1. The President-elect, the Bishop’s conference and Me.
The US presidential campaign is getting hot. Like all things, we view such events from the Catholic point of view to find out signs of the time through which God speaks to the modern world. What is He saying?
The U.S. Catholic nominees were the ones who behaved in the most unCatholic way. Even Pope Francis who visited the borders of San Diego uttered a most unCatholic statement in an attempt to show favour to one party that had leftist leanings exposing his own leftist sympathies. This leaning is obvious in the Pope’s speeches and further showed in his personal invitation to the Vatican of a very leftist candidate.
It was the Protestant candidate who had policies that were closer to Catholic teachings. The Pope’s comment ‘do not build walls and doors’ was in fact campaigning politically for the leftist against the more Catholic Protestant candidate.
Building walls and doors is very Catholic. The Psalms states ‘build up the walls of Jerusalem.’ Monasteries and convents have walls. St. Paul described the Church as a fort or camp. These have walls for obvious reasons. The Catholic Church is always under siege. She needs walls to keep out the spiritual enemies that uses humans to attach the Church. The last Supper and Pentecost are images of the Catholic Church. And they were in a room with closed doors.
Thus Blessed John Newman prophesied that the unlimited immigration is destined to destroy the culture and religions of the civilised world. This is God’s punishment for the world for refusing to believe in Him. As a chastisement this cannot be stopped; the world will even unwittingly cooperate with it, including Pope Francis and some local bishops.
This is not our concern right now, but the ongoing tassel between the elected President and the Bishop’s conference of the Philippines.
Like all our past posts, we are concern with the truth and who is in the right. For it is the one who has the truth and have chosen what is right that is destined for eternal life. As a Catholic priest, this is my concern; for the sake of my own salvation. If I do not do my obligation of ‘love of neighbour’ I could lose my soul. So this post is primarily for the salvation of my soul. And only secondarily to show both sides what is true and right, It’s up to each to decide what to do with this brief exposition.
2. First principle – the principle of Faith.
Continuing from the last posts, let us describe a man of Faith. He is the man who knows God had spoken; wants to know what God said; and is most willing to obey all of God’s commands with the help of the grace of God. This is the man of Faith. And this is the Catholic Faith.
If even one command or teaching is rejected, St. Thomas states, this is equivalent to rejecting all the teachings and commands of Christ. What was supposed to be Faith becomes mere opinion. Faith saves; opinion does not. Thus one who rejects even just one truth or command is not a Catholic.
He who is following the teachings of God has the truth and the good because these comes from God and not from the individual person. When it comes from individuals it is surely untrue and evil because it comes from someone with a fallen nature. When we hear truths we should ask; ‘from whom did this truth come from?
Having set the principle by which we shall base our analysis let us go to the object of our analysis. Two issues of contention between the President-elect and the Bishop’s conference. After setting down the two arguments the ‘ME’ perform his obligation of fraternal Charity and suggest how everyone can do things right and save their souls. With that ‘ME’ would have accomplished his obligation to save his own soul,
3. The Issues.
There are too many issues. We shall pin point only two because this blog would rather deal with international issues. The only reason we became interested in this local issue is because it is the same issue that is bugging the whole world. Remember a local Catholic Church is a microcosm of the entire church. The state of that small local Church is the state of the whole Church, St. John Chrysostom wrote.
The first issue is the ‘death penalty’. The second is calling names like hypocrites. This has to be resolved because most of those who voted for the president are Catholics. They will be torn in their loyalty since they want to be loyal to both. They should be loyal, not to persons, but to the principles of truth.We cannot be loyal to someone in error.
4. The death penalty.
Under strict conditions, the practice of the ‘death penalty’ is according to the teaching of the Catholic Church. This is based on a natural principle that if one has a gangrenous arm it should be cut off lest it affects the whole body. Thus a criminal mind must be executed lest it contaminates or kill innocent men.
God, Himself, in the Old Testament ordered the killing of whole populations who might contaminate the Chosen People.
