Author: Odon De Castro

1. The past Holy Week just reminded us of the words of Christ on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Certainly the person who just past away did not know the morality of what he did. He was not blessed with the knowledge that is within Divine Revelation. We cannot say the same thing for many Catholics. They do not know what they are doing? After a course in Theology in the seminary. OK. Let’s say they studied theology, it does not follow that they know what they are doing. The ones who crucified Christ knew the prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the Messiah even how he would die. They heard Christ preaching. Some of them were the priests of the Covenant. But what did Christ say? They did not know what they were doing. If Christ forgave them, how much more should we. Isn’t the sign of a true Christian is what we read in the “Our Father?” The ability to forgive. Should’nt we pray instead that God forgive him as Christ did for those crucifying Him. Isn’t our spontaneous celebration because this man is dead a sign of our inability to forgive and, therefore, a more severe punishment awaits us.

2. Many have reasons to celebrate just as when the pharisees caught a woman in adultery. It was an achievement. They caught a woman in the act of adultery. OK. This man was caught guilty of murder in his own words. Should we act like a police who is gloating at the fact that he has caught a criminal? We are Christians first. Christ said: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. ” I have never seen so much stones hurled at one …….who is dead. The ones who are hurling, are they without sin? Aren’t the head of states who are rejoicing guilty of more killings through abortion and their global interference. Such sins would make the dead man blush. Should’nt we just quietly leave as the accusers of the woman in the Gospel. OK we lost loved ones. Quietly leaving the dead man alone and praying quietly for the mercy of God would have been a nobler gesture than the gloating celebrations.

3. Terrorists are not our greatest enemies. The sins within us are our greatest enemies. Terrorist can only kill our bodies. Our sins can kill both body and soul. And so Christ in confronting the crowd that brought the woman caught in adultery to Him reminded them of their own sins. That is the real enemy. But as Pope Benedict mentioned, the world’s defect is that its attention is focused on what is unimportant the pleasure of the world and not on our sins. And with this view the greatest enemy is what will deny us of the pleasure of the world. And this man spoilt many of their good times.

4. A man is dead. He does not need our hatred nor our misguided celebration. He needs the mercy of God. And we who know him even just by name should try to obtain this mercy. For God promised He could only show mercy on us if we ourselves show mercy to others. After all he was created to the image and likeness of God. May he rest in peace. Amen.

1. The world seems implicated in some aboriginal calamity beyond human solution. Man seems out of joint with the purpose of his Creator. John Newman noted this during his times but he seems to be describing today’s events. With the world in turmoil from earthquakes to tornadoes, from civil wars to revolutions, the Holy Father whispers: “work for the peace of Christ.” Seeing who are involved in this anarchical condition he hopes those with faith would get what the events are hinting at.

2. Many described his response as ‘ grand silence.’ It was because the world, both without and within the Church are descending to atheism led by the sons of the period of enlightenment that has authored the reign of terror in France and whose poison spread throughout Europe and the United States and imposed on the whole world. It was essentially an anti-catholic spirit.

3. The history of the Church has been divided based on the 7 days of creation. The Liturgy expresses the same eras and the daily monastic schedule in monasteries reminds the monks of these 7 stages in monastic spirituality.

4. The monastic schedule is roughly divided into schedules observing different degrees of silence.

5. After compline, St. Benedict in his rule, demands the observance of strict or absolute silence called grand silence. Compline is the last prayer of the day before one goes to sleep.

6. What is the significance of this Grand Silence between compline and sleeping time? Compline is a preparation for death. The time for sleeping, signifies death. Before the death of a monk there is a final battle between the forces of evil and God for his soul.

There is, also, a time in the history of the world where it shall have a compline, wherein God would proclaim the approaching end of the world and how we should stand at that moment. And there is a time for resting when the Church would sleep the sleep of death to resurrect in God. Compline signifies the beginning of the final battle before the death of the world.

This is referred to as the sixth day, presented in the Liturgy from Palm Sunday up to Good Friday. The seventh day is the usual Saturday when Christ remained dead in the tomb and the eight day represents Easter described as the eight day. One day was added to the 7 days- creation story.

7. The sixth day representing the time between compline and sleeping time (or Palm Sunday up to Good Friday) is a time in the history of man when all human drama is orchestrated by God alone setting the stage for His coming. The play is written down in the Apocalypse. Here all men become spectators and decide once and for all on whose side they will be, the forces of evil who introduced original sin in the world ….or God.

Man’s posture should only be Grand Silence as a man who have arrived at a crossroad leading into two eternal destinies, one of happiness and the other of damnation and he does not know which road leads to where. He needs to think and decide. He needs grand silence for in silence only can he hear the invitation of God.

The events of the sixth day is orchestrated fully by God because they are meant to beautify the Bride for the wedding with Christ. The tsunamis and earthquakes, the upheavals in Africa and the Middle East are meant to spill blood and fill with sufferings the Church to purify her and complete her number. It is Good Friday in an international scale when we see the defeat of good and the success of evil, ‘the helplessness of God,’ St. Thomas described it. And the speed of this decline will bewilder the minds of men.

Just as God used the treason of Judas to get the good of redemption out of it, today God will use the greatest evil that ever plaque the world to purify the Church. There are those outside the Church so-called Christians and non-Christians, there are those within the Church all led by fallen dominations and seraphims leading the same personalities they used in history, the children of the period of enlightenment, sons of the French Revolution and Reign of terror who had spread their heresy throughout Europe, the US and the world returning with its most potent weapon, Original sin. And they are not tempting the world. They are imposing it on the whole world under the banner of a distorted Democracy……and the world had fallen under its control and at arms against the Church. And these princess and dominions think they are pulling all the strings as they thought at Good Friday.

John Newman noted that this was the state of a small portion of the Roman empire at the time of Christ’s first coming. It is today in a grand scale. What coming of Christ is it announcing?

