O cruel surrealismo do Cardeal Kasper - por Nuno Serras Pereira

19. 05. 2014

Há muitos pontos por onde pegar, para a refutar, no que diz respeito à proposta surrealista do cardeal W. Kasper de admitir à Comunhão Sacramental os casados validamente pela Igreja que se divorciaram pelo civil e se voltaram a “casar” civilmente e que vivem, não como irmãos, mas sim mantendo comércio carnal, isto é, fornicando adulteramente um com o outro.

O cardeal mostra , em primeiro lugar, uma concepção mágica da realidade. De facto, afirma que a sua proposta não muda em nada a Doutrina da Igreja e, para o provar, afirma em entrevista a validade do primeiro casamento mas recusa terminantemente, contrariando a Palavra expressa de Jesus Cristo, que a convivência posterior seja adulterina. Na sua parca, ou delirante?, imaginação basta mudar o nome a uma coisa para ela deixar de ser o que é e transformar-se em qualquer outra coisa que ele decidir.

Mas deixemos isso e infinitas outras coisas que se poderiam dizer acerca do que ele avança e atendamos somente às invocadas responsabilidades morais respeitantes aos filhos que resultaram da cumplicidade adulterina, as quais obrigariam, sob pena de impotência Divina, a uma suposta misericórdia de Deus que não poderia deixar de compactuar e selar o facto consumado.

Recorrendo a esta mesma lógica teríamos de concluir que um pai ou uma mãe ou ambos, que fossem ameaçados de morte caso não negassem a Fé em Cristo não só poderiam como porventura deveriam renunciá-la, para não faltar às responsabilidades para com os filhos.

(Também no caso de um pai ou de uma mãe que cometessem crimes, talvez terroristas, cujas penas incluiriam prisão efetiva, talvez perpétua, a Igreja deveria proclamar a imoralidade de tal coação por parte do estado, uma vez que inibiam os pais de cumprir as suas responsabilidades para com os filhos. Pela mesma lógica, uma mobilização geral em tempos de emergência nacional prolongada e com risco de vida colocaria de fora qualquer pai. E não seria mesmo de excluir que os viúvos ou viúvas com filhos fossem moralmente obrigados pela Igreja a contrair um novo enlace matrimonial de modo a realizar melhor as suas responsabilidades paternais.)

Recomendar e admitir à Sagrada Comunhão quem vive em estado de pecado mortal é induzir as pessoas, como ensina S. Paulo a condenarem-se, convencendo-as que o mal é bem, que o errado é certo, que a pecaminosidade é santidade, é estorvar-lhes a conversão a Jesus Cristo. Todas estas coisas, aprendi no Catecismo e ao longo de toda a minha vida, são manhas do Demónio, que tem como fim a perdição das almas, a sua condenação eterna. E importa muito não esquecer que S. Pedro, o fundamento visível do Papado, ensina que a finalidade da nossa Fé é a salvação das almas.

À honra de Cristo e de Sua Mãe. Ámen.

O Mistério d’ Aquele Olhar - por Nuno Serras Pereira

20. 12. 2013

Casado há 35 anos tinha uma ranchada de filhos que eram o seu orgulho, o seu tesouro. Sentia-se profundamente reconhecido à sua mulher a quem amava mais do que a si mesmo, tal como Cristo que deu a vida pela Sua esposa, a Igreja. Ela era o seu fascínio, aquela que o fazia sair de si mesmo, que o centrifugava e o arrojava para as ignotas e aventurosas periferias, a que nunca se aventuraria por si mesmo e onde se prodigalizava derramando-se em generosidades que pensaria não só improváveis mas mesmo impossíveis. Era um milagre! Já há muitos anos, quando ainda era noivo, um Padre a quem tinha feito uma confissão geral, num santuário internacional, lhe dissera exactamente isso: “Tu, és um milagre!!”.  