St Paul, voicing the teaching of Christ wrote about the power of sword God gives Head of States, i.e. to punish evil doers with capital punishment. St. Augustine ( in the City of God, Book 1, Chapter 21) and St Thomas of Aquinas (Summa contra Gentiles, Book III, chapter 146) wrote eloquently defending the teaching of the Catholic Church on the need for ‘capital punishment.’
Even the saints observed this Catholic teachings. St. Catherine of Sienna never stopped executions. She went with the criminal to to execution to encourage them to repent which she often did successfully but never stopped the execution knowing full well that God allows such practice.
The Trappist of Kentucky working in ‘Death Row’ recalled the advantage of capital punishment in that most inmate repented before their execution; repentance was non-existent in non-death row inmates. The fear of death is really the beginning of wisdom. The thought of imminent execution is a very powerful force for repentance. It is for this last reason that God gave the state the power of the sword, i.e. capital punishment. While the Church has repentance to reform criminals, the state does not have any instrument for the prevention of sin than ‘capital punishment.
The need for capital punishment had been a teaching of the Catholic Church. So Pope Francis and the Bishops who are against it are going against the expressed teaching of the Catholic Church. The bishops are committing this mistake because their boss, the Pope started encouraging the abolition of capital punishment which is clearly against Catholic teachings. Well, Pope Francis had been teaching things against the teachings of the Catholic Church like his recent tolerance of remarriage and reception of Holy Communion by those living in adultery. And unfortunately our bishops are following his errors like docile goats.
Those against capital punishment want the bodies to enjoy life and does not care for the salvation of the soul. The salvation of soul is more assured due to the repentance that capital punishment induces.
Because Pope Francis and the Bishops are going against a known Catholic doctrine, following the above principles, they would be considered as going against all Catholic doctrines, thus they do not have Faith, They are not Catholics. The confirming signs is that they would not have the four visible signs of the true Church mentioned in the Nicene Creed or the 15 Marks of the Church according to St. Robert Bellarmine on whose doctrine ‘Lumen Gentium’ is based on.
The Catholic Church through Augustine and Thomas of Aquinas have much more arguments in favour of capital punishment but the above will be sufficient for our present purpose.
5. Following this premise.
Now, let us describe a hypocrite according to the teachings of St. Thomas of Aquinas in Question 111, Art 2, Pt. II-II. Also called dissimulation, hypocrisy is when one pretends to be someone else that he is not to accomplish a desired goal.
If the Pope and the Bishop preach against capital punishment which is against Catholic teaching, they would be against all Catholic teachings. If so, they cannot be called Catholics.
But they dress up and call themselves Catholic Bishops…..by definition this would be called hypocrisy. And the label given by the elected president calling them hypocrites and whores are really very mild. If they go against Catholic doctrines they should be called by definition heretics, schismatics and apostates. Hypocrites, whores and prostitutes are mild terms. Christ, Himself, correcting the Pharisees said that prostitutes and publicans go to heaven ahead than the Pharisee, bishops and priest. The president’s label is mild because hypocrites, whores and prostitutes can go to heaven. Heretics, schismatics and apostates go to hell.
There is much more that can be discussed on the topic but this is enough for the meantime.
The conclusion is that in the matter of ‘capital punishment’ the Pope and the Bishops went against the teachings of the Catholic Church. The President elect though his stand is not perfectly Catholic, is closer to the Catholic teaching.,
And on the label-calling; the bishops has no right to refer to anyone as morally reprehensible because Christ had prohibited us to judge the soul of another. As the label of hypocrite, according to St.Thomas’ definition, the Pope and the bishops were guilty of hypocrisy and even worse, of apostasy.
6. Conclusion.
God’s Divine Providence is such that all things that happen are tests for mankind, for him to show where he stand; on the side of truth or on the side of error. And God judges accordingly. In such test we cannot remain silent; that would be like submitting an unanswered test questions.
These events were a personal test for me to prove whether I love my God and my neighbour. I have to show my love for God by defending His truths; and love my neighbour by showing them what is God’s truth and encouraging them to follow it. Now, that I have done my obligation, I earnestly pray that the rest accomplish their own obligation by believing and obeying the teachings of God as proposed by the Magisterium of the Church. Having done my obligation for the day, I shall now go to Ebay and do some shopping for a new monstrance.