“The Stupidity Of The Pharisees”
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
On March 25, many participated worldwide in a consecration requested by the bishops of Ukraine according to our Lady’s request at Fatima. But, as we saw, the prayer equivocated. Russia and Ukraine were mentioned, but so was “all of humanity.”
“All of humanity” and “especially Russia and Ukraine.” Did we consecrate Russia according to Heaven’s command? Why the insertion of the phrase “all of humanity”? What is the agenda? The individual soul lost in a formless and vague generalization?
Yes, it is right and good to consecrate “all of humanity.” But that can be done at any time. The purpose of the exercise, consecrating Russia, is lost in a sea of generalization, however, when added as an afterthought to a group which already includes Russia, even with the insertion of the word “especially.”
The purpose of consecration is for the setting aside as holy, for the purposes of God, individuals and nations who otherwise might, without the help of His grace, pursue evil agendas such as killing and war, as Russia is now doing.
We have seen a host of human agendas elevated above the supreme law of the Church, salvation of souls, and the importance of each individual soul in that mission. What happens to the mission of the Church when humanist and globalist goals take first place? A new pharisaism, condemned by Christ.
Global warming, LGBTQ+, the German “Synodal Way” calling for blessing same-sex relationships, changing Church teaching in regard to sodomy, ordaining women, and the rest, all of these and more have been part of an avalanche of heresy inundating the Church and neglecting the first need of every soul.
Priests who oppose these initiatives which endanger souls, if not merely neglecting their highest good are often called “rigid” and falsely, as it turns out, condemned as pharisaical. Some of this comes even from the Pope. The truth is actually the opposite. Our Lord condemned the Pharisees because they elevated man’s laws above God’s by using mere human tradition to encourage and command violation of divine law.
As we read in Matt. 15:1-20, “At that time, scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus from Jerusalem, saying: ‘Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients?’” The Pharisees accuse the Lord’s disciples of ungodliness, violation of the “tradition of the ancients,” only to set themselves up for a blast of divine judgment. The Lord condemns their “pharisaism” for its neglect of and even violation of divine law by twisting mere human traditions to replace and even supplant the will of God.
St. Jerome explains: “The stupidity of the Pharisees and Scribes is something extraordinary. They rebuke the Son of God because He doth not observe the traditions and commandments of men for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. It behoveth us to cleanse, not the hands of the body, but the hands of the soul, namely, our works, that we may do the commandments of God. But He answered and said unto them ‘Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?’ He meeteth here their false accusation by a true. ‘How,’ saith He, ‘do ye, who pass over the commandments of God, in order to keep to the traditions of men, hold that My disciples are to be rebuked, because they deem the tradition of the elders of little moment in comparison with the doing of what they know to be the Laws of God?’”
God, in demanding to be honored, did not intend that parents should be neglected in their need. Doctors of the law were demanding “corban,” sacrificial offerings, while parents went hungry. This did not please God. Pharisaism in a negative sense, then, is making a false accusation of wrongdoing while neglecting and violating higher law, adding scandal into the mix.
The “stupidity of the Pharisees” is found today in the constant drumbeat of globalist and mundane causes churned ceaselessly out of nearly every office and news and media organ controlled by the Vatican. The “stupidity of the Pharisees” today is in the satanic promotion of abortion and population control among the activists championed by being given speaking venues in Vatican conferences. The “stupidity of the Pharisees” today is in the removal of a good Catholic bishop in Puerto Rico, without due process, merely because his brother bishops complained that he violated the worldly dogma of “vaccinism” while refusing to expose his seminarians to the modernist heresy of a collective seminary in that country. The “stupidity of the Pharisees” now is in the closure of a convent in Perugia, Italy, which is perfectly acceptable in all aspects of religious and communal life except for the fact that the nuns failed to get the COVID vaccine.
These are merely a few examples of the Pharisaism which afflicts and endangers the Church today. Souls are neglected for the sake of forcefully imposing a secular, homosexualist agenda which ends by destroying the Church. This is condemned by God as a violation of charity in the neglect of the good of souls. All talk of global love of “humanity,” all vague generalizations, are false when the needs of each immortal soul are denied by obfuscation, deception and lies.
Catholics and priests who reject and fight in opposition to the global collective and homosexualist narrative which violates the good of souls are not the Pharisees; they are not rigid. They are doing the will of the Lord and for this they should be commended. Instead they are opposed and undermined by the new Pharisees within the Church.
I visited a man on his deathbed the week I am writing this. He could no longer speak, unable as he was for over a week at that point to any longer take solid food or liquids. As life ebbed from his body he had lost half of his former weight of over 300 pounds. Morphine was administered orally every three hours to dull the pain resulting from denying sustenance to his organs. The doctors had given him a matter of only hours or days to live.
As I offered the prayers for the dying and asked him to formulate sorrow for his sins, I previewed my own death and saw more clearly in its light. This we should all do in Lent, the ecclesial preparation for the Lord’s death which had to precede His bodily Resurrection. Meditate on death! The death of the Lord encourages us to consider our own end. Will we be in a state of grace so as to die a holy death? How will we endure the pain of dying? Will our end be swift or slow? We cannot know. But die we shall. Of this we can be certain.
Know Church moral and dogmatic teaching. Cling to these truths as to life. This is the will of God for you. The Lord, He who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” is found always in the grace of true teaching and in the suffering necessary for defending the truth.
Thank the Lord for the crosses He sends for you to carry in cooperation with Him. Doing this well, growing in holiness, is what truly matters now, because it is the only thing that will matter when we make our final preparation to meet Him face to face at the end of our earthly lives.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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