always ready with a compliment, saying all the right things…and yet beneath the veneer, there is nothing, only misery and despair. Evil rationalizes itself with fine-sounding words and ultimately entraps those who fail to reject it.

As adults we can’t be forced to become ensnared by an evil power like in the horror movies…no, we set the trap ourselves. We make our own choices.

It’s not their sins that characterize those guilty of the greatest evils – for everyone is a sinner – rather it’s the persistence and consistency of their sins. It’s their willingness to choose evil over good, and to do so again and again. You see, the central defect of evil isn’t the sin itself, but the refusal to acknowledge it as sin.

We see this in today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel. Jesus has returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where He preaches in the local synagogue. Those who hear Him have to make a choice, a choice between good and evil…and they make the wrong choice. They reject goodness. Their choice, like so many of the choices we make, stemmed from pride. They simply couldn’t believe that one of their own, someone they had known all their lives, could be so special.

How did they put it? “Is He not the carpenter, the son of Mary…?” How could this common man, this laborer, this man to whom many of them were related…how could He have anything worthwhile to say?

Their rejection of Jesus followed directly from Jesus’ faith and commitment. It was easier for them – as it is for us – to be negative rather than positive. Easier to be destructive rather than creative. Easier, in short, to confuse good with evil.

Edmund Burke summed it up pretty well when he said, that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Like so many people today, the people of Nazareth didn’t want to hear the truth, especially when the truth hurt. For that’s what a prophet does: he speaks the truth. And all too often the truth reminds us of our failings and weaknesses. A prophet’s job is to upset people. His job is to challenge and rebuke people. His job is to demands that they change, that they do more than nothing. Jesus’ neighbors, listening to him in the synagogue, became like their ancestors to whom God had sent the prophet Ezekiel. With stern faces and hardened hearts, they rejected God’s prophet, they rejected God’s Word.

But this time it wasn’t God’s Word spoken by a prophet that they rejected. This time it was Jesus, the Word of God personified…Jesus, much more than a prophet… Jesus, the Son of God Himself, who stood in their midst. He is the Truth.

Had we been there, would you and I have rejected Him as well? Perhaps the better question is: do we reject Him today? The truth? Jesus is still with us. He speaks to us through His Word, read to us daily at Mass. He instructs us through the teachings of the Church. He feeds us with His precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, entering into our very being, calling us to constant conversion through the “inexpressible groanings” of the Holy Spirit.

And yet, how often do we listen and act on what we hear? Do we fear the change Jesus demands of us and prefer instead to do nothing? Do we excuse ourselves from difficult teaching? Do we rationalize our acceptance of evil, because …well, these are complicated and controversial issues?

Pope John Paul II, one of the great prophets of our time, warned us frequently about the acceptance of a culture of death, the same kind of culture that resulted in a place like Dachau. And yet many of us choose to ignore the warnings.

The right to choose, we are told, is more important that the right to life. Yes, the right to choose death, the right to choose evil. Assisted suicide and euthanasia aren’t really all that bad. Yes, the culture tells us, these are quality of life issues. Capital punishment? Don’t listen to the Church. It’s a secular issue, a law and order issue. It has nothing to do with morality.

Ah, yes, evil can come to the table all dressed up, with fine manners, and sound so civilized, so very reasonable.

The culture condemns the homeless and despises those suffering from AIDS or enslaved by addictions. They brought it on themselves didn’t they? Why should we help them? The culture of death protests loudly when the Church addresses the ills and immorality of society.

It tells the Church that religious freedom is defined not by God but by the state. It tells the Church to keep its religion quiet. Stay out of the public square. Stay out of politics, it says. Stick to your prayers and your Masses. Stay inside the walls of your church.

They seem to believe we live in two worlds, one religious and one secular. What a bizarre notion!  No, brothers and sisters, we live in one world, God’s world. He created it, and He’s the One in charge, not us.

We have only two choices. We can accept Jesus Christ and His Truth, or we can reject Him. There is no middle ground, no seemingly safe place where we can straddle both sides and remain uncommitted.

A few moments ago, we joined together to sing the words of the psalmist, “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord.” This is one of the things that differentiates good from evil.

Are our eyes fixed on the Lord? Or like the people who rejected Ezekiel and Jesus are we fixed on other things?

Let’s pray today that, like Paul in today’s 2nd reading, we may find strength in our weakness. Pray for goodness, brothers and sisters. Pray that God will make us as courageous as Ezekiel to speak His word to our world, even when the world seems unwilling to listen.

