The Catholic Church has taught from the days of St. Paul that it is the duty of state to use the death penalty. 1
The theory of “just war” is also an important part of the infallible moral teaching of the Catholic Church, especially as one forms the leaders of state. But today’s post is not about how to deal with enemies at the national level, but how to pray at the personal level. Jesus Christ said “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”—Matthew 5:44. Notice that such a command does not make that person not-your-enemy! Love your enemies presupposes that you are a real enough person to actually have real enemies. Not just imaginary pseudonyms from social media who want to kill you with the push of a button.
You see, simply the idea of having an “enemy” is jarring to the post-modern mind. We tend to put unity before truth. So, it’s strange that Jesus Himself had enemies. It’s tough for us Americans to grasp this, for we generally want to get alone with everyone. This is not bad, but it is bad to value unity above truth. God’s reality for our planet is that unity flows from truth. Anyone who lives this reality of metaphysics will have some enemies. Having enemies is actually necessary to get to heaven, for we need enemies to get there, primarily so that we can live the Beatitudes.
The above is a photo of desperate families escaping from Khorsabad, a town controlled by ISIS which was under Peshmerga fire. How is it that the tradition of the Catholic Church could have the Knights Templar killing Muslims at the siege of Malta and still believe in a Savior who said Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you? We have to look past the muddled theology of the past 50 years to see that the tradition of the Catholic Church actually has a more practical and more merciful approach to enemies than a new feelings-based theology. In fact, our answer today is going to come from an official prayer of the Traditional Latin Mass for enemies. Remember, this Mass was not created by a group of Catholics and Protestants sipping espresso in an Italian coffee shop, but it’s roots are “apostolic” by the infallible words of the Council of Trent. Certain parts were later changed or formulated under the blood of martyrs and the fastings and vigils of select saints over very slow centuries. So, almost all of prayers of the Traditional Latin Mass can be traced to time between the 1st and 7th century AD. This is why we can say that the liturgy is a look into the mind of God, even in reference to a single Oratio for an enemy.
As I wrote, there is actually a prayer for enemies in the Traditional Latin Mass, and this shows the mind of God:
One translation of the top prayer from the 1962 Missal is as follows:
O God, the Lover and Guardian of peace and charity, grant to all our enemies true peace and charity, together with remission of all their sins, and by Thy power deliver us from their wiles. Through Our Lord. Amen.
Let’s parce out this beautiful and powerful prayer to see how it is more merciful and practical than anything that could come from a manmade or fabricated liturgy.
O God, the lover and guardian of peace and charity
Notice that this is a prayer directed to God, not to the congregation. It recognizes that charity and peace are not social inventions, but that only God can give charity and peace, for God is love. When we divert from Him (even doctrinally) we don’t just divert from the Magisterium. We divert from the infinite Being who is Love-Itself.
Grant to all our enemies true peace and charity
I personally find it astonishing to see that the ancient tradition of the Catholic Church has something more merciful and practical for enemies than anything I found in the first five years of my priesthood praying the Mass of Paul VI. In other words, the intense saints of old all prayed that God would actually grant “peace and charity” to all their “enemies.” This presupposes that priests and saints have enemies. Thus, it is a prayer that takes blood, sweat and tears. The old Mass is so subtle, but perfectly crafted in every word. The liturgy is the bridge between God and man, even for issues as gritty as enemies. When that bridge is broken, we will forget how to live even the practical sides of life, including prayer for our enemies.
[Grant our enemies the] remission of all their sins.
Amidst all the doctrinal divisions in the Church today, we should each pray this prayer once today: “Grant to all our enemies true peace and charity, together with remission of all their sins.” (Da omnibus inimicis nostris pacem caritatemque veram: et cunctorum eis remissionem tribue peccatorum.)
This above Oratio or prayer hits all the transcendentals: Truth, beauty and goodness. It recognizes, however, that the final transcendental of oneness (or unity) can not be met by a fabricated form of man’s peace, but rather only Christ’s peace. This is a peace that has not been accepted by most of the world, as seen in the top picture of ISIS destroying more lives. We can not fake peace with the Muslims or even Catholic heretics that infiltrate the Church. But Jesus does not lose peace. In fact, He gives it in a deep but counter-cultural way: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”—John 14:27
By Thy power deliver us from their wiles.
I really, really love this part of the prayer. We pray nosque ab eorum insidiis potenter eripe which is: “Rescue us from our enemies’ insidious plans, by Your power!” This shows that the fulness of Catholicism is very practical, not amorphous or nebulous. Let’s put it all together: “God, please grant peace and love to my enemies, but keep them far from me and my loved ones!” Real people and great saints (usually one in the same like St. Paul) were not people-pleasers. They were great lovers of the person who stood before them, enough to die for their enemies. So also, we do not deny the harm done to us by our enemies, but we love them, forgive them and pray for them. 2
You see, we still (barely) live in a world more real, more material, more direct than the virtual reality of an Oculus. It will get more real when terrorist attacks increase on our soil, surely coming in 2017. Because life is real, material and direct, we need prayers that are real, material and direct. “God, please love on my enemies, but stop them from affecting my life.” Let’s pray this prayer boldly for and against 1) the enemies of tradition, 2) the enemies of unborn life and 3) the enemies of middle-Eastern Christians.
We need gritty, merciful and practical prayers like this. 2016 was a year that produced an estimated 90,000 martyrs. We have had 900,000 martyrs the past 10 years. The tradition of the Church is under siege and enemies of the pro-life movement have no intention of stopping killing babies just because Trump was elected today. I snapped this in New Orleans just a few days ago, and it perfectly illustrates love of enemies, even the enemies of innocent and tiny little children like this “death-scort.” Notice the joy of the Catholic woman behind her, as she prays her Rosary.
So, God of peace and charity, please grant peace and charity to all our enemies and even the remission of their sins. But also Lord, rescue us quickly and powerfully from their evil designs.
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”—Romans 13:1-4. JPII had some valid circumstantial arguments against the death penalty, but no Pope’s personal opinion can overturn the Divine Revelation of the Scriptures and the Council of Trent that uphold the fact that the state “bears the sword” (Rom 13 above) which is the duty to execute, albeit in justice. My emotions line up with JPII on this topic, but part of being Catholic means putting aside our emotions for the Magisterium. There’s a strong article on that here. ↩
..and sometimes blow them up, especially when they are killing and raping the innocent like ISIS does. This is the teaching of Just War theory, but to go to war, a Catholic nation (non-existent now) must meet all the requirements as seen even in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):
“1. the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
2. all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
3. there must be serious prospects of success;
4. the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition” [CCC 2309]
I believe all four have been met for militarized nations of East and West to unite and fully eradicate ISIS.
The reason why a person should probably not use violence to shut down infant-killing centers in the United States is because the requirements for “civil disobedience” have not been met. In fact, not just one or two, but ALL OF THE FOLLOWING must be met for executing any armed resistance outside of a state-sanctioned mandate:
1. There is certain, grave, and prolonged violation of fundamental rights.
2. All other means of redress have been exhausted.
3. Such resistance will not provoke worse disorders.
4. There is well-founded hope of success.
5. It is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution.—CCC 2243
In the battle for pre-born life, #1 and #2 have been met, but #3 and #4 have not been met to begin civil disobedience. I’m not sure about number 5. But again, all five must be met, and NOT ALL FIVE HAVE BEEN MET. In other words, violent civil disobedience can be justified for saving the innocent, but in this case it would harm the pro-life movement. Thus, you will NOT see me use violence against any killing mill. I go there with the weapons of the Holy Mass, exorcism and the Rosary… which are truly more powerful, anyway.
Spoiler alert on Rogue One for the second half of this blog post.
Today is the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Catholic Church. His martyrdom is found in Acts chapter 7 and it contains the jarring testimony of a young deacon who chooses God’s religion over man’s intertwined religious games. Although engaging the high-powered Jewish religious leaders of Christ’s own time, St. Stephen is fearless in proclaiming how Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all the Hebrew Scriptures. Before being stoned to death, Stephen recounts to the Pharisees all of Salvation history. Then he accuses them:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”—Acts 7:51-53
Why did Stephen die? The obvious answer is out of love for Jesus Christ. In fact, every martyr dies for love of Jesus Christ. But there’s a second reason that is not as obvious or ecumenical: Stephen died for the full deposit of the faith. “Deposit of the faith” is not a romantic term but we should face the facts: Most martyrs of the early Church (especially in the Byzantine East) died for the transmission of the deposit of the faith to remain pure against heresy. Think about it: If the early Catholic martyrs of Rome and Palestine and Byzantium had not died to maintain the purity of the Apostolic Christian faith, there would be no Catholics. Actually, there would be no Orthodox or Protestants. There would be no Christians. It’s quite a fragile system of Apostolic succession that God put in place.
