Cardinal McCarrick Speaks To Senate Hearing On Immigration

[Tigg]

I found this article written by a Catholic priest about a week ago and although rather lengthy, covers this issue in depth from a theological, philosophical and legal standpoint. It is also spot-on with Church teaching and is the very best one I’ve read. It gives a balance to this issue that is sorely lacking in the blanket statements many of our cardinals and bishops make as is illustrated in the OP.

The human family is the basic cell of society, and thus the first analogue for trying to understand the nation, that is to say, the sovereign state, and for trying to understand the question of the common good. Quite simply, what is true of the family is analogously true of the nation. In both communities, we speak of the common good, in the light of which and in reference to which any community — from the family to the nation — is understood. The common good is that which the members of said community share. The common good is comprised essentially of a community’s patrimony, a community’s traditions, and it bears a community’s general mindset, a community’s social and political vision. **When the common good disappears, so does the community. **A community, therefore, has a right, and an obligation, to protect its patrimony and to invite others to join the community respectful of this patrimony. The common good must be protected and promoted. The common good grows as the community’s members together grow in quality and quantity (number).

To these ends laws are established, for the sake of the common good. The bishops’ statement says that “the rule of law must be respected.” Why? In the end, it is because the common good, which is real, must be respected. The bishops make insufficient mention of the common good. To the degree members of a community transgress the law, they transgress the common good, and thus their neighbor. If certain laws are perceived as not truly serving the common good (immigration laws, for example), they ought to be changed (through channels respectful of the common good), not transgressed — even in the name of charity. Indeed, “our Catholic faith urges us to participate in the public debate with charity,” but it is the common good that, practically speaking, determines the debate, the common good in which Catholics participate and which Catholics must respect.

It has been stated elsewhere by the same local leadership of the Church that the United States currently has “hard and unjust immigration laws.” I ask in what way are they “hard and unjust?” **The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world. In 2008, 1,107,126 people were granted green cards. Where is the hardness and injustice? **If, however, we are speaking of the application of immigration laws — which is a very distinct issue, it ought to be articulated clearly. The distinction is paramount. There are perhaps issues to be addressed regarding the application of immigration laws, **but the leap from humane treatment of illegal immigrants to open borders, as is — for all intents and purposes — suggested, is enormous and erroneous. **One cannot pass from incidents of injustice in the application of laws to generalizations about the laws themselves, thereby undoing their intelligibility. It is a slippery intellectual slope. As suggested above, a very important theological principle regarding the Christian life is negated: “grace does not destroy nature.” And a very important truth about the nature of faith is equally negated: “faith does not destroy reason.”

cis.org/catholics-and-immigration

 

[MumboJumbo]

JR – I address my post to you and would appreciate your comments because I am really trying to understand why Catholics, on average, are so confused about the authentic social justice teaching of the Church and appear to be guilt-ridden by feelings of inadequately caring for those illegals entering our country.

I asked in an earlier post why, in defending the numbers of illegal people, we never hear about the common good which is an essential principle in the social justice teaching of the Chuch. Solidarity does not say that we must put the poor above everyone else, but that we must include the poor as authentic participants in society. Because we are really responsible for all, we must be determined to commit ourselves to the common good.

I believe it safe to say without a doubt, many are ignorant of the adverse affects of millions coming over our borders. Our southern black communities have been especially devastated by jobs lost to them with entire industries being taken over by illegal Hispanics. We see it in the construction industry as well which hits the average American worker trying to support his family in a tanked economy with rising inflation. We hear of bankrupted hospitals and emergency care centers which can no longer sustain the burden. We see the ill effects in the area of education due to bi-lingual programs that academically and economically strip from American kids that which they once had. Our neighborhoods are especially hard hit with reports showing rampant illegal-alien home-loan fraud; yes, also perpetrated by greedy financial institutions. We hear of unprecedented crime and drugs coming into our neighborhoods and subdivisions where covenants are no longer honored, where the physical properties are not being maintained resulting in a further loss of home values. We see what has happened to our National Parks with thousands ruining the land with trash that harms the environment. We hear of identity theft and stolen social security numbers. We see the unsustainable financial burden, and there are reports that indicate if amnesty is passed, there will be millions more coming into this country with an even greater taxpayer burden.

The reality is that Americans are becoming displaced in their own country. Why do our Churchmen continue to ignore these factors which greatly impact the common good?

