By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
What does a 900-year-old crusader sword discovered underwater by divers have in common with a rape on a Philadelphia commuter train last week?
They both point to the fact that human nature hasn’t changed much, if at all, in the past millennia.
Divers made the exciting discovery of a weapon dating to the Third Crusade in 13 feet of water. It’s easy for us to imagine a time when everybody had to be their own police force, body guard, and army combined. If you didn’t carry a weapon, you couldn’t defend yourself. If you didn’t defend yourself, there was no guarantee anybody else would. In those days you didn’t just call grab your cell phone and call 911.
Men of faith were willing to travel to the limits of the known world to defend the holy places and those who practiced the faith of Christ in the land of Christ.
But, perhaps we no longer have to imagine it at all. Not if it’s happening right under our own noses.
In our own day we have abandoned the walls even of our own borders. Enemies walk in unchallenged and raid the country of goods and services with impunity. Some go on to commit crimes. And some of them are repeat offenders. To add insult to injury they are let off the hook to do it all over again. They rape, steal, and further break down the bonds of social cohesion.
Like the illegal immigrant rapist unchallenged in flagrante delicto on a Philadelphia train. He walks the land committing crimes because many of us have lost the will to defend what little we believe still worth defending. And he is already known to the justice system.
Recently in Philadelphia, we saw his latest crime play out, which made it seem as though the world reverted to 900 years ago. The illegal immigrant raped a woman on a moving train in full view of bystanders, some of whom were raising their phones in her direction, possibly videotaping or taking photos, but none of them intervened to stop the assault. Disturbing.
Evidently the victim wasn’t carrying her personal sword that night. Evidently no one used their phone to call the police; you know, the guys who carry the weapons for the purpose of defending others who don’t.
Human life is fragile and needs to be defended. But also human beings, all suffering the concupiscence which remains after Baptism, are prone to sin. We live in a society that wants to deny both. Deny sin and you perpetuate the myth that no one needs weapons. Leave people defenseless and evildoers claim more innocent victims.
The truth is dangerous. And for that reason unpopular. The truth is also inconvenient for those who seek the favor of a world in denial about the basic fact of human imperfection.
It’s also deadly for the faith if we ignore or deny the truth about human nature and the reality of sin. Faith is worth defending because, without it, souls are lost. Souls without purpose and direction need and deserve the solid foundation clear teaching conveys.
Peddlers of confusion running rampant in the conciliar Church, however, claim that truth is judgmental, “rigid,” and lacking compassion.
Flirting with falsehood and courting heresy seems to be the current fad in the Church. “Fr.” Martin and Nancy Pelosi, the fake-Catholic faces of the LGBT and abortion agenda, are lauded and championed by the Pope. They are rewarded with personal audiences with “pop-pops” and photos to prove it. All without a hint of correction from the one most responsible for teaching and defending all of the truth without exception.
Fr. Gerry Murray, writing about the current Synod on Synodality in The Catholic Thing, has this to say: “Isn’t the mission of the Church’s hierarchy to teach God’s people the truths of the Faith, especially in times such as ours when religious ignorance and doctrinal confusion have produced a situation in which a Pew survey revealed that 70 percent of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist? Is it the job of the hierarchy to change ecclesial structures, whatever that means? Which mentalities need renewal, and what new mentalities need to be adopted?”
The Vatican walls are vestigial reminders that, given the spiritual vacuum they surround, they have nothing of value left to defend.
The recently launched “synod on synods” promises more of the same denial and evasion, like the synods which gave rise to Amoris Laetitia, granting approval to Communion for adulterers, along with an ever growing list of other papal novelties.
I agree with Fr. Murray: “It will be a disaster for the Church if the next two years consist largely in a prolonged questioning of the Church’s doctrines by dissident Catholics who have ceased to believe in many of the truths taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That is what is happening in Germany right now. May the universal Church be spared such a fate.”
Fr. Murray tells us that, contrary to the Church’s longstanding purpose for synods, which is to assist the Pope in teaching and defending doctrine, this synod will be very light on doctrine and heavy on lived experiences, even of those who deny the faith. Quite a reversal.
“Despite the denials, it’s clear that the purpose of the Synod on Synodality is to produce a final document that will give suggestions to the Pope about how to deal with serious questions in the life of the Church. And this is where the peril lies in launching a two-year process that is heavy in vague, undefined, and emotive categories that highlight people’s lived experience, and rather light in the Scriptural and doctrinal treasures of the Church, which are under tremendous threat from determined opponents outside of the Church, and reckless innovators within the Church.”
My parish has a synod every Sunday, when we dine together after Traditional Latin Mass. These intentional Catholics spend time with each other outside of church, which is where horizontal conversations take place. Or, rather, should take place.
At our weekly parish “synod” we build up the Church through strengthening friendships, discovering the needs of others, offering help and receiving help in return. We commit ourselves to loving and serving one another. That is where the Church always begins her witness, with her own members. This process must always begin in spending time with one another.
Our ongoing local “synod,” then, is about building up the faith once received from the apostles. Together we seek Christ, “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” We reject novelties, which often amount to nothing more than sugar-coated heresies. We understand that our weak humanity, prone to sin, must be defended with the sword of truth. We know human nature hasn’t changed. And that Christ knows human nature well.
We’re prepared to defend any vulnerable souls who are faced with the violence of destructive lies peddled by agents of the Devil, prowling and seeking whom he may devour, with the sword of truth entrusted once and forever to the Church.
Human life and faith are both vulnerable. Those unwilling to defend life may lose it. There is only one tragedy more dire: to lose one’s faith and, with it, the immortal soul’s enjoyment of eternal life.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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