Do not think that any particular heritage or bloodline is the sole guarantor of your Faith. For example, no English or Irish Catholics reading this post would be Catholic if Italians like St. Gregory the Great had not sent missionaries to the isles up north. Gregory was born in Rome, and he himself owes his faith to more individuals than Christ: He would never have been baptized a Catholic, had not the Roman martyrs for hundreds of years before him maintained the courage under fire to keep the pureness of the faith. Pope St. Gregory the Great learned about Catholicism only because it was preserved by the martyrs of the Roman empire for a full five centuries prior to his own baptism.
2 Maccabees chapter 7 relays the account of the martyrdom of a Jewish woman and her seven sons. They die not for a pure emotional love of God but to keep even the smallest of dietary laws. So also, the martyrs died not only for Christ, but for the fullness of the Catholic faith. Every little bit. Did every little bit really matter? Jesus said: “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”—Matthew 5:19. The Apostle John urges the Churches of Turkey to “return to their first love” and the Holy Spirit warns through him that there will be consequences to watering down the faith. Today, the faith is all but dead in Turkey. Similarly, we must avoid any presumption that would lead us to believe that God would “owe us a living,” so to speak, in the Church in the West today.
I’ve gone to see Rogue One twice now. What struck me is that all the good guys in the movie die. At least the ones we learn by name, perish. They are either blasted or nuked by the Imperial forces. Why? Because the Rebel Alliance chose to sacrifice their lives for one single piece of information: The digital plans for the DeathStar. Americans usually don’t like movies where all the good guys die. Europeans can handle it. But Rogue One took a risk with us Americans in wiping out almost every significant member of the Rebel Alliance against Darth Vader and his DeathStar pioneers.
Was it a good idea for Lucas Films to force us to watch our heroes die for the transmission of a single piece of information? Yes, because this is how the martyrs of the early Church saw things: The Catholic Faith was worth their blood for every single one of those small pieces of “information.” Yes, they received the courage and charity to die, primarily because they were given grace and mercy by the Blessed Trinity in their hour of agony. Yes, they died out of love of Jesus Christ. But if you look closely, many of early martyrs of Byzantium and the Roman Empire actually died to also maintain the pure deposit of the faith against certain “small” heresies that wouldn’t even be recognized by the post-modern reader.
Nowadays, people are taking sides between Cardinals on issues of doctrine that are finally making the mainstream news. The group on the left claims that their Cardinals are pastoral and merciful. The group to the right claims that their Cardinals are traditional. But many traditionalists do not understand just how traditional we are talking. We’re not lining up behind a Cardinal because he dresses like someone at the Council of Trent. We’re lining up behind men who are not only maintaining the Apostles’ Faith but also the blood of millions of “little people” to preserve it. Literally millions.
Like Rogue One, many “little people” died to bring us this pure, untouched information. For me to deny any single tenet of the Catholic faith has little to do with the liberal/conservative spectrum. For me to deny any single tenet of the Catholic faith would trample the blood of martyrs like St. Stephen. St. Stephen is known as the proto-martyr because he was the first martyr of the Catholic Faith. St. Stephen proto-martyr is first Rogue One against lawyers’ manmade religion of popularity when St. Stephen presented them with Divine Revelation.
The martyrs that followed Stephen died for Jesus Christ, yes, but let’s examine a less ecumenical truth: Jesus didn’t need those martyrs as much as we Catholics in future generations needed those martyrs to stay strong under torture. It was a torture for your children to know the fullness of truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The whole truth. Surrender without content is usually not worth dying for. Neither was an ambiguous “deposit of faith” (unromantic though it be) transmitted in apostolic succession or the martyrs of the early Byzantine and Roman Empires. I am only a priest. Too many men, women and even children died for me to learn the Catholic faith for me to tamper with that deposit of the faith with political terms like “liberal” or “conservative.”
St. Stephen was the first Rogue One. He chose truth over the false-peace contained in man’s laws. So also every martyr is a rebel against the kingdom of man; he is a Rogue for God in an enormous community of the Catholic Church. Every one of them played a small part in brining us not only Jesus Christ and His sacraments, but also the full and saving doctrine His Church—a doctrine without which the sacraments would contain no power to live…or to die.
This is a poem/prose that I wrote in seminary. I quoted this poem in my Sunday Midnight Mass Christmas homily. The homily was only four minutes, and it’s found here:
“One will be sent in the flesh,” thundered the most beautiful Trinity to the angels and all the courts of heaven eons ago. In perfect harmony they rejoiced. But later they wondered if anyone but a lowly archangel like Raphael (still more glorious than a burning star) could dare condescend again to take flesh as Raphael did for Tobit. Their best guess for the new assignment was Gabriel. God said “Gabriel will go…but in spirit as preparation. One much higher than he will become flesh.” “But how?” the angels wondered, “A cherubim’s eyes would melt the trees and mountains. No human warrior’s body could even instantaneously hold the power of a seraphim. Who will go in the flesh?” And they intuited through each other like laser beams, seared and alit by the thought of leaving the splendor of heaven for the dirt and sorrow of earth with man. And then the answer came from God: “I will become man.” After ages of silence, awe, wonder, war and adoration, a high angel said “The Lord’s voice flashes flames of fire. What warrior shall you absorb for your powerful and wise task?” And God replied “I shall assume the body and nature of a poor baby, and I will eventually be nailed to a tree to die quietly, without friends. This will be for mercy, for all.” All fell down in confused adoration that the essence of God would be humility.
Although Colorado’s Supermax is the federal prison that is featured on all the TLC shows, Colorado’s death row for our homegrown felons is actually on the Eastern Plains. For my second assignment as a priest, I was sent to a parish containing within her bounds that very Correctional Facility.
Upon arrival, I had a plan to reach not just the Catholics, but all the semi-professed Christians at the prison. I would hold a Bible Study called “What the First Christians Believed,” but not write “By Fr. Dave Nix” on the flyer. It was an immediate success. Many people from all denominations arrived. Great discussion ensued for the first two weeks. However, one non-dom felon with too much time on his hands (imagine that in America’s prisons) had learned…Hebrew. By week three, he jumped on my smallest inference to the Catholic faith, attempting to debate the meaning of New Testament Greek words transliterated into his Hebrew purview. By our fourth meeting at that enormous prison, a fight broke out between the Catholics and the Protestants. The guard arrived to protect me. No punches were thrown, but my cover was blown. As if the cassock hadn’t given it away, they now knew: I was a Catholic.
Numbers dwindled. Within three weeks, I was sitting in my Bible Study room with one man…a single black man from Brooklyn who was getting released in two weeks. That evening, we gazed across the hallway through the classroom windows to see another large room, filled with Muslims doing prostrations. Depressed, I asked him “Why do you think Islam is the number one growing religion in the world?” The man must have learned a lot in his prison sentence; He answered: “Because there you get what you see. No games with God. No loopholes.”
Rewind a few years earlier in seminary. I was saying to my friends that, as a priest, I would not have girls on the altar as acolytes. A formator overheard me and chimed in: “You wouldn’t want to be less generous than the Church.” Ok. I went away feeling corrected and, um, ungenerous.
But it hit me a bit later that the common ground between the two above stories is this: Is the mind of God found in the tradition of the Church or in the Church’s loopholes? Imagine that your 15 year old son or daughter had a curfew of 9pm, and “on very rare occasions” you allow her to come home at 11pm. What if she came home every night at 11pm and midnight? We would rightly conclude that there was something wrong with her sense of fatherhood.
Now consider that the Church has held a great many things sacred for many centuries, and how now dispensations are overruling. We must remember God’s words: “For I the Lord do not change.”—Malachi 3:6. Consider how, under great pressure from progressive bishops, Pope Paul VI hesitantly allowed communion in the hand to occasionally replace communion on the tongue in circumstances that almost seem to read “safe, rare and legal.” St. John Paul II was put under similar pressure to allow altar girls to occasionally join the army of boys on the altar. Dispensation…now become norm.
Did you know that the 1917 Code of Canon Law said that it is “forbidden” to marry a non-Catholic? The 1983 Code of Canon Law similarly says it is “prohibited” to marry a non-Catholic. Both codes refer to the dangers to salvation to the Catholic party (cf. Pope Pius XI’s Castii Conubii.) I’m not against the Church occasionally granting dispensations to a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic, but when was the last time you heard of a Tribunal reminding the couple that such norms are in place for the salvation of their eternal souls? Was the Apostle Paul’s admonition to be “equally yoked” purely the Revelation of an arbitrary Father? Or, is there any chance Our Father’s original plan was the most generous?