Tempos houve na sua juventude em que tinha renegado a Fé na qual tinha sido baptizado, educado e crescido, tanto em família como na Paróquia e nos colégios que frequentara. Esta abjuração fora precedida, acompanhada e seguida de influências emburrecidas, abestalhadas, mesmo malignas, quer por companhias quer por leituras a que então não poucos prestavam uma veneração imbecil; e, pior ainda, pelos pecados multiplicados, não só correspondentes como excedentes das bestiagas que acenderam o rastilho daquela explosão bronca e demoníaca. “Desprogramou-se” então a si mesmo de modo a desmanchar sofregamente a sua identidade como pessoa, que tinha recebido do Criador ao ser gerado (a Moral Natural, segundo a razão), e a expulsar as Graças que lhe tinham sido comunicadas, ao longo dos anos, principalissimamente, pelos Sacramentos, mas também pelo ambiente familiar e colegial.

Esse frenesim vertiginoso a que se entregara era pois uma inversão inteira – a generosidade transformou-se em latrocínio; a castidade em promiscuidade, a luxúria mulheril em verriondez com machos quase tão lúbricos como ele; a sobriedade mutou-se em embriaguez quotidiana; o amor familiar em ódio entranhado; a Fé em esoterismos e ocultismos diabólicos; a modéstia numa soberba desmedida; a adoração a Deus em idolatria de si mesmo, ávida de sequazes fanáticos que lhe prestassem latria, não se coibindo de recorrer ao hipnotismo para subjugar as mentes e vontades alheias, subjugando-as aos seus propósitos luciferinos.

Um viripotente mulherico, por ele totalmente dominado, satisfazia-lhe, quando mais ninguém estava disponível, várias vezes ao dia, a sua volúpia libidinosa e desenfreada. Ora, os pais dessa vítima corrompida, tinham em casa, onde às suas ocultas sucediam estas orgias asquerosas, um quadro a cores do Sagrado Coração de Jesus. Era uma daquelas cópias de uma pintura ou desenho que se encontram às centenas senão mesmo aos milhares espalhados pelos lares cristãos das gentes pobres deste país. Enfim, uma possidoneira intolerável para quem tinha sido educado segundo os padrões estéticos próprios dos mais sofisticados museus e Catedrais. E, no entanto, tinha dificuldade em evitar aquela doçura mansa e humilde que se lhe apresentava à vista quando distraidamente calhava pousar o olhar naquela gravura. Incomodado com aquele esguardo, cravava então num desafio rebelde, insubmisso, os seus olhos naqueles olhos, provocatoriamente desfiando mentalmente afrontas, impropérios, mesmo blasfémias. Para seu enorme espanto e desconcerto aqueles olhos que pareciam verdadeiramente vivos conservavam, ou melhor, como que intensificavam o Seu amor por ele. E isto permaneceu ao longo de muitos meses, pelo menos de um par de anos. Supunha então que aquele quadro aparentemente reprodução de tantos outros manifestamente pirosos tinha sido dotado, por algum artista matreiro e gerigoto, de subtilezas magnéticas destinadas a endrominar as almas simples e incautas.

Sucedeu, entretanto, que uma cascata de acontecimentos galopantes totalmente imprevisíveis, como se se tratara de um Misterioso desígnio, ou “conspiração”, sobrenatural, o reconduzira a Deus, a Jesus Cristo, à Virgem Maria, à Igreja. Sentiu-se e soube-se completamente renovado e restaurado pelos Sacramentos da Confissão e da Eucaristia – matara o “homem velho” e renascera o “homem novo”. Quase sem se dar conta foi transformado num ardente apóstolo (enviado) arrebatando, para sua grande confusão, uma multidão de almas ao demónio e ganhando-as para Jesus Cristo. Foi transfigurado numa brasa, num engatatão fascinante, num sedutor, não como antes, que o fora primeiro de moças e depois de mancebos, mas de almas para Cristo.

Por engano, confundindo-a com a recente namorada, que mal conhecia, de um amigo, acolheu exuberantemente uma jovem vinda em camioneta de um retiro. Esse equívoco passageiro foi porém suficiente para se deixar encantar por aquela fádica imprevista que correspondeu efusivamente ao seu acolhimento festivo. Depois veio uma amizade que prestes se tornou namoro, mais tarde em noivado e veio a dar em casamento. Este foi abençoado com uma fecundidade abundante patente não só nos oito filhos gerados mas também na influência benigna exercida sobre os amigos deles, e na repartição generosa de bens espirituais e materiais por todos aqueles necessitados que podiam socorrer.

