NICE GUYS FINISH LAST. AND IN HELL.

Posted by Glaucon Jr

                                      (St John Paul the Great. Awesomely holy agitator)

There’s a lot of yelling out there that the Junglewatch Nation is populated by awful, terrible sinful people. Why all this angst and hysteria?   Because we commit the worst possible sin we can commit: like Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict, we are offensive.

Of all the mischief out there in this great cage-match for the soul of the Church we are fighting, this dirty trick equating offense with a lack of charity is really disturbing. Like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" disturbing. We hear it all the time: "you aren't Christ-like, you're offensive!" But when Catholic Christians decide that the goodness of a thing is really determined by whether or not it is offensive, then we’ve already surrendered the Truth in its power to a tyrannical democracy of mouth-breathers.  And with the suppression of Truth comes the death of Love.

Don’t get me wrong, some things are “flat out wrong” offensive . Like wearing a Hitler Youth shirt to the Holocaust Memorial. Or any of those “People of Wal-mart” emails where a burley bearded man is wearing a tutu. Fair enough.

What I mean here is saying or doing something that is true and necessary, but is offensive to others because they don’t want to hear it. It hurts feelings--but nothing more. Not morals, not faith, not even sensibilities.

Of course Truth hurts, but it hurts only when we aren’t conformed to it. If we are conformed to it, it doesn’t hurt any more than playing with a puppy.

When Christ our God says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” it’s more than some high-mindedness or abstraction. The truth in our intellects is the measure of how we conform our intellects to reality. In other words, Truth is never relative. Ever. It’s the standard by which all other things make any sense. It’s how things actually ARE.

That, for the record, is one of the biggest reasons that willful ignorance in matters of faith and morals is inherently sinful. To willfully refuse to be conformed to the Truth by obstinacy (in other words,  heresy) or by laziness (willfull ignorance), you’ve swerved into sin, plain and simple. You have moved deliberately into a condition of separation from Christ just by refusing the Truth as it is. And that, my friends, is what’s really at stake, long term, with the NCW and its hatred of Christian freedom. More on that later. 

[NOTE: The issue here is speaking in the service of Truth, not speaking true statements in service of ourselves. Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ (in all its truth) is not the same as being truthful when a person is body shamed.  Clearly, there’s a big difference]

Anyway, speaking the truth in the service of Truth is always a good—always. It reflects the goodness of God, and it serves the Common Good. Always. 

So now, as we move forward in our defense of the Faith, it’s absolutely crucial that each of us on Junglewatch—in our villages, parishes, schools, jobs, or whatever—remember that 1) we are in the right, 2) we have a responsibility to Christ and His Church by virtue of Confirmation (if nothing else) to defend the Truth, and best of all, 3) we are armed with the Faith, and our greatest weapon, our only weapon, is Love. 

Our motives then must be pure. We must be acting from service to the Truth, which is Christ our God Himself. If any or each of us knows this in his heart, then how can we go wrong when we have the Eucharist, the daily Rosary, the sacramentals, and the Tradition as our source, our hope, and his goal. But if our personal motives are shaky, then beware: re-evaluate why you do this, lest a far worse menace come later that defeats us because of our moral sloppiness.

In fact, with all this in mind, faithfulness to Christ and His Church absolutely REQUIRES us to be bold in our proclaiming not just in the Truth and for the Truth, but against heretics who deny the Truth and the hypocrites who care not for the Truth, but only about what profit or power it may bring them. 

All of these by definition MUST become offended. There is no other way. In fact, that’s how we know we have proclaimed the Truth: either the wayward come back to us, or they are offended. Those are the only two options possible.

St John Paul II was adamant about this, and he was constantly called offensive by Communist authorities, the gay community, nuns wanting to be priests, and just about everyone else. And in the end, his constancy proved out. And that is the working of the Holy Spirit. 

So despite all these attacks against the Junglewatch Nation (be we in Guam, or the US, or Spain, or in the halls of the Vatican so badly in need of cleansing, or anywhere else), we aren’t offensive at all. In the words of a rhetorician I heard decades ago, ours isn’t hate speech. This is LOVE speech. We wouldn’t speak the Truth to our sisters and brothers if we didn’t love them.  We wouldn’t call out the Archbishop if we didn’t love him and what he represents (and it now must be a tough, even harsh, love). If we didn’t love them—all of them—we’d let them persist in their heresy and de facto abandonment of the vocation of Love. And how many souls would be lost then? Might not our own souls be at risk as well because our love had grown cold?

And there it is:  it’s our duty as faithful Catholics who love the Archbishop (the office as our pastor and descendent of the Apostles, not necessarily the man himself) to hold him accountable. How is that possibly uncharitable? How is that possibly unjust? 

Hear the lesson from the Gospel: just after the Lord Jesus tells His disciples about the End Times, he tells them about none other than bishops and those in authority (Matt 24:45-51). If when the Lord returns and He finds his steward “beating his fellow servants” and indulging in his lusts for pleasure or power or wealth, then the Lord will “cut him to pieces and assign him to a place with the hypocrites.”

Woah. That does not bode well for the clergy who love power.  If I love my neighbor, I don’t want that. And I certainly don’t want that for the clergy on Guam, no matter how unformed they are (through no fault of their own) or how arrogant they are (I won’t even go there for now) or how non-confrontational they may have been (broken spirits will do that). God wills all men be saved; Providence arranges for this opportunity for each of us. And we--yes, we laypeople who go about the business of living as practicing, practical Catholics--must accept that quite often we are part of the opportunity for the salvation of others. 

When the damned are lost to Hell (say many many saints), then these poor souls know that their punishment is just. But they hate even more those who helped them get to Hell, living or dead. If my neighbor, if my priest, if my bishop were to be lost to the flames tomorrow (God help us all!), and I did nothing to try to bring him to the Truth of the Faith, then even though he is squarely to blame for his own fate, I contributed to his eternal suffering. 

Knowing all this is the burden of being a faithful Catholic. So let us all gird our loins, as they say, and get back to work—without doubts, without second-guessing, and without the corruption of falling in the trap of trying to meet the expectations of those who demand we not be “offensive.” 

I’ll say it one more time : if we serve the Truth, the only responses possible are acceptance of the Truth, or offense. That should embolden us, not intimidate us.

Love compels us. Now is the time, my sisters and brothers. This is way beyond an issue of governance. Everything now boils down to saving souls.

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Addendum: someone is bound to read this and exclaim, "What an ass! This guy says be mean and be judgey and cruel." My only poor exasperated response is this: I said the opposite, but since you had difficulty with adult reading, perhaps a shift to less challenging work is in order. Try "Cat in the Hat" or "Clifford the Big Red Dog." Then after your nap, you can go play at recess.

And I say THAT in all charity. 1 Corinthians 13:11