I was drafting something along these lines, but Fr. John Hunwicke has expressed also many of the points I wanted to get across (with my emphases and comment):
Those who died in the most truly appalling events at Orlando … may they, through the all-atoning Sacrifice of our most sweet Redeemer and our suffrages, have remission of their sins: we pray this for them as we pray it for all the departed, since as Christians we believe that anyone who claims to be without sin is deceiving himself and the Truth is not in him. This, of course, goes equally for popes and for rent-boys and for you and for me.
Humanly, we may surely hope that many of those killed in a situation which prima facie may have been at least a proximate occasion of mortal sin, may, through their own ignorance, not have had that full knowledge and consent which would render their deeds and intentions as lethal subjectively as they are objectively. It is a sobering thought that it may be easier for us, who are instructed Catholics, to go to Hell than it is for the uninstructed. [And yet it would be a sin not to try to instruct and admonish and counsel.]
And we pray for the wounded; for the families, friends, survivors, witnesses of those who died. Perhaps a particular prayer is appropriate for those who were not aware that their sons or daughters were being drawn into intrinsically disordered actions: parents for whom the horror of so dreadful a bereavement may even be increased by that realisation.
And I think we need to be aware that [NB] the Hierarchs of the Spirit of this Age will use this fearful atrocity for their own purposes. Treating the victims of a deranged murderer as martyrs for a noble cause is likely to become a stock element in the perverted parody of the moral high ground which the Powers of Evil seek to inculcate. And it will become part of a campaign which, if it succeeds, will lead to the increasingly violent persecution of anybody who articulates the teaching of Scripture and of the Catholic Church (Catechism paragraphs 2357 and following). [And also persecution of those who defend civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution of these USA.]
What are the paragraphs of the CCC to which Father refers?
Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
As far as civil liberties are concerned, I worry about the erosion of the freedom of religion and assembly, the right to bear arms, protection from illegal search and seizure, due process, the non-enumerated rights of the people and powers reserved to the states and the people.
It seems to me that what Fr Hunwicke calls the Hierarchs of the Spirit of this Age and also the Powers of Evil are attacking on all fronts through events like this. In times of confusion and crisis, the Hierarchs and Powers are expert at manipulation and exploitation.
Make a list of intentions, friends, and of people and then, with discipline, pray and fast for them. Use your Rosary. Invoke the help of the Guardian Angels of specific people.
This war – and it is a war – is to be fought on the spiritual level as well as in our temporal sphere.
The instrument of Satan Leon Trotsky quipped that you might not be interested in dialectic, but dialectic is interested in you. Because of the relationship of dialectic and polemic, rooted in the Greek word for war, pólemos, Trotsky’s quip morphed into, “You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” This is absolutely the case when it comes to the war the Enemy of the Soul wages on every one of us.
In the spiritual plane we have relentless and inescapable enemies in the World, the Flesh and the Devil. In this temporal, earthly life we also have enemies.
Don’t for a moment imagine that they are not interested in you.
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Sancte Michael Archangele, défende nos in prélio, …
“intrinsically ordered towards objective moral evils”
The phrase clearly is not applicable solely to homosexuality.
“And I think we need to be aware that [NB] the Hierarchs of the Spirit of this Age will use this fearful atrocity for their own purposes. Treating the victims of a deranged murderer as martyrs for a noble cause is likely to become a stock element in the perverted parody of the moral high ground which the Powers of Evil seek to inculcate. And it will become part of a campaign which, if it succeeds, will lead to the increasingly violent persecution of anybody who articulates the teaching of Scripture and of the Catholic Church (Catechism paragraphs 2357 and following)”…this is already happening in the MSM and I just can’t wait for “the Fishwrap” and other “catholic” media to do the same thing
On the second (amendment) point, given the way I’ve read multiple articles making a bruhaha about this scumbag jihadi being a US citizen, I think the analysis is spot on. “See??? We can’t even trust our citizens anymore! Anyone with a cross around his cis-het-white neck might blow away with an assault rifle the first LGBTQIAA+???? person he sees! SAVE US, LORD OBAMA! YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE!”
It is so reassuring to me, as a Catholic, to see the prime concern here is for the condition of their souls. May God have mercy on all of us.
DonL says: the condition of their souls
That’s the main concern for everyone. While they live, they can seek God, change their lives, do penance. But death comes suddenly and people tend to die as they lived. Habits become ingrained and deep. We don’t know what happens in the hearts and minds of people in the instants before they die. We hope for God’s mercy and extraordinary graces even while we are realistic about human nature.