You seem to know what very few Americans want to admit. The US is under attack. The enemy does not invade with guns but seeks to extract all it can from systems that were built to provide aid to its citizens. The use of the word “immigrant” is just to conceal their real purpose here. The immigrant blends into the system that has already been built. The invader seeks to change that system to their benefit regardless of how it harms the others around them.

If these same immigrants wore uniforms of their home countries, would they still be defended by these religious leaders? I think they would!

They wave their foreign flags at rallies which is their choice. Why? To show loyalty to the country they wish to immigrate to? To say “thank you” to the people who have sent medical and financial aid to them for decades. To show support to those people who fought wars and sacrificed lives, while they stood by doing nothing?

How can these religious leaders support those who destroy whole parishes when they do not return that support financially which they could do easily.

The cry of “immigrants built America” might be true, but how does that give these people rights that are superior to poor Americans. Those immigrants they speak of came from many different lands and contributed a wealthy of knowledge and labor. In order to maintain the “diversity” that truly makes America great, would require a massive deportation of those who entered illegally from Latin America and replace them with true immigrants from around the world which is what the US Immigration system is all about.

My town has been overrun with these so-called immigrants. I have been denied services that these immigrants receive even though I have to pay for them. My county health system has had to fire medical staff to make up for the losses and government services suffer too. There just aren’t enough police or the police have been told to turn their backs on crimes committed by gangs made up of illegals or children of illegals. Sanctuary has come to mean “protected from American justice”.

No country can long endure an infiltration of those who claim to be the victims of injustice while, in truth, it is they who create the injustice to others. When will the Catholic Church and other religious leaders admit their mistake in supporting a cause that is simply another way of making war on the people of the United States.

---

 

[JReducation]

No one has the right to resources at the expense of another. The Church is cognizant of this and so are the bishops. The problem that the bishops have with the average American Catholic is not with law. It’s with the faith of the average Catholic in the USA. This problem is not unique to the USA. The difference between us and our forefathers is that their first concern was always their Church and their faith. They were committed to following their faith and obedient to their bishops and to their Church. This of course earned them the sympathy and protection of the Church.

Too often today, we tend to place nation before Church. In a very subtle way, we have become Protestantized. This is a common tenet of the Reformation Communities, the primacy of nationalism and the subservience of the Church. We have to begin to change this mindset.

Scripture, tradition and the Magisterium have never defended crime. But the Church is very careful in how it defines crime. The Church certainly advocates for the due process of law. But she also reminds us that law must be just. And she reminds us that civil law can never trump moral law. She reminds us that civil law’s definitions are not as perfect as her own definitions.

While civil law says that those who enter a country illegally are criminals, the Church has to proclaim that this definition of criminal is not found in moral law. Therefore, this definition is not only false, but invalid. There is a difference between an illegal alien and an invasion of one nation by another. Our civil system almost equates them. It is this that the Church is denouncing. Because when you equate them, you run the risk of doing real harm to people who are innocent of evil intentions, people who are simply seeking a better life for their families. The Church is not in favor of allowing people to enter any nation and commit crimes against society. If something is immoral, it is immoral in any country, not just the USA. This is another area where American Catholics are getting lost. In the mind of some Catholics, immoral is defined by that which hurts American. If it happens and hurts people in another nation, then it’s not our concern. We have to put distance between that way of thinking and ourselves. If something is immoral, it is always immoral.

Let’s speak about the poor. There are poor people in the USA and in many other societies. The bishops are not saying that we abdicate our duty to those citizens who are poor. What they are saying is that we have resources that we waste. They are also reminding us that what we consider hardship is not always hardship. Not having a TV for every room in one’s home, more than one car, a million dollar home, a closet full of clothes, enough food to throw away, enough money to buy fast food every night, is not a real hardship. But it is this sector of the American people that complains the loudest about the illegal immigrant. It is to this sector of the population that the bishops are speaking and reminding them that detachment from material goods is not only spiritual virtue, but a demand of the Gospels. The bishops are not calling the elderly, the sick, the unemployed, the student, the disabled and others who have real needs to give anything. These folks have nothing to give.

We live in a society (global) where there is a disproportionate distribution of wealth. This is not a call to Socialism. It is a call to justice. You take the average school teacher around the world and you see that these men and women who are dedicated to building society are underpaid, while a young person who goes through a one year program in computers makes double the salary of a teacher who has a Master’s degree and who is providing a necessary service for society. The bishops are calling Catholics to question the way that we use money. Why should a nation not have enough money to help the poor, but have enough money to pay an athlete millions of dollars to play football? There is something immoral here. It is not fine, when these funds are needed for the poor.

The same applies to crime in neighborhoods where there are large concentrations of foreigners. Crime is never justifiable. However, the number of immigrants who are guilty of such crimes is overstated. The government often uses the immigrant as an excuse for not doing its job to protect the innocent. It often hides the fact that crime is out of control in our nation. It is not an immigrant phenomenon. It is a national phenomenon, because we have lost control of our young. You can walk through schools in white anglo communities and find yourself among the most aggressive, selfish, and defiant group of young people. They have a sense of entitlement. Adults exist to satisfy their wants, not to protect them or provide for their needs. When adults don’t do this, they become oppositional and defiant. Adults just justify it by saying, “It’s part of adolescence.” This is nonsense. Adolescence has be around for more than a century. Yes, adolescence is a fairly new state of human development. There was no such a stage prior to the 20th century. Ask any good anthropologist.

The Church is trying to tell us not to blame every ill on the immigrant and penalize the immigrant for evils that are global and for evils that we have created by the uncontrolled expansion of materialism and rights that are not God-given, but man made. We have created so many laws protecting and granting the rights of the young, that they have taken over our institutions and our families. Our decline, moral and economic, is not the fault of the immigrant, but the fault of many. We need to examine our laws and how we apply them. We need to examine our resources and how we distribute them. We need to examine how we pay people and for what services we pay.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[d97c]

JR:
You very cogently discuss the ills of society here in the US. What you say is important. Many changes should be made by people who are God’s creatures to reflect the words of Jesus. I have read the letters the Bishops have written on “welcoming the stranger” and our Bishop here has demanded the parishes have classes on immigration and I attended those. I come aweay with the feeling : we can’t take care of everyone who wants to come into this country. You can’t just say “let everyone in, that’s what Jesus would do!!” These people have made Jesus someone who would do what these people feel like He would do, not what is for the COMMON good. These Catholics who want to feel good about feeling good say we should open the borders IF the person wants to come here. That’s it, end of argument. Frankly, I think that is anytihng BUT Christian. Does this country not have a duty to protect the common good for the people who are Americans? A country without a border is not a country. We have almost a 10% unemployment. Isn’t it Christian to be sure that the American people who are out of work are given the opportunity to get a job before the illegal alien gets one? That takes the alien and the employer BOTH to comply with the laws passed by the people of this country through it’s representatives. It takes the employer to recruit Americans for jobs, it takes the government to, NOW, secure the border, and if the politician who is trying to run the government that has the duty to secure it will not really, really secure it, in onder to get Hispanic votes, that person needs to be defeated. Our current radical President has turned back efforts to secure the border. He wants amnesty for these illegals so he can get the votes if they became citizens. ONCE the border is secured, then and only then can we consider what to do with the illegals here. I personally think that if you made the employers USE the e-verify system available to see if an applicant was an illegal or if the Social Sec number was valid, there would be no job to get and they would return to their origin nation. These people knowingly violating the laws and sneaking in here, and the people hiring them under the table also have DUTIES. Let’s do everything we can to help the poor AMERICANS before we try to take care of the world.

 

[St_Francis]

No one has the right to resources at the expense of another. The Church is cognizant of this and so are the bishops. The problem that the bishops have with the average American Catholic is not with law. It’s with the faith of the average Catholic in the USA. This problem is not unique to the USA. The difference between us and our forefathers is that their first concern was always their Church and their faith. They were committed to following their faith and obedient to their bishops and to their Church. This of course earned them the sympathy and protection of the Church.

Too often today, we tend to place nation before Church. In a very subtle way, we have become Protestantized. This is a common tenet of the Reformation Communities, the primacy of nationalism and the subservience of the Church. We have to begin to change this mindset.

It may well be that many are putting their nation before their Church, but at the same time, it seems like the Church is just abandoning the nation. When bishops agitate for “sanctuary cities,” and the like, that to me is a huge problem. When they ignore the real problems that come alongside illegal immigration, that is a huge problem. In my point of view, they are skewing the problem and the discussion of the problem by not looking at the *reality *of the problem, with is that it is multi-faceted.

Scripture, tradition and the Magisterium have never defended crime. But the Church is very careful in how it defines crime. The Church certainly advocates for the due process of law. But she also reminds us that law must be just. And she reminds us that civil law can never trump moral law. She reminds us that civil law’s definitions are not as perfect as her own definitions.

So are you saying that a nation cannot make a law deciding who will come in?

While civil law says that those who enter a country illegally are criminals, the Church has to proclaim that this definition of criminal is not found in moral law. Therefore, this definition is not only false, but invalid. There is a difference between an illegal alien and an invasion of one nation by another. Our civil system almost equates them. It is this that the Church is denouncing.

Being here illegally is not a felony, but it will get you deported.

Because when you equate them, you run the risk of doing real harm to people who are innocent of evil intentions, people who are simply seeking a better life for their families.

This *really *upsets me. I am really tired of hearing this. First of all, things are not that bad in Mexico, and they were not as bad as they are now back when this problem started.

Things are *much worse *in other countries. To me, if people want to let people come here to the US to find a better life for their families, then let’s set up something whereby people from nations where high percentages of the people are *starving to death, *where people are being killed or enslaved by others, all the truly awful things that are happening around the world! What is this about people who are coming here from a land where the life expectancy is almost the same as it is here?

Do you know how Mexico treats people who enter from the southern border? While their government is agitating for Mexicans to come here, and trying to get us to let them, guess what? Their southern border is *seriously guarded. * They have armed guards, and they do not prosecute their border guards for shooting drug dealers.

They do not treat their immigrants anywhere near as well as we treat ours. You know what? In Mexico, a *legal immigrant *is not permitted to demonstrate. Here we had *illegal immigrants *demonstrating, and we did not arrest them; we have no laws against that.

The Church is not in favor of allowing people to enter any nation and commit crimes against society. If something is immoral, it is immoral in any country, not just the USA. This is another area where American Catholics are getting lost. In the mind of some Catholics, immoral is defined by that which hurts American. If it happens and hurts people in another nation, then it’s not our concern. We have to put distance between that way of thinking and ourselves. If something is immoral, it is always immoral.

The fact that so many are entering illegally is a huge contributor to people coming here illegally and *committing crimes. *There is a huge economy devoted to getting people here illegally and some of those people commit crimes against the very people who have paid them to bring them here, and that is just the beginning. When you have a huge established network for getting people here, quite a large number of those people will be criminals in every sense of the word.

And when bishops say we have to have sanctuary *cities *where illegal immigrants can come and go at their pleasure, you have increased criminal activity. And this is not even good for the illegal immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding, because they are stuck living with the criminals. There have been cases of high school students killed because they will not join a gang! And I am sure a lot of other crimes being committed against them because of the entire situation.

Moreover, these people are harder for the police to find, because their status creates a lack of stability which makes it easier for the police to find them. So it is much easier for them to commit crimes, which will frequently go unreported if they commit them against people who are here illegally, it is much harder for them to be found when there actually is a possibility of catching a perpetrator, and some of the laws make it easier for them to be released into a situation in which they can fade out of sight.

(more)

 

[St_Francis]

Let’s speak about the poor. There are poor people in the USA and in many other societies. The bishops are not saying that we abdicate our duty to those citizens who are poor. What they are saying is that we have resources that we waste. They are also reminding us that what we consider hardship is not always hardship. Not having a TV for every room in one’s home, more than one car, a million dollar home, a closet full of clothes, enough food to throw away, …is not a real hardship. But it is this sector of the American people that complains the loudest about the illegal immigrant. It is to this sector of the population that the bishops are speaking and reminding them that detachment from material goods is not only spiritual virtue, but a demand of the Gospels. The bishops are not calling the elderly, the sick, the unemployed, the student, the disabled and others who have real needs to give anything. These folks have nothing to give.

I have never owned a new car, and I am over 50 years old. My children are about to start going to college. Guess what? In the next state over, my children would have to pay 4 or 5 times the amount that someone who is here illegally would have to pay to go to college, despite the fact that I myself and my family lived there and paid taxes there for decades. I’m not complaining about having to pay out-of=state rates; we decided to move away, but for people who go there *illegally *of pay in-state rates seems over the top.

We do our best not to waste food, and we work hard doing whatever we do. We don’t have tvs in every room; we don’t even have cable or tv over the air.

It used to be that the Church would have missionaries to send to other nations to help the poor there. Now the Church seems to be calling upon us to simply turn a blind eye to people who are breaking our laws coming here and very much disrupting things on the grounds that they are simply “trying to find a better life.”