Liturgists (including Chief Liturgists) also need to consider whether rubrics be capricious…or from a reasonable God. For example, Vatican II reads that the Mass should be offered normally in Latin, but that the vernacular language may also be allowed. Which is the rule and which is the exception? Or, consider how Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI notes that even in apostolic times there was no precedent for the priest to face the people during the sacrifice of the Mass. Nowadays, however, that small loophole to the 2000 year-old Catholic (and Orthodox) norm has covered the globe. This was all for the sake of filling the parishes. Has it worked?
A point of dogma needs to be made: It is not just pious devotion, but it is actually the dogma of the Catholic Church that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. Thus, in order to understand the generosity of the Fatherhood of God, we must consider the mind of the Church through tradition, through 2000 years, not just modern loopholes.
I think I could summarize Jesus’ message to the Pharisees in one sentence: “Stop playing games with God.” Jesus’ main message to the Pharisees was not to abolish the law (See Mt 5:17) nor overturn the necessity of the commandments for salvation (See Mt 19:17) nor even end liturgical sacrifice (1 Cor 5:7-8.) Living in a country with so many Protestant overtones, we nowadays tend to picture a Jesus who, being a bit of a flippant religious-cowboy, wanted to end the Jewish hierarchy. Even this is not true (See Mt 23:3.) Jesus admits that the Pharisees still remain on the “chair of Moses,” but “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (23:23). In other words, “Stop looking for the loopholes, and start living for God. He does not play human games based in human tradition.”
I believe there is a key to attract men to the Catholic Church. It’s to stop playing games with dispensations in the name of being “pastoral.” I’m not saying a system of hard-core rules is key to making disciples of all nations. Nor am I promoting those ultra-conservative men who talk to their wives like they talk to their daughters (both like slaves.) But think about what that man from Brooklyn recognized in those 20 young black men prostrating at the prison. He saw that these men were attracted to a way of life that was concrete. These Muslim men—most of whom grew up without fathers—suddenly found a solid and clear-thinking system of religion that did not require a PhD in theology to tell you the rules didn’t apply to you if you know how to play this or that theological game. No, those inner-city men had had enough childish games in their adolescence to land them in prison. Now, they had something clear-thinking, something the male mind longs for, even if it sunk its teeth into something as sick and violent as Islam.
If a religion without a loving Father (Islam) has attracted men without fathers, how much more will the plan of a loving Father change our nation if we can be clear-thinking and clear speaking? We don’t want to make Kouachi-brothers of a new militant-Catholic-bent, but see my point: How much more do Catholic men contain a capacity for reaching the inner-cities of America if we can become unafraid of a full Catholic vocabulary? The maternally-run suburbs of America could use some good men, too. We as Catholics have the unique ability to reveal both the mercy of God and the expectations of God to a hurting and very confused nation. The peace in the womb doesn’t begin with women. It begins with men exercising self-control and protecting the women in their lives. It is peace that Jesus seeks to give us, but not as the world gives it.
Most young Catholic men secretly long for coaches, priests and mentors who will actually believe in them as sons. Young men long to see their dads (biological and spiritual) keep the high bar, not found in the confessional of priests who tell the penitent that because his masturbation “is an addiction, it is not done with full consent.” That’s a copout of responsibility for one’s penitents. No man ever wanted to live within a “dispensation” of weakness. Rather, most young men actually respond to a tough coach who believes in them. They want to be told that they can reach the high bar of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They want to give their lives away with other brothers.
In July of 2007, Pope Benedict wrote Summorum Pontificum to again promote the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. He had a very interesting line in there: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” This is an important sentence because it shows that God, as Father, does not change His mind for His family, based on the fads and whims of the time. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”—Hebrews 13:8.
Mass attendance statistics are pretty good proof that our hearts resonate with something “eternal” more than “pastoral.” Why? Because there is protection and freedom in God’s eternal order found in the liturgy. There is protection in the house rules, the unfolding of the Universe, the beauty of the Church, the two-parent Family. Rules without relationship leads to rebellion. But relationship without rules leads to a surrender without content—indeed, a surrender that is short-lived.
To be sure, the Gospel is ever ancient and ever new, with new creativities of evangelization growing out of every century of the Church that were surprising and unexpected. But as GK Chesterton wrote: “The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”
This was originally published under the title Why Pastoral Dispensations Lose Catholic Men.
I must admit that there is something attractive and even accurate to the thesis that the Apostles were buffoons before they had the full transformation that happened at Pentecost. First, Mother Angelica points out that they never seemed to catch anything on their own even as fishermen! “Jesus chose a bunch of stinky fishermen” she reminds us as to why God chose someone like her to be a cloistered-evangelist to the nations in founding EWTN.
We have Christ’s disciples’ obvious sins, like Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus. And yet, after the Resurrection, Jesus does not say “Peter, about denying me three nights ago…You can still remain my disciple, but I’m going to have to pass-along this whole first-Pope thing.” No. After the threefold denial, Jesus gives Peter on that Sunday beach of the resurrection a full three attempts to move from simply liking Him (φιλεῖς με) to actually loving him (ἀγαπᾷς με.) Peter is embarrassed that he can’t honestly answer that he had any form of unconditional love for his friend who just died for him.
Jesus sees Peter’s humility and is not worried. Our Lord simply says: “Tend my sheep” and “Feed my sheep.” He knows that Peter will live up to the task. Peter had trusted in himself and fallen hard. But now, Peter is humbled enough to lead the Church…and Peter himself would be led to a cross where he would one day die, believing he was not worthy to die in the same shape as the Son of God. His executors agreed, and turned him upside down.
But it wasn’t just their bad fishing skills or their sins that made the Apostles look like buffoons. Without any blasphemy to the saints (and yes, the saints can be blasphemed) the evangelists made it clear that the Apostles occasionally answered as buffoons:
Jesus said: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died.—John 4:11-14
Come on. Really. They thought that Jesus Himself didn’t actually know that asleep people wake up? Apparently not. No other explanation suffices.
or consider how obtuse they are later on the boat:
And [Jesus] cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.—Mark 8:14
I can hear Homer Simpson saying to Chief Wiggum “I understaaaaand.” Yes, they were apparently thinking about food when Jesus said something as spiritual as “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” This paints a picture of men astoundingly obtuse to the spiritual sense of things.
But now I want to consider some evidence that the Apostles were not buffoons. First of all, of all Ancient Near-East nations, very few tribes were as literate as the Jews in the first century. Children began memorizing the torah with honey on the letters at very tender ages. In fact, they had a large part of the Hebrew Scriptures memorized by the time they were 12 years old. We live in a time when most priests can not even name the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, so we tend to project our poor catechesis on the Apostles. But the Apostles would have know the Jewish faith, salvation history and the Hebrew Scriptures through and through and through, long before they met the Son of God face-to-face. This is a historical reality, not a pious hope. Just ask any well-read Israeli about first century life out there.
The Apostles were fishermen by trade. But originally they had “tried out”(like all 12 year old Hebrew boys at one point) to become a rabbi. This happens by being chosen at the age of 12 or so by a rabbi to be one who learns from him for years. Many years earlier, the Apostles had probably tried out but failed. But they had failed only compared to the real brainiacs of the day. This means that the Apostles would have had a large chunk of the entire Old Testament memorized long before they took their consolation prize of fishing (irony of ironies, considering which rabbi ended up choosing them as adults.)
But we must get rid of this idea that the Apostles were blue-collar morons if we really want to understand 1st century rabbinical Judaism. In fact, the parents of the Apostles expected them to be religious warriors to liberate Israel from Rome! How do we know this? Because half of the Apostles reflect the names found only in the family of Judas Maccabeus, the last family and book of the Old Testament. Notice that half of the Apostles come from Maccabees in the Old Testament (Simon x 2, Judas x 2, John x 1.) In fact, only the latter is found anywhere besides Maccabees in the whole Old Testament! 1
But now let’s fast forward to some grown Apostles: Peter’s brother is Andrew, and today is the feast of St. Andrew (30 November). The above picture is him instructing one of his early disciples, assumedly in modern-day Turkey. Similarly, it was Andrew who first introduced his brother Peter to Jesus Christ:
One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus.—John 1:40-42b
What was Andrew doing before he brought Peter to Jesus? Although Andrew may not have gone to sit from a rabbi in one of the main yeshivas (schools, ישיבה, literally meaning “sitting,” as you sit at the foot of a rabbi) we often forget that he was already following the greatest prophet of the old and new Testaments: John the Baptist. John the Baptist was not Jesus’ schizophrenic cousin in the forest like some movies portray him to be. John the Baptist is he of whom Jesus said “No man born of woman is greater than him.”—Matthew 11:11.
Notice two paragraphs above that Andrew introduces Peter to Jesus very very early in John’s Gospel. In fact, it happened in chapter one! How do we know that St. Andrew was already following St. John the Baptist before meeting Jesus? Because just a few verses before that, Andrew follows Jesus at the very referral and command of John the Baptist (Andrew’s first own master and rabbi) to do so. Notice that this happens just before what I described two paragraphs above:
The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.—John 1:35-37.
Can you imagine those three years of walking next to Jesus under a tree and eleven annoying-but-beloved friends? They must have wondered: What would Jesus say next? Where would He lead them? What miracle would come next? Which Pharisee would He anger today? Life would have been pure adventure. And yet, and yet…after the crucifixion, they are left with little faith. Those Apostles are hiding out for fear that they will be the next crucified Galileans, after their master and rabbi was mercilessly tortured and laid in the earth. Some messiah to liberate Israel from Rome!
But after they experience the Risen Christ, everything changes. They now believe. I believe that the greatest proof of the Resurrection is that 11 fearful men, literally hiding from the authorities on the first Holy Saturday, are the same men that traverse the globe and are now responsible for the fact that there are 2 billion Christians on the earth. How else could Galilean fishermen have gone from as far West as Spain (St. James) and as far East as India (St. Thomas) if they had not stuck their fingers into the nails of the Risen Jesus or the fist into His side? They were truly transformed. (Oh, and some say that Thomas made it all the way to China, but I won’t weigh in on that here.)
They have perfect knowledge of Christ at the resurrection, but the perfection of charity comes at Pentecost with Mary at their side, giving them all boldness and miracles to begin the full transformation of the world! So, yes, I do believe that there was a transformation in the lives and hearts at the Resurrection and even more at Pentecost. Perhaps even the personalities of the Apostles after the Resurrection and Pentecost are a bit changed. Either way, grace perfects nature without destroying it.
Because of this, we can be encouraged by the many falls of the personalities of the Bible when we consider how faithful God is to us, even when we are not faithful. Not that we want this to lead to presumption on God’s mercy, but St. Therese said: “It doesn’t matter how many times you fall. Only how many times you get back up.” In fact, this is truly exemplified in the many stupid decisions of the Apostles before Pentecost, and how Jesus does not only refrain from retracting His love, but He doesn’t retract His friendship, either. In fact, even their leadership as bishops and Pope of the early Church remains untouched despite all their personality flaws (impetuous, hungry, sleepy, dull, angry, etc) much like what you encounter in priests today, even in the confessional! As long as they kept the true faith and transmitted it as Christ gave it, falls among the first bishops and pope could be endured.
But we also have to put together the facts to see that the Apostles were not buffoons before Pentecost. They came from arguably the most literate culture ever on the fact of the globe (the Jews, even under occupation) and had memorized more books of the Bible by the age of 12 than most American Catholics will even read in the Bible their whole life. They were following the second greatest prophet to walk the earth, St. John the Baptist, before they were instructed on the beach by Yahweh Himself for three years, long before Pentecost. So, yes, the Apostles made some stupid comments in the Gospels and even some serious sins, but they were the most highly-educated fishermen that you ever did meet.
Burial spot of St. Andrew's body that I snapped off the Amalfi coast, Pascha 2016.
This should show any Protestant why it was wrong to take Maccabees out of the Bible, and that first century Jews surely considered it canonical if half of the parents of the Apostles would name their kids after names found only in Maccabees. ↩
Reserved sins are the sins that ordinary Catholic priests can not forgive in the confessional because they are reserved to either the bishop or the Apostolic Penitentiary in the Vatican to forgive the penitent. The reason they are “reserved” is because they are so serious that they incur an excommunication that is immediate (ex latæ sententiæ) by their very deed. Examples of “reserved sins” include the desecration of the Most Holy Eucharist, a priest breaking the seal of confession, or a couple having an abortion. Some bishops have extended their own hand of absolution and recommunication (which comes from Jesus Christ Himself via Apostolic Succession in John 20:18-20) to their priests in regards to only one of these sins: abortion. This is perhaps because of how common it is. In fact, I have never heard of a bishop who has not extended his hand of recommunication to all of his priests on the reserved sin of abortion.
Recently, Pope Francis gave the power of absolution and recommunication to all the priests of the world who deal with men or women committing abortion. (Of course, this hand of recommunication is extended only to priests who have faculties to hear confessions and are a state of good-standing with either their bishop or religious superior.) In any case, I think this was a good decision of Pope Francis. Why? I have heard confessions on five continents and I never heard of a bishop who has not extended his hand of recommunication to all of his priests on the reserved sin of abortion. Thus, Pope Francis removed a formality that may have carried a weight in the realm of moral theology, but carried little practical weight. It was a good decision.
However, there are rumors that abortion will be removed from the list of sins that make Canon Law’s short list of immediate ex-communication. Would this be a good decision?
Instead of discussing that, I want us to back way up and so I ask you to consider the four parts of confession: Contrition, Confession, Absolution and Penance (or satisfaction.) Contrition is sorrow. Absolution is when Jesus Christ forgives the penitent through the priest who says “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Penance is not a cherry on the cake but a necessary part of a valid confession. It is usually a few Hail Marys, but theologically it is a command to ensure “new life” as the Council of Trent says. For example, a person who gossips may have the penance of repairing someone’s good name. Notice the similarity between the word “repair” and “reparation.” Reparation is a synonym of penance.
None of the rest of this blog post will be on the news from Pope Francis. The rest of this post will simply be to consider the penance or satisfaction side that must follow a good confession when abortion is confessed.
If a soul is a piece of wood, and a nail is a mortal sin, absolution is the tool that pulls out the nail. But a hole remains. This is filled in by the penance or satisfaction. Nowadays, this is little more than three Hail Marys. However, for serious sins the early Church usually prescribed a year on bread and water while walking in pilgrimage or in exile.
Was it just that the early Church was mean and legalistic on heavy penances? No. The early Church understood the penance had to be the medicinal remedy in the hole of the person being reformed. The Church took upon her shoulders the responsibility to make the soul so strong wood again. Why? First, because this is a requisite part of new life, but secondly because they had the hopes that no similar nail would ever enter that soul again. For example, if someone had an abortion, they often had to go on bread and water for a year. No Christian would have a second abortion after a penance like that. Even if you doubt this claim, you should only find such a prescribed penance to be rigorous if you don’t understand the gravity of abortion.
Let me pause here and say that any sin confessed is forgiven immediately upon baptism or the words of absolution in confession (“I absolve you from your sins…”) Furhermore, we priests are called to be 100% compassion, mercy and love to any man or woman who has participated in abortion. St. John Vianney probably never dealt with as many abortions as even the average parish priest nowadays, but his advice for any priest holds true: St. John Vianney gave such easy penances because he himself did penance for his penitents. (This is part of why he lived on a potato a day.)
So, I believe we priests need to be the very living reflection of the Father to the prodigal sons and daughters who come (usually with tears) to confess this grave sin of abortion. Consider also how gentle Jesus was in the Gospel with women who came to him in sexual sin, versus how harsh Our Lord was to those who acted with spiritual pride. Thus, we should not scare people away from the Catholic Church with early-Church penances. The Post-modern, post-abortive man and woman would never come back to confession or the Catholic Church if we gave early-Church penances of a year on bread and water, so that is clearly not the goal.
But Pope John Paul II knew that confession was not the end—but the beginning—of the healing of a woman who has had abortion, as he alludes to this in his encyclical on life:
I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.—Evangelium Vitae 99
In my years of praying and counseling in front of American death camps, I personally find that the man is the main reason that the woman is entering the abortion mill is that her man is forcing her. Not always, but often. Or, she feels too abandoned by him to raise a child without him. The men of the world need to repent for abortion. So, everything that I write on mercy, confession, reparation, hell and purgatory in this blog post is directed to men just as much as it is towards women. In fact, perhaps we as a collective Church will have to answer for a long time in in Purgatory for the sin of abortion, simply because of our nonchalant and mild opposition to the greatest holocaust in history. Arm chair pro-lifers are the main reason that abortion continues in this country. God repeatedly tells the mystics that He has compensated for the evil people on the planet, but it is actually chosen souls that re-crucify his heart through lack of gratitude and generosity. So yes, arm-chair pro-lifers are why abortion continues in this country.
If that sounds extreme, you must understand that the repair made after abortion is nearly impossible. Whose life truly changed with that abortion? The most common answer is that abortion leaves one dead and one wounded. This is true: There is a child who is physically dead and a woman spiritually dead.
But who else is affected after abortion?
