Editor’s Note: Commenting on President Trump’s speech in Warsaw a month ago, which was belittled by many on the left as “racist” and “xenophobic,” Fr. George Rutler said that “the President spoke of a culture with which a generation of ‘millennials’ have been unfamiliar: ‘Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith, and tradition that make us who we are’.”
Writing in the parish bulletin of the Church of St. Michael in New York City, Fr. Rutler said that the Warsaw speech mentioned three Catholic priests: “Copernicus, John Paul II, and Michael Kozal. The latter was the bishop of Wloclawek who was martyred by the Nazis in Dachau along with 220 of his priests in 1943. Among the irritations in the Warsaw speech were these words: ‘We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.’ As that was being said, the parents of a gravely ill child, Charlie Gard, in London were tussling with government officials who did not want to release their infant to them.”
Fr. Rutler went on to say that “a Polish philosopher, Zbigniew Stawrowski, has written: ‘The fundamental cleavage is not the West v. Islam or the West v. the rest, but within the West itself — between those who recognize the values of Judeo-Christian, Graeco-Roman culture and those who use terms like “democracy,” “values,” “rights,” but pervert the latter. So it means democracy of the elites, values of secularism, rights to kill Charlie Gard, marriage that has nothing to do with sex, sex that…is a “private” matter to be funded by the confiscatory state and your duty is to support this incoherence’.”
Q. I am 71 years old and in twelve years of Catholic school the nuns drilled it into us that there is no talking in church. They said that people are there to worship God without distractions. Once you left the vestibule to go inside the church, you were to be quiet. Since Vatican II, there is less and less respect in church. When did it become okay to talk, socialize in the church proper? — R.T., via e-mail.
A. It never became okay to act in church the same way that one might act at a social gathering outside of church, but people have gradually lost their sense of the sacred and their reverence for holy ground. The pastor is responsible for restoring a sense of reverence among his parishioners, and we know of some pastors who have stressed the importance of a respectful silence in church.
The reasons for this were explained by Francis Cardinal Arinze when he was prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship:
“Faith is the foundation of our outward behavior. It is what we believe that directs how we celebrate. We believe that from the moment of Consecration, the bread is no longer bread; it is now the Body of Christ; the wine is no longer wine, but the Blood of Christ. Christ is really present, the whole Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, the same that was in Bethlehem and in Nazareth and on the cross and after the Resurrection, that Christ, complete.
“As soon as we believe that, the rest becomes consequence: We adore, we genuflect, we do not converse between ourselves in His presence, because Jesus Christ, God and man, is present; we don’t talk as we’d talk on a football field or in a theater. All that becomes consequence. Our faith in the Holy Eucharist, that faith is something in which we can grow, not something we have once and for all. It can grow. We can grow in it, and we should.”
Q. The Gospels tell us that Jesus spoke plainly to the apostles, but in parables to those outside His circle “because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted…because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand” (Matt. 13:13). Why didn’t our Lord speak plainly to the crowds? — P.M., Massachusetts.
A. If we recall that Jesus faced considerable unbelief and hostility in His ministry, we can see the need for presenting the Kingdom in one way to the disbelieving crowd (through parables, such as the sower and seed) and in another way to the disciples (through explanation of the parables). The reason for the different approaches was that the disciples were well-disposed by faith to accept the teachings of Jesus, while the crowds were not. Their hearts were still hardened and their minds were still darkened to an understanding of the reign of God, and they would require a more gradual unveiling of the mystery of the Kingdom.
Jesus was a master at using ordinary events and persons to illustrate profound spiritual truths, but He had to tread cautiously with the people because they were not ready for the truth about His real identity. They were expecting a Messiah who would be a warrior king, not a “suffering servant.” Jesus wanted understanding, acceptance, and healing, but only when the crowds had set aside all obstacles and were truly open to His message and His love. Then, and only then, would the moral lessons hidden in the parables be fully revealed.
Q. We know that the king of Egypt persecuted the children of Israel and only agreed to set them free after God sent ten plagues to afflict the land and change the Pharaoh’s mind. One thing that has always puzzled me is the reference to God “hardening the heart” of the Pharaoh so that he would not let the people go. Does this mean that Pharaoh did not have free will, that God was responsible for his evil actions? — K.R., Connecticut.
A. No, it does not mean that. When God said that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart, it didn’t mean that Pharaoh was not responsible for his actions. He was given plenty of warnings about what would happen if he kept the Israelites in slavery, but the blame for his obstinacy and stubbornness rested on his own shoulders. In other words, Pharaoh hardened his own heart by refusing the demands of the Lord. He was no innocent victim manipulated by God, but a person who had defiantly opposed the Lord’s plan from the beginning.
The phrase “hardening the heart” is a metaphor for the withdrawal of God’s grace from a sinner. This is referenced in the New Testament as God “handing over” the sinner to follow the Godless desires of his own heart. For example, in chapter one of Romans, St. Paul gives this graphic and frightening summary of humanity’s rebellion against the Creator:
“Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and then received in their own persons the due penalty for their own perversity.
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. . . . Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:24-28, 32).
Just as many persons today practice and promote the abominations of abortion and homosexual behavior, even though they know by a law that is written in their hearts that these evils are opposed to the will of God. Yet they still do not see fit to acknowledge God as Creator. They have hardened their hearts to the truth and, barring a miracle of grace, they will suffer spiritual death.
“By your stubbornness and impenitent heart,” St. Paul warned, “you are storing up wrath for yourself for the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay everyone according to his works, eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works, but wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness” (Romans 2:5-8).
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