Pope Francis latest homily

When reading the remarks of Pope Francis over the last few days, one cannot help but notice a theme emerging.

He perceives the Church before his arrival as a place that has been excluding and treating sinners harshly.


In his homily to his see, he portrays Jesus as walking around healing 'nearly everyone' He came upon.

That com-passion which made him draw near to every person in pain!

He most certainly did not.

The Christ we read about in Scripture makes very clear that His gifts are reserved. He was very selective about who He healed.

He excluded an entire race of gentiles, whom he referred to as dogs. You certainly don't see Him flitting about from town to town healing unrepentant sinners.

Perhaps he has once again not conveyed his thoughts clearly enough, but he seems to leave one with the impression that sin does not make a person unclean:

Compassion leads Jesus to concrete action: he reinstates the marginalized! These are the three key concepts that the Church proposes in today’s liturgy of the word: the compassion of Jesus in the face of marginalization and his desire to reinstate.

Marginalization: Moses, in his legislation regarding lepers, says that they are to be kept alone and apart from the community for the duration of their illness. He declares them: "unclean!"

The references about lepers are theological lessons on sin.

What's next?

An Adam and Eve who isn't thrown out of paradise?


He then goes on, if I understand his analogy correctly, to suggest there is an inquisition before a soul is absolved in the Sacrament of Confession, a 'study of the situation and all it's possible consequences' before restoring a soul to Sacramental Grace:

Jesus, the new Moses, wanted to heal the leper. He wanted to touch him and restore him to the community without being "hemmed in" by prejudice, conformity to the prevailing mindset or worry about becoming infected. Jesus responds immediately to the leper’s plea, without waiting to study the situation and all its possible consequences! For Jesus, what matters above all is reaching out to save those far off, healing the wounds of the sick, restoring everyone to God’s family! And this is scandalous to some people!

There is nothing in the pews but sinners who are struggling with their desires to sin.

What people does he suggest are scandalized by the very mission of Christ's Church? I have never met such an individual.

And more importantly, other than being a baptized Catholic, which is presumed, where are these examinations taking place?

I object to this mischaracterization. This is not what is happening. At all.

What is happening is, people sitting in the pews who object to Church teaching are forbidding it to be taught because they are offended by it. In the absence of teaching our children their religion, all kinds of stupid statements are being made. Like having same sex desires is not something our children have to make judgments upon, there is virtue in same sex or living together outside of the Sacrament of Marriage - to name a few. This then misleads children to reject the catechesis we teach at home. Ultimately, this model perverts the minds of catechized children. We've been there done that and have lost several generations of children to it.

Nobody even knows what kind of sex other people are having until they make an issue out of it. They make an issue out of it when Church teaching is presented to children belonging to families that practice our religion.

This is what is missing from the practices he is suggesting the Church formally adopt.

Jesus is not afraid of this kind of scandal! He does not think of the closed-minded who are scandalized even by a work of healing, scandalized before any kind of openness, by any action outside of their mental and spiritual boxes, by any caress or sign of tenderness which does not fit into their usual thinking and their ritual purity. He wanted to reinstate the outcast, to save those outside the camp...

There are two ways of thinking and of having faith: we can fear to lose the saved and we can want to save the lost. Even today it can happen that we stand at the crossroads of these two ways of thinking. The thinking of the doctors of the law, which would remove the danger by casting out the diseased person, and the thinking of God, who in his mercy embraces and accepts by reinstating him and turning evil into good, condemnation into salvation and exclusion into proclamation.

These two ways of thinking are present throughout the Church’s history: casting off and reinstating. Saint Paul, following the Lord’s command to bring the Gospel message to the ends of the earth (cf. Mt 28:19), caused scandal and met powerful resistance and great hostility, especially from those who demanded unconditional obedience to the Mosaic law, even on the part of converted pagans. Saint Peter, too, was bitterly criticized by the community when he entered the house of the pagan centurion Cornelius (cf. Acts 10).

The Church’s way, from the time of the Council of Jerusalem, has always always been the way of Jesus, the way of mercy and reinstatement. This does not mean underestimating the dangers of letting wolves into the fold, but welcoming the repentant prodigal son; healing the wounds of sin with courage and determination; rolling up our sleeves and not standing by and watching passively the suffering of the world. The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone for eternity; to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart. The way of the Church is precisely to leave her four walls behind and to go out in search of those who are distant, those on the "outskirts" of life. It is to adopt fully God’s own approach, to follow the Master who said: "Those who are well have no need of the physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call, not the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Lk 5:31-32).

In healing the leper, Jesus does not harm the healthy. Rather, he frees them from fear. He does not endanger them, but gives them a brother. He does not devalue the law but instead values those for whom God gave the law.

For the Pope to suggest this model does not devalue the law ignores 50 years worth of consequences and outcome of its practice. Debasing the law to make people feel valued has robbed generations of Catholics of Sacramental Grace and salvation.

It is a model we have no intention of accepting.

Even if one were to distort every Scripture reading of Christ and His ministry, one cannot escape the final exhortation and explanation of Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church:

He that hurteth, let him hurt still: and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is just, let him be justified still: and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still. [12] Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works. [13] I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. [14] Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb: that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city. [15] Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and unchaste, and murderers, and servers of idols, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.

I Jesus have sent my angel, to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and stock of David, the bright and morning star. [17] And the spirit and the bride say: Come. And he that heareth, let him say: Come. And he that thirsteth, let him come: and he that will, let him take the water of life, freely. [18] For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. [19] And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book. [20] He that giveth testimony of these things, saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

[21] The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.