Tinham passado dez anos das bodas de prata, celebradas pelo Padre que tinha presidido ao seu matrimónio, quando alguns dias antes do Natal foi convidado com os seus para um jantar em casa daquela família que tinha numa das divisões o quadro, acima referido, representando o Sagrado Coração de Jesus. Os pais do seu antigo amigo e vítima, felizmente também ele recuperado em Cristo para a sua verdadeira humanidade, já tinham sido chamados à presença do Senhor. Os cinco irmãos com as famílias respectivas estavam todos. A anfitriã era a irmã mais nova, a única que quis ficar com a casa. Ficou contente ao ver um grande e maravilhoso presépio musgoso que dava o tom ao tempo que se celebrava. O Menino Jesus, desproporcionadamente grande em relação a todas as outras figuras, olhava-os de braços abertos, como que a pedir colo. Durante os aperitivos pretextando uma lavagem das mãos dirigiu-se em direcção à casa de banho que ficava perto do quarto onde estava dependurada a imagem. Acendeu a luz, olhou-a, nela atentou, remirou-a de ângulos e perspectivas diferentes, observou-a novamente. Não havia dúvida, não passava de uma reprodução igualzinha a milhares de outras disseminadas pelos casarios deste pequeno país. O olhar não tinha nada de especial, não havia doçura ou amor particular nem tinham a vida que neles topara tão repetidamente tantos anos antes - aquela Vida que, apesar da sua recusa obstinada em aceitá-la, teimou em derramar o Seu Amor sobre ele…

Regressado à sala, a mulher espantada do seu ar absorto e macambúzio dá-lhe uma ligeira cotovelada e dispara: que tens tu para estares assim tão demudado? Ainda agora estavas tão alegre e extrovertido… 

- Não é nada, filha, adiantou ele forçando um sorriso. Só que me dói um pouco a cabeça, deve ser deste ar pesado. Isto já passa.

No seu alheamento, chegada a hora da refeição, deixou-se ficar para trás contemplando o presépio. No peito do Menino surgiu num repente um coração abrasado em fogo vivo, palpitando de amor, e os Seus olhos faiscaram uma enorme benignidade. Estremecendo de alegria pensou é o Senhor! Foi também Ele então para me preparar para o Seu renascimento, o Seu Natal em mim.

Ano da Fé - por João César das Neves

In DN

 

Não há felicidade maior do que saber que Deus, o Deus supremo, sublime, transcendente, que fez o céu e a terra, se entregou à morte para me salvar. A mim pessoalmente. Nas nossas cidades e aldeias, nas casas e capelas de Portugal, em especial neste Ano da Fé que agora termina, tudo lembra este facto radical. Apesar disso, ele é esquecido a cada passo. Por isso as nossas vidas não são felizes. Ele está pendurado por minha causa. Nas paredes das salas, nas frontarias das igrejas, nos quadros dos museus, até no meu peito, em todo o lado a imagem da cruz lembra que Aquele ali, coberto de sangue, foi condenado à morte por minha causa. Eu vivo a minha vida, em cada momento, sob o olhar do que está num patíbulo em vez de mim.

As razões da condenação acumulo-as a cada momento. Pequenas e grandes traições, mentiras e violências, egoísmo e mesquinhez; sobretudo a terrível tibieza e mediocridade em que mergulham os meus dias. De fora não se vê a podridão que tenho dentro. Nem os meus inimigos, que têm tanta razão nos insultos, nem eles sabem do mal a metade. Sou todos os dias muito justamente condenado à morte.

Todos estamos condenados à morte e um dia, cedo ou tarde, a sentença será executada. Aliás, a morte não é só um justo castigo dos nossos males, mas também um alívio terapêutico dos mesmos males. Que seria viver para sempre em tanta maldade? "Deus não institui a morte ao princípio, mas deu-a como remédio. Condenada pelo pecado a um trabalho contínuo e a lamentações insuportáveis, a vida dos homens começou a ser miserável. Deus teve de pôr fim a estes males, para que a morte restituísse o que a vida tinha perdido. Com efeito, a imortalidade seria mais penosa que benéfica, se não fosse promovida pela graça" (S. Ambrósio Na Morte do Irmão Sátiro, II, 47).

Isto posso compreendê-lo bem olhando com honestidade para a minha vida. Se tirar a máscara de respeitabilidade e elegância, se esquecer as justificações retóricas e os enganos convenientes, se for ao fundo das minhas razões, vejo com clareza que um juiz justo e imparcial teria de me condenar. Exalto o pouco bem que vou fazendo, mas essa ilusão de óptica não impede a sentença inevitável.

Mas não sou eu que estou ali pendurado. É Ele. Ele, a única pessoa a poder dizer com verdade não merecer a morte, é Ele que está ali. "Jesus estará em agonia até ao fim do mundo" (Pascal , 1670, Pensées, ed. Brunschvicg n.º 553, ed.Lafuma n.º 919). Ele está em agonia, e a culpa é minha. E graças à morte d"Ele a minha tem remédio. A morte, em si mesma, é definitiva. Quem morre fica morto. Mas porque Ele quis morrer por mim, a minha morte tem saída. A minha morte pode ir para a vida. Se me agarrar a Ele, o único que voltou da morte.

Porque essa morte, que Ele sofreu por minha causa, durou apenas três dias. Porque Ele, o único a poder dizer que não merece a morte, destruiu a morte com a morte que sofreu por minha causa. Assim não há mais morte, não há mais culpa. Tudo foi levado na enxurrada da ressurreição de Cristo.

Eu, no medíocre quotidiano, continuo a mesma mesquinha criatura que sempre fui. Os meus pecados não desapareceram por Ele ter morrido e ressuscitado. Aliás, todos os meus pecados foram já cometidos depois de Ele ter morrido e ressuscitado por mim. Mas, porque Ele morreu e ressuscitou, eu sei que existe algo que cobre a multidão dos meus erros, misérias, podridões. Existe a Sua eterna misericórdia. E essa, por ser infinita, ganha ao meu mal. Se eu a procurar.

Agora posso viver a minha vida debaixo do olhar que Ele me lança da cruz. Daquela cruz que vejo a cada passo nas cidades e aldeias. Daquela cruz onde Ele está pendurado por minha causa. E isso muda a minha vida. Até muda a desgraça, a tacanhez, a maldade da minha vida. Assim, até ela fica quase boa. Por me lembrar do facto de Ele estar ali pendurado por minha causa. E não se ir embora, por grandes que sejam os meus crimes. Por ficar ali pendurado, esperando sempre que eu O veja. Que caia em mim. Que volta para Ele. Que tenha fé. E isso é a vida eterna.

Pope condemns abortion in strongest pro-life comments to date, day after controversial interview - by John-Henry Westen

ROME, September 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a meeting with Catholic gynaecologists this morning Pope Francis strongly condemned abortion as a manifestation of a “throwaway culture.”

"Every unborn child, though unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world," the pope said. 

The comments come one day after the release of an in-depth interview in which the Pope had explained that despite criticism he has avoided speaking about moral issues like abortion and gay “marriage” in his papacy, instead focusing on preaching about the love of Christ. 

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” Pope Francis had said in remarks that were widely interpreted as a call for Church leaders to downplay the Church’s moral teachings on controversial issues. 

"I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that," the Pope had explained. "But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

In response to that interview the United State’s largest abortion advocacy organization, NARAL Pro-Choice America, even posted an image thanking the pope for his comments on their Facebook and Twiter pages. But NARAL’s celebrations were cut short by today’s blunt remarks by the Pope, in which he urged doctors to respect life "from the first instant of conception." 

Speaking to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Pope Francis spoke of a paradox in medicine today. “On the one hand we see progress in the field of medicine, thanks to the work of scientists who passionately and unreservedly dedicate themselves to the search for new cures,” he said. “On the other hand, however, we also encounter the risk that doctors lose sight of their identity in the service of life.” 

“While new rights are attributed to or indeed almost presumed by the individual, life is not always protected as the primary value and the primordial right of every human being,” said the Pope. “The ultimate aim of medicine remains the defence and promotion of life.” 

The pope told the doctors, "Your being Catholic entails greater responsibility: first of all to yourself, in the effort to be consistent with the Christian vocation, and then to contemporary culture, to help recognize the transcendent dimension in human life, the imprint of the creative work of God, from the very first moment of conception. This is a commitment to the new evangelization that often requires going against the tide, paying a personal price. The Lord counts on you to spread the 'Gospel of life.'"

As he has in the past, Francis condemned a “throwaway culture” that would eliminate the weak and vulnerable in society. “Our response to this mentality is a 'yes' to life, decisive and without hesitation. 'The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are precious, but this one is fundamental – the condition for all the others'”.

Concluding, the Pope said, “bear witness to and disseminate this 'culture of life' … remind all, through actions and words, that in all its phases and at any age, life is always sacred and always of quality. And not as a matter of faith, but of reason and science! There is no human life more sacred than another, just as there exists no human life qualitatively more meaningful than another”. 

See the full text in Italian here.

Papa Francisco: «Cada niño injustamente condenado a ser abortado tiene el rostro de Jesucristo»

In InfoCatólica 

Asimismo el Santo PAdre ha recordado la encíclica «Caritas in Veritate» para explicar un reflejo de esa paradoja es que «mientras se dan nuevos derechos a la persona, a veces incluso presuntos, no siempre se protege la vida como valor primario y derecho básico de todos los hombres. El objetivo final del médico siempre es la defensa y la promoción de la vida».

Ante esta situación contradictoria, el Papa ha reivindicado el llamamiento que la Iglesia hace a las conciencias de todos los profesionales y voluntarios de la sanidad, sobre todo a los ginecólogos, «La vuestra -ha dicho- es una singular vocación y misión, que necesita estudio, conciencia y humanidad».

De nuevo Francisco ha hablado de la «cultura del descarte» que pretende eliminar seres humanos, sobre todo a los más débiles física o socialmente. «Nuestra respuesta ante esta mentalidad es un sí a la vida, decidido y sin vacilar. El primer derecho de la persona humana es su vida. Ella tiene otros bienes y algunos de ellos son más preciosos, pero es este el bien fundamental, la condición para todos los demás».

Reiterando que en los últimos tiempos la vida humana en su totalidad es una prioridad del Magisterio de la Iglesia el Pontífice ha subrayado que «las cosas tienen un precio y se pueden vender, pero las personas tienen dignidad, valen más que las cosas y no tienen precio».

Francisco ha pedido a los presentes que fueran «testigos y difusores de esta cultura de la vida» y recordasen a todos, «con los hechos y las palabras, que ésta es siempre, en todas las fases y a cualquier edad, sagrada y siempre de cualidad. Y no por un discurso de fe sino de razón y ciencia. No existe una vida humana más valiosa que otra, igual que no existe una vida humana cualitativamente más significativa que otra».

Contra el aborto y la eutanasia

«Cada niño que no ha nacido, pero injustamente condenado a ser abortado, tiene el rostro de Jesucristo, el rostro del Señor, que antes de que él naciera, y luego recién nacido tiene el rechazo experimentado en el mundo. Y cada persona mayor ... incluso si está enfermo, o al final de sus días, lleva el rostro de Cristo. No se puede descartar, ya que se propone la cultura del derroche. !No se puede descartar!».

On Pope Francis's interview: The Christ-Centered Pope - by George Weigel

In EPPC 

Perhaps the most revealing detail in Pope Francis’s lengthy interview, conducted by the Italian Jesuit Antonio Spadaro and published yesterday in English translation in the Jesuit journal America, is the pontiff’s reflection on one of his favorite Roman walks, prior to his election:

When I had to come to to Rome, I always stayed in [the neighborhood of the] Via della Scrofa. From there I often visited the Church of St. Louis of France, and I went there to contemplate the painting of “The Calling of St. Matthew” by Caravaggio. That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew. . . . This is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze.

The Calling of St. Matthew is an extraordinary painting in many ways, including Caravaggio’s signature use of light and darkness to heighten the spiritual tension of a scene. In this case, though, the chiaroscuro setting is further intensified by a profoundly theological artistic device: The finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew, seems deliberately to invoke the finger of God as rendered by Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Thus Caravaggio, in depicting the summons of the tax collector, unites creation and redemption, God the Father and the incarnate Son, personal call and apostolic mission.

That is who Jorge Mario Bergoglio is: a radically converted Christian disciple who has felt the mercy of God in his own life and who describes himself, without intending any dramatic effect, as “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” Having heard the call to conversion and responded to it, Bergoglio wants to facilitate others’ hearing of that call, which never ceases to come from God through Christ and the Church.

And that, Bergoglio insists, is what the Church is for: The Church is for evangelization and conversion. Those who have found the new pope’s criticism of a “self-referential Church” puzzling, and those who will find something shockingly new in his critical comments, in his recent interview, about a Church reduced “to a nest protecting our mediocrity,” haven’t been paying sufficient attention. Six years ago, when the Catholic bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean met at the Brazilian shrine of Aparecida to consider the future, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio, was one of the principal intellectual architects of the bishops’ call to put evangelization at the center of Catholic life, and to put Jesus Christ at the center of evangelization. The Latin American Church, long used to being “kept,” once by legal establishment and then by cultural tradition, had to rediscover missionary zeal by rediscovering the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Latin American bishops, led by Bergoglio, made in their final report a dramatic proposal that amounted to a stinging challenge to decades, if not centuries, of ecclesiastical complacency:

The Church is called to a deep and profound rethinking of its mission. . . . It cannot retreat in response to those who see only confusion, dangers, and threats. . . . What is required is confirming, renewing, and revitalizing the newness of the Gospel . . . out of a personal and community encounter with Jesus Christ that raises up disciples and missionaries. . . .

A Catholic faith reduced to mere baggage, to a collection of rules and prohibitions, to fragmented devotional practices, to selective and partial adherence to the truths of faith, to occasional participation in some sacraments, to the repetition of doctrinal principles, to bland or nervous moralizing, that does not convert the life of the baptized would not withstand the trials of time. . . . We must all start again from Christ, recognizing [with Pope Benedict XVI] that “being Christian is . . . the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

The 21st-century proclamation of Christ must take place in a deeply wounded and not infrequently hostile world. In another revealing personal note, Francis spoke of his fondness for Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion, one of the most striking religious paintings of the 20th century. Chagall’s Jesus is unmistakably Jewish, the traditional blue and white tallis or prayer-shawl replacing the loincloth on the Crucified One. But Chagall’s Christ is also a very contemporary figure, for around the Cross swirl the death-dealing political madnesses and hatreds of the 20th century. And so the pope’s regard for Chagall’s work is of a piece with his description of the Catholic Church of the 21st century as a kind of field hospital on a battlefield strewn with the human wreckage caused by false ideas of the human person and false claims of what makes for happiness. Thus Francis in his interview on the nature of the Church:

I see clearly that the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.

And how are the wounds of late-modern and postmodern humanity to be healed? Through an encounter with Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. “The most important thing, “ Francis insisted in his interview, “is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.” The Church of the 21st century must offer Jesus Christ as the answer to the question that is every human life (as John Paul II liked to put it). The moral law is important, and there should be no doubt that Francis believes and professes all that the Catholic Church believes and professes to be true about the moral life, the life that leads to happiness and beatitude. But he also understands that men and women are far more likely to embrace those moral truths — about the inalienable right to life from conception until natural death; about human sexuality and how it should be lived — when they have first embraced Jesus Christ as Lord. That, it seems to me, is what the pope was saying when he told Antonio Spadaro that “proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things.” These are what make “the heart burn: as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. . . . The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

Francis underscores that “the teaching of the Church is clear” on issues like abortion, euthanasia, the nature of marriage, and chastity and that he is “a son of the Church” who accepts those teachings as true. But he also knows that “when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context.” That “context” is Jesus Christ and his revelation of the truth about the human person. For as the Second Vatican Council taught inGaudium et Spes, its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, “It is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly comes clear. For Adam, the first man, was the type of him who was to come. Christ the Lord, Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling.”

Thus Pope Francis, the pastor who is urging a new pastoral style on his fellow bishops and fellow priests, insists that every time the Church says “no,” it does so on the basis of a higher and more compelling “yes”: yes to the dignity and value of every human life, which the Church affirms because it has embraced Jesus as Lord and proclaims him to a world increasingly tempted to measure human beings by their utility rather than their dignity.

