Editor’s Note: Commenting on the new “religion of Woke,” which believes that “American society is irredeemably racist and heteronormative and, therefore, must be torn down,” William Kilpatrick of the Turning Point Project says that “the religion of Woke is not really a new religion. It’s simply one more iteration of an old religion — the religion of humanism. The basic assumption of this religion is that there is nothing higher than man and the institutions he has created. Despite the pleasant-sounding name, ‘humanistic’ religions regularly end up committing human sacrifice of one kind or another. The good of the individual is sacrificed to the needs of the state. Preborn babies are sacrificed to the ‘quality of life.’ And dissenters from the official creed are simply exterminated.”
It is not surprising then, says Kilpatrick, “that the Woke faithful, like their Communist compatriots, tend to be anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and anti-God. They have broken stained-glass windows, torn down statues of saints, and vandalized dozens of churches and synagogues. Hostility to religion is a hallmark of leftist movements and the Woke religion is nothing if not a leftist movement. The Red Guard of the movement are Black Lives Matter and Antifa, both of which are avowedly Marxist groups.”
He says that this raises a question regarding how the Catholic leadership is responding to this new Woke religion since it is not only “drawing souls away from Christianity, it is, in many respects, diametrically opposed to the Christian faith. For example, Black Lives Matter, which is a member in good standing of the Woke alliance, strongly supports abortion and the LGBT agenda while simultaneously seeking to dismantle the traditional family.”
He says that “the rebellion is against the God-ordained institution of marriage as between one man and one wife — the institution that God established ‘from the beginning of creation’ (Mark 10:6).”
One would think, Kilpatrick continues, “that the USCCB should issue a statement to the effect that a Catholic cannot in good conscience join BLM or support them. Some bishops and priests have made that point, but most seem content to sit on their hands, waiting to see how The New York Times handles the issue. Meanwhile, several U.S. priests have been reprimanded or suspended by their bishops for having dared to criticize the BLM organization.”
He says that the bishops seem more concerned about “the environment of the rainforests and grasslands when the environments of Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle are going up in smoke. . . . In cities across the country, temperatures are soaring as the advance troops of the militant Church of Woke set fire to buildings and blocks full of businesses. And as the businesses go up in smoke, so do the chances of the poor for rising out of poverty.
“Moreover, when times get tough in the cities, the middle and upper-middle classes tend to move out, leaving the poor stranded in urban areas with shrinking income bases. So maybe it’s time for the bishops to get their heads out of the clouds of climate change and look around at the damage that the Social Justice Warriors (many of whom the bishops indirectly support) have done to the poor.”
Q. The Virginia Catholic Conference has issued a statement opposing the death penalty, citing Pope Francis’ revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2267), which now declares capital punishment “contrary to the Gospel.” But this doesn’t square with the Bible or with Church teaching down through the centuries. What are your thoughts? — D.M., Virginia.
A. You are correct that this new doctrine does not square with that of any of the Holy Father’s Predecessors, or even with Holy Scripture itself. His repudiation of any use of the death penalty, even as a last resort when a society can no longer protect itself against a violent criminal, contradicts both the original paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Pope St. John Paul II, who had strictly limited the use of capital punishment to those “cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity,” recognizing that such cases “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent” (Evangelium Vitae, n. 56).
However, Pope Francis went beyond that nuanced position in a video message in March 2019 to the Seventh World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Brussels, when he said that “the Church has always defended life, and her vision of the death penalty has matured. For this reason, I wanted this point to be modified in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. For a long time, the death penalty was taken into account as an adequate response to the gravity of some crimes and also to safeguard the common good. However, the dignity of the person is not lost even if he has committed the worst of crimes. No one can be killed and deprived of the opportunity to embrace again the community he wounded and made suffer.”
He called the goal of abolishing the death penalty worldwide a “courageous affirmation of the principle of the dignity of the human person” and of “the conviction that humankind can face crime, as well as reject evil, by offering the condemned person the possibility and time to repair the damage done, think about his action, and thus be able to change his life, at least inwardly. It is in our hands to recognize each person’s dignity and to work so that no more lives are taken away, but are won for the good of society as a whole.”
Taking issue with the Holy Father was Edward Feser, associate professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College in California and co-author (with Joseph Bessette) of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed, which traces the history of capital punishment and defends its legitimacy, even in today’s world.
Dr. Feser said in comments to LifeSiteNews that “for the most part, Pope Francis’ latest statement on capital punishment just repeats things he has said before, but there is one element that is not only new, but possibly even more problematic than his previous remarks. The Pope says that the death penalty is ‘a serious violation of the right to life that every person has.’ That obviously gives the impression that capital punishment is a species of murder, and thus always and intrinsically evil rather than wrong only under modern circumstances. And that claim would flatly contradict Scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and every Pope who has spoken on this subject prior to Pope Francis.”
For example, Feser said, “Pope Pius XII explicitly said that a murderer ‘has deprived himself of the right to live,’ so that the state does no wrong in executing him. Francis seems to be directly contradicting Pius XII, as well as, again, other Popes, such as St. Innocent I, Innocent II, St. Pius V, St. Pius X, and even St. John Paul II, who acknowledged that capital punishment can at least in rare cases be legitimate.”
Feser wondered if Pope Francis realizes that he is “inadvertently laying the groundwork for a future Pope to criticize him the way he is criticizing his Predecessors. If 2,000 years of Popes can be wrong about capital punishment — as Pope Francis implies — why should we not conclude instead that it is Pope Francis himself, rather than they, who has gotten things wrong?”
Q. A note in my parish bulletin about going to Confession in a time of pandemic said that “Pope Francis recently remarked that persons who cannot go to Confession for health reasons can go to God directly, be specific about their sins, request pardon, and experience God’s loving forgiveness.” Is this taken out of context? — W.E., New York.
A. No, it’s not. Addressing the question of how to obtain forgiveness of sins when confined to one’s home, Pope Francis said in a homily on March 20 of this year:
“Do what the Catechism says. It’s very clear. If you don’t find a priest to go to Confession, speak to God. He’s your Father. Tell Him the truth, ‘Lord, I did this and this and this. Pardon me.’ Ask His forgiveness with all your heart with an Act of Contrition, and promise Him, ‘Afterward I will go to Confession’.”
The Catechism (n. 1452) says that in the above-mentioned situation, one can make a perfect contrition, which remits venial sins and also “obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible [cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1677].” What your parish bulletin should have mentioned is the obligation to go to sacramental Confession once that is possible again.
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