Merton on East and West

Leave a reply

From the essay “Beyond East and West” by Thomas Merton:

“We are no longer living in a Christian world. The ages which we are pleased to call the ‘ages of Faith’ are certainly not ages of earthly paradise. But at least our forefathers officially recognized the favored the Christian ethic of love. They fought some very bloody and unChristian wars, and in doing so, they also committed great crimes which remain in history as a permanent scandal. However, certain definite limits were recognized. Today a non-Christian world still retains a few vestiges of Christian morality, a few formulas and cliches, which serve on appropriate occasions to adorn indignant editorials and speeches. But otherwise we witness deliberate campaigns to oppose and eliminate all education in Christian truth and morality. Not only non-Christians but even Christians themselves tend to dismiss the Gospel ethic on nonviolence and love as ‘sentimental’. As a matter of fact, the mere suggestion that Christ counseled nonviolent resistance to evil is enough to invite scathing ridicule. One Catholic writer declares in so many words that he will stick to natural law and abandon the Sermon on the Mount to ‘Protestant ministers and Jewish Rabbis.’ It is therefore a serious error to imagine that because the West was once largely Christian, the cause of the Western nations is now to be identified, without further qualification, with the cause of God.”

 

July 1, 1916 – Hell on Earth

Leave a reply

Today is the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. The British Army suffered over 50,000 casualties on the first day. By November more than one million men had been killed or wounded on all sides. Laurence Vance has an excellent article to commemorate this horrendous and tragic event:

How to End War Once and for All

In addition, in following a link in Mr. Vance’s article, I came across this discussion of what was known as “shell shock” during WWI. In this the Year of Mercy, let us never forget that in time of war the scale is always tipped dramatically in favor of the merciless and the powerful.

from Driven Mad by the Horror of War by Tony Rennell:

“Every soldier lost to a diagnosis of shell shock was viewed not as a casualty but as ‘wastage’ — a reduction in the manpower needed to defeat the Germans. Compassion was now regarded as weakness. ‘Man up’ was the message from on high to those on the ground.

One recourse was to deny mercy to traumatised men who fled the battlefield. Death sentences for desertion and cowardice soared: 100 British soldiers were executed in the two years before the Battle of the Somme, and nearly 250 in the two years during and after.

Shattered nerves were no excuse. Rejecting a plea for mercy, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief, confirmed the sentence on one particular Somme soldier with an exasperated: ‘How can we ever win if this plea is allowed?’

Another general said of a private who went to pieces during a gas attack: ‘Cowards of this sort are a serious danger. The death penalty is instituted to make such men fear running away more than they fear the enemy.’

The deranged private was tied to a stake and shot at dawn.”

All of which made me think of this great antiwar classic:

https://youtu.be/-XUOkE9QQwg?t=5273

Refusal to Serve as “Empire Chaplain”

Leave a reply

DemocracyNow! had an interview on Friday with former Army Reserve Chaplain Captain Chris Antal. This is what happens if you are a chaplain in the military and your “message doesn’t support the mission”!

Well, two days after it appeared online, I was contacted by an Army lawyer who had read the post. He forwarded it to my commander. I was summoned to the commander’s office. He told me that my message doesn’t support the mission. He told me that I make us look like the bad guys. He asked me to take it down, which I did, and immediately. Nevertheless, I was subjected to an investigation. It’s called an Article 15-6 investigation. I had to get a trial defense lawyer in Afghanistan, that was provided to me by the Army. And that process drew out for about two months, and it ended with what’s called a general officer memorandum of reprimand. I was handed an official reprimand that said I had made politically inflammatory statements, and I was, on that basis, released from active duty in Afghanistan, sent home with a “do not promote” evaluation, which is really a career killer in the military.

No one can serve two masters.

I can’t find the text of his open letter to President Obama online. Here he is reading it aloud:

Assassination and the Holy Spirit

Leave a reply

The following was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.

