Siena, Italy, Dec 26, 2018 / 05:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When St. Catherine of Siena was alive in 14th century in what is now Italy, it looked like it was the end of the world.
The Bubonic plague was sweeping through Europe in waves, which would ultimately wipe out 60 percent of the population. The Papal States were divided and at war. Rich churchmen were buying their positions; bishops were making sure their family members would succeed them. The pope had been living in France for 70 years, and though he would return to Rome, the Western Schism happened shortly after, with three claimants to the See of Peter.
“She lived in really terrible times,” Fr. Thomas McDermott, O.P., a St. Catherine of Siena scholar, told CNA. “And people really did think it was the end of the world.”
The state of the world, and the Church today, is different, though in some ways no less troubled. The new wave of sex abuse scandals and their alleged cover-ups have rocked anew the Church throughout the world.
When St. Catherine talked about the Church, she often referred to it as the Body of Christ, in the tradition of St. Paul, McDermott noted.
“She says the face of the Church is a beautiful face, but we’re pelting it with filth,” he said. “It has a beautiful face, that’s the divine side of the Church, but we human beings are pelting it; we’re disfiguring the body of Christ through our sins.”
While the current abuse crisis and related scandals have left many lay Catholics wondering how to respond, some Catholics have suggested looking to the saints – like Catherine of Siena – for guidance.
Who was Catherine?
Catherine was born March 25, 1347, the 25th child born to middle-class parents in Siena; about half of her siblings did not survive childhood.
At a young age, she became very devout, and resisted her parents when they attempted to have her marry the husband of one of her sisters who had died. Instead, she chose to fast and cut off her hair to make herself less desirable. She would ultimately vow her virginity to Christ, and experienced a mystical marriage to him around the age of 21.
Instead of entering a convent, however, Catherine chose to live a life of prayer and penance at home as a tertiary, or third order, Dominican. She spent several years in near-seclusion, in a cell-like room under the steps in her parents’ house, spending her days in dialogue with Christ.
After several years of this at-home novitiate of sorts, while in her mid-20s, she heard Christ telling her to lead a more public life.
“He said now you have to go out and share the fruits of your contemplation with others,” McDermott said. “That’s very Dominican, it’s from the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas.”
Catherine obeyed, and rejoined her family in their daily activities. She also began to serve the poor, and soon became renowned for her charitable works. She gathered a following of young men and women – many of them from rich families of high social status – because they enjoyed her warm personality and her holiness.
Catherine goes public – and gets political
Once she stepped back into a more public life, she became more connected and in tune with the happenings in the Church.
At the time, Gregory XI was living in Avignon and was at war with the Republic of Florence. He placed it under interdict; essentially the equivalent of excommunicating a city – they were cut off from receiving the sacraments, among other sanctions.
Through her life of prayer and her consultation with her spiritual directors, Catherine began corresponding with papal representatives and the pope himself, attempting to broker peace in Florence and advocating for reform where she saw corruption.
“The papal nuncio to Florence in Catherine’s time is grossly hated by the powerful families in Florence, and he’s hated because the powerful families feel that they’ve been mistreated by the Pope,” said Catherine Pakaluk, an associate professor of economics at Catholic University of America and a devotee of St. Catherine.
“She’s writing to the nuncios, she’s writing to the pope, and she’s trying to prevent this internal Catholic war between these parts of the Papal States,” she said. “And this is before the Great Schism when things get really bad.”
Tempers and tensions were so high that the papal nuncio of Florence was eventually skinned alive in the streets.
“So when we think about things today and how shocking and horrifying (they are), you know, things were pretty bad then,” Pakaluk noted. “The nature of the particular crimes is different, but the tensions were really high and these folks were quite violent.”
Catherine was drawn into the Church politics of her time not because of a misplaced sense of ambition, McDermott said, but because she loved the Church as she loved God.
“It wasn’t her motive to be involved in the politics of the Church, but what was best for everyone and for the church led her into politics,” he said. “But it’s not like she was interested in politics itself.”
As part of her attempts at solving the problems of the Church, Catherine joined the call of many other Catholics of the time for the Pope to return to Rome.
After some correspondence, Catherine set out on foot with her followers to go meet with the pope in person.
