“Let the Supreme Court send bishops and priests to jail … the Church cannot go against the law of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Mexican Catholics know something about persecution.

From LifeSite:

Mexican bishop and his clergy: We will go to jail rather than bless gay ‘marriages’

June 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Following a declaration by the Mexican Supreme Court nullifying state laws prohibiting “marriage” to people of the same sex, Nuevo Laredo Bishop Gustavo Rodríguez Vega has issued his own declaration along with the clergy of his diocese, assuring the faithful that he will suffer imprisonment rather than cooperate with such unions.

“They can’t require an institution like this Church to go against its principles,” the archdiocesan clergy are quoted as saying in various local and national news reports. “Let the Supreme Court send the bishops and the priests to jail, whomever they want, but the Church cannot go against the law of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“We know that we can go to jail, if some couple decides to marry civilly, but we won’t give it a blessing. This law cannot obligate the Church, the Church cannot go against its principles and in fact the only ones who will come to the Church will be those who share our principles,” they add.

The clergy of the diocese affirm that their position is “based on scientific, anthropological, social, and religious reasons” which prove that marriage is between “a man and a woman (…) as the juridical tradition of thousands of years of the West affirms, a tradition of two thousand years; it is the union of one man and one woman who wish to procreate.” They call the decision of the Supreme Court to create homosexual “marriage” a “parting of the waters, and the whole world is not going to be in agreement and the Church is not in agreement with this definition.”

[…]

Read the rest there.

Fr. Z kudos to Bp. Rodríguez Vega!

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24 Comments

  1. wmeyer says:

    How sad that in our times, the position held by this bishop will be seen as remarkable. These opening skirmishes are as nothing. The battles to come will be intense.

  2. Maltese says:

    I don’t blame gays for this, some of whom I call friends. Rather, it is a symptom of our times. Once you disintegrate the family, all of society is lost. The foundation of society is built around the family. Supreme Courts follow the tides of human sentiment, and now that sentiment is to abolish the family-structure that has been in place since the times of Moses, Abraham, and Jesus, and replace it with something that could only be devised by the Great Deceiver.

  3. Maltese says:

    I know this might sound morbid, but I think we should all remember one thing, when we are thinking of these transient globalists, and media folks telling us foul is fair, and fair is foul:

    In the context of the modern world, man forgets about his final end. We should realign ourselves: Everyone reading this will die. We all will end in the grave; our bodies will corrupt until they become bones or dust, until the general resurrection at the end of time, which is a dogma of our faith. Your soul will leave your body, our God will draw your soul. Your body will corrupt. Your skin will “leather”, your eyes will shrink, first into pea pods, but then they will crumble. Your hair will matte, and begin to fall out, until all falls away. Your skeleton will remain for a time longer, as it is of stronger substance, but it too will crumble and fall away. Only your soul will live on, and that is for eternity. Eternity is a long, long time. Imagine all of the particles of sand on all of the sea shores on earth, trillions of pieces of sand, to say the least, and pretend that each piece of sand equals a billion years, and pretend that you spend this amount of time in eternity. That, of course, does not equal even one day of your life in eternity; not even one second of eternity’s time, but of course God is outside of time.

    “Morose Delectation” is the sin of, basically, not being joyful. Dwelling on horrible things. But, it’s good to be reminded that none of us leave this rock in space called earth alive. That said, my movie preferences are comedies, since I deal with pedophiles on a daily basis. But, really, there is so much beauty, and goodness, still, in the world–gorgeous mountains to be climbed, waves to be surfed (I like to longboard), etc. God created us to be happy, not dour. A buddy of mine, Charles Coulombe, knowing my penchant for morose delectations, sang Bing Crosby’s song, “Accentuate the Positive,” which was very apropos.

  4. Mark says:

    What about us lay people? Should we stand outside the church barring entry by people who are trying to get a “gay marriage” if our priests are not willing to go to jail for it, or even if they are should we not stand side by side with them then? We will need to be prepared to go to jail too. That will not be easy for our families. Scary times ahead.

  5. kiwiinamerica says:

    You don’t hear much talk like this from the Obama fanbois in the USCCB.

  6. APX says:

    Mark,

    This is where the virtue of prudence comes into play. It would be imprudent for someone who has to support a family to put him/herself in a position of unnecessary risk of going to jail and not being able to support one’s family.

  7. DavidMichael says:

    Viva Christo Rey!

  8. I wish more priests, bishops, and those of higher ecclesiastical office would speak as clearly, plainly, and forcefully as this much more often.

  9. YoungLatinMassGuy says:

    I’m going to assume that any gay “marriage” officiated by a deacon, priest, or bishop at the barrel of a gun would be totally, completely, and utterly null and void ab initio.

    I think the “other side” needs us a lot more than we need them. We’re not the ones pushing to change things, and get people to go along with us. The moment we say “No.” They go nuts.

    They NEED our agreement. They NEED us to accept their distortions of reality. If what they were doing were totally normal and natural, there would be no debate at all. It would…
    Just Be.

  10. arga says:

    This news is a year old. The Mexican government has never recognized religiously sanctioned marriages; Mexicans must marry twice — once in a civil ceremony and later in a religious one (if they want to). The Mexican supreme court decision has nothing to do with religious ceremonies, which it doesn’t even recognize. The bishop was reacting to an imaginary but very unlikely government order that churches must also sanction same sex marriages. It’ll never happen. It’s even more unlikely in Mexico than in the USA. I think the bishop was getting a little carried away.

