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HOLY SATURDAY
A Reflection on Judgment
“Non
est hic
surrexit enim, sicut dixit”
(Saint Matthew 28.6)
“He is not here, for
He is risen, as He said”
“ Non
est hic”
— He is not here.
After
the Last Judgment,
when the bodies of all who ever lived arise and are reunited with their
souls to stand before God in judgment to receive the just recompense
for the way they had chosen to live, perhaps many of those who hear
the pronouncement
“Saved!”
— and enter Heaven — will ask of others there also, “Where
is he?”,
“Where is she?”
and they will be told these same words, but in a frightfully different
context: “Non est hic” — “he is not here ... nor is she.” There
is only one other place that they may possibly be — and it is a Hell
of a place to be! Our Blessed Lord admonishes us not to
judge and we must never take it upon
ourselves to assume who is in Heaven and who is in Hell. Only
God knows the heart of man. Most of us will be very surprised where
we will find them ...
and perhaps ourselves.
“Who am I to judge?”
This
— by the way — is quite different from Francis’s
notorious “Who
am I to judge?”
or more precisely “If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has
good will, who am I to judge that person?”
To
judge what? Whether he goes
to Heaven or Hell? No! Of course not!
That was not at all the context
of the question which concerned the suitability and wisdom of allowing
homosexuals into the priesthood — ESPECIALLY
in light of the widespread homosexual abuses in the priesthood and seminaries
for the past 20 years!
You,
Francis, are
able to — and expected
to — judge
the suitability of candidates for the priesthood —
not whether or not they will go to Hell.
It
is a warranted and necessary judgment
to protect the innocence of children and youth, and the trust
of their parents — to say nothing of the now scandalized
vocation of a Catholic priest
in the community at large —
a scandal which you refuse to seriously address
— and correct
— in any meaningful way discernible to Catholics.
Avoiding the Near Occasion of
Sin
If criminals
“have
good will”
(which some may have)
“and
seek the Lord”
(which some may do) what would your answer be
to the question of allowing them into seminaries and upon graduation,
foisting them onto parishes? It should be that by definition
“criminals” are, for the most part, wicked men — and to allow
them the opportunity to manage the finances and to “groom” the trust
of a parish is — to say the least — unwise — if not complicitous
through criminal negligence of duty. It is a temptation!
A temptation into which you should not
lead them ...
nor allow them the opportunity to submit to
that temptation and violate
trust. At one time (before Vatican II) Catholicism called it
“avoiding the near occasion of sin”!
The same goes for homosexuals —
how
dare you discriminate
... in their favor!
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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