8. But the Pope knows. He knows that these events are God’s doings and are out of man’s control. The financial chaos to the change of governments, the civil wars to the martyrdom of Christians, the tsunamis to the nuclear melt down all are staged by the angels of God. So he tells us just to pray and bear the sufferings that all Christians have to undergo. St. Paul said the same thing. The Pope even told the Christians in Irag not to leave and face almost the inevitable but asked all to pray for them. We can only stand and be silent and see the God of history take complete control of history doing as He pleases. All these things just have to happen at the sixth hour, the time for Grand Silence, between Compline and the time for sleeping. And as usual He does this to show His glory and power.

It is bed time, the time to rest in the Lord. Let us recite Compline, the Church’s night prayer, and observe Grand Silence for ‘He is God.’

There are many good news for the Catholic Church, like the increase in reported Baptisms in Africa and the entrance into the Church of thousands of Anglicans. Add to this the growth of the Church in Asia. But have we subtracted the number of Catholics who have left the Church and joined other sects? Or those who have remained in the Church but whose faith may be described as uninformed by charity….or in short ‘dead faith.’ When Cardinal Ratzinger described the problem of the Church as a crisis of faith he meant that the Church has Faith but it is dead or uninformed by Charity and/or just the absence of faith.

Faith, a theological virtue, must be directed to its final object which is Charity by Charity itself. In fact, the sequence or order of the virtues goes thus….we first have the virtue of Charity. Charity which is an act of the free will proposes to the intellect to believe (Faith) in the God it has perceived in simple form. And so the soul begins to have Faith at the promptings of Charity. At the beginning Faith is prompted by very little Charity but Charity nevertheless. It is the theological virtue of Charity that initiates the process of believing. So Charity goes before Faith. And Charity continues to prompt Faith to develop to perfection while charity grows itself to perfection in the process.

While Faith can remain inspite of sin (except sins against faith) Charity disappears with sin. And when Charity disappears, Faith becomes ‘dead.’ This is the common state of most souls in the Catholic Church. They don’t know that their faith is dead. The Liturgical calendar gives us more than 30 Sundays between Pentecost and Christ the King giving us more than 30 signs by which we can know if we have faith or not. How come most do not know? The inability of the clergy to explain faith clearly is the cause, a remnant of the effects of Pelagianism and Modernism.

Let us describe the way to the theological virtues in another way. This time from the viewpoint of the evangelical counsels.

Faith, Hope and Charity are theological virtues given by God with grace. There is nothing a human being can do to get those virtues and this grace. And yet they are necessary for salvation because these are the virtues that lead our souls to God, it’s final goal. That is why they are called theological.

Since these are purely God’s gifts we just have to wait for them from God. Though the least we can do for God to give us these virtues is to dispose ourselves. To dispose ourselves consist in removing from our souls everything that is contrary to them. This will entail four removal processes. Remove sins, remove doctrinal and moral errors, remove love of good things unnecessary for salvation( like fathers) and removal of good things close to us (like our own will and life). Each removal process will dispose us to receive the grace of repentance and each theological virtues.

The first removal process that will dispose us to receive the virtue of Penance is called life of repentance. This process consist in knowing and removing all our past sins, specially mortal sins. Ash Wednesday teaches us that this is done through a life of prayer, fasting and good works, which is the lesson we learn from the 30 years hidden life of Christ. This is commonly described as living the sacrament of Baptism or putting the sacramental grace of baptism to affect our lives.

But most Catholics lose their sacramental grace without it benefitting their souls. Since baptism cannot be received a second time how do we regain that sacramental grace which is necessary to begin our spiritual building? Through the monastic life. The monastic life is meant to regain the graces received and lost during baptism. Though this grace will now come in the form of actual grace rather sacramental grace. The monastic life is meant to remove all past sins through a life of repentance. The primitive form of the Catholic Church was in the form of monastic communities. It is living the life of repentance that we dispose ourselves for the forgiveness of mortal sins. The forgiveness of mortal sins opens our souls to know the teachings of Christ. It will be slow trial and error until all errors are removed. When all errors are removed then we are now disposed to receive the theological virtue of Faith. We do not necessarily receive it immediately. This is completely up to God when to give us.

Having removed all mortal sins the next removal process consist in removing, no longer sins, but material GOOD things which are not necessary for the salvation of our souls. This is described as the spirit of poverty. St. Peter and Andrew, as they reached Faith, were told to leave nets and boats. There is nothing wrong with nets and boats. In fact, they were allowed by Christ to return to their nets and boats after the resurrection. But before they receive Charity even the slightest love for one’s nets and boats can prevent us from loving God above all things. These are part of the “world” that can be the source of temptations, St. Augustine says. After all Eve and Christ were tempted with good things…..food. But when we have charity it is safe to return to nets and boats…and food.

The third removal process consists in removing good things that are closer to us…our loved ones. So Christ told James and John to leave nets and boats (making up the material things) and also their father (making up the things closer to us)_. Christ would complete the list adding: to leave father, mother, brother, sisters, land…etc. This would make up the counsel of chastity. Christ saying if we love ‘these relations more than God,’ which is common, these becomes impediments to God giving us the virtue of Hope. If this obstacle is removed then we may receive the virtue of hope. Faith and Hope are not given to us unless the places alloted to them is empty of worldly love for things and relatives.

The fourth removal is the removal of the love of self. And laying one’s life for one’s neighbor is a sign of having removed the love of self. With that gone the heart of man is completely empty of any worldly love. This is the proper disposition to receive the virtue of Charity by which we love God and neighbor assuring our salvation. When our hearts are empty of the love for the world, relatives and self, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and becomes the principle of charity by which we love God and neighbor while through us doing great things for the Church.

The Samaritan woman was the personification of the Church as she traveled from a life of sin, through a life of repentance and eventually to faith, hope and Charity. Her charity was shown when speaking to her towns folks they went to Christ and in turn believed, no longer because of what she said but because they have heard Christ, Himself. That Samaritan woman shows how the Church brings souls to Christ through repentance and the three virtues.