Francis’s radical Christocentricity — his insistence that everything in the Church begins with Jesus Christ and must lead men and women to Jesus Christ — also sheds light on his statement that there is a hierarchy of truths in Catholicism or, as he put it, that “the dogmatic and moral teachings of the Church are not all equivalent.” That does not mean, of course, that some of those those teachings are not really, well, true; but it does mean that some truths help us make sense of other truths. The Second Vatican Council reclaimed this notion of a “hierarchy of truths” in Unitatis Redintegratio, its Decree on Ecumenism, and it’s an important idea, the pope understands, for the Church’s evangelical mission.

If you don’t believe in Jesus Christ as Lord — if you’ve never heard the Gospel — then you aren’t going to be very interested in what the Catholic Church has to say in Jesus’s name about what makes for human happiness and what makes for decadence and unhappiness; indeed, you’re quite likely to be hostile to what the Church says about how we ought to live. By redirecting the Church’s attention and pastoral action to the Church’s most basic responsibility — the proclamation of the Gospel and the invitation to friendship with Jesus Christ — Pope Francis is underscoring that a very badly disoriented 21st century will be more likely to pay attention to evangelists than to scolds: “We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. . . . The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.” The Church says “yes” before the Church says “no,” and there isn’t any “no” the Church pronounces that isn’t ultimately a reflection of the Church’s “yes” to Jesus Christ, to the Gospel, and to what Christ and the Gospel affirm about human dignity.

It’s going to take some time for both the Church and the world to grow accustomed to an evangelical papacy with distinctive priorities. Those who imagine the Catholic Church as an essentially political agency in which “policy” can change the way it changes when a new governor moves into an American statehouse will continue — as they did within minutes of the release of the America interview — to misrepresent Pope Francis as an advocate of doctrinal and moral change, of the sort that would be approved by the editorial board of the New York Times. This is nonsense. Perhaps more urgently, it is a distraction.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is determined to redirect the Church’s attention, and the world’s attention, to Jesus Christ. In this, his papacy will be in continuity with those of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Francis is going to be radically Christ-centered in his own way, though, and some may find that way jarring. Those willing to take him in full, however, rather than excising 17 words from a 12,000-word interview, will find the context in which those 17 words make classic Catholic sense. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods,” the pope told his interviewer. Why? Because it is by insisting on conversion to Jesus Christ, on lifelong deepening of the believer’s friendship with him, and on the Church’s ministry as an instrument of the divine mercy that the Church will help others make sense of its teaching on those matters — with which the New York Times, not the Catholic Church, is obsessed — and will begin to transform a deeply wounded culture.

Jesus never hesitated to preach the fear of punishment, and neither should modern preachers - by Msgr. Charles Pope

In AofW 

Some years ago I was stationed with a priest who, while he often liked my homilies, would often critique my use of what he called “fear based preaching.” Perhaps I had warned the congregation of punishment for sin, or even let slip that certain things were mortal sins that would exclude one from heaven and land them in hell. I would often playfully remind the congregation that missing Sunday Mass was a mortal sin by saying, “Go to Mass or go to hell.” I would also warn that fornicators would not inherit the Kingdom nor idolaters nor adulterers nor those who practice homosexuality, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (cf 1 Cor 6:9).

 

Of course I was quoting Scripture and preaching out of a voluminous biblical tradition of warning texts. Nevertheless, the older priest would often wag his finger and say, “Ah that’s fear-based preaching…fear based!”

Perhaps it was, but so what? And yet many (not all) priests of his generation were of the mind that to warn at all or to incite any fear in the people of God was some “abusive” and bad pastoral practice. They seem to have been a generation in reaction to something before them. Perhaps they had grown up with what they thought was too much fire and brimstone preaching and not enough of a summons to higher motives rooted in love and mature spiritual reflection.

It is true, that the First Letter of John does set for a kind of goal for us that we be free of the mere fear of punishment and root our moral life in love:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)

And yet, if this goal, good and important that it is, is meant to eliminate any appeal to ordinary fear of punishment, apparently Jesus never got the memo. Neither did St. Paul, St Peter, St. James, St Jude, the Author of the Letter to the Hebrews, and even John himself seems to have forgotten the “rule” from time to time.