This incident points up two big reasons, one negative and one positive, to proclaim the Faith more boldly today than ever.
The negative reason is that there’s no percentage in appeasing the promoters of evil. None. Not only is such appeasement objectively a grave offense against the virtue of fortitude, it often increases our opponents’ contempt and emboldens them in their wickedness.
The positive reason is complementary. Though they accuse us unjustly of ‘hate’, the promoters of evil respect those who speak truth—thus the shrillness of their lies. And however loud the shout-down attempts, Grace may yet enable the truth to reach those who need it at the time they need it most—but only if we are willing to proclaim it!
It is interesting to see the media tie themselves into knots trying to wrap their heads around this point: Radical Islamists actually BELIEVE – in a nonrelativistic way – what their religious text tells them to believe (and do). The west has become accustomed to a practice of “religion” that is passive, personal, relativisticly interpreted and subordinated to nearly all other aspects of life. The media talking heads and intelligentsia simply cannot wrap their heads around the fact that a religious text and religious leaders say “kill xyz” and their believers will do so. Not because of money or fame but because they want to fully live out their faith. Comments are made about this man – who had traveled to Saudi Arabia, had completed the hajj and had some association with suicide bombers as well as membership in a mosque investigated by the FBI – being an example of mental illness and hatred. Sorry folks – I think you need to start reading up on the Battle of Vienna and why the Cordoba Cathedral has a mihrab.
JabbaPapa says:
“intrinsically ordered towards objective moral evils”
The phrase clearly is not applicable solely to homosexuality.
The thread concerns those who died at a “gay nightclub”.
Headline on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website:
“ANALYSIS
After Orlando, time to recognize that anti-gay bigotry is not religious freedom: Neil Macdonald
Will targeted nightclub shooting begin an overdue conversation about religions’ attitudes toward gays?”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/orlando-religion-anti-gay-bigotry-1.3631994
“Invoke the help of the Guardian Angels of specific people.”
It never occurred to me that we can pray to the Guardian Angels of other people. I always ask my GA to ask the GA of the people I’m praying for to protect them. I guess I have a “chain of command” mentality when it comes to angels – feeling I should go through mine to get to theirs. Please, Father Z, would you consider writing a post on Angels? They are mysterious beings who are part of God’s creation. They have a reality different from ours, and yet a number of them have been assigned to be directly involved with humans. How exactly do they protect us from the fallen angels? I picture them with swords doing invisible battle over our heads, but perhaps that’s being fanciful.
Yes. I have already read the father commenting that his son once got angry when two gay men started kissing in front of his wife and children. What a hatefilled maniac, huh? Clearly.
On a side note, I am a bit thrown by this: “It is a sobering thought that it may be easier for us, who are instructed Catholics, to go to Hell than it is for the uninstructed. [And yet it would be a sin not to try to instruct and admonish and counsel.]”
Is this true? Father Z, your comment indicates to me that you believe it is true. I’m a simple person. This doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that if this were the case then it would be quite unfortunate for a person to be an instructed Catholic. If I were a person of no faith or any faith other than Catholicism, this statement would motivate me to never allow any Catholic to even speak to me. Why would anyone want to increase his ease of going to Hell?
gatormom, It’s easier for us to go to Hell because we can’t plead ignorance. In theology, ignorance of the law is sort of an excuse.
Qualifying as “Intrinsically disordered” the sin of homosexuality like it is now in the catechism of the RCC seems to me an improper mode of downplaying it while the Bible calls it harshly “an abomination in the eyes of God”.
My 16-year-old son and my 14-year-old daughter both recently and separately asked the question “what is wrong with the world?”, one in the context of today and another in the context of the middle-19th century.
Satan is of course at the root of evil, but the proximate cause in the last 150 years is Marxism. When the Soviet empire collapsed in the late 1980’s, it seemed that the central tenet of leftism had been defeated for good. Flash forward 30 years, however, and Marxism is enjoying a moment of sorts. The economic agenda of the Democratic Party is being driven hard to the left by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
The much scarier development of course is the rapid ascent of moral anarchy in the form of the homo/trans sexual movement….MAKE NO MISTAKE, the homo-radical movement is a key plank in Marxism. A key Marxist tenet is to destroy the moral foundation for religion…and homo-radicalism has been the weapon of choice for 50+ years…first by recruiting gays into the Catholic priesthood, where they wreaked havoc from the heart of the Church, committing many of the sexual crimes against minors (as demonstrated by the John Jay report)….secondly by using the sexual crimes in the Church committed largely by gay priests to destroy the Church’s moral authority, to bankrupt Church treasuries, and to demoralize and scatter the faithful. Does anybody seriously doubt these facts or effects?