“Crisis of Faith” are words we have often heard before. We, usually, don’t mind it. But sometime around 1980 I read about it again in a book, “Ratzinger Report” and read it more seriously this time. The book was authored by the present Pope when he was younger and a cardinal. And he used those words to describe the state of the Church!!! That was a serious statement if we understand what Faith is.

The above statement would mean: nobody is entering the Catholic Church, nobody is going to heaven, nobody knows God and/or Christ, nobody knows the truth…….in short many are going to hell. St. Paul mentioned something to that effect that everything outside of Faith is sin, i.e. if one has no faith he is in the state of sin and everything he does is sin because he does not have the element of goodness that comes with faith. Let us look at the elements of Faith and see what is lacking that is causing the crisis of faith.

The first element of faith is that (1) it is an act of the intellect (2)thinking of its formal goal, God, (3) and the means that lead to that goal (4) as dictated by that final goal, God.

As early as the 1800, thinkers like Belloc and Chesterton had noticed that mankind has ceased to think. He is moved not by his rationality but by his animality. ‘That is an emotional moment” had been a common description of great events. In a recent earthquake they spent 2 minutes of silence for the quake victims and described that moment as a very emotional moment. But if I use my head I should ask “what good can two minutes of silence do for those who died?” Essentially nothing. So why do it. People who do emotional things will have difficulty in making an act of faith which is an act of the intellect. The No 1 element of faith is very rare today.

Number 2 is to think of its formal goal which is God. The image of God as its goal must be the true God. Otherwise the proposition on who is God will not elicit an assent of the mind. We can know the God of nature from the firmaments of heaven. This needs thinking with the intellect. And we can know enough to know the God of nature. But God is supernatural and our intellect needs grace to know things supernatural. With the aid of grace we should know the nature of God, His attributes, etc. The more we know about God the greater the intensity of our act of Faith. But the Pelagian heresy had devastated the Church before and until now. Seminarians only use their natural knowledge in studying theology and are unable to recognize the supernatural God. Many had graduated and become priest without having a personal encounter with God. This reflects in their preaching. They never met the person they preach.

Number 3. We must know the means to attain that goal. Aside from knowing His nature and attributes, to know God means knowing what He loves and what He hates which are enumerated in the commandments of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. This is the reason why Christ, in the Apostolic Commission to his apostles commanded them to teach: “ALL My commandments and HOW to observe them.” These are the proposition that are the material object of Faith that make up both Moral and Dogmatic Theology. Many know SOME of the commands and most modify the HOW. This is disobedience to the command of God who said: “If you love me keep My commandments.” The commandments are the means to the end. We were warned not to add or subtract from them.

Number 4. The proposition or truths divinely revealed by God must be studied with the desire to lead as to God. The propositions that leads to the object of faith must be clearly shown as coming from God and its interpretation must be convincingly from God. Sadly Theology is studied for selfish or natural reason like to pass the test, to get a degree or the more ambitions desire to be a bishop (a desire St. Thomas describes as a sin). The object of Faith which is love of God is often absent.

As we grow gradually through the four steps we must come to a point where the intellect must assent to the truths it has learned. It cannot have an effective assent if the truths are incomplete or incorrect. The intellect can only assent to convincing truths.

Another element of faith is that Faith, as an act of the intellect thinks about general, abstract concepts. And the intellect’s assent to these general, abstract concepts must be with the consent of the free will because no part of the person can act without the approval or go signal of the free will. Before an act of faith is made there must be an assent of the intellect to the proposition proposed and the consent of the free will to the propositions assented to by the intellect. It can happen that the intellect may assent to the propositional truth of faith, but the free will can withhold its consent. This is an incomplete act and therefore, there is no faith yet.

The free will, on the other hand, is more attracted to the specific, particular, and emotional desires of the flesh. And presented with these 2 alternatives, the desires of the body and the desire of the intellect, the free will can refuse to consent to the general and abstract truths already assented to by the intellect and consent instead to the specific worldly desires of the flesh. Without this consent of the free will the intellect cannot make that act upon which it had already assented to needed to make an act of faith.

For the intellect to be able to assent to a proposition or statement of truth, the proposition must be clear, believable and devoid of contradiction. Though ALL propositions of the Catholic faith are clear and believable in themselves, it is not so when explained by preachers. And so the intellect cannot give its assent due to lack of believable facts in the proposition.

The assent given by the intellect to a doctrinal proposition is difficult enough to make due to the indolence of the modern generation to think. Add to this the difficulty in thinking because of the enormous amount of external stimuli that hinders thinking and the poor presentation of Catholic doctrinal truths in the form of propositions. But let us suppose that all those requirements are fulfilled, the intellect still cannot make an act of faith without the free will consenting to what the intellect have assented to.

The free will can reject whatever assent made by the intellect on any proposition for no reason at all. The free will is FREE. A very solid argument can aid the free will in giving its consent but not always. No amount of proof that smoking is hazardous to your health can convince the free will to stop smoking as has been happening now.

How come the smoker cannot believe that smoking is dangerous to his health? Most often it is because his intellect knows the medical facts but has not assented to that truth. Many people are like that; they are thinking but they are not assenting to what they know. Their knowledge is lip service not conviction. But if the smoker’s intellect assents to the facts on smoking, that assent can not necessarily get the free will to give its consent.

The free will is the faculty that tells the intellect, your assent to the proposition is good. I will give my consent Go and believe in it. The free will commands the intellect to act. And when the intellect acts and believes in the proposition at the promptings of the free will THAT IS AN ACT OF FAITH!

Frankly, how many souls have gone through this process that constitutes the act of faith keeping in mind that the intellect has to go through this process in believing all the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Or let’s say just the “apostles creed.”

Let’s take just one example of a proposition: “I believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth.”

The intellect is presented with this proposition. That there is a God. He is Almighty. He created heaven and earth and, therefore, all things created belong to Him.

This truth is simple and obvious we need no further proofs to make it believable…….just to simplify the demonstration. This truth is naturally simple and obvious that it is easy for the intellect to make an assent to. And so the intellect does so. Here the free will must consent to what the intellect assented to. Being an obvious truth it should not be difficult for the free will to give its consent. Let’s say the free will gives its consent and gives the intellect the ‘go’ signal “go ahead and believe in that proposition.” So, with the approval of the free will the intellect goes into action and commands the free will (which is the driving force of the soul) to put into action the act of believing. We can only know if the whole process of believing has been accomplished if the person actually treats everything in the world as owned by God and should be used according to the will of God. He is acting with faith.

If a person uses anything as if he owns it, he is acting without faith. And without faith no one can be pleasing to God. In the 1980’s Cardinal Ratzinger noted that the world was undergoing a crisis of faith. In such a crisis, the world can only go down, down, down which no one can stop, which the present Pope noted in his Dec. 20 address. This explains everything that is going on now.

A new god has began to rule the world. He, really, is not new and he is not a god. In history man has had the bad fortune of choosing many wrong gods. Except now mankind had agreed to worship one and the same god….but it is, again, the wrong god.

This god existed at the time of the creation of angels. He has pestered the human race ever since but today he rules supreme. The world has become his domain. And mankind had bowed to his rule. This god is Original Sin. He does not really exist as St. Augustine would say. He is just the personification of all the absence of good and as such is pure evil.

INTRO: The Fathers of the Church said it. The Catechism said it. The Popes said it. At last Pope Benedict XVI said it. Now I can make up my mind. Or can I? Pope Benedict in his Dec. 20 address to the Roman Curia said it. The crisis in the world today is caused by the “collapse of the sense of morality.” And no power in sight can stop this decline. Because it is a decline due to sin and God will not stop sin. God can only protect the faithful.

1. The Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on Family Planning created a ruse within the Church. The revolt was so noticeable many were surprised there were no excommunications that occurred when the rebellion was deserving of excommunications.

But the Church is always slow in reacting because the root cause of this rebellion is not mere disobedience but a more complicated lost of the sense of morality. The error was not due to ignorance in the natural level but in dragging down everything supernatural down the natural level. It is the absence of Faith!

This is a deeper problem and cannot just be handled with excommunications. We are faced with people who in their ignorance believe deeply that family planning is not evil or better still is a good to be desired. The sense of morality in the Catholic sense is completely non-existing.

2. This is a question on Catholic Ethics or morality. What is right and what is wrong in the eyes of God. Morality was not a problem at the times of the Fathers and even up to the 12th century. The question of morality beleaguered the Church at the time when William of Ockam introduced the heresy of Nominalism into the Theology course of seminarians, specially at the University of Paris. This era was the time of the ‘Decline of Catholic civilization’ in Europe. The Catholic church was dragged down by philosophies from her supernatural throne to the natural that William, a Franciscan, believed that the Emperor can intervene with Church matters. The Black Death that killed many priests and bishops and the ascendancy of new priests stained with Nominalism saw a generation with no sense of true Catholic morality. How can the sense of morality of the Catholic Church suddenly disappear in the 13th century?

Though the 13 hundreds boasts of great Popes, great saints and new good religious communities the tide towards the lost of the sense of catholic morality could not be stemmed. It was too great. Men were loosing the sense of the supernatural at that early age and with it the sense of morality. Suddenly, even schools of theology could not define morality or ethics correctly up to the 19th hundreds and the stench of nominalism could be traced up to Vatican II blurring the doctrines on ecclesiology and christology that Pope Paul VI had to intervene.

3. The problem of knowing what is right from wrong is the story of Eden where the question was placed before Adam and Eve. Who decides what is moral? Is it God or Adam/Eve? What is moral? Subjection to God or subjection to man? Is it doing God’s Will or doing man’s self will?

It was only about the 19th century after great attempts to restore the teachings of St. Thomas of Aquinas (initiated by Pope Leo XIII) that moral theology returned to the principles of St. Thomas and recaptured the once treasured principles of morality. Once more the Catholic Church could easily judge what was moral and what was immoral. But ignorance prevailed among the men of the Church and the faithful.

Family planning, abortion, gay clergy, condoms, sex education of children, and such old topics as liberation theology and women’s ordination ….are these immoral? Yes, but because the reasons put forward is only in the level of moral philosophy the people are not convinced.

4. Let us redefine Catholic Ethics, the basis of Christian morality as defined by the Fathers of the Church and partially recovered these days for our guide. This is a branch of theology which studies human acts as to direct them to a loving vision of God seen as our true, complete happiness and our final end. This vision is attained by means of grace, the virtues, the gifts in the light of revelation and reason. Note that the basis for morality is in the supernatural level, not in the natural level; it is found in moral theology and not in moral philosophy.

An act is moral if it is a human act directed to the loving vision of God believed as one’s true, complete source of happiness and one’s final end. This act is known and accomplished with the aid of reason enlightened by Divine revelation. This enlightenment through Revelation is through the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity that comes with grace. And these virtues are fortified by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

5. Note that the elements of a moral act are supernatural elements….what makes an act moral is a supernatural reason. One gets the impression that only saints can do a moral act. Everybody else do immoral acts. But isn’t that the definition of a ‘good work’ …works done by a good person. It is not the work that is good but the person. And didn’t St. Paul say everything outside of Faith is sin….because the person doing it is not good but evil.

6. In analyzing the morality of a “just war” and “family planning” the basis used by moral theologian is moral philosophy and not moral theology. It should be moral theology, the supernatural; whether it is ‘my will’ or ‘God’s Will’. Choosing one excludes the other, i.e. to choose ‘my will’ is to reject ‘ God’s will.

Family Planning is immoral because it frustrate the natural goal of procreation…that is what we usually say. But that is only a natural reason. What is the supernatural reason why Family Planning is intrinsically evil.

Writings on ‘unjust war’ base its morality on whether the war was declare by the proper authorities, whether there is the possibility of righting the wrong and other norms. But all of these norms are norms of moral philosophy. There is no norm on whether it is God’s will or not. Many wars in the Old Testament can be considered unjust war waged by the Israelites but because they were commanded by God to go to war they were moral wars for the Istraelites. So an act can be immoral in the natural level but moral in the supernatural level.

Let us try to analyze the morality of Family Planning in general and Natural Family Planning together with the Billings method in particular basing it on the definition given above.
Are these three (namely, Family Planning, Natural Family Planning and Billings method) human acts? If we look at the definition of human acts, they are not.

Do they direct us to the loving vision of God? If they are according to the Will of God they will direct us to the loving vision of God, if otherwise they will not. That is what happened to the angels. Those who obeyed God’s will remained as good angels in heaven; and those who did their own will became devils deprived of the loving vision of God. So everything can be reduced to whether we do God’s Will or our will.

Will Family Planning direct us to the loving vision of God? Is this God’s will or our will? Obviously, Family planning is the decision of an individual in complete disregard of God’s will. So it cannot direct us to the loving vision of God. That is what makes it intrinsically evil. It is a direct following of one’s individual or subjective will completely disregarding the will of God.

Now let us look at the Natural Family Planning practiced by most Catholics. Paula wants to have a baby but not now. As a Catholic she wants to follow God’s will. So she does not practice family planning as prohibited by the Church. She does nothing to harm the foetus. She takes no medication that will prevent the birth of a child. But she does not perform the marital act at times when there is the possibility of having a child. Her reasoning goes this way. My will is not to have a baby right now. Her practice of Natural family planning is to do her will for the present. She is ignoring what could be God’s will. Her action is not to accomplish God’s will but to accomplish her will. Her act does not comply with the definition of a moral act. Doing her will becomes an immoral act because her act was not directed to doing God’s Will. It is possible that God’s Will is not for her to have a child but the immorality of the act is based on the fact that she did not direct her action to accomplishing the Will of God but doing her own will.

This could work the other way around. Katrina wants to have a child. She uses the Billings method to precisely have a child. Isn’t she using the Billings method to do what she wants…to have a child? What if God does not want her to have a child. If Katrina disregards this possibility and insist in doing her will of having a child would that not make her act in violation of the definition of morality? Because her action is not directed to doing God’s Will but doing her own will.

7. The second part of the definition is what gets most of us in trouble. We can have a clear moral vision if we have grace, the theological virtues and 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit guided by Divine Revelation and reason. Without these man cannot perform a perfect human act directed towards a loving vision of God. When the heresy of Nominalism entered the Church, the men of the Church suddenly could not judge the morality of actions. We find everyone floating in the level of moral philosophy. Few could rise up to moral theology.

8. An act is moral if it is guided by grace, by the three theological virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Let’s boil it down. An act is moral if it is an act of Love of God. “If you love me keep my commands.” So an act is moral if it is in accordance to the commands of God…..or if it is in accordance to the Will of God. Paula and Katrina were not open to God’s Will in their desire to do their own will. Their desire had become immoral…not because they want a child or they do not want a child….but because they chose their will and not God’ Will.

9. When Pope Paul VI declared Family Planning as immoral it is because it is an act of refusal of a creature to subject himself to his creator’s Will and therefore an act that will prevent them from attaining their end of happiness in the vision of God.

10. This is the reason why it is difficult to sell the Billings and the Natural Family Planning methods to the Catholic populace. Compared to the condemnable methods there is no difference. All these methods are meant to frustrate the Will of the Creator and impose man’s will on God.
There is no difference except for the fact that one uses non-evasive ways while the other uses criminal ways. But the end of both, Pope Benedict states in his Compedium of the Catechism, are intrinsically evil. “I came not to do my will but the will of My Father in heaven.” It is ‘my will’ versus ‘God’s will.’ It is easy to understand this if we simply go back to the sin of the Lucifer and the sin of Adam and Eve. It is ‘my will’ versus ‘God’s Will.’

1. The men within the Church do not sin; they have no sins because they have repented and their sins had been remitted. They have an abundance of faith plus the guidance of St. Peter and his successors.
Those who are within the church are in the state of habitual grace possessing the three theological virtues and the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. That is a spiritual state that is impregnable to sin and errors. The Church is the Bride of Christ and God would not allow the slightest evil to stain that Bride. St Cyril wrote saying that the Church is holy with no sin, no errors and no heresies. She is the killer of heresies. And Pope Benedict repeated this teaching at the feast of St. Peter and Paul.

If ever sin or error enter the Church then the gates of hell had prevailed against her, which is contrary to the promise made by Christ to St. Peter, says St. Thomas of Aquinas. And the Holy Father in the same homily said the same thing. That the danger to the Church today is from the atheistic and secularistic society whose influence prevent souls from entering the Church.

2. So what are these much talked about sins of clerics that are haunting the Church today? These sins of abusing children and of improper sexual conducts with other males are sins of those who are outside the Church. And these are what are preventing the priests from entering the Church and becoming Catholics.

The title of this article should be: the sins of the men who think they are inside the church but who in fact are outside the church. Let us see these so-called sins of the men of the Church.

3. In Moral theology there are two kinds of sins: the sins of the soul and the sins of the flesh. This is based on the fact that man has a body and a soul. Examples of sins of the soul are Pride and heresy while the sins of the flesh are fornication, adultery and the much publicized sexual abuse of a few priests.

The sins of the soul are worst sins. The sexual abuse sins are less grievous compared to the sins of the soul. Of course sins of the flesh are more shameful and more embarrassing to the Church. But they are less grievous as an offense against God. The sin of the angels was a sin of the soul because they had no bodies. They were not given a second chance. While the sin of Adam and Eve was more a sin of the body, gluttony.

When one commits a sin of the flesh there could be a consent of the soul or none as in the case of the sins of passion. But when we analyze sin for the reform of our lives we are supposed to look for our ‘predominant fault.’ In the sin of sex abuse the predominant fault is Pride, injustice and sin against the virtue of religion. Sex abuse is just the symptom of the predominant fault. We must remedy both the predominant fault and the symptom but emphasis must be placed on the predominant fault.