******

Friends,

This Sunday morning at St. Edith Stein Catholic Church in Brockton, MA, I heard one of the most abominable Pentecost sermons that I have ever been subjected to in my seventy-five years of Sunday Masses. The homilist, an ordained deacon of the Archdiocese of Boston, explained Pentecost to the congregation by telling an extended story on how the Holy Spirit guided Pope Pius XII to participate in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Pius XII was more than likely in cahoots with people who were trying to whack Adolph Hitler—whom he helped to become Chancellor—because he was in ongoing contact with Wild Bill Donovan and his OSS (the precursor of the CIA) during WWII, as his successor Pope John Paul II was in constant contact, maneuvering and contriving with the CIA through ongoing blacked-out fights between Washington and Rome by Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, and Knight of Malta, William Casey. (Any wonder why China refuses to let the Roman Catholic Church operate freely within its borders and keeps a close eye on the other Western Christian Churches? It is not Jesus it is worried about!). But such has been the history of Popes and the papacy for over a thousand years to this very day: political intrigue, espionage, war, the overthrow of governments, spying, moles, assassinations, propaganda, block opts, etc. In fact it is hard to imagine how anyone could be elected Pope today that did not have the CIA’s informal Imprimatur, as in times past the selection of a Pope had to be formally approved of by various European political powers.

Be that as it may, there is nothing in a Pope’s or the Vatican’s political cloak and dagger activities that is of the Holy Spirit, that is informed by the Holy Spirit, that is guided by the Holy Spirit or that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit that is being spoken of is the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Word (Logos) of God Incarnate and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. There can be no contradiction between the Holy Spirit embodied in the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels who teaches by words and deed as the revealed will of the Father a Way of Nonviolent Love of all, friends and enemies, under all circumstances and the Holy Spirit of the Third Person of Holy Trinity of which each Christian is a temple and who lives in the Body of Christ, the Church, guiding and empowering it to live the Truth and fulfill the Commission it was given by Jesus (MT 28:19).

It is to fill a congregation with craziness and untruth to even suggest that the Holy Spirit guided anyone, including a Pope, to be an assassin in total logical contradiction of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One, are simple; there is no contradiction within the Holy Trinity; there cannot be any contradiction within the Holy Trinity, amongst the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy is the same for each, is each, and the definitive, infallible truth regarding what that Holiness is revealed in Jesus. The God Jesus reveals to humanity is not an absurdist, revealing one thing as truth on Monday and the opposite of it as truth on Tuesday. What Jesus reveals about the Holiness of God is and must be the same on Monday, Tuesday and forever for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away,” says Jesus Christ.

What this deacon did to a captive audience from the pulpit at Mass this Sunday morning is being done Sunday after Sunday from pulpits across the U.S. with the approval of the Catholic Bishops, namely, the mad, illogical and clever militarizing of the minds of Christian under the auspices of “putting on the mind of Christ.” So, let me leave the final words on this evil—and it is evil because it is deception whether realized or not—to Pope Benedict XVI from is University of Regensburg address:

“Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: ‘It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about such matters—but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss’… In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, and the logosbecame flesh in Jesus, says the Evangelist. The truly divine God is the God who has revealed Himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. It continues to be the love, agape, of the God who is logos. Not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.”

Tyrannicide, like the mass homicidal slaughter of war, like burning Jews and heretics at the stake, contradicts the Person and teaching of Jesus, the Logos (Word) of God Incarnate—and by necessity logically contradicts any notion of Natural Law Morality of which the Logos of God, Jesus, is the Author. The Author of the Sermon on the Mount and the Author of the Natural Law are the One and the same Logos of God and therefore cannot be in logical contradiction of each other.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

On Precepts vs. Counsels

Leave a reply

The following is an email written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.

***

Here is John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor, section 52:
“The Church has always taught that one may never choose kinds of behavior prohibited by the moral commandments expressed in negative form in the Old and New Testaments.”