First, God had a full life planned for that child. That child killed was not a “wart on the uterus.” God had already “seen” in His eternity that child’s first birthday, first pony-ride, first heartbreak, first child-born to that unborn child. All her grandchildren and the millions (literally millions) of people affected by that one unborn boy or girl (who one day might have a lot of children) are wiped out, especially as seen in God’s eternal vision of human relationships in time. In that one touch of a vacuum in a Planned Parenthood, it is not an embryo that is wiped out. It is an entire life of joys, sorrows, sacraments and eternal glory wiped out by one suction button. Yes, each of us affects the lives of thousands if not millions of people. Think how many people have been affected by the 58 million surgical abortions that have happened in this country, not to mention all the chemical abortions worldwide. The number is as great as the living population of the whole world. We live in a different world than the one God had actually planned, all because of Planned Parenthood and their racist agenda. So, yes, God’s will can be thwarted. This is God’s will from the point of conception:
But God has a plan for redemption even when His will for life is thwarted by murder. Gloria Polo was a Columbian woman who was struck by lightning in 1995. The lightning blew her IUD out of her uterus. Her sentence upon death by Jesus Christ was originally hell, and sins associated with her IUD were a large part of her sentence to hell. But Jesus gave her life back to her on earth, since she received the prayers of a poor man in the mountains of Columbia who was praying for her resuscitation. (He saw her on the news while they were working on getting her out of Cardiac Arrest.)
Since then, she has told her story to millions of people with the approbation of South American bishops. This is truly successful reparation for her sins! In the private revelation of her particular judgment, Jesus revealed the following to her:
Every time that the blood of a baby is scattered, it is a holocaust to Satan, who acquires in this way still more power. And this soul cries out. I repeat, we are dealing with a mature adult soul, even though it does not yet have eyes, nor flesh, nor a formed body… It is already completely adult. And this his cry so great, while they kill him, devastates all of Heaven. On the contrary, it is a cry of jubilation and of triumph in hell. The only comparison that comes to my mind is the finals of a world soccer championship: imagine all that euphoria, but in an enormous stadium, so immense so as to loose sight of the boundaries, full of devils who cry out like crazy beings their triumph. They, the devils, threw on me the blood of those babies that I aborted or that I contributed in killing, and my soul became black, completely black. After the abortions, I thought by now that I no longer had sins… The saddest thing was, instead, to see that Jesus showed me how, also in my family planning, I was killing… Do you know why? I was using the IUD (intrauterine device) as a contraceptive. From 16 years old, up to the day that the lightning bolt struck me! I took it out only when I wanted to get pregnant, (once married), to then put it immediately back afterwards. I want to say to all the women who use these intrauterine devices: yes, they provoke abortions! I know that it happens to many women, – because it happened also to me – , to see often clots of blood rather large during the menstrual period, and to feel pain much stronger than normal. We go to the doctor, who does not give much importance to the fact: he prescribes a painkiller, an injection if the pains are too strong, telling us to not worry, that it is normal, because we are dealing with a foreign body, but there is no problem. Do you know what it is, instead? It is a micro abortion!!! Yes! Micro-abortion! The intrauterine devices provoke micro-abortions, because as soon as the ovum and the sperm unite, as I already told you, right from that moment is formed a soul, that does not need to grow, being already adult: these devices do not let the fertilized ovum to implant itself into the uterus, which thus dies. That soul is expulsed! For this we are dealing with a micro-abortion. A micro-abortion is an adult soul,completely formed, which was not permitted to live. It was very painful to see how many babies were fertilized, but then expulsed. These little suns, originating from the Sun of God the Father, these divine sparks, could not grab on to the uterus due to the IUD. How they cried out, while they were torn out from the hands of God the Father because they could not implant themselves!!! It was a dreadful scene…! And the worst is that I could not say that I did not know! When I would go to Mass, I would not pay attention to what the priest said. I did not even listen, and if they might had asked me which verses of the Gospel had been read, I would not have known what to respond. You must know in fact that the devils are present even at the Mass, in order to distract us, to make us fall asleep, to impede us to listen. Well, in one of these Masses during which I was totally distracted, my Guardian Angel gave me a jolt and she uncorked my ears, so that I might listen to what the priest was saying in that moment: I heard him precisely speaking about intrauterine devices! He said that they provoked abortion, and that all the women who used them to control the births, actually were aborting; that the Church defends life, and that anyone who does not defend life cannot receive Communion! Hence, all the women who are using this method, cannot take Communion! How I heard those words, I became infuriated with the priest! But what kind of things do these priests have in their heads? With what right?! For this the Church does not go forward! It is for this and for that, that the churches are empty! Of course, because it is not with science! But who do they think they are, these priests? Do they think that they will give food to eat to all of these children that we might have?… I left the church infuriated! The bad thing was that, while I was being judged before God, I could not say that I did not know! In fact, notwithstanding the words of the priest, I did not give heed, and I continued to use the IUD! How many babies I had killed? … Here is the motive for which I was living so depressed! Because my womb, instead of being a font of life, it was transformed into a cemetery, in a “slaughterhouse” of babies! Think about it: a mother, who God conceded the immense gift of giving life, to take care of her own baby, to protect it from everything and everyone, precisely that mother, with all these gifts, kills her little child…! The devil, with his malefic strategy, has brought humanity to the point of killing their own children. Now I understand the reason why I lived in continual bitterness, depression, always ill tempered, ill-mannered, with ugly ways of doing things, with a bad face, frustrated with everything and with everyone. Of course! I had transformed myself, without knowing it, into a machine to kill babies, and for this reason I was sinking ever more into the abyss. Abortion is the worst of all the sins (those provoked, not when it is spontaneous), because to kill the children still in the womb of the mother, to kill a little innocent and defenseless creature, is to give power to Satan. The devil commands from the depths of the abyss, because we are scattering innocent blood! A baby is like an innocent lamb and without stain… And Who is the Lamb without stain? It is Jesus! In that moment, the baby is the image and likeness of Jesus! The fact that it might be the mother herself to kill her own child, determines a profound bond with the darkness, permitting that more devils from hell might come out to destroy and strangle humanity. It is as if one might open the seals… Seals that God has put to impede evil to come out, but that, for every abortion, it opens… And so horrible larvae come out, so that there are more and more devils… They come out to chase and persecute humanity, and then make us slaves of the flesh, of sin, of all the bad things that we see, and we will see always more. It is as if we might give the key of hell to the devils, to let them escape. And so escape more devils, of prostitution, of sexual aberrations, of Satanism, of atheism, of suicide, of indifference… Of all the evils that we see around us. And the world is getting worse every day… Think how many babies are killed every day: it is all a triumph of the evil one! That you might know that for the price of this innocent blood, the number of devils outside of hell grows; they circulate freely in our midst! Let us take shelter! … We sin without even realizing it! And our life transforms itself into an inferno, with problems of every type, with sicknesses, with so many evils that afflict us; all of this is the pure and simple action of the devil in our life. But it is we, we alone, that open the gates of evil, with our sin, and we permit him to freely circulate in our life. It is not only with abortion that we sin! … But it is among the worst sins. Andthen we have the nerve to blame God for so much misery, so much disgrace, so much sicknesses and so much suffering!… But God, in His infinite Goodness, still gives us the sacrament of Reconciliation, and we have the opportunity to repent and to wash our sin in confession, breaking in this way the strings that tie us to Satan, and his influence in our life. In this way we can wash our soul. … But in my case, I did not do it!
Now Gloria has confessed her sins. She is not only a forgiven woman, but a very holy woman who is leading thousands of people to Christ like a saint of yore. This may replace her purgatory time.
On the topic of the spiritual price of abortion, we are now going to continue to look at two saints of the 20th century. St. Faustina was a 20th century saint who had received the approbation of Pope John Paul II and the Vatican with her Divine Mercy Diary. On 16 September, 1937, she wrote:
I wanted very much to make a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament today, but God’s will was otherwise. At eight o’clock I was seized with such violent pains that I had to go to bed at once. I was convulsed with pain for three hours; that is, until eleven o’clock at night. No medicine had any effect on me, and whatever I swallowed I threw up. At times, the pains caused me to lose consciousness. Jesus had me realize that in this way I took part in His Agony in the Garden, and that He Himself allowed these sufferings in order to make reparation to God for the souls murdered in the wombs of wicked mothers. I have gone through these sufferings three times now. They always start at eight o’clock in the evening and last until eleven. No medicine can lessen these sufferings. When eleven o’clock comes, they cease by themselves, and I fall asleep at that moment. The following day, I feel very weak. —Divine Mercy Diary 1276
Padre Pio often delayed absolution for post-abortive women until they moved from guilt to sorrow in this story originally found in Latin Mass magazine:
When he was still living I visited Dónal at his home in County Cork, Iasked [this friend of Padre Pio] pointedly if he had known a woman who had been refused absolution [by Padre Pio] because of having had an abortion. Dónal told me of one such post-abortion woman who gave him permission to re-tell her story. Dónal first met her mere minutes after she had left Padre Pio’s confessional. She was in great emotional distress having been refused absolution. She was, however, receptive to meeting Dónal who greeted her calmly with his soft Irish lilt. Dónal offered her the chance to talk things over with him and she agreed. Dónal did not pry – and did not ask prying questions – an atypical Irishman one might say. But the lady felt at ease in his company and volunteered the information that she had suffered much following her abortion, and knowing it was a sin, she took it with her to Padre Pio’s confessional, but Padre Pio had refused her absolution by saying to her, “you are not truly sorry for your sin”. This is the key: Padre Pio could see her soul and could see that she was not sufficiently contrite or “truly sorry” to use Pio’s exact words… True contrition did not come easily to the lady in question. She struggled for months: she was firmly of the mind that her post-abortion guilt was the same thing as contrition for her sin. Dónal (and I’m sure Padre Pio) prayed very much for the lady. It took her one whole year – but she developed true contrition which entailed sorry to God for arranging the death of her little one who had not asked to be conceived. When the searing ache of true contrition pierced her soul, she returned to Padre Pio’s confessional and once again confessed to having had an abortion. On this occasion, Pio did not refrain from granting her absolution, and said, “now you are truly sorry, I can give you absolution”.