4. It is devilish that the Church’s attention, efforts and expenses are focused on these sins of the body making the Church neglect the more serious evils among her clergy. Comparing the sins of the Scribes with the sins of prostitutes and Publicans, Christ said that more prostitutes enter the kingdom of heaven than pharisees. In enumerating the sins besieging the Church the Holy Father mentioned vanity (a form of pride) but did not mention sex abuse. So why concentrate on the prostitution of the clergy that makes them like prostitutes and neglect their pride that makes them like devils. To focus on the sex abuse and neglect the sins of Pride and ignorance would be a grave error in the spiritual life.

5. The great saints, like St. Gregory and St. Thomas of Aquinas wrote strongly about overcoming Pride because that is the foundation of all evils in men. The sexual abuse sins of the clergy can only be remedied by overcoming pride with humility, just like all other sins. That’s why Christ required of us simply to learn humility and meekness, “learn from Me.” He did not tell us to learn how to cure sex abuse. That would make spirituality too complicated

Even Pope Benedict obviously is giving only lip service in apologizing for these sex abuse crimes probably pressured by his Curia. And his reluctance is obvious because he knows we have greater problems that need immediate attention, like the combined problem of pride and ignorance common among the priests that prompted him to call the ‘Year of the Priest’ which unfortunately did not seem to have attained its goal. No fault of the Holy Father. Many Bishops did not follow the schema given by the Pope in his opening address.

6. If we miss this point the problem of the priests will never be solved. Right now we are solving it like giving aspirin for all illness. The aspirin just removes the fever but not the cause of the fever. And all published remedies given by bishops for this spiritual ailment have so far consisted in covering up the symptoms or merely reducing the symptoms rather than curing the illness. Didn’t the monk St. Peter Damian during his time aided the Pope in solving exactly this same problem by analyzing the problem and giving the right solution? This crime of our priests is just another vice, a consequence of original sin. And the Catholic Church has all the solution to cure vices. St. Thomas, himself, gave us all the solutions in his Summa. His treatise had been reprinted in popular form in a book entitled “The Secret enemies of the Priesthood.” The Catholic Church has a treasury of knowledge on how to handle this problem which is small compared to Pride and injustice.

7. The sins of pride and injustice are worst and difficult to overcome. The very training in the seminary seems to foment these vices. Many graduates in the seminary thinks they know everything. And these are the people who become future bishops and curial officers. For the past years their pride and injustice had victimized countless priests. We cannot imagine the number of priests that had been unjustly treated by superiors, bishops, parochial, diocesan and even curial offices as high as the Roman Rota. And their victims are priests. We are not even talking of the injustices done to husbands and wives whose marriages were summarily annulled at the caprice of the matrimonial courts because a party believing their marriage is valid had not cooperated in the investigation. Let us look back at the life of Blessed Antonio Rosmini and Padre Pio. Weren’t they treated badly. And this mistreatment had become common fare in the lives of saintly priests. But since the victims were precisely saintly the news never hit the newspapers. The greater evil that is preventing souls from entering the Church are pride and injustice. Pope Benedict added ‘Greed’ quoting the Benedictine monk St. Ambrose of Aulpert who noticed this vice devastate the Church during his time.

8. Today we see the bishops stumbling in panic in preventing their diocese going bankrupt to pay the suits while summarily dismissing priests who had served the Church for so long but doing nothing to cure the malady. Isn’t ingratitude more serious than this sin of the flesh? There is no end to the list of sins more serious than the sins of the flesh.

A preacher can speak well on the topic of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts. But the New Testament is eschatological. The preacher is supposed to explain how Pentecost should prepare souls for the second coming of Christ. In the New Testament we are all supposed to be prepared, not so much for death, as for the second coming of Christ. That is Catholic spirituality. We do not await death. We await the Second Coming of Christ ‘with joyful hope.’

The apostles were the first members of the Catholic Church (aside from Mary, etc..). There were three stages in the development of this apostolic church. The first stage of this Church would begin when the apostles left all things to follow Christ. The second stage is when it developed to maturity during the passion of Christ. And the third stage is when it became perfect on Pentecost day. Pentecost was the grand finale in the development of the budding ‘Apostolic church.’

In the first stage the disciples received the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity making them members of the Church (it is faith that brings us into the Church. The Holy Spirit perfects our membership in the Church.) The other people following Christ, like the five thousand during the multiplication of the bread, were unable to enter the Church due to their inability to repent and reach faith. They remained outside the Church.

These virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come with the state of grace following their life of Repentance. But at this initial state their virtues were weak and could easily be lost with the slightest storm.

The second stage is when their Faith, Hope and Charity begun to grow and mature. They begun to understand the deeper messages of Christ, especially the deeper meaning of the parables that was not given to those without Faith. But at this time some were beginning to lose Faith in Christ due to His hard sayings. Judas was one such person due to avarice.

The third stage begun at the Last supper when, as St. Thomas of Aquinas mentioned, Judas was expelled from the Apostolic Church without him knowing it. It was the time for the purification of the apostolic Church. Christ described this as when the Tares were being removed from the wheat field. And the Apostolic Church proceeded to greater perfection at the Crucifixion and Easter. The theological virtues of those who made up the Apostolic Church at this time were fully perfected on Pentecost day.

Here we see the Apostolic Church with the Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity perfected by the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, a perfect picture of the Apostolic Church and the way the global Catholic Church should look like TODAY. Just as every one in the room was perfect on Pentecost Day, every one in the Catholic Church should be perfect today.

As the Church after Pentecost begun to go to all nations to recruit new members she should follow the same three stages in her development. But this time in a world-wide manner.

After Pentecost the apostles begun to preach and gather members in the same way Christ did. And as the hearers repented and had their sins remitted they entered into the realm of Faith thus entering the Catholic Church. Of course, the apostles could not stop unbelievers from physically entering though spiritually they remained outside the church. The so-called ‘crowd’ really remained outside the Church.