“It was a remarkable thing for Catherine who was a homebody to take off on foot for France with her disciples, but she was prepared to do anything for the Church because the Church was the Body of Christ,” McDermott said.
After scores of people pleading with the pope to return to Rome between 1309 and 1377, St. Catherine seemed to prove most persuasive.
During her visit, Catherine referenced parts of the pope’s dream, about which he had told no one.
“It was astounding to him (that she knew about the dream) and he took that as a clear sign from God that he was speaking to him through this woman,” McDermott said. So after decades of exile, within a few weeks of Catherine’s visit, the pope packed up his things and headed back to Rome.
“She’s a great example of a laywoman who had strong convictions about the Church and was not timid about expressing them,” said Dr. Karen Scott, an associate professor of Catholic Studies and History at DePaul University in Chicago.
“It was a very different situation from today, so it would be a mistake to think that it’s an automatic equivalent” to the problems of the current Church, Scott told CNA.
“She was living a long time ago and it was a different time and a different Church and different historical set of circumstances…but she was aware of all sorts of problems with the clergy and she believed they ought to be reformed.”
The legend of the opinionated laywoman
What Catherine excelled at in her correspondence with the pope and other clergy was her ability to balance her no-punches-pulled critiques with her profound respect for the Church and the papacy, Scott said.
“There’s a beautiful balance between clear thinking and the ability to see the flaws…but at the same time to be enormously respectful of the Church and the papacy in particular and to base all of this on her deep spiritual life, a life of deep prayer,” Scott said.
“She’s a laywoman who had strong opinions and views on (Church matters) and took action, and amazingly they paid attention,” Scott added. Amazingly, because she was an uneducated lay woman from a modest background who wasn’t particularly well-known.
“They listened to her because what she was saying was so obviously right and sincere and coming out of her prayer and the Gospel,” Scott said.
In total, Catherine wrote at least 381 letters in her lifetime. Three years before her death, she also began dictating “Il Libro” (“The Book”), a collection of her spiritual teachings and conversations with God that became known as “The Dialogue”.
A significant portion of her Dialogue, chapters 110-134, gives insight into her thoughts on the Church reforms needed at the time. Catherine relayed that the “Eternal Father” (how she frequently refers to God the Father) had told her that the biggest problem facing the secular priests of her time was money, while the biggest problem facing priests in religious orders was homosexuality.
Her frank critiques were considered so indelicate that they were excised from many of the English translations of her book, McDermott said.
“She was writing this in the 1300s, she believes it was dictated to her by the Eternal Father, and she’s always a direct hitter, she doesn’t hold anything back,” McDermott said.
But while her dialogues contain punchy critiques of the clergy, she also urged respect for them at the same time, as they are “Christs” on earth who bring Jesus to the world through the Eucharist.
“You should love them (priests) therefore by reason of the virtue and dignity of the Sacrament, and by reason of that very virtue and dignity you should hate the defects of those who live miserably in sin, but not on that account appoint yourselves their judges, which I forbid, because they are My Christs, and you ought to love and reverence the authority which I have given them,” the Eternal Father told Catherine, as recalled in her Dialogue.
While Catherine was successful at bringing the papacy back to Rome and brokering peace between Florence and the Eternal City, the period known as the Great Schism, or the Western Schism, would begin just two years before her death.
“It wasn’t crystal clear who the real pope was,” McDermott said, noting that even some saints who are now canonized had sided with opposing claimants at the time. “So that must have also seemed like the end of the world.”
“St. Catherine was totally horrified,” Scott said, “because for her, Church unity was really essential.”
During this time, French cardinals had elected a leader as the Pope, and later on, the Council of Pisa also elected a claimant. St. Catherine sided with the claimant residing in Rome, Urban VI, and moved there in the last few years of her life to advocate for him and offer intense prayer and penance for the Church.
When she died in 1380, a result of illness brought on by her extreme penances, the western Church was still in schism, and would remain that way until the conclusion of the Council of Constance in 1418.
“Some historians, I think specifically less faithful ones or who don’t have a life of faith…will say well Catherine really failed, because her goal was to bring the Pope back to Rome to heal the divisions in the Church, but how could she have succeeded if the greatest schism of the Western Church occurs after she dies?” Pakalu said.