To move from guilt to sorrow is probably necessary to fulfill the first words of John the Baptist and Jesus in the Gospel: “Repent and believe.” We also must remember that although the blood on the cross of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can save us, and although that grace is totally free, it is not cheap. The eternal weight of hell being wiped out by baptism or confession is a free gift, but that does not mean the earthly consequences of sin are eradicated.
This is why the single-best penance a woman or man can do after confessing the sin of abortion is to name the children who have been killed. This might sound to the inexperienced reader like salt in the wound, but it is not. The recognition of a full person planned by God to live is the only possible way to begin healing. Naming the child connects the parents to the dead child (in some state of bliss, be that with or without the beatific vision, something that remains theologically undefined.)
All penance brings life, not death. In the movie The Mission, Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro play 16th century Spanish Jesuits who have come to the New World. The latter is a slave trader on the upper Amazon who has an enormous conversion. He moves from slave-trader to celibate working for the salvation of souls of the indigenous people. De Niro joins the Jesuits and decides to bring the Gospel to the highest parts of the Amazon. But, to get there, he must carry himself, not only his own body, but the very tools, mail and armor of his days as a slave-trader all the way up the waterfall, with the items strapped to his back. One good Jesuit counters his superior and looks at the excessive penance, whispering “I think he has had enough.” The wise and compassionate Jesuit superior responds “Yes, but he doesn’t.” Let us realize that there is new life in a life of penance and reparation.
More specifically: Let’s myth-bust two “Christians” who had a lot to say about Jews.
The First Myth to be busted is Martin Luther who is often portrayed as being a gentle, reforming monk. The truth is that this “Christian” chose to incite violence by declaring that “Jews and Papists are ungodly wretches. They are two stockings made of one piece of cloth.” He once wrote a book called The Jews and Their Lies (seen below) in which he stated that because God struck the Jews, “We are at fault in not slaying them.”
Later, his invective became even more violent against Jews, for he declared: “They are our public enemies.” In his second to last sermon before dying, on 18 February 1546, Luther gave what he called his “final warning” against the Jews. This was all a precursor and inspiration to Hilter’s “Final Solution.” In the 1930s, the first major wave of violence against German Jews was called Kristallnacht, crystal-night, or night-of-glass, named because of how many Jewish store-fronts were shattered. After this initial violence, “Bishop” Martin Sasse, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany “applauded the burning of the synagogues [for]…on November 10, 1938, on Luther’s birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany.” Heinrich Himmler, head of Hitler’s SS, wrote of his admiration of Luther throughout the Holocaust. In fact, almost every anti-Jewish book printed in the Third Reich quoted Martin Luther as a major impetus to eradicate the Jewish people. 1
This weekend is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s revolt against the Catholic Church. Some Catholics are actually going to travel around Europe this weekend for international ecumenical celebrations of this heretic who hated Jews! I hope that none of my readers would celebrate this major-inspiration to the Holocaust. Even secular history will judge those who do.
As a side note before we get to our second short study, it should be noted that there were many heroic Protestants in the Holocaust who stood up to the Nazis and paid the ultimate price of discipleship, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
The Second Myth to be busted is Pope Pius XII, the Pope during the Holocaust. Let me say first that I am not sure if most of the bishops of Europe stood as courageously against the Third Reich and axis powers as they should have. Perhaps Pius XII could have issued more documents, letters and admonitions of resistance to the European people against the Nazi Regime and Mussolini. However, the facts speak louder than speculation: The current, online Jewish Virtual Library holds that Pope Pius’ XII saved 860,000 Jews, many of whose descendants are still alive all over the world today. This Pope was truly a Christian man during the holocaust, not “Hitler’s Pope” as he was dubbed. His saving of 860,000 Jews was an inspiration to people of the early 20th century, both Jewish and Christian alike.
One such Jew who knew that he was not Hitler’s Pope was the chief Rabbi of Trieste (Rome) when Mussolini was in power. Rabbi Israel Zolli was his name. He was a devout and serious Orthodox Jew as well as a learned scholar of the Talmud and of Semitic literature. Perhaps because of this, Pope Pius XII was able to lead him to see Jesus as the fulfillment of all Hebrew Prophesy. This great rabbi of Rome ended up becoming a Catholic. Rabbi Zolli was baptized by Pope Pius XII himself. Below, Rabbi Israel Zolli is found walking on the right. To the left is Fr. Gosselino Birola, the priest who hid Rabbi Zolli from the Nazis on the grounds of the Gregorian Institute during WWII.
Surely a foreseen objection to this blog post is the Inquisition. I have seen two numbers for how many people died in the Inquisition, both from Jewish sources. The first number is around 2,000. The second number is 31,912. Although it is not a defense, it must be noted that only conversos were tried. (Conversos were those who had faked conversion to Catholicism.) Although it may not be defended, the reality is that Communism in any day of the 20th century killed this many people in a matter of about a week. Furthermore, even if we take the liberal estimate of 30,000 dead from the Inquisition, realize that surgical abortion kills that many (31,000) people in ten days in the United States alone. Worldwide, the oral contraceptive pill probably kills about 30,000 new human beings in a little less than four hours. Again, no murder is good. But the numbers must be put into perspective on the Inquisition against the rest of world history. The religious war started by Martin Luther took about 200,000 lives even before he himself had died. ↩
I asked a close friend to write about his experience with same-sex attraction. His life reflects a poem by William Blake:
And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face.
—The Little Black Boy
Each of us has different set of beams of love to bear, so I’m sure that you’ll find his life an inspiration.—Fr. Dave
By CJ:
I am a child of a God. I am a traditional Roman Catholic. I am a traditional Roman Catholic, a child of God who has same-sex attraction.
I have known that I was different since I was young. Ironically, while these confusing feelings were just entering my life, I had discovered the pearl of great price – I had discovered Jesus Christ. I wish I could say that, having discovered Christ, God has removed same-sex attraction and made me “normal.” He has not. This is neither a testimony about someone who experienced such profound healing that he struggles no more. But neither is it the story of the one who tried religion, failed, and rushed into the lifestyle. I am a child of God who has same-sex attraction and desires not necessarily healing but holiness. True and lasting healing will only come in eternity; but holiness starts here on earth.
True and lasting healing will come only in eternity; but holiness starts here on earth.
I have accepted the fact that this will be a struggle I have for the rest of my life. But this struggle for chastity is no different than the personal struggle that you may be dealing with in your life. The choice is before us every day – will I choose Christ and His love or will I choose that which is counterfeit? It is easy to make my struggle my primary identity, but I see it as only one aspect of my life. It does not define me.
My acceptance of my cross is not one that I embrace simply because it is a cross. A friend of mine recently said to me – I don’t know if it was an attempt to identify with my struggles – that she loved suffering. I recoiled from that statement. I did not ask for this cross. However, I embrace my cross because Christ calls me to pick up my cross and follow Him. I embrace my cross not out of self-pity but because I have experienced His love.
In Bishop Robert Barron’s new series, Catholicism: Pivotal Players, one learns that before St. Francis of Assisi received the stigmata, he prayed for two things – that he would experience the full passion and death of his Savior and, most importantly, that he would feel within himself the love that Christ had to do this major act of sacrifice. St. Francis did not morbidly ask for suffering alone; the joy in his suffering was only because of his union with Christ, and only because of Christ’s love.