There were also those who believed at the beginning but who would later on lose their faith. But as long as they had Faith they were inside the Church. This was the first stage in the world wide Church as she imitated the first pattern of the Apostolic Church.

Then the Church grew up to the second stage. This is when those with Faith begun to mature in their theological virtues, while those who lost their Faith were removed from the Church. With Arius, Pelagius and eventually Martin Luther etc.. we see the Church in her second stage made up of those with Faith together with those who had Faith but who eventually lost it. With regard to the latter the angels would remove them from the Church. So they will be outside. Like Judas most of them would not know they were expelled. The History of the Church is witness to this apostasy and heresy. This continuous mixture of tares and wheat has occurred rather too long in the Church that like the apostles we tend to ask ‘when will you remove the tares?’ That the Church might reach the third stage the Tares had to be removed for the Church to grow to the perfection of her theological virtues.

Though the so-called four marks of the Church are present in the Church in her three stages, these marks will appear progressively more perfect as she progresses to the third stage. More perfect in the spiritual sense and, therefore, more difficult to recognize.

The third stage in the development of the Church is difficult to visualize. Christ described them as ‘doing greater things than this.’ Catholic souls today will be doing things greater than what the early Church was doing!!!….even what the apostles did? Well, that was what Christ said. Though He did not mean more spectacular deeds in the natural or physical level. He meant in the spiritual level, in the level of the soul which are usually invisible in nature. This is what makes it difficult to detect. This will be in the contemplative and mystical spheres.

On Pentecost, the theological virtues of the apostles were perfected but they did not have enough time to perfect it further because having accomplished their mission they were martyred. The apostles had three years for the Holy Spirit to perfect their virtues. The Catholic Church have more than 2000 years. So we expect the Spirit to have done a better job today. So Christ’s statement “they will do greater things.”

Apparently after 2000 years the Church should have reached this third stage when the 4 visible signs of the Church takes a deeper and more profound character and would be more difficult to detect even to the eyes of the so-called ‘Catholics.’ The late Pope John Paul II had cried looking for the ‘Oneness’ of the Catholic Church the mark of the church in which the other three depends. Has anyone ever try looking for the 4 visible signs of the Church even in religious order? How about just her ‘Oneness’ from where the three proceeds.

Today the world-wide Catholic Church should look exactly like the small community in that room at Pentecost. Or as St. Augustine wrote commenting on the Gospel of John: they should have the theological virtues perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit pictured by the 153 fishes caught after Easter in Lake Tiberias. This is truly a work of the Holy Spirit, a Pentecost occurring within the Catholic Church.

But this is not the picture we see today. Pope Benedict in his “Caritas in veritate” bewailed that we are still in the arduous mission of evangelizing the world. What??? We still have to preach “Repent and believe” to the world! And the Holy Father adds that the reason is man’s inability to enter unto himself. What??? He is commenting about the Prodigal Son. The world not only has no faith but has not repented!!!! Then he further adds that this was due to the fact that man today has not focused his mind on God…this is like saying that man is unable to make an act of faith as defined in the Catechism.

This is the problem and the analysis of the problem. The problem is that man has no faith and, therefore, outside the Church. And the reason is because he has not focused that faculty of the soul called mind on God and the things of God as St. Paul says. That the Church today should be made up of Catholics whose virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity had been perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit just like on Pentecost day. What is the Holy Father further saying? That we must all have perfect Faith, Hope and Charity. He used the words ‘perfect spirituality’ or ‘ we must be ‘contemplatives.’ What he is not saying is: that the Church should look like this right now, just like the apostolic boat in lake Tiberias after Easter…. and that most Catholics do not know it but they are outside the Catholic Church. The Holy Father is left with only one question: where is that boat? Wherever it is, the Pope is vehemently urging us in most of his addresses to just get in that boat, which his thesis on St. Bonaventure is telling him is approaching the shore where Christ is waiting. When it hits the shore it will be too late for many of us.

We are all conscious of Christ sending the Holy Spirit on Pentecost day. What we have not noticed is that Christ sent the Holy Spirit to His apostles twice. The first time was around 50 days before Pentecost when He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The second time is on Pentecost when Christ send the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire. The second is more spectacular that is why we remember it. But the first is the foundation without which the second would not occur.

Christ sent the Holy Spirit twice to His Church. So the Holy Spirit is IN the Catholic Church and will lead the Church from the beginnings of her Faith, Hope and Charity…..to the maturity of the same virtues as on Easter…..and to the perfection of those same Virtues on Pentecost Day.

We celebrated Pentecost recently with petitions asking the Holy Spirit to come down again and with requests for New Pentecosts. The Holy Spirit has already been sent twice by Christ for two different good reasons; the Spirit is already down here and dwells within the Church. One can pray to the Spirit but He won’t come a third time. The celebrations asking for the Holy Spirit to come down to each individual or come down in a new Pentecost is futile. If we want to find the Holy Spirit who had been sent twice we just have to enter into the inner sanctum of the Catholic Church were the Spirit dwells as the Church’s uncreated soul. When the Popes call for a ‘New Pentecost’ they are not wishing that the Holy Spirit descend upon the Church once again. The Spirit is in the Church already and won’t keep on coming up and down. What the Popes are trying to say is: why are the Catholics not finding the Spirit within the Church where it dwells? Is it because they are outside the door of the Church? They will never find the Spirit there no matter how much they lay hands, dance, scream and shout for it to come down. To experience the abiding of the Spirit one must enter the Church through Faith and grow into the perfection of Charity within her. When we pray ‘Come Holy Spirit,’ we are asking the Spirit to come and guide us from the outskirts into the inner sanctum of the Church where we may receive the Holy Spirit from the laying of the hands of those within the Church. Not from outside.

To experience the Holy Spirit that is within the Church we just have to do what the apostles did to be worthy to receive the Holy Spirit. Remember Pentecost was their graduation. What did the apostles do to deserve to receive the Spirit on Pentecost?