For the fact is, the quote from First John sets for a goal for the spiritually mature. But that does mean that we are all there. In fact, people are at many different stages of spiritual growth. Surely the Lord, and the gospel and epistle writers knew this, as does every experienced pastor.

Frankly, many are still at a spiritual stage where the fear of punishment is both necessary and salutary.

Jesus certainly saw fit to appeal to the fear of punishment, loss, and hell. In fact, it is arguable that this was his main approach and that one would struggle to find very many texts where Jesus appeals more to a perfect contrition and a purely holy fear rooted in love alone as a motive to avoid sin. But over and over in dozens of passages and parables Jesus warns of punishment and exclusion from the Kingdom for unrepented sin and for the refusal to be ready. Here are just a few:

1. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matt 7:13-14)
2. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. (Mat 13:41-42)
3. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ ” (Mk 13:35-37)
4. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with carousing, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come on you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:34-36)
5. “But about that day or hour no one knows…For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away…“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matt 24:36-44)
6. The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt 24:51)
7. Then the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matt 25:10-13)
8. “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat…“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matt 24:41-42, 46)
9. Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. (Matt 5:28-29)
10. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matt 5:22)
11. And if your foot offend you, cut it off: it is better for you to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. (Mk 9:45-46)
12. Friend, how came you in here not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. (Matt 22:12-14)
13. Then said Jesus again to them, I go my way, and you shall seek me, but you shall die in your sins: where I go, you cannot come….I have told you that you will die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins (John 8:21, 24).
14. by their fruits you shall know them. Not every one that said to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matt 7:20-23)
15. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16)
16. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. (John 12:48)
17. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give youthis testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” (Rev 22:14-16)

Dozens of other texts, parables and warnings could be added unto this list. But let these Suffice. The bottom line is that Jesus warned and appealed to the fear of punishment a LOT.

No one loves you more than Jesus and yet no one warned of judgment and Hell more than Jesus. He knows how stubborn and hard we are, and thus he is plain and warns with clarity and charity.

St. Paul and all the other Epistle writers have many warning texts as well that proclaim a salutary fear of punishment. A common example of the Pauline warning texts is this:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous  will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor 6:9-10)

Translation: if one stays in serious and unrepented sin, they go to Hell. And thus, St Paul too, as well as the other Epistle writers all appeal to the fear of punishment.

Now why should we, who are summoned to preach and teach in Jesus’ name, reject a key strategy that he and his chosen apostles employed? And yet, it has been a consistent modern practice to all but ignore the substantial warning texts that occur throughout the preaching of Jesus and the Apostles.

Part of the reason for our rejection would seem rooted in the fact that we live in rather dainty times wherein people easily take offense. Further the “self-esteem” culture and its premises are inimical to speaking of people as sinners or in anyway rejected. Thirdly, many today have cast God in the role of doting Father, and Jesus as a harmless hippie. No matter how unbiblical the images of the Lord are, they are pervasive and people do not easily let go of them, even when confronted with biblical texts.

But, at the end of the day, those of us who preach are without excuse if we neglect or refuse a pastoral practice used extensively by Jesus himself. By our silence in this regard we mislead God’s people and become, in effect, deceivers who do not preach the “whole counsel of God” (cf Acts 20:27).

While it is true that we can help to lead God’s people from an imperfect contrition (rooted in fear of punishment) to a more perfect contrition (rooted in love for God), it remains a rather clear fact that many of the faithful are at different stages and are not yet at the perfect contrition stage.

For this reason the Church has always allowed that imperfect contrition was sufficient to receive absolution. The traditional act of contrition (which is to be preferred) says,

…I detest all my sins, not only because I fear the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend you my God who are all good, and deserving of all my love….

This act of contrition is to be preferred because it distinguishes perfect and imperfect contrition and properly notes that most of us have by sorts of contrition admixed. But this act of contrition also helps the penitent recall the journey we ought to make out of the fear of punishment to the deeper and more perfect motive of love of God and neighbor to avoid sin.

But for most of us, this is a journey that is underway, and some have made more progress than others. Meanwhile, the preachers of the Church do well to appeal to the fear of punishment among other motives to avoid sin.

Jesus and the Apostles never hesitated to recall the fearful results of sinful obstinance. And neither should we who Preach today. Fear of punishment is needed after all.