From The Catholic Encyclopedia, with Imprimatur:

“Christ in the Gospels laid down certain rules of life and conduct which must be practiced by every one of His followers as the necessary condition for attaining to everlasting life. These precepts of the Gospel practically consist of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, of the Old Law, interpreted in the sense of the New. Besides these precepts which must be observed by all under pain of eternal damnation, He also taught certain principles which He expressly stated were not to be considered as binding upon all, or as necessary conditions without which heaven could not be attained, but rather as counsels for those who desired to do more than the minimum and to aim at Christian perfection, so far as that can be obtained here upon earth. Thus (Matthew 19:16 sq.) when the young man asked Him what he should do to obtain eternal life, Christ bade him to “keep the commandments”. That was all that was necessary in the strict sense of the word, and by thus keeping the commands which God had given eternal life could be obtained. But when the young man pressed further, Christ told him: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor”. So again, in the same chapter, He speaks of “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven”, and added, “He that can receive it, let him receive it”.

This distinction between the precepts of the Gospel, which are binding on all, and the counsels, which are the subject of the vocation of the comparatively few, has ever been maintained by the CatholicChurch. The difference between a precept and a counsel lies in this, that the precept is a matter of necessity while the counsel is left to the free choice of the person to whom it is proposed.”

I do not know the Patristic roots of this distinction. I doubt it is in existence in the first three centuries. Today Mt 19:16 is the statement of Jesus used to justify it. McKenzie’s response to this line of thought is, “Nowhere does Jesus call His followers to be imperfect Christians.” It is also interesting that, since the Catholic Church in its official Bibles and documents has refused to translate “Thou shall not kill,” as “Thou shall not murder,” Mt 19:16 has Jesus saying as the first negative command, “Thou shall not kill.”

I know of no official list of the counsels of perfection, only that all that is not a negative command of Jesus is a counsel of perfection.1 Cor 7 is the text from Paul that is normally used to illustrate the distinction. But the general statement that only the negative commands are absolutely binding—and need to be followed to attain eternal life—covers everything else, e.g. “Love your enemies,” “Put up the sword,” ” I give you a new commandment love one another as I have loved you.”

A question that could be asked is this: Since the negative commands have been there for hundreds of years before Jesus, why does the Word of God have to become flesh? Also if Jesus, God Incarnate, names something a commandment, “a new commandment,” how can a commandment be merely a counsel of perfection? The same question could be asked in terms of all those imperative sentences of Jesus, e.g., “Love you enemies.” But without the distinction between negative commands as absolutely binding and positive commands as mere counsel war would be morally impossible for Catholic. Until they found another seeming loophole!

 

Public Missive to Cardinal Muller

Leave a reply

A Public Missive to Cardinal Gerhard Muller,

Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,

Regarding a Public Statement by him on May 4, AD2016

written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

 

Cardinal Muller’s statement:

“Precisely, therefore, because his life [i.e, the life of the divorced and remarried Catholic who has not received an annulment], which he has in the body gives an opposing sign, he cannot belong to the higher Eucharistic sign, in which the incarnate love of Christ is made manifest, by receiving Holy Communion. If the Church would allow him to Holy Communion she would then be committing the act that Thomas Aquinas called ‘a falseness in the sacred sacramental signs.'” 

 Okay Cardinal Muller, but how about the Catholics who engages in the slaughter and maiming of enemies, even Catholic enemies? Is that body not “giving an opposing sign to the incarnate love of Christ, which must include Christlike love of even lethal enemies?” Should that person not also be denied Holy Communion? Is not the Church by giving such a person Holy Communion “committing the act that Thomas Aquinas called ‘a falseness in the sacred sacramental sign'”? Or, is the rejection of divorce and remarriage by Jesus in the Gospels more clear than Jesus rejection of violence and enmity? In fact it is not, and you, as a scholar, know that. Indeed, Jesus’ rejection of violence and enmity in the Gospels is His clearest moral teaching.