“I don’t know that’s quite the right view. We never know the hypothetical of history, we never know what would have happened without Catherine’s influence, and she does at least initially bring the Holy Father back to Rome before she died and that was pretty important,” she said.
“My guess is that the Church was able to survive the Great Schism because she got certain things lined up before she died.”
Catherine’s lessons for Catholics today
“What would she say today? I think that’s a dangerous question,” Scott said, “because we can’t say how she would relate to the current issues and complex questions, except that she would know very well what the moral stance is, that bishops and priests and lay people should all follow.”
Catherine would set the highest of standards for honesty and integrity and pastoral concern for the laity, Scott said, as well as the highest standards “for avoiding schism and being close to the papacy.”
“Beyond that I think she would advise people to take the time to pray and discern and not have knee-jerk reactions to things,” she added.
Pakaluk said that she thinks there are three lessons to be learned from Catherine’s life and example, with the first being that any activist role in Church politics must be rooted in deep prayer and love for the Church.
“I wouldn’t say don’t get involved until you’re as holy as Catherine … but to do activism or public ministry without that deep commitment to prayer would be completely absurd and would not be faithful to her life or her example,” she said.
The second lesson, she said, would be to take the long view of history. The Church has survived hard times and scandal before, and she can survive them again.
“I am horrified at outraged at what I’m seeing and hearing about” regarding the current scandals, Pakaluk said.
“But I’m not personally disturbed, my faith isn’t challenged, because I’m so familiar with (ages) in the Church’s past, particularly and especially the one that Catherine lived through, in which there was so much corruption and so much disappointment on the part of the faithful with respect to the hierarchy and some members of the clergy,” she said.
“So it doesn’t disturb me because I think well, why would it be different? Why would we think we’re better? Why do we think we’re completely immune to some of the things that have occurred in the past?”
The third thing Catholics can learn from St. Catherine is that it is possible to be a saint even in the most trying times in the Church, Pakaluk said.
“She’s there in Heaven, she ran the race, she made it,” she said. “We can look at her not only like ‘we can do it too’, but she’s our older sister, and we can follow her and ask her to intercede for us.”
McDermott said that Catholics should be heartened by St. Catherine’s witness because even while she prolifically wrote about the problems of the Church, she never once hinted that she was thinking about leaving.
“She would’ve said don’t leave the Church, this is the human, sinful side of the Church that is being reflected. And the good of the church – stay and purify it,” he said.
“Our love for Christ and the Church – the two are inseparable – is shown in hard times when it doesn’t feel very good to be a Catholic, that we keep on walking with Christ and the Church.”
This article was originally published on CNA Sept. 16, 2018.
[…]
Fr Jerry, perhaps you may have mentioned the US coup against the elected proRussian government, the plebiscite in Crimea, the artillery shelling of Russian speaking citizens in Donbas and Lugansk and the corruption of the Biden family in reaping a harvest of $80k a month from Ukraine. Russia’s demands before the war were plainly stated and for anyone who holds the consent of the governed as a tenet would deem them to be reasonable and realistic. Would the US tolerate an armed Russian presence in Canada and Mexico? Biden provoked this war by instigating the NATO initiative in Ukraine.
Sounds reasonable.
Everything you said was an out and out lie. You just repeated Russian propaganda, word for word. Shame on you. The Russians had a puppet regime installed in Ukraine since 1992. When the Ukrainian people finally ousted the installed Russian puppet, you call it a “coup” just as the Russians did. Honestly, you Russian disinformation people need to get a more sophisticated way of entering comment sections. You guys are way too obvious and simple quick internet searches easily show that everything you said was a lie. Keep on trying, though, Putin loves you.
Really? Same Ukrainian people who, under Bandera fought alongside the Nazis and killed close to a quarter million polish civilians during the war simply because they were polish? Biden did foment this war, his drug addicted son Hunter did have a substantial financial interest in Burisma and the Azov crew is still just as nazi oriented as it was under Bandera. Small wonder the Democrat Party, the party of antifa thugs, is wholeheartedly supporting them…
Wow,Jerry and Father, you couldn’t be righter-on about how wrong the US is in this Ukainian proxy war.
What can ordinary citizens do? The lock the likes of Boeing and other US arms makers have on Congress means our support of proxy wars will only grow. Should we become tax resisters in order to avoid what Pope Francis has said is “innocent blood on their hands” of all who support unleashing all these weapons into the world?