We live in a society (global) where there is a disproportionate distribution of wealth. This is not a call to Socialism. It is a call to justice. You take the average school teacher around the world and you see that these men and women who are dedicated to building society are underpaid, while a young person who goes through a one year program in computers makes double the salary of a teacher who has a Master’s degree and who is providing a necessary service for society. The bishops are calling Catholics to question the way that we use money. Why should a nation not have enough money to help the poor, but have enough money to pay an athlete millions of dollars to play football? There is something immoral here. It is not fine, when these funds are needed for the poor.

The Church seems not to have an understanding of how economics works. An athlete does something for which people are willing to *pay *millions of dollars. How are we supposed to regulate our economy the way some in the Church say we should?

And how are we supposed to do that esp when the Church is not backing us up? When the Church causes so much disruption that hundreds of thousands *leave *the Church and stop paying attention? When the Church sows confusion by a complete abdication of discipline in so many areas? Why is it that the traditionalists were tossed aside but non-Catholics and advocates of sin can receive the Eucharist, *sometimes from the hands of the Pope himself? *

How are we supposed to build up a culture in which what is more important is more highly valued when the Church won’t even discipline *child molesters??? *When the Church will not excommunicate heretics and advocates of abortion???

I often feel like the Church just does whatever they want, they don’t educate their own people, and then they turn around and expect the laity to accept all this stuff which they had nothing to do with.

The same applies to crime in neighborhoods where there are large concentrations of foreigners. Crime is never justifiable. However, the number of immigrants who are guilty of such crimes is overstated. The government often uses the immigrant as an excuse for not doing its job to protect the innocent. It often hides the fact that crime is out of control in our nation. It is not an immigrant phenomenon.

Crime is not that much out of control in this nation. I lived in Washington DC when it was the “murder capital.” I lived one block away from a main road; one the other side of that street there were murders occurring very regularly, but on my side, no. Crime is out of control in very isolated areas; if you subtracted those areas from the crimes statistics, the crime rate would be a small fraction. A lot of times the police have their hands tied by the over-solicitousness some have for the criminal at the expense of the victims and society, as well as their inability to learn from experience as to how things work.

It is a national phenomenon, because we have lost control of our young. You can walk through schools in white anglo communities and find yourself among the most aggressive, selfish, and defiant group of young people. They have a sense of entitlement. Adults exist to satisfy their wants, not to protect them or provide for their needs. When adults don’t do this, they become oppositional and defiant. Adults just justify it by saying, “It’s part of adolescence.” This is nonsense. …Yes, adolescence is a fairly new state of human development. There was no such a stage prior to the 20th century. Ask any good anthropologist.

And from what I hear, things are no better among Catholics and Catholic school students than they are in the rest of the population. There is little to no difference among Catholics and non=Catholics in their rate of obtaining abortions or divorces, for example.

(more)

 

[St_Francis]

The Church is trying to tell us not to blame every ill on the immigrant and penalize the immigrant for evils that are global and for evils that we have created by the uncontrolled expansion of materialism and rights that are not God-given, but man made. We have created so many laws protecting and granting the rights of the young, that they have taken over our institutions and our families. Our decline, moral and economic, is not the fault of the immigrant, but the fault of many. We need to examine our laws and how we apply them. We need to examine our resources and how we distribute them. We need to examine how we pay people and for what services we pay.

I don’t think that people are blaming illegal immigrants for all this. I think that most people who are upset about the government’s totally ignoring and mishandling this situation fully understand that not all the problems in the US are caused by illegal immigrants and I have never heard anyone say that they are. I don’t think that you are being fair by saying that sort of thing–it’s like a red herring.

I totally agree that we need to do a lot of re-assessing; unfortunately, I really don’t think our society is going to do that any time soon. But we definitely need to overhaul our immigration laws.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

God bless you!

 

[JReducation]

After reading the above posts, I think that we all agree that the problem is bigger than illegal immigratio. The government needs to do its job, but do it correctly, not for the sake of votes. The government has to be held to a moral standard, which it is not following.

It is also true that he bishops are not lawyers, sociologists, anthropologists or always experts on social sciences. In many situations they may be naive. But we have to give them credit for addressing the issue and demanding the the the state and the citizens of the state (around the world) address the issue in a moral manner.

It is the role of the Catholic to put nationalism aside and morality at the fore. Morality is going to look at the rights of nations, because they do come under the umbrella of moral law.