  11. Maltese says:

    arga–not so, I was in the Federal Government, and you can lose your job for speaking for family values. Of course, it’s probably 20 years in the future where a priest might be compelled to “bless” a gay union, but just give it some time, my friend.

  12. gatormom says:

    Arga,
    I’d like to believe that you know nothing of the Cristero war.

    Mark,
    When the time comes that they want to start throwing us in jail, I don’t think that we will have to give them quite so much assistance as all that.

  13. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Meanwhile, the Cardinal Archbishop of Munich and Freising, pausing to assert, “I don’t comment on others because that is not good”, has been doing precisely that and much more with, alas, not uncharacteristic sweeping odiousness:

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/church-must-apologise-to-gay-people-pope-s-adviser-declares-1.2697089

  14. KateD says:

    DavidMichael-

    ¡Viva!

  15. Raymond says:

    Arga is correct. If you click on the article the date says June 25, 2015. Civil and religious marriage were separated in Mexico precisely, and in part, to prevent further atrocities like the Cristero War.

  16. juergensen says:

    Andrew Saucci says: “I wish more priests, bishops, and those of higher ecclesiastical office would speak as clearly, plainly, and forcefully as this much more often.”

    If the pope did so, more priests and bishops would too.

  17. gatormom says:

    Ah yes Raymond, separation of Church and state…peace will surely reign.
    Viva Cristo Rey!

  18. Joseph-Mary says:

    APX: We hope the bishops, all bishops, will stand strong and the laity too. We are speaking of possible heroism as well here. Consider Sts. Perpetua and Felicity who died knowing others must raise their children but trusted in God. And here are two other examples to consider: St. Thomas More and Blessed Franz Jaggerstatter:

    St. Thomas was the consummate family man – and loath to leave his wife and children bereft….All those around him – bishops and nobility, court officials and commoners, and all his friends – were caving to King Henry and his defiance of the Pope. And More’s wife and children? Even they were clamoring for him to give in – to find a compromise in order to preserve his life. It’s not as if he didn’t try, for the legal-minded More exploited every loophole in his favor in order to save his neck, but to no avail. His steadfast refusal to collapse his conscience cost him dearly in the end. And the “why” of it he made plain in his last words: “I die the King’s good servant, but God’s first.”
    He could’ve just as easily have prefaced that last statement, “I die a committed husband and father,” because the point is the same: Fealty to God takes precedence over every other relationship, even a father’s to his children. “He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,” is the way the Lord put it, and then this coup de grâce: “He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10.37-38).

    Like St. Thomas, Bl. Franz Jaggerstatter was a devoted husband and a doting father of three young girls, and he was ripped to pieces on account of his arrest and confinement. Jägerstätter’s letters home indicate that his fatherly identity and responsibilities were in the forefront of his thoughts – especially as it became evident that his life would be forfeit unless he changed his mind…And what of his fatherly duties? Far from abandoning them, Jägerstätter saw himself fulfilling his paternal responsibilities by modeling for his children … “cost of discipleship.”Here is how Bl. Franz expressed it:

    I have faith that God will still give me a sign if some other course would be better…. Christ, too, prayed on the Mount of Olives that the Heavenly Father might permit the chalice of sorrow to pass from His lips – but we must never forget this part of his prayer: ‘Lord, not my will be done but rather Thine.’ To change his mind just because he was going to be executed would’ve been an object lesson in extreme cowardice and faithlessness that Jägerstätter was unwilling to display to his children.

    Yet, Franz had no illusions regarding the ultimate cost to his three young daughters: They would be deprived of the security and safety his fatherly presence represented. Even so, the conscientious Jägerstätter thought ahead. “I greet you, my dear little girls,” he wrote. “May the child Jesus and the dear Mother of Heaven protect you until we see one another again.” His solicitude for his family even extended beyond their temporal needs, writing from prison that “I will surely beg the dear God, if I am permitted to enter heaven soon, that he may also set aside a little place in heaven for all of you.”

    And to paraphrase his words, Blessed Franz wrote that just because a man was married and had children, that was not reason enough for him to go against his conscience and his duty first to God.

  19. robtbrown says:

    Maltese says,

    A buddy of mine, Charles Coulombe, knowing my penchant for morose delectations, sang Bing Crosby’s song, “Accentuate the Positive,” which was very apropos.

    Written by Johnny Mercer.

  20. Benedict Joseph says:

    Yes, “Viva Cristo Rey!”
    I wonder how they determine when and how to say that in German, French, English…
    We will see. We will see.

  21. Mark says:

    Well, it looks like Pope Francis will be on the side of the mob against faithful Catholics. Who’s is he to judge? Sorry, just getting tired of these pressers on airplanes where he throws faithful Catholics under the bus.

  22. gatormom says:

    Me too Mark! It seems to me that according to Pope Francis the only people who are bound for hell are fatithful Catholics. And Father Z if your write in red that he hasn’t said that, I preemptively say, “Yuh huh.”

  23. Scott W. says:

    I’ll agree with arga, with caveats. Right now I don’t see any indication that there is a demand or a push by Mexico to demand Catholics to bless the piece of Leftist political theater commonly-known as “same-sex marriage”. But really the only reason for this is that few thought they could get away with it. But now the last flames of civilization are flickering out and the wolves are slinking closer. Evil cannot tolerate the Good, so one has to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The bishop is right to delineate what we won’t do before the worst happens.

  24. Mike says:

    The bishop is right to delineate what we won’t do before the worst happens.

    Indeed. The only indication I can recall from any high-ranking U.S. churchman is that we have Better Things To Do than to defend ourselves against lawsuits.

    God help and Mary keep the faithful!

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