Standard left wing talking points from the 80’s. Standard Russian propaganda.
You raise some important questions in need of answers, Jerry.
God bless!
Mark
Here’s the constitutional acid test: Either the US Congress declare war on Russia or we stay thr hell out of any armed conflict between combatants.
When we violate the tenets of the Constitution ( like when the FBI raids someone’s private residence based on a flimsy political maneuver to get some half-witted judge to sign off on the oder), we’re in serious trouble as a country whose supposed legitimacy is based on laws and the consent of the governed.
SECRET TEAM by Fletcher Prouty explains how the US is governed by the CIA. It is a battle as to who governs the US.
Eisenhower warned us to be careful about ‘congressional, military, industrial complex’. Follow the money trail to know why we go from one war to another.
It’s too bad that this article had to debut on the day Ukraine begins its counterattack and re capture of the Kherson region. It’s very early yet, but it sounds as if the Russians are trapped on that side of the river, and the Ukrainians have expertly implemented a “flytrap maneuver” where they lure as many forces into an indefensible position, and then proceed to eliminate them after removing their supply lines. Bad timing.
On the contrary: perfect timing. That long awaited counter-offensive has been failing, at an horrendous cost in Ukrainian lives and limbs.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/ukraine-a-counteroffensive-that-was-destined-to-fail.html#more
This comment aged like room temperature milk lol
Good to see a little skepticism voiced here.
It really does seem a proxy war of the West against Putin and we’re fighting it using Ukrainian lives.
Standard Russian propaganda line. I should point out that Putin has a building full of people who are professional internet commenters. In fact, he used to send them to Catholic web sites in particular, to tell us that Putin was the most Christian man in the universe. Remember a few years back, when Catholic comment sections were filled with people praising Putin? It was his paid boys, figuring that Putin could win over American hearts and minds by appealing to Christian people. But it was all fake. The head of the Russian Orthodox church is a KGB plant, who Putin in stalled in power. The Russian patriarch endorsed this invasion of Ukraine, telling Russians how wonderful it was that the Russians were bombarding civilians every day. Anyway, Putin’s people come to comment sections and spill their fairly obvious blather. It’s always the same talking points. “The US is willing to fight until the last Ukrainian life” is a standard Russsian talking point. The Russian planted comments are failing on most political web sites, I suppose they figure the Catholic web sites are the only places they can spin their nonsense.
I realize that every interest out there including Russia has internet commenters, but I still think this is the best explanation I’ve heard. Whether it comes from Putin, a libertarian, or whomever.
Whichever way you look at it the poor Ukrainians are getting killed & the West sees the war as an opportunity to take down Putin at the Ukrainians expense. We knew this was coming & I think we have some accountability.
Well said.
“When two scorpions are fighting on the other side of the world without violating a persuasive or demonstrable American interest, it is best to stay out of their way.” When across the street in New York, a rapist is attacking anyone other than your sister (literally, the untold story of the Russian invasion), “it is best to stay out of their way.”(?)
But, theoretically yes, one lesson from Afghanistan is to have a possible “exit strategy,” something better than our mindlessly abrupt betrayal of Western collaborators (and Afghan women). And, unlike yet another “anomaly,” are we really to believe that some kind of Western defense of Ukraine is really like the superfluous and overreaching “nation-building” rhetoric attached to Islamic Iraq, with its (pre)historic sectarianism and culture of folk-level clan reprisals? As for the anomaly of “Russian speaking” peoples in eastern Ukraine, this equally uncredentialled observer recalls reading that they are, however, Ukrainian in national identity. Not too many Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the war zone trying to escape east into Russia.
Still too many apples-and-oranges “anomalies” in your analysis (the “pandemic”, the “FBI”, and the “abortion” culture…puleeze). In the meantime, how about a “tiny minority view [that also] will be easily dismissed” on how the (post)Western LGBTQ scorpion has invaded the Catholic Church itself, as now behind the tank treads of boundary-challenged synodality?
I cannot help but see this as another European war where Christians are killing Christians. Who benefits?
Who benefits should always be the first question.
