Page 7 - The Priest, Summer 2015

tion between Life and Truth began with the sin of Adam and Eve. The negligence of the proclamation of truth, lack of zeal in the explanation and defense of the truth are a sin against Christ, the Truth. They imply a giving-in to the sophisticat- ed and half-true whisperings of the devil, that father of lies, he who confuses.
Christ came in order to destroy the kingdom of lies and build up his kingdom of truth, in order to free mankind from the darkness of lies and untruth:
“For this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. He who is of the truth hears my voice.” (Jn 18:37)
The Church founded by Christ is the kingdom of life, of supernatural divine grace, and at the same time the kingdom of truth. If you neglect one of these reali- ties, you will dis gure the image of the Church; the life of the Church on earth will be crippled on one side.
An exhortation: speak the truth with faithfulness and courage
If you neglect the sacramental life, es- pecially the life that comes through the most holy Eucharist, its respectful and worthy reception, its faith- lled adora- tion, then the principal nourishment for the soul will be lacking, the spiritual life will waste away. And because the soul can- not live without nourishment, it will seek nourishment from somewhere else: sure enough, in things of this world, in psy- chology, in nature, in self-glori cation, in a focus on the physical, the sensual and purely natural man. The cry of the believ- ing Psalmist, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give the glory!” (Ps 113), becomes often, unnoticeably, and without admitting it, an opposite call: “To us, O Lord, to us, and to our name give the glory!”
If you neglect to care for the purity of the truths of faith and their defense, you necessarily neglect Christ himself. If you neglect the defense of Christ, then you will possess less and less the spirit of Christ, then the supernatural light of faith will decrease, little by little. Alongside the only truth, which is Christ, you will put up other arti cial theories, you will make the absolute claims of Christ merely relative.
When did fallen human nature, our “old man”, wounded by original sin, ever love the truth, love being in the truth and living in it? “They loved the darkness more than the light,” said the Lord. (John 3:19) That means unclearness, loving rela- tivism more than the luminous and rock- solid truth of Christ. Christ is the clearest light and the strongest rock of truth. He who does not care about, or take care to defend the luminous and rock-solid truths of the Catholic Faith, does not really love Christ. He does not “live in the truth.” (3 John 1:3) “Go and teach!” Christ instruct- ed his apostles. (Mt 28:19) He did not say: Go and discuss and make questionnaires about my commandments. On the contra- ry, he said: “Go and teach all men to keep the commandments, which I have taught you.” (Mt 28:20) Moreover, Christ did not say: “Go and see if there is someone who, in an exceptional situation, cannot keep my commandments, make him feel better and approve of his way of life. Use pastoral creativity.”
Pro Christo, pro veritate
The priesthood of the Church must, in its activity, be directed toward the truth and ever preserve itself from diminishing the claim of divine truths and their lumi- nosity in the world, through inactivity and human respect. The whole being and con- sequently the whole activity of the priest and the Church depend on Christ and are directed toward him. One might put it like this: “sacerdos est pro Christo.” Pro Christo really means, always, pro veritate. Therein lies the priest’s being an image and instru- ment of Christ.
The consciousness of this duty most clearly characterized the apostles. As St Paul expressed it, “We can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.” (2 Cor 13:8) If you weaken the principle pro veritate, then you will weaken the prin- ciple pro Christo in the life of the priest and the Church. If care for supernatural truths decreases, then priests’ and bishops’ inter- est in Christ decreases. In place of the in- terest in Christ, interest in pseudo-truths and a one-sided interest for temporal and secular concerns will grow: social justice, political activism, climate change, ecol-
ogy, and so forth, under these key terms: “ justice, peace, preservation of creation.”
The insatiable appetite for novelty and innovation
Man’s mind always needs concrete nourishment: ideals and convictions for which the will is decided. As a conse- quence of the weakening of the princi- ple pro veritate, a certain emptiness is left behind: emptiness that must be lled with new contents. New theories are con- structed that correspond to the spirit of this world and the expectations of the majority. Pastoral documents are continu- ously produced, documents which have been previously debated according to par- liamentary rules, which have been voted upon and which, for the most part, avoid any luminous and rock-solid expressions of the truth. Through all this, a void space is left in the life of some communities, of some priests and religious, and a new kind of spiritual atmosphere takes over, an atmosphere similar to that of Gnosis and Pelagianism. Priests and bishops who live in such an atmosphere begin to col- laborate with the world, to be ‘politically correct.’ Indifference and shyness in the face of truth generate fear of public opin- ion and of the powerful of this world. Such behavior will not bring forth any confes- sors of the faith, but rather Scribes, who collaborate with the Herod and Pilate of all times, i.e., with the unbelieving world. Without any care for the purity of faith, for being certain of the truth, for standing in truth, a new religion emerges, a cult to the current and historically conditioned feelings of the time, a religion no stronger than reeds in the wind.
Still more worthy of condemnation is a type of Gnostic behavior whereby one knows theoretically the validity of a divine truth, (e.g., the indissolubility of mar- riage; the holiness of the family), but at the same time legitimizes the exact oppo- site in practice (e.g., the reception of com- munion for the divorced and remarried), whereby one may support one’s position with supposed old traditions, which, in re- ality, are quite doubtful.
The dignity of the “image and instru- ment of Christ, the Truth” contains an
Journal of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy
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