Firstly, they repented as taught to us during Advent and Lent. Secondly, they had the beginnings of Faith, Hope and Charity when they left all things (their boats, nets and parents) which most of us haven’t done. Thirdly, their theological virtues matured during the Passion of Christ. Fourthly, their virtues were nearly perfect after Easter( it was just before this that Christ breathed on them the first time to receive the Holy Spirit). Fifthly, their virtues were perfected with the Descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (the second giving of the Spirit).

But why did Christ send the Holy Spirit twice? The first time was for them to receive the power to ‘love their neighbor’ in preparation and leading to the ‘Love of God’.. The second time is to give them the power to ‘love God.’

We cannot love our neighbor, like our husband, wife, parent and children in a christian way without the first breathing from Christ. We love them only ‘carnally’ i.e. because they are our family and we love the poor because we pity them. But with the first breathing of the Holy Spirit, we love our family and the poor because it is the command of Christ. With this love we are conscious that our neighbor has a soul and all our relationship with them is to benefit their souls even at the sacrifice of their bodies.

The love of neighbor is in preparation for the second sending wherein we receive the power to love God for His own sake. Without these two sending we cannot love neighbor nor God. This occurred when the apostles had mature infused virtues a rare occurrence today even among religious.

The first giving of the Spirit is the foundation of the second. The second cannot be without the first. In the Liturgy of the Mass for Pentecost the Gospel reading was when Christ breathed on them sending the Holy Spirit to His apostles when He was still on earth. The First reading was about Pentecost when Christ sent the Spirit down when He was in Heaven. Note that there was a gap of 50 days between the two sending. Christ could have sent the Spirit one day after. But no, He was teaching the apostles to learn how to wait just as they would wait for the second coming because Pentecost was a preparation and would be the sign for the end times. And the way they would wait is by prayer and living in unity.

The first sending of the Spirit enabled the Apostles to preach repentance unto the forgiveness of sins. The second sending enabled the Apostles to preach the life of Faith, Hope and Charity…..the journey the Apostles had accomplish that made them worthy to experience Pentecost. St. Thomas of Aquinas described the first sending as a brief, temporary visit of God in the soul. The second sending is the permanent abiding of God within the soul.

The debates are getting hotter but more between the followers of Novus Ordo and the Traditional Latin Mass. Hints are thrown around that one is a Catholic Mass while the other is not. If I recall the sign of Catholicity is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic and not the way Mass is celebrated. If the priest and congregation are One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic then they are Catholic. If they don’t show the four visible signs whatever Mass they are celebrating they are not Catholic. And these 4 visible signs are the state of the souls of the members of the Church and has nothing to do with the rubrics.

This is a tragedy because both sides seem to miss the whole point. So the arguments are getting more emotional than ascetical. One complain raised is that a priest was using a glass Lalique cross for Mass when it should be a Christ figure crucified on a wooden cross because Christ died on a wooden cross and not in a glass cross. Aren’t most crosses made of metal or plastic? We can also raise the issue of the chasuble used by St. Phillip Neri (on the picture on the left) as neither being Traditional nor Novus.

The issue should be an ascetical one. The question is which will bring souls better to heaven, the Novus Ordo or the Traditional Mass. After all this is what Catholic truths and practices all about. And we raise two points here. If ‘ex opere operato’ both will bring us to heaven. Because the Vatican explicitly said that both are valid. The question is in the ‘ex opere operantis.

Which mass will more effectively bring us to heaven: the Novus Ordo or the Traditional Mass. We have no proof for either. We cannot say that St. Therese went to heaven because she attended the Traditional Mass and mother Teresa of Calcutta is probably not in heaven because she attended the Novus Ordo. Both are in heaven being canonized saints. So which Mass mattered more?

In my puerile efforts to encourage my bishop and priest friends to celebrate the Pope’s version of the Mass, I have noticed that all agree that the Latin-laden Pope Benedict Mass encouraged more piety in the celebration than the Novus Ordo. As one priest noticed he had just begun his Novus Ordo Mass and before he knew it it was over. He felt he whisked through the Mass before he was even conscious of celebrating Mass. The conclusion is: if the Mass is being celebrated by one with Faith the kind of Mass is immaterial. He will celebrate any Mass with great piety because of the state of his spiritual life and not because of the kind of Mass. But for priests and congregations whose piety and Faith need to be increased the Traditional Latin Mass is more helpful.

Has the Church decreed that the requirement to enter heaven is to attend one Mass and not the other. None that I remember. What I know is that the requisite to enter heaven is to have the infused virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. Which makes me wonder. Which Mass would be more pleasing to God: the Novus Ordo celebrated by a priest with Faith and attended by a congregation with Faith or a Traditional Mass celebrated by a priest and attended by a congregation without Faith. Or vice versa. Obviously, the presence of Faith in the priest and congregation is more important than the Mass being Novus or Traditional.

The debate has become petty and emotional thus causing more gall than wisdom. The sainted Padre Pio used to celebrate the Traditional Mass and his mass was most edifying. When he was obliged to celebrate the Novus Ordo because of Vat. II his Mass was no less edifying. So the kind of Mass celebrated has absolutely no effect on the piety of those concern. It is the holiness of the celebrant and the piety of the congregation that count.

Earlier we mentioned the fact which everybody will agree that a priest celebrating with great Faith, no matter what kind of Mass, will edify the congregation more and is more pleasing to God. A faithful priest reciting the Angelus is more edifying than a faithless priest celebrating a Novus or Traditional Mass.

But what would be a sign of Faith? From the Catechism……If a priest celebrates according to the tradition of the Church and as interpreted by the Magisterium in the person of the Pope. That is a faithful priest. And the Pope had declared that a combination of the two Masses is all right. The man of Faith, therefore, is the one who celebrates the Mass according to the instruction or example of the Holy Father. All sides if they are children of the Church should rest their case.