My cousin died serving in active duty in the UN Vietnam war when I was seven. My priests constantly, intensely condemned all war as evil in their homilies. With the draft on, and loving Jesus as my main goal in life, my life deteriorated into massive Spiritual distress. At age sixteen, I finally laid out my overwhelming Spiritual distress to my priest. My priest stated, “It is your duty to serve your country. When you get back, come to the Church and she will help you with all the evil you have done.” I ran out of the confessional and fell to my knees in front of Jesus Crucified and begged God to help me with my Spiritual distress which I could no longer bear.
From behind the protection of Swiss Guard snipers, St. Pope John Paul II stated, “Violence is never the answer!” I know that St. Pope John Paul II, as temporal ruler over sovereign nation Vatican City State, had two confirmed kills. These two killings did not convince St. Pope John Paull II to rid armed Swiss Guards and Italian police from the small nation he ruled over.
So Father Jerry, before we get into the intense complexity of kills in the Ukraine, what is your opinion on, Jesus’ Will on when to kill for the protection of the innocent? Is it Jesus’ Will for Popes to wield their armed Swiss Guards or Italian police to protect themselves, and their property, as St. Pope John Paul II, did, and stood ready to do again, even after he felt his two confirmed kills were simply collateral damage?
You see, Fr. Jerry, of the three priests I have asked about Catholic ‘Just War Theory’, and they have all responded, “Catholic ‘Just War Theory’ is a Church Teaching, and Not the Will of our Lord Jesus Christ!” I am always, and I mean always, amazed and confused as to how our Catholic Church could ever have a teaching, which they themselves believed to be in direct opposition to the Will of our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Consider what could be in this for America.
Across the Bering Strain from Alaska lie the contiguous Russian regions of Chukotka, Kamchatka, Magadan, Sakha, Krasnoyarsk and (with 90 per cent of Russia’s oil and gas) Yamalia. The combined territory of these regions has a population no larger than that of Scotland.
If those were to be incorporated as Territories of the USA, the American “can do” attitude and technology could unlock virtually limitless reserves of raw materials. That move would put China at a seruious geopolitical disadvantage.
Father Jerry your “naïve, uncredentialed, armchair foreign policy” insights surpass those of every political, journalistic and think tank hack inside the beltway. George Weigel, among many others, would greatly profit from reading your well-considered views and taking them to heart.
Finally, some sense, some perspective. It has been troubling seeing so many enthused for this war and extremely troubling seeing so many of our Catholic bishops supporting this unrealistic cause.
It is not taking sides to note that this needless, useless war was primarily due to incompetent diplomacy. The soldiers are trying to clean up the mess made by the politicians. By the way, the Russians won two months ago.
My sons are of military age. Neither will be serving in the military nor have expressed interest. College, career, family? Absolutelyz Dying or living maimed for life for a nation who flies the rainbow flag at the American embassy to the Holy See? No thanks. This nation is finished. Most haven’t figured it out yet.
I most reluctantly agree.
The US is no longer a force for good in the world. It’s just a force for Queer ideology and Green-facist-degrowth-collapse.
What has not been mentioned much in the context of this conflict is that Ukraine has one of the lowest birthrates in the world. Now the flower of its manhood is being wasted fighting a war that almost certainly cannot be won and, the longer it goes on, will leave the nation worse off in every way. Zelinsky and the people who control the Biden Administration don’t care a bit about this of course. It is sad that a people who suffered so grievously under the Soviet Union are being ruthlessly sacrificed to further the ambitions of those who would have been strong supporters of Stalin.
The Ukraine has had a low birthrate and high surrogacy rate. Surrogate births have been an industry there.
I read an article maybe on the BBC site about a married woman carrying someone else’s child. The article focused on how the war was affecting the family but it should have mentioned the Ukraine’s preexisting state of affairs when wives have to turn into virtual concubines to keep food on the table.
My heart has always been troubled and divided over this from Day 1. I have been close to Ukrainians and know their love of homeland and culture and share their love for the Byzantine liturgy. But anyone who looks at a map can understand why any average Russian would be concerned about who controls the warm water ports on the Black Sea and that it makes a huge, common-sense, practical difference to them whether NATO or Moscow does. They do not need to share Putin’s national romanticism to consider this a very important matter of national security.
A neutral “Swiss” version of the Ukraine was the best hope to preserve it in peace, and after a few years of increasing misery and death perhaps one day that will be a thought that comes again. Now, as always, the little people are paying the horrific price for the “big picture” assessments and actions of the powerful. Did anyone in the west consider them before deciding not to compromise with Putin?
Further, anyone with even a small understanding of the Russian soul knew that “sanctions” would not stop the war. The historic Russian capacity for suffering, and suffering in war, is something that few on our sheltered continent can understand. The Europeans have experienced it, and that partly accounts for their greater reserve currently (in addition to the wish to hold on to their own comforts).
Where this ends I do not know, my heart is with the Ukrainians and their hope for total victory, but I do not see any way Russia backs out of the Donbass and the route to the Crimea, letting go of those ports, despite what losses they might incur. That means for all the little people there is no home to go home to anytime soon.
Does anybody else think if Trump had been President that Russia would not have massed armies along the Ukraine border. Putin respected the power of Trump and vice versa. Biden’s weakness to allow Russia to invade Ukraine and his cowardly use of sanctions too little and too late plus the miserly and slow military support when the NATO nations responded so immediately got us down this rabbit hole.
You are of course 100% correct.
Everyone knows that world tyrants are free when the Obamas and Bidens are cutting deals.
That’s just the way it rolls g CG or the people that get squashed…
My thoughts too Nora.
From Donum Vitae “God alone is the Master of life from its beginning until its end; no one under any circumstances can claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human life.”
Abortion is an act of violence upon the innocent, but even today as Christians, do we not still condone violence? The term ‘Just War’(Theory) continually shatters the reality of this teaching given by the Church.
The teaching by the church on a Just War is nothing more than a minefield with regards to its application of justified murder. Can there be anything more perverse than giving the Holy Eucharist to opposing Christian soldiers just before going into battle against each other?
Prior to Luke 22:36, we have Luke 22:35 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out without purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing, they answered”
So, from now on we see the divide between the true believer/follower who trusts in God alone whereas those who rely on possessions need to protect them, as in
Luke22;36 “But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one” and since the time of Christ, we see the continual escalation of violence.
But of course, society at large must be governed by the rule of law, and we need a police force to enact it, etc. But the use of Violence-‘an act of physical force that causes or is intended to cause harm’ was condemned by Christ when Peter struck the High Priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear He said, “Put away your sword,” Jesus then told him. “Those who use the sword will die by the sword” (Violence)
Before writing the poem below my initial thought prompting me to write it was, can anyone imagine Jesus Christ carrying a gun, never mind using one, dropping a bomb on civilians/soldiers from an aircraft, or sticking a bayonet into anyone, etc? I think not, as we see His disarming action when we approach Him on The Cross and when/if this disarming action is encountered in a real-life situation, it confronts our own values and for a Christian, it should induce humility.
“Attach bayonets! courage and glory are the cry, do or die
First over the Parapet
John leads the Ferocious attack
While opposing Hans reciprocates the advance to the death dance
In a crater of mud both stood
Eye met eye one must die
But who would hold true to the Christian creed they both knew?
‘To be’ the sign of the Cross,
To ‘give’ without counting the cost
Abandon bayonet, bowed head, bending knee, faith/love the other did see
Worldly values gone the other in humility now holding the same song/prayer.
Two quotes from another poster on another site, in italics.
“But it (Violence)must sometimes be used in self-defence”
I am sure that we all would respond and defend a loved one or vulnerable person if they were been attacked and attempt to restrain the attacker within the confines of the law and violence could occur but it would not be premeditated. In English law, if a burglar entered your house and in attempting to restrain him, you killed him, you would not be guilty of murder but if you had kept a machete under the bed to use in the possibility of an attempted break-in and you killed the intruder with it, you would be prosecuted for murder as the occurrence would be premeditated. So yes, our intent is the key.
“According to you, we must let Hitler get away with his plan since we cannot fight back”
Jesus tells us that His Kingdom (Values) is not of this world. We are not to be alarmed by wars or rumors of them. And by implication partake in them. Terms such as collateral damage (definition: 1. during a war, the unintentional deaths and injuries of people who are not soldiers.) Are just a cover to justify the premeditated ‘ever-increasing violence of war.
I personally believe that as Christians we cannot fight back with the weapons of the world for to do so is to contribute to the never-ending ‘increasing’ cycles of injustice within war, leading us further into the “Signs of the End of the Age” see Matt 24:1-28 but we can fight back with His teachings on love/truth/justice that is found within the Gospels when we also recognize/embrace the reality of The Cross (The Way the Truth and the life)
Quote from another poster (Marty) on this site “After nearly 2,000 chaotic, planet-destroying years of going our own way (always ‘In His Name’, of course!) isn’t it time, at last, for us to follow Jesus in truth?’
kevin your brother
In Christ
Addendum to my post above
A previous posters comment on my post above
“Not giving Holy Eucharist, a Viaticum, to Christian soldiers, would be more perverse”
Perverse- definition is – turned away from what is right or good; Corrupt
Here are some similar responses to yours in italics given under another article with my responses which demonstrate Perversion definition- alter (something) from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended:
“Is the individual on either side to be denied salvation?
Salvation comes from serving a lively conscience, reception of the Holy Eucharist should enliven it, as Christians, we serve God first.
“Only God reads the individual’s hearts. So yes, combatants on either side should be given Communion and the Sacraments”
Giving the Holy Eucharist to a combatant on both sides just before going into battle is to deaden that man’s conscience in relation to the teachings of Jesus Christ the King of Peace, Love, and Justice.
“Soldiers are not always able to discern what it is exactly all about”
Knowing and giving the Holy Eucharist by the ordained ministry is to collude with that ignorance by condoning it, in effect, they are propagating the violence of War between Christians. You may not see this as being perverse, but I do.
“There are many complexities to war. So, the individual combatant is not always aware nor capable of discerning what is actually happening”
Yes, as many complexities (Crimes of violence) are associated with war while combatants and military personnel often say” We were just following orders” But our Christian faith demands more of us, as our consciences must serve justice.
“We are not pacifists as other sects are”
The first recorded conscientious objector was Maximilianus, conscripted into the Roman Army in the year 295, but “told the Proconsul in Numidia that because of his religious convictions he could not serve in the military”. He was executed for this and was later canonized as Saint Maximilian.
We all walk in our fallen nature, nevertheless, I am sure that throughout the ages many Christians have gone into battle on both sides thinking that they are doing God’s will aided and abetted by a worldly hierarchical church.
So “Can there be anything more perverse/corrupting than giving the Holy Eucharist to opposing Christian soldiers just before going into battle against each other?”
I think not, to think otherwise is to hold the teachings of the crucified Christ in contempt.
kevin your brother
In Christ
You keep repeating the same pacifist bologna. Even those who oppose US involvement overseas I’m sure are sick of hearing it.
Thank you, Justin, for your response “I’m sure are sick of hearing it
Possible because those who will not respond to this question honestly Apostatise
So “Can there be anything more perverse/corrupting than giving the Holy Eucharist to opposing Christian soldiers just before going into battle against each other?”
kevin your brother
In Christ
As a life-long Ukrainian Catholic, I’m stunned. Your description of the situation is chock-full of inaccuracies – too many for me to detail.
If you believe that the war will end in a peaceful settlement with new boundaries, you are mistaken. Putin’s openly stated goals go well beyond that. If you don’t believe me, please look at this:
https://ccl.org.ua/en/news/ria-novosti-has-clarified-russias-plans-vis-a-vis-ukraine-and-the-rest-of-the-free-world-in-a-program-like-article-what-russia-should-do-with-ukraine-2/
Even if he’s defending Russian speakers means he’ll need to take the whole country, since there are Russian speakers throughout.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the majority of civilians who have died or have been forced to flee are Russian speakers. And they are not enthusiastic about living in the Russian Federation. If this is Catholic World’s view, then I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of your articles or editorials.
Between Pope Francis’ warm words for Patriarch Kirill (the Orthodox Patriarch of Russia who has blessed the invasion as a Holy War) and articles like this one, I’m very disenchanted.
Think whether the course of action you advocate may not result in greater death and suffering than would continuing support for Ukraine.