Moral law is does not protect the rights of the few. It protects the rights of all. The difference between moral law and civil law is that moral law is based on human rights and civil law is based on constittuional rights. That being said, it is a law of the Church that Church law cannot trump civil law as long as civil law is moral. As successors of the Apostles it is the role of the bishops to guide citizens in scrutinizing civil laws to ensure that they conform to moral law. There is a great need for Catholics to push this, not only with the current administration, but with all political administrations around the world, including Mexico and other nations. We have to raise our voices against any legal system that allows its people to suffer unnecessarily and allows situations that drive people out of their nations and into other nations legally or illegally. No one should have to leave their home, because the State fails to protect their rights. The concern of Catholics has to be a global concern. I think that the Holy Father addressed this very well in his latest encyclical, as did past popes.

I think that it would be helpful for Catholics around the globe to read the writings that come out of the Sacred Congregation on the Family and Social Justice to get a better handle on how we should direct our governments. If we direct our governments in the right direction, we will resolve some of the these problems at home and abroad.

What we do have to avoid is ignoring our bishops on the grounds that they have made mistakes. That is not a valid reason to ignore them. If we were to apply that reasoning in our homes and schools, they would be chaotic. What parent or teacher has not made mistakes?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Tigg]

St. Francis…this is for you!

:clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping:

Good valid points!

 

[Tigg]

What we do have to avoid is ignoring our bishops on the grounds that they have made mistakes. That is not a valid reason to ignore them. If we were to apply that reasoning in our homes and schools, they would be chaotic. What parent or teacher has not made mistakes?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

JR - I applaud you as well (even though I disagree with you) for you are a peacemaker, ever faithful to your calling, and always defend the Church to try to minimize the damage! May God grant you blessings and peace.

However, even the saints were not silent when confronted with situations they discerned were not correct with the hierarchy. Sounds like you are saying we need to be obedient to our bishops no matter what they say or do. In all good conscience, for me, that would be a grave omission in counteracting what is clearly wrong. Also, obedience (in certain situations) is not always the role of the laity as the CCC clearly states!

 

[St_Francis]

JR - I applaud you as well (even though I disagree with you) for you are a peacemaker, ever faithful to your calling, and always defend the Church to try to minimize the damage! May God grant you blessings and peace.

Brother J,
I totally agree with this post, and I also respect you a great deal even though I have only “known” you for a short time. I actually sort of wished that someone else had written what you wrote… but you seem up to the rough and tumble of discussing contentious issues

God bless you!

 

[JReducation]

Brother J,
I totally agree with this post, and I also respect you a great deal even though I have only “known” you for a short time. I actually sort of wished that someone else had written what you wrote… but you seem up to the rough and tumble of discussing contentious issues

God bless you!

Maybe it’s my Franciscan formation. My holy Father Francis always taught his brothers that we must obey our bishops, him and his successors. He acknowledge that the was the most sinful of men, but this did not preclude him from binding us to obey him under the penalty of eternal damnation if we dared to disobey him.

Now, some people would find it interesting that a man who considered himself to be thre greatest sinner in the world would bind his followers to obey him under threat of excommunications, suspensions, expulsions fromt he order and even condemnation to hell for all eternity. But this was his logic, which actually makes sense.

All men are called to be like Christ, who obeyed in all things unto death. And through obedience he was raised on the third day. Therefore, obedience becomes man’s way of reordering the world. When men, immigrants, locals, transients and other, exercise the virtue of obedience, then they do what is pleasing to God and man. And if they obey what they consider to be less than perfect, even though they know what is perfect, one then incurs greater grace and approval from God, because one is truly humble. For the truly humble man is not the man who simply obeys. Such a man is humble, in truth. But the most humble is the man who knowing a better way, accepts the limitations of his superiors and submits to them. Such a man does not hold himself above those in authority, but as a servant of all. Such a man is truly a man of peace.

He also taught us that great love for the Church required great sacrifice of our will and our intellect. Even though the Church is governed by sinful men, she continues to be the Bride of Christ and those who govern her continue to be the successors of the Apostles. We express our love and submission to them, not because they are holy, but because they are the Apostles Peter and Paul among us. And even though they may not have the holiness or the wisdom of Peter and Paul, they have inherited their place fo authority. It is not holiness that we obey, but authority that has been handed down by Christ to his fallible disciples.

Man is not to obey only those who are holy, but those whom Christ has placed over us to govern us, provided that they not lead us into objective sin. It is only the Church who has the authority to decide what is and is not sin. For no man has been given the power to bind and unbind, but the apostles. Therefore, it is the highest act of humility to submit to the authority of the apostles as Christ submitted to the authority of Pilate.

This is what we have been taught for 800 years…

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF