Observations This Week

 I was trying to decide what my thoughts would be this week, as I originally was going to begin a series on Christian morality based on what I am teaching my 11th graders.  A good orthodox Christian morality is necessary these days, as there seems to be confusion about certain things.   It is easy, for instance, for some people to take a Christian virtue and twist it around to advance an agenda - Pope Francis is unfortunately a master of this manipulation.  A lot of things go through my mind as I think about this, so I am going to wait until I have something more substantial to begin a series on Christian morality - I am developing a curriculum based on Fr. John Kiely's 1924 book, Instructions on Christian Morality, and there are still about 3 full months of the academic year left yet.  Given I was sort of tossed into my teaching responsibilities in the midst of the school year, I am having to develop a curriculum by flying by the seat of my pants.  Fortunately, my principal was a big help, as he obtained a copy of Fr. Kiely's book for me, so that is a plus.  The course as a whole is called "Sacraments and Morality," and the way it is structured is the first semester of the year deals with the Sacraments, and I had a textbook for that thankfully.  The second part of the year deals with Morality, and that is where it gets tricky - I don't have an actual textbook for that aspect of it, so I have to work on the proverbial fly to create something for it.  The school I teach at also wants to inject "social justice" into the curriculum, but I am doing my own spin on that to deflect the Marxist flavor of that concept from messing with Magisterial teaching.  Let me explain that further.

"Social justice" is essentially a term for soft-core Marxism, and often it is couched in religious language to make it appeal to Church people.  This was a contribution of notorious Marxist agitator Saul Alinsky in the 1930s, and somehow he managed to get his ideas injected into the platforms of some notable Catholic authorities then, including Jesuit theologian Jacques Maritain, who was a good friend of Alinsky's.  Having been challenged by my own parish priest to be a "beacon of truth," I am going to teach justice the way it should be taught - it is a cardinal virtue, and in its proper context it does benefit society.  However, that orthodox understanding of justice often stands in contrast with the "Social Justice" rhetoric of some leftist Catholics, in that they are not the same thing.  For one thing, while racism is a indeed a sin (and very demonic in many cases), the problem with many "Social Justice" advocates is that in the name of supposedly fighting racism, they in reality substitute one type of racism with another.  This makes "Social Justice" very unjust, and let me give you a preview of my class notes just to make the point.

The Decalogue (Ten Commandments) are divided into two parts.  The first three deal with how we relate to God (piety), while the last seven deal with how we relate to each other (justice).  Jesus summarized the law in Mark 12:31, and for centuries this "Summary of the Law" was a part of many historic liturgies.  So what happens when we emphasize one of these but not the other?  If one exercises piety over justice, then the result is a rigid religious legalism that is short on grace and heavy on judgment.  This is a major flaw of Fundamentalists when they attempt to evangelize others, and also is a characteristic trait of nations such as Iran.  On the other hand, if one emphasizes justice over piety, it results in ultimate tyranny.  Some of the most evil and destructive regimes in history (Hitler, Stalin, etc.) started out as crusades for justice.  However, their view of "justice" was to eliminate those who they felt were unjust against them, and thus they ended up being much worse than the regimes they supplanted. Was Castro in Cuba, for instance, any better than Batista whom he overthrew?  Ask many Cuban ex-pats who live in Florida that I know.  Many of them did not come here during Batista's regime - most came after Castro overthrew Batista's regime.  Castro was of course Communist, and Communism is at its core anti-Christian.  So, the "justice" proposed by Castro and his ilk was not true justice, as it tried to divorce God from true justice, and that never works.  Trying to destroy God's order in anything will result in disaster - the sin of the Enlightenment, for instance, was divorcing faith from reason, which to that point were understood to be complementary and not contradictory.  Therefore, again, here are the two points of this:

1. Piety without justice is legalism.

2. Justice without piety leads to tyranny, not true justice.

The lesson here is clear - we need to stop screwing around with the natural order God has created, because it only ends in disaster.  If only some secularized liberal religious people would get this message, true renewal may happen in our Church.  However, in all honesty, I feel our Church is headed for a major schism soon, and if that happens I will always fall on the side of the orthodox, and not the liberal apostates seeking to conform Christianity to their images.  And, yes, that includes Pope Francis.  Pope Francis is a legitimate Pope, don't get me wrong.  But, he is also a very bad Pope, and he has inflicted damage on the Body of Christ that will end up costing souls.  It is the duty of every faithful Catholic to pray for guidance in this, and also pray protection over themselves, as the forces of evil are all about.  The field is full of tares, and to separate them from the wheat at this point may destroy the harvest.  That is why we need a perfect guidance from God to navigate the whole mess.  

Thank you for allowing me to ramble again this week, and I will look forward to visiting again next week.