Well stated. The fact that Ukraine does not meet Western standards of democratic governance did not give Russia a right to invade. Ukraine was no threat to Russia. The application of sanctions and military action against other countries was tried in the Spanish-American War and the Franklin Roosevelt incursions into Central American countries in the 1930s. They can not be said to be unalloyed successes. Finally, there is the matter of Putin’s less than stable personality. Even Russian supporters are apprehensive about what may come of it. They have the recent events in Afghanistan to remind them that even the efforts of two super powers left things in arguably worse condition than before. It will not be easy for all parties to extricate themselves from the briar patch they have created.
How refreshing to see a priest looking at the big picture. Ukraine is a corrupt non democratic government. We fled Afghanistan which was declared so important to our national security…but now its not and Ukraine is. This war could have been easily prevented. Now we are dumping billions in a country and nobody really knows where the weapons and money end up. The real victims are the people of Ukraine. After many years in uniform and serving in the Middle East I now realize Gen Smedley Butler was right “War is a Racket”…Americans have lost the ability to think. Reminds me of Bishop Sheen when he said Americans had outsourced their opinion to their favorite paper editorial piece. Now Americans have outsourced there intelligence to their favorite cable news network and cant think for themselves about COVID, Ukraine, or anything besides the gossip columns…Our Lady pray for us!
Right on dude, “er” Father!
“There is an occupational danger for a priest living close to Washington, DC. A predisposition for politics and foreign affairs can eclipse his religious mission.”
Perhaps this is why Father Pokorsky does not make a single reference to the thoughts and opinions of Catholic Church leaders, bishops, clergy, religious and lay people who are actually living in Ukraine. The Catholic seminaries in Ukraine are full, as just one indicator of the health of the Ukrainian Greek and Roman Catholic Churches there. But it seems those who had to pray as members of an illegal Church under Communism, and those who pray now able to pray openly as Catholics have no thoughts worth quoting in articles like this on Catholic websites. Ignorance of our Church in Ukraine and its people seems to lead to a parochial arrogance that is very sad to see.
Here’s a terrifying reality that most Americans don’t know, but military and former military are learning, and candid commentators in the public square are disclosing:
A. the US military across the board for FY22 ending 31 Aug recorded a most historic failure in recruiting enlisted men, getting only btw 40-45% of minimum manpower required.
B. the Army is in the low 40%’s…
C. same with US Navy, apparently…
D. Yesterday, even the Coast Guard is reporting enlisted recruitments at only 50% minimum goals, and its ships at sea are operating with only 60-70% manning levels.
The US Military is now run by the same fanatics as all other federal agencies: fanatics of Queer ideology, racist anti-American CRT propaganda, and radical green-economic-govt-forced-collapse. Tbe US military leadership hss declared open war on Church-going men of military age, and the result is their parents have warned them not to sacrifice their lives for LGbTQ-Abortion and Green-Socialist-Police-State.
If the rotten-decadent left is not ousted in the next 2 election cycles, it’s game over for the USA, and game on for the Obama-Biden-alliance-for-the-new-USSA.
And any freedom loving people around the world, or in tbe d USA, are on their own.
Some disdain here and there about “just war theory” which, in a nutshell and in a very imperfect world, maintains morally that the goal must be limited to restoring a broken justice, and that even the means employed must not be unrestrained. (I am not surprised, however, that three consulted Pax Christi priests had nothing very informative to say to Steven Merten, above, about this actual Church teaching. Nor—as a Vietnam Veteran–am I specifically defending his subject Vietnam War, nor the erroneous USS Turner Joy torpedo claim [!] behind Congress’s authorizing Tonkin Gulf Resolution.)
Also, some appeals, above, to compromise, but without any clues as how then to at least avoid, say, a replay of Nevil Chamberlain’s appeasement at Munich in 1938? Nor much sense of instructive history, in general.
Nor, anything about the difference to the American public, between sending only armaments this time, and not arms and legs. Nor the inseparable implications for the vulnerable Baltic nations who probably have something to say about recent Soviet occupation and access to the North Sea. Of course (!), it’s partly a proxy war. An explosive rat’s next, this convoluted, and over-militarized, and hair-trigger modern world…
But we are also reminded of the ground-level wisdom that while one does always have the right to peacefully surrender oneself to aggression, those responsible for the common good do not have such a right to hand over the throats of their wives and children to the knife of an assailant.
Just some added thoughts about our imperfect and very fallen world.
Well said Peter B.