A number of years ago, I had gone to a charismatic renewal conference. Although I had gone to Confession, I still beat myself up for the sins that I repented of but in the deepest recesses of my heart, I sincerely believed that God could not forgive me of such sins tied in with my struggles. After reception of Holy Communion, I calmly walked back to my seat and thoughts of past sins rushed through my mind. I cried out to the Lord, asking why, at this most sacred moment, my mind was reminding me of the worse things I had ever done. And He spoke in a still small voice. With each passing scene, I heard “And I loved you even then.” Tears welled up within me, and I truly believe I experienced the gift of tears. Christ loved me in the midst of my sin (Romans 5:8). I often think of Our Lord’s relationship with St. Peter, and how Jesus saw through the sin of Peter’s life to call Him time and again to the greatness to which he was called. Peter definitely did not change overnight, but he proved his love in the end.
For those who have same-sex attraction, there is an ever persistent fear that one will never experience love if one seeks to obey the Church’s teaching. Love in our much confused society is almost always identified with sexual expression, and yet even the Catechism says that sexuality is an expression of a person’s totality of love, including that of friendship. (CCC 2332 1). Human persons were not created for sex per se, but they were created for love and to love rightly. St. Augustine, that prodigal son who cried out that the Lord would grant Him chastity but just not yet, also said: “Set love in order in me.” (City of God XV.22) Those who authentically embrace chastity do so because they have experienced true love, and are encouraged to love others rightly.
As the years have passed, I have become more open about my struggles with same-sex attraction with close friends, most of whom are actively involved in the Faith. Whereas before the very mention of my struggle would cause me to tear up, it instead has provided an opportunity for my friends to show me authentic love. In truth, it was revelation of my struggles to Fr. Dave that has eventually led to writing this article. And, perhaps with a touch of divine humor and irony, I find myself often talking about same-sex attraction and helping others, without necessarily revealing my own struggles with this cross.
A good friend of mine who came out of the lifestyle and is now living a full and chaste life told me that the beginning of his conversion was when someone else he knew was gay told him it was possible to be chaste. That brief witness would eventually lead to his conversion back to the Catholic Church. He is a now a young man in his 20s living for Christ.
Please know that if you are someone who has same-sex attraction, I am praying for you – not that we necessarily be “healed” (though God is certainly capable of this) but that we would encounter authentic and transformative Love in Jesus Christ, and through His Church strive to live holiness in chastity. All I ask is that you would pray for me as well. God loves us so much, but He loves us too much to leave us where we are at.
“Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.” ↩
Everyone knows that Catholics love the Blessed Virgin Mary and everyone knows that Protestants love the Apostle Paul. But did you know that a 17th century woman saint was shown in a vision the life of Mary? Venerable Mary of Agreda (ok, almost a saint) was a Spanish Franciscan nun. She was given the private revelation of the entire life of Mary (from her Immaculate Conception to past her Assumption and Coronation) all of which she recorded in a book called The Mystical City of God (not to be confused with a similar title of St. Augustine, written 1200 years earlier.) This Franciscan nun’s private revelation of the life of Mary is over 2000 pages! Jansenists did not like her book. However, Pope Innocent XI, decreed on 9 November 1681, that the Mystical City of God could be freely spread among the clergy and laity.
Jesus’ mother Mary never sinned and yet Saul was responsible for killing Christians. Did they ever meet? Yes, according to the visions of the Venerable from Agreda. In this revelation, God revealed to the Spanish nun an intimate relationship between Saul-become-Paul and the Mother of God. The italics below show how Mary loves and prays for sinners, even sinners guilty of killing her only Son, Jesus, as well as a new love of her spiritual-children. We should take great hope that Mary still intercedes for the conversion of those who kill Christians, that Mary cares for those who have had abortions, that Mary pursues those farthest from God, so that each one of us might approach the life giving waters of baptism. Mary is not afraid of our filth, even though she is the Pan-hagia, the All-Holy as the Greek Fathers call the Theotokos, the mother of the Redeemer.
In our factionalized Christianity, we need to realize that there was a unity in the early Church: Pentecostal gifts and Marian contemplation were not separated. Neither were joy and hierarchical authority, poverty and Apostolic power of miracles. Personified, this is most importantly seen in the nearly-unknown relationship between St. Paul and St. Mary.
Could this be the key to uniting Protestants and Catholics?
If the early Church did not divide her love of Mary and Paul, of contemplation and speaking-in-tongues, then we should not divide between hierarchy and discipleship, traditional liturgy and Pentecostal gifts. I very much want Protestants to see that the Apostle Paul loved Mary and owed a lot to her. Even to the Catholic, private revelation does not hold as privileged of a place as public revelation (the Sacred Scriptures) but the former greatly aids in the reading of the latter. In fact, below you will see how Mystical City of God flows completely in union with Acts chapter 9.
Below, I will comment in green, bold font. Pay special attention to the relationship between Paul and Jesus’ mother. We enter the nun from Agreda’s 2000 page vision in Book 7, chapter 6.
Saint Paul was distinguished in Judaism for two reasons. The one was his own character, and the other was the diligence of the demon in availing himself of his naturally good qualities. Saint Paul was of a disposition generous, magnanimous, most noble, kind, active, courageous and constant. He had acquired many of the moral virtues. He glorified in being a staunch professor of the law of Moses, and in being studious and learned in it; although in truth he was ignorant of its essence, as he himself confesses to Timothy, because all his learning was human and terrestrial; like many Jews, he knew the law merely from the outside, without its spirit and without the divine insight, which was necessary to understand it rightly and to penetrate its mysteries.
Like many hypocrites through history, Saul still had his natural virtues that God would one day transform into supernatural virtues. Saul knew the Bible, but “without its spirit and the divine insight.” It’s a good thing that’s not a problem for any Catholics today.
The disposition of Saul was most noble and generous, and therefore it appeared to him beneath his dignity and honor to stoop to such crimes and act the part of an assassin, when he could, as it seemed to him, destroy the law of Christ by the power of reasoning and open justice. He felt a still greater horror at the thought of killing the most blessed Mother, on account of the regard due to Her as a woman; and because he had seen Her so composed and constant in the labors and in the Passion of Christ. On this account She seemed to him a magnanimous Woman and worthy of veneration. She had indeed won his respect, together with some compassion for her sorrows and afflictions, the magnitude of which had become publicly known. Hence he gave no admittance to the inhuman suggestions of the demon against the life of the most blessed Mary. This compassion for Her hastened not a little the conversion of Saul. Neither did he further entertain the treacherous designs against the apostles, although Lucifer sought to make their assassination appear as a deed worthy of his courageous spirit. Rejecting all these wicked thoughts, he resolved to incite all the Jews to persecute the Church, until it should be destroyed together with the name of Christ.
First, it is astonishing that this private revelation reveals that Saul was actually at the murder of Jesus on Mount Calvary! Like the soldier along the way of the cross in the movie The Passion of the Christ, Saul too was captured into a deep “respect” of Mary. Yes, he strangely respected her, even though he hated her son. Isn’t this similar to how Muslims today kill Christians but have a strange love of the Blessed Virgin? It shows that there is hope for all, at least anyone who still has breath in his lungs.The Church Fathers point out how Jesus is the sun and Mary is the moon (who has no light of her own, but perfectly reflects the sun/Son.) For eyes darkened by night, is it not easier to look at the moon than the sun? Perhaps this is why some sinners come to trust Mary before Jesus. But don’t worry, Protestants, she always directs us to her Son and says “Do whatever He tells you.”—John 2:5.
But his by far most numerous escort were the many legions of demons, who in order to assist him in this enterprise, came forth from hoping that with all this show of force and through Saul, they might be able to make an end of the Church and entirely devastate it with fire and blood.
Nothing of all this was unknown to the Queen of heaven; for in addition to her knowledge and vision penetrating to the inmost thoughts of men and demons, the Apostles were solicitous in keeping Her informed of all that befell the followers of her Son. Long before this time She had known that Saul was to be an Apostle of Christ, a preacher to the gentiles, and a man distinguished and wonderful in the Church; for all of these things her Son informed Her, as I said in the second part of this history. But as She saw the persecution becoming more violent and the glorious fruits and results of the conversion of Saul delayed, and as She moreover saw how the disciples of Christ, who knew nothing of the secret intentions of the Most High, were afflicted and somewhat discouraged at the fury and persistence of his persecution, the kindest Mother was filled with great sorrow. Considering, in her heavenly prudence, how important was this affair, She roused Herself to new courage and confidence in her prayers for the welfare of the Church and the conversion of Saul.
He permitted his blessed Mother to suffer some sensible pain and, as it were, to fall into a kind of swoon, yet her Son, who according to our way of understanding, could not longer resist the love which wounded his heart, consoled and restored Her by yielding to her prayers He said: “My Mother, chosen among all creatures, let thy will be done without delay. I will do with Saul as Thou askest, and will so change him, that from this moment he will be a defender of the Church which he persecutes, and a preacher of my name and glory. I shall now proceed to receive him immediately into my friendship and grace.”
I find two things amazing here:
Mary knew that Saul would become Paul. Mary knew that Paul would become her Son’s greatest missionary. In fact, Paul was chosen for this from all of eternity, and God revealed this fact to Mary. However, Paul’s conversion was not slated until later. Mary expedited this date by her prayers! In other words, Mary sped up even the set-date of Paul’s conversion so he could get more rapidly to the conversion of many nations. This, according to Ven. Mary of Agreda, was due to the Blessed Virgin’s love of the great commission.
Although Mary was co-Redemptrix in the horrible suffering on Good Friday, she had to have to experience what the author tells us was “some sensible pain” for later conversions, even after the sword first pierced her heart on Calvary (Luke 2:35.) St. Paul would have topped this list. Jesus died for Paul, but Mary filled up what was “wanting in the sufferings of Christ” as Paul Himself would later write (Col 1:24.) As he wrote to the Colossians, was Paul thinking of his own spiritual mother who suffered in order to bring him into the flock? Paul would have known that Mary effected or at least expedited his conversion.
Below, Saul converts during his glorious vision of the Risen Christ. Christ asks Him why He persecutes Him. To read about how the Franciscan nun saw Saul’s conversion, just click the three dots here1
The Spanish Franciscan shares more of what she saw in her vision of Paul and Mary. The following conversation comes after the Apostle Paul’s conversion:
St. Paul was filled with admiration and incomparable love and veneration of most holy Mary. Somewhat recovering himself he said to Her: “Mother of all piety and clemency, pardon this vile and sinful man for having persecuted my Lord thy divine Son and his holy Church.” The Virgin Mother responded and said: “Paul, servant of the Most High, if He who created and redeemed thee deigned to call thee to his friendship and made thee a vessel of election (Acts 9:15), how could I, his slave, refuse to pardon thee? My soul magnifies and exalts Him because He desired to manifest Himself so powerful, generous and holy in thee.” St. Paul thanked the heavenly Mother for the benefit of his conversion and for the other favors conferred upon him by Her in saving him from so many dangers. St. Barnabas did likewise, and both again asked for her protection and help, which the most holy Mother promised.
Here, we see that Paul and Mary had definitely met! Notice that Paul calls Mary “Mother”! Mary recognizes that this man who used to kill Christians is now in God’s own “friendship.” She even begins to say the Magnificat for him! St. Paul then thanks her “for the benefit of his conversion.” This is so powerful that I believe that Mary is actually Paul’s entire inspiration for his letter to the Galatians, which will hopefully be my next blog post.
You can get all 2,000 pages of the life of Mary in four hardbacks here or the same version on Kindle here for very cheap.
Thereupon Jesus Christ our Lord disappeared from the presence of his most blessed Mother leaving Her still engaged in prayer and furnished with a clear insight into what was to happen. Shortly afterward the Lord appeared to Saul on the road near Damascus, whither, in his ever increasing fury against Jesus, his accelerated journey had already brought him. The Lord showed himself to Saul in a resplendent cloud amid immense glory, and at the same time Saul was flooded with light without and within, and his heart and senses were overwhelmed beyond power of resistance (Acts 9, 4). He fell suddenly from his horse to the ground and at the same time he heard a voice from on high saying: “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute Me?” Full of fear and consternation he answered: “Who art Thou, Lord?” The voice replied: “I am Jesus whom thou persecutes; it is hard for thee to kick against the goad of my omnipotence.” Again Saul answered with greater fear and trembling: “Lord, what dost Thou command and desire to do with me?” The companions of Saul heard these questions and answers, though they did not see the Savior. They saw the splendor surrounding him and all were filled with dread and astonishment at this sudden and unthought of event, and they were for some time dumbfounded.
This new wonder, surpassing all that had been seen in the world before, was greater and more far–reaching than what could be taken in by the senses. For Saul was not only prostrated in body, blinded and bereft of his strength so that, if the divine power had not sustained him, he would have immediately expired; but also as to his interior he suffered more of a change than when he passed from nothingness into existence at his conception, farther removed from what he was before than from darkness, or the highest heaven from the lowest earth; for he was changed from an image of the demon to that of one of the highest and most ardent seraphim. This triumph over Lucifer and his demons had been especially reserved by God for his divine Wisdom and Omnipotence; so that, in virtue of the Passion and Death of Christ this dragon and his malice might be vanquished by the human nature of one man, in whom the effects of grace and Redemption were set in opposition to the sin of Lucifer and all its effects. Thus it happened that in the same short time, in which Lucifer through pride was changed from an angel to a devil, the power of Christ changed Saul from a demon into an angel in grace. In the angelic nature the highest beauty turned into the deepest ugliness; and in the human nature the greatest perversity into the highest moral perfection. Lucifer descended as the enemy of God from heaven to the deepest abyss of the earth, and a man ascended as a friend of God from the earth to the highest heaven.
And since this triumph would not have been sufficiently glorious, if the Lord had not given more than Lucifer had lost, the Omnipotent wished to add in saint Paul an additional triumph to his victory over the demon. For Lucifer, although he fell from that exceedingly high grace which he had received, had never possessed beatific vision, nor had he made himself worthy of it, and hence could not lose what he did not possess. But Paul, immediately on disposing himself for justification and on gaining grace, began to partake of glory and clearly saw the Divinity, though this vision was gradual. O invincible virtue of the divine power! O infinite efficacy of the merits of the life and death of Christ! It was certainly reasonable and just, that if the malice of sin in one instant changed the angel into a demon, that the grace of the Redeemer should be more powerful and abound more than sin (Rom. 5, 20), raising up from it a man, not only to place him into original grace, but into glory. Greater is this wonder than the creation of heaven and earth with all the creatures; greater than to give sight to the blind, health to the sick, life to the dead. Let us congratulate the sinners on the hope inspired by this wonderful justification, since we have for our Restorer, for our Father, and for our Brother the same Lord, who justified Paul; and He is not less powerful nor less holy for us, than for saint Paul. ↩
When Thomas Jefferson used the term “separation of Church and State” it was to assure a group of Baptists that the State would not trample the rights of their community. He wrote:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Jefferson’s insistence upon the “building [of] a wall of separation of Church and State” was to assure that the American government would make “no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This last quote is found both in Jefferson’s letter and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. But the term “separation of Church and State” is found exclusively in the letter.
Recently, Hillary Clinton gave a talk to a pro-abortion group. Because Christians are the number one opposition to full-access abortion, Hillary said that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” We should note that not even communist leaders spoke so boldly fifty years ago. They were smart enough to first hide their intentions to begin a state-based religion (atheism.) Only later did governments disarm and kill any dissidents. In fact, governments killed a total of 170 million of their own people during the 20th century.
Few (if any) of these leaders blew their own anti-religion cover by stating that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” By argumentum a fortiori, we can be sure that Hillary Clinton will make good on her promise to Christians to eradicate any separation of Church and State. Remember, these are her words, not mine, that “religious beliefs…have to be changed.”
Is it my place as a Catholic priest to blog about this? We should consider history: Very few priestly saints refrained from getting involved in politics. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (a gentle Mary-loving monk) may have been the single most powerful influence on European politics in the 12th century. Or, consider St. Francis Xavier. He gave his life to baptize hundreds of thousands in the far East in the 16th century. But when Portuguese settlers threatened his beloved Indians with slavery, St. Francis Xavier asked King John of Portugal for intervention. Should the king fail to control his subjects, St. Francis mildly promised the king that he would stand a good chance at experiencing the flames of hell. Even St. Anthony of the Desert, the 3rd century desert hermit, had an enormous influence on secular politics. The deeper he went into the desert of Egypt for solitude, the more emperors found him for advice.
My alma mater, a Jesuit University, has produced Jesuits from my graduating class who are now working at America magazine. One even flew out for my ordination. I disagree with most of their political views, but I support their right as priests to speak out on politics. Why? Because we priests were not ordained to bless statues and then watch TV. We were ordained to be leaders.
Fr. Michael Orsi, former Ave Maria Law School chaplain, recently spoke at a National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children. He said: “Let me remind you: the Bible is a political document. The prophets, including John the Baptist, and Jesus, lost their lives because they spoke the truth to power…The Constitution is quickly being destroyed…Unless the right choice is made in November, we may not have a court that is fair and balanced in its interpretation of the Constitution.”
Does he have a right to say this? Fr. Orsi and every priest has two ways in which he can live the Holy Priesthood:
Option 1: Give the sacraments to everyone who is headed to heaven or hell. Option 2: Derail the train to hell, and then give the sacraments.
The first option will save a few souls, ruffle no feathers, and gain much popularity. The second option will ruffle feathers, compromise the priest’s popularity, and then save a lot more souls—and possibly a country.
