1. The encyclical few bishops read and fewer bishops obeyed.
This is a special encyclical in that it was exclusively addressed to Bishops only.
The great crisis in the Catholic Church is in Moral theology. There is dogmatic theology and moral theology. Dogmatic theology is what we must BELIEVE to attain eternal life. Moral theology is what we must DO to attain eternal life. Dogmatic and moral theology go hand in hand. Dogmatic theology can only help us attain eternal life if it is accompanied by moral theology.
Dogma is to know God. Morals is to love God. We go to heaven not because we know God but because we loved God. But we cannot love God unless we first know Him.
Let’s take another example; we should believe in the dogmatic truth that there is a heaven and a hell. Moral theology tells us that if we die in sin we go to hell; if we die in the state of grace we go to heaven. Then moral theology continues to teach us how to go to heaven, like through repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. More is needed to learn morals than dogma.
Some dogmas can be learned even through mere human means. But we need grace to learn the tenets of moral theology and to be able to obey the commands of moral theology.
2. The main focus of ‘Veritatis Splendour’ is the young rich man. This is the main focus of our Catholic Religion. Everything goes around this young rich man. It deals with morals; what we must do to be saved and what is more required of us to be perfect.
The way to salvation is to deny oneself, take up one’s cross and follow Christ. We just discussed this on the 12th Sunday Gospel. To be saved we must reach the third step, the following of Christ. The three men mentioned on the 13th Sunday Gospel, knew this; so they asked Christ if they could follow Him.
There are three things that means the same thing; to be saved, to follow Christ and to be perfect.
In the 13th Sunday Gospel in ordinary time, we see three men who were seeking eternal life by following Christ. Remember, to follow Christ is the third step. The two previous steps are; first, to deny oneself. Second, to take up your cross. And the third is to follow Christ. All the three in this Gospel were disqualified due to some defects, that we mentioned previously.
In ‘veritatis splendour,’ the Gospel mentions a fourth, a young rich man, who wanted to follow Christ and attain eternal life. He was also disqualified.
Let us see what first qualified him and secondly, what disqualified him.
3. Do the first; and the rest will follow.
To make it easy for man to be saved, Christ made His teachings simple. In most teachings, just do the first step and God will do the rest; sort of, God just wants us to show our good intention and He takes over. Let us take an example.
Christ said; ‘learn from Me for I am meek and humble of heart.’ Just do this, often referred to as the first Beatitude, and God will lead you through the rest of the Beatitudes. Another example.
Christ said; ‘repent, believe, have Hope and Charity. Just ‘repent’ and God will guide you through Faith, Hope and Charity. The same goes with our entire moral life. Just obey one command of Christ and He will see to it that we will live a perfect moral life. Just obey one command ? The entire moral life of a Catholic is dependent on obedience to this ONE command and God will do the rest…..i.e. God will lead us to the life of perfection effortless.
4. Pope John Paul II’s ‘veritatis splendour.’
Pope John Paul II was solving a serious problem besetting the Catholic Church since the 12th century. All the previous Popes gave the solution to the problem. Knowing the solution is not enough. The solution must be implemented. Saints do this but the rest of the people do not follow. So the problem became worse as the century progressed. John Paul II’s encyclical seems to be the Church’s last attempt to present the solution. Whether it will be implemented or not is another story.
The splendid encyclical is obviously a joint work of John Paul and Joseph Ratzinger. It is a complete course in Moral theology; the crisis in the Church is always in Moral theology. The devil knows that even if we know perfectly our dogmatic theology we cannot be saved because salvation is based on Loving God, which is moral theology.
So after this encyclical which is a review on the entire course of moral theology, Pope Benedict declared the ‘Year of the priests’ wherein he ordered all priest to return to the seminary and review their moral theology. No one did.
5. Lucifer the Champ.
Not only did all the seminaries give a defective course in Moral theology; not only did many bishops fail to study ‘Veritatis Splendour’, not only did the few bishops who read it did not implement it; not only did concrete plans to reform the seminary not implemented, not only did none of the priest return to the seminary to review their moral theology during the ‘year of the priests,’ not only do the priests and bishop fail to teach right doctrines…… Worse! From Pope Francis down to the cardinals, bishops and priests…..they forbade Catholics from going to places where they can learn the truth or forbade good preachers to preach the truth. The treatment of the Franciscans of the Immaculate is an example.
As had been observed, the church under the papacy of Francis is treating the Church the way St. Joan of Arc was treated by Bishop Cauchon. A young innocent girl before an utterly insane French traitor bishop who sold his own country to the English.
Ten rounds in the boxing ring and Lucifer had been winning on points. Note that the entire Catholic world is now incapable of imitating the young rich man whom Christ found unable to have eternal life. What more of us?
6. Do this and God will do the rest.
The encyclical narrates the Gospel episode on the young rich man as the centre of the entire treatise on Moral theology. Do this and you will be living according to the morality of the Catholic Church. We shall concentrate on his important point which is man’s part in the work of salvation. The rest is God’s part.