Life and Death, Good and Evil

Gustave Dore: Paradise Lost - Satan

A few days ago, while driving to the dealership to get some service done on my car, I hit the wrong button on the steering wheel and found myself listening to what I guess was a local preacher here in central Florida. I had hoped to select one of the satellite radio stations but obviously didn't. (This happens a lot. The radio in this new car is more complicated than all the combined systems of the first car I owned back in the 1960s.) But instead of trying again, I found myself captivated by this preacher's voice, until he said something that took me by surprise. This is what I heard, at least as near as I can recall:

The world is evil, brothers and sisters, every bit of it. Satan rules the world and God made the devil to tempt us, and He made the evil world to challenge us. But most people have failed the challenge. They have succumbed. Because just like the world, people are evil, through and through. Evil is a part of our very human nature. And we can't overcome it, not without God's help. The only way to salvation is to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Once you do that, Jesus becomes your shield and protects you from all the evil of the world. And those who don't accept Jesus will spend eternity in the fires of hell.  Salvation is as simple as that.

Wow! Now this was certainly a simple although rather grim solution to the issues of life and death and salvation. I didn't listen to any more but simply changed the station. I know neither the preacher's name nor his denomination, and the above isn't a word-for-word transcript -- my aging memory isn't that good -- but I believe it's pretty accurate and certainly captures the intent and meaning of what he had to say. I also know that his beliefs are certainly not held by the vast majority of Christian denominations with which I am familiar. And yet I couldn't help but wonder how many people believe what this preacher apparently believes.

Afterwards, as I made my way through traffic listening to some Vivaldi, I thought about what I had heard and considered how most errant thought usually contains some snippets of truth, but buried in a mound of false teachings. My next thought was how joyless such a distorted version of Christianity must be. How could someone who holds such beliefs ever be moved by a Beethoven symphony, or a Bach fugue or prelude, or a good, down-home country-western song? How could one appreciate the artistry of Michelangelo, or Monet, or even Picasso or Dali? How could he take in and appreciate the beauty of a tropical sunset, or the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, or the incredible vastness of the universe? How could such a person enjoy even life's simple things, like a good  home-cooked meal? What kind of life must it be for someone who sees the world and everything in it as evil?

Of course, such false teachings have been around a long time. They appeared as a form of gnosticism early in the Church's history and actually made serious inroads among Christians. Because of that problem with Jesus taking on our human nature, gnostics followed their logic and ended up rejecting His divinity, or the Incarnation, or His humanity, or all three. Some gnostics believed that the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Jews, was not the same as the God of Jesus Christ. This Old Testament God, they believed, was an evil God, the creator of matter. As you can see, such beliefs are in sharp contrast with those taught by the Church. In fact, John the Apostle quite likely wrote his first letter to counter these beliefs in the early Church. And as our preacher proved, gnosticism in some form is still around today.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church: A Guide to Truth

This is why I find it so comforting to be a believing and practicing Catholic. Jesus promised He would be with His Church until the "end of the age" [Mt 28:20] just as He promised the Holy Spirit would guide the Church "to all truth" [Jn 16:12]. And guided by that Spirit, the Church, for 2,000 years, has been constant and consistent in its teachings on faith and morals. And so through its teaching authority it provides the faithful with the truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit. This doesn't mean that all of us in the Church aren't sinners, for indeed we are. We can and do commit sin. Like St. Peter, we can even deny the Lord, and like St. Peter we, too, can repent and go on to live a life of courage and humility in complete obedience to the will of the Father. But despite the sinfulness of its members, the Church itself, the Bride of Christ, remains as the bulwark of truth, or as St. Paul described it, "the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth" [1 Tim 3:15].

For example, the Church has always taught that God does not create evil. Indeed, this is the one thing that God cannot do, because God is goodness itself and evil cannot come from good. Doing so would be contrary to God's nature. Remember, even Satan and his fellow demons were once angels, spiritual creatures created for good. Created with an intellect and a will, they could know and they could choose. God didn't make them turn to evil; this was a decision made by each of them.

The Church has also always taught that material creation itself is certainly not evil. Indeed, in Genesis we are constantly reminded how God looked upon His creation "and saw how good is was" [Gn 1]. We are called to use the things of this world in good ways, in ways that do not promote evil, in ways that do not create obstacles to our salvation or the salvation of others. And just like the fallen angels, men and women can choose evil. Evil isn't some "thing" in the world that attacks us and turns us from God. No evil is something you and I can choose instead of the good. How did Jesus put it?

"But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile" [Mk 7:20-23].

This doesn't mean that our nature is inherently evil; it simply means that our intellect and will enable us to know and to choose, and that the choices we make are ours. And so the Church has always defended the goodness of our human nature. For how could it be inherently evil if God Himself -- He who is all goodness -- created us in His image: "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them" [Gn 1:27]? And would the Son, the eternal and creative Word of God, become like one of us and take on our human nature if our nature was evil?

Michelangelo's Creation of Adam - Sistine Chapel ceiling - Rome

Yes, God's creation  is good. Although every day we spend in it presents us with risks, God also promises that the end will be greater than anything we can imagine: "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him" [1 Cor 2:9]. 

We should rejoice in it and be glad.

Pax et bonum...