Fr. Hunwicke’s point that the “lesson” of this massacre will be twisted into an attack against Christians is absolutely true. The left have absurdly embraced Islam as a stalking horse against Christianity, by blaming the Christian right for radical Islam, and by pretending that the vast majority of Islam basically reject the violent and crooked Mohammed of the Quran (polling of Muslims would suggest that they are pretty sincere in their embrace of Mohammed, violent forced “conversions” of infidels and all).
The left sees the true God of the Bible as their real enemy….and they don’t mind joining forces with radical Islamists to crush Christians all over the world.
The three ideological forces at war in the world are Marxists, Islam and Christianity. Christianity is in a very weakened state as an ideological force, thanks to the Papacy of Francis. Marxists and Islamists realize this and are pouncing all over every opportunity to eradicate Christianity from the world while Francis fiddles with commissions and synods designed to promote confusion about the Church’s moral teachings and to waste the precious moral resources of the faithful fighting our own.
The Marxists and Islam will eventually lock horns with each other, but only after they both feel that they have crushed Christianity. I hope what’s left of the Christian west can re-form itself fast enough to combat this pincer movement by these twin evils. With Francis around I’m afraid that authentic Christian re-form and progress in the Church and world are going to be nearly impossible.
Willful murder and the sin of Sodom are two of the sins that call to Heaven for vengence. First of all, for the muslim who did this, no doubt at all that he’s in Hell where he deserves to be. He chose that false religion of islam, followed its manifesto (the koran) and I’m sorry if this is a sin but I have no sympathy for him being tortured for eternity right now in the fires of Hell. Now, as for those killed in Orlando… I hope and pray that at least some of them, were raised in the Faith and knew deep down in their hearts that despite what society was telling them, that sodomy was wrong and that in their last minutes on this earth, they prayed to God for forgiveness. May God in His Mercy allow them to be purified in the merciful fires of Purgatory. For those who didn’t and died as a witness not to Christ but to Sodom, we sadly have to acknowledge their fate in the same place as the muslim who killed them. Evil is rising fast my friends and now is the time to get it together and get behind the Church and ALL of the Church’s teachings. The persecutions of this world are temporary but the fires of Hell are eternal. Enough said.
There are now reports on the internet that the murderer had actually patronised the club himself and had used gay dating networks on the internet. Unless he was doing that for pre-strike “research”, maybe in his twisted mind he was trying to destroy a part of himself that he hated. May God have mercy on his soul.
And that should make it a little easier for us to wish to pray for the repose of their souls : I don’t believe any of us envy the position of those who were killed – particularly when we consider the circumstances in which the killings occurred. I mean, we’d probably prefer to take our chances with being killed 5 minutes after coming out of the Confessional ; or while in a state of grace and just after or before attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ; or perhaps on the way to or from visiting a sick or lonely person, right ?
St. Padre Pio made an excellent point worth trying to wrap our minds around . . . about how God, because He is eternal and omniscient, can take into consideration at the time of a person’s death, prayers which are said for that person even (long) after they have died.
There are slightly differing versions of what Padre Pio had said to a doctor who was close to him. It arose during a conversation about a lady whose daughter was near death. The gist of what St. Padre Pio said (I might be paraphrasing) , was :
I’m having a much easier time of it praying for the repose of the souls of the victims right now, than I am praying for the repose of the soul of the shooter (but I still pray for him too).
My alarm clock radio here in Montreal, is starting to pump out the same kind of garbage that ejcmartin had already noted emanating from CBC.
These politically over-corrected MSM types do a disservice to the dignity of the victims of the Orlando shooting. Each one of those souls who died is a human being . Yet , rather than eulogizing them , the MSM is fast eulogizing active homosexuality.
*. . . face . . . palm.*
Qualifying as “Intrinsically disordered” the sin of homosexuality like it is now in the catechism of the RCC seems to me an improper mode of downplaying it while the Bible calls it harshly “an abomination in the eyes of God”.
You don’t have to be homosexual to engage in homosexual ACTS. What the Catechism is saying is that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered-it is-but is also saying that doesn’t mean a person who is homosexual has no choice but to engage in homosexual acts.Acts which ARE an abomination in the