Note that this obligation was addressed to a young man, not to the apostles, though this, also, was required of the apostles. This obligation is for all who wishes to have eternal life. Those who are not interested in attaining eternal life in heaven are not obliged to observe it. Again, this encyclical is addressed to all who wishes to attain eternal life, Popes, cardinals, bishops, priest, laymen and children.
7. The young rich man asked a question. Christ gives a partial answer.
‘What good must I do to have eternal life.
Note that the young man knew he had to do something good to attain eternal life. And he wanted to know what is that ‘good.’ He was a better man than most of us who think we can attain eternal life without doing any good, or worse even while doing evil.
Christ was satisfied with the young man’s concept of good but He corrects him because he had an error. The young man was only thinking of natural good common to all man. Christ shows him a good that comes from God, who is the only good.
Christ shows him the good which God had imprinted in the hearts of man; this good is known to all men but it is not the good common to all man. It is a good that comes from God.
Christ does not mention the commands which the young rich man was obviously obeying. But He enumerates the other commands showing the necessity of obeying all and not only a few commands.
So Christ enumerates the commandments from the Old Testament to complete what He skipped. He begins with the negative commands. Do not kill – which is against life. Do not commit adultery – against potential life. Do not steal – against people’s goods. Do not bear false witness – against a person. Then He gives an affirmative command – honour thy Father.
Now, watch this because most did not notice this. After the last affirmative command, Christ added one phrase not found in the 10 commandments. He said; ‘and love your neighbour as yourself.’ This is essential to the list Christ gave to the young man.
Obedience to all the commands is what Christ considered as ‘common salvation,’ requirements common to most men. But this is imperfect !! What makes it ‘common salvation’ for many is the fact that all the commands were obeyed with its root which is love of neighbour. All the commands if not motivated by love of neighbour is not pleasing to God.
What makes it imperfect is the fact that the love of neighbour is imperfect. What is that? The young man was willing to share with his neighbour what was not inconvenient with him. He was willing to share the small coins he has no use for and the old clothes that does not fit him anymore. St.Thomas described it as a convenient way of loving one’s neighbour. It does not hurt at all.
If obedience to the negative and affirmative commands of the Old Testament is rooted on the imperfect love of neighbour then that is enough for ‘common salvation.’
Because the young man obeyed the commands, Jesus looked at him and loved him. But there was something defective both in his obedience to the commands and in his rooted love of neighbours. It was this defect that caused him to reject the invitation of Christ to be perfect and leave with saddened countenance.
8. Let’s stop here for a while.
The young rich man qualified for ‘common salvation,’ St. Thomas wrote, but not for perfection. Let us see for a while if we qualify for ‘common salvation.’ First, it is required that we obey all the negative and affirmative commands of the Old Testament. And our obedience must be rooted on ‘love of neighbour.’
If we commit adultery, fornication, perverted sexuality and murder, these would be disobedience to the commands of God. This, also, shows a lack of love of neighbour, the poor wife and children of the husband committing adultery, babies aborted, victims of terrorists and victims of corruption. Lacking both obedience and the motive of love of neighbour, we sin and deserve condemnation and is unlike the young rich man. Pope Francis is allowing adultery and sacrilege which makes him an accessory to the sin; and most bishops are following his bad example. Pope Francis and many bishops and priest cannot say like the young rich man ‘I have kept these commands from my youth.’ The Pope had not observed these commands in his youth especially as a bouncer in a night club. He has not observed them as a pope during the last three Bishop’s Synod. He has not observed at this very moment. And he intends to violate them in the next meeting on the Family. He is so far from being like the young rich man whom Christ looked at and loved. Christ cannot love the Pope for his inability to imitate the young rich man. The same goes to those who follow the Popes ‘amores laetitia,’ that encourages the violation of the 6th and 9th commandment of God.
They are not like the young rich man. They do not qualify for ‘common salvation.’ They cannot be perfect and do not deserve to be bishops and pope since even more is required by the state of their office which requires the perfection that the young man could not accept.
9. But there was something else wrong with the young rich man. He qualified for ‘common salvation,’ but did not qualify for perfection. The young man lived in the New Testament at the time of Christ where perfection is demanded of souls.
We are approaching the time where purgatory will be closed, so common salvation will be insufficient. What is needed for salvation is perfection. For the salvation of Catholic souls, some degree of perfection is required. This perfection is on the virtue of Charity and is exhibited in perfect love of God and neighbour.
This was what was demanded of the young rich man for him to be perfect which he was not willing to do. To be imperfect he could do. Our Pope and many bishops and priests cannot even be imperfect shown in their continuous toleration of sin to which they become accessories. Not knowing the way to ‘common salvation’ which is the minimum requirement for salvation, who will teach the world ‘how can I have eternal life?’ No one.
But we still have ‘veritatis splendor.’ The voice of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI can still be heard. Read and listen to them before their message fades in this world of darkness and sin.
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