Sexual intercourse between a man and woman who have divorced and remarried “cannot belong to the higher Eucharist sign, in which the incarnate love of Christ is made manifest,” you say. But severing enemies’ heads, burning their faces off, disemboweling them can “belong to the higher Eucharist sign, in which the incarnate love of Christ is made manifest?” To hold this interpretation of Jesus and His teaching is to hold a phony interpretation of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels and to foster a brutally contradictory abuse of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. That the one group of Catholics mentioned above is absolutely denied Holy Communion on the basis of their public choice that it is contrary to the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, and another group of Catholics is permitted to receive Holy Communion who have publicly chosen to flagrantly act contrary to the explicit teaching of Jesus in the Gospels is sacrilege, a violation and misuse of the Sacrament. It operationally amounts to a sacramental theology governed by the crass utilitarianism of protecting self-interests, specifically, the institutional Church’s expedient and profitable relationship with the state and its movers and shakers.

Please, Cardinal Muller, don’t tell the world that the acts of killing and maiming an enemy are possibly morally neutral or good acts depending on the situation, but an orgasm in a second marriage is absolutely and always an intrinsically grave evil that can never be chosen, and if chosen places a person in danger of eternal damnation. When you, or any bishop or priest, explicitly or implicitly speak in this manner you are destroying the Church’s credibility and moral authority and reducing it to just another amoral transnational business entity looking out for its own interests.

To argue that, “Thou shall not commit adultery,” is a negative command and therefore absolutely binding under all circumstances, while “Love your enemies,” or “Put up your sword,” or “Love one another as I have loved you,” are positive commands and therefore are only non-binding evangelical counsels of perfection— to be followed or not followed according to a Christian’s determination whether following them is in his or her interest—is to superimpose something on Jesus’ teaching that cannot be found in Jesus’ teaching, namely, that His positive commands given as imperative sentences in the Gospels are only suggestions to followed if convenient. And, just to be clear on the hypocrisy of this whole situation, the institutional Church raises no objection to Catholics taking oaths in the military to obey orders to slaughter other human beings, even though it is an explicit negative command of Jesus to not takes oaths: “Again, you have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But, I tell you not to swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth” (Mt 5:33-34; Js 5:12). But then, how can the institutional Church deny eighteen-year-old boys and girls the right to take an oath, when Cardinals are not permitted to enter the Conclave to elect a new Pope, unless they take an oath!

To be clear, I am not addressing in any fashion the issue of divorced and remarriage here. I am addressing the issue of the Pharisaic hypocrisy of the leadership of the institutional Church, hypocrisy as spoken about by Jesus in the Gospels. It is religious hypocrisy when those who hold the keys to the Kingdom in the minds of people demand absolute obedience from those people, regardless of the cost involved, to a teaching of Jesus that effects isolated individual lives, but grants to themselves, and the institutional Church they control, extravagant artificially created loopholes to a teaching the institutional Church leaders feel that they do not want to abide by, i.e., Jesus rejection of violence and enmity. Church leaders dive into such blatant hypocrisy with the hope that their “big lie,” will become unquestioned normalized “Gospel truth.” They believe that if they taught and struggled to live what Jesus taught and struggles to live in relation to the phenomena of violence and enmity, they could not protect and enhance the great wealth and secular status possessed by the institutional Church—and they could not protect and enhance the institutional Church’s privileged position with the economic and political power people of the kingdoms of the Western world.

The hierarchy and its clerics in the institutional Church have been and are literally destroying people in monstrous numbers in body, mind, soul and spirit by giving a false direction to the imperative teaching of Jesus that rejects violence and enmity and that explicitly command a Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, as He loved His friends and enemies. This false direction is markedly promoted by abusing the Sacrament of Holy Communion by giving Holy Communion to militarized Christians, who knowingly and intentionally are on their way to kill and maim other members of the Body of Christ and/or other infinitely loved sons and daughters of the “Father of all” (Ephod 4:6).

Cardinal Muller, the motto on your coat-of arms is, Dominus Jesus, “Jesus is Lord.” This self-evidently means that you and no one else in the Church can ever be or can ever desire to be an Ubermensch, a superior man who can rise above the morality, the truth of the will of God, taught by the Lord Jesus in the Gospels, and instead teach, nurture and/or impose your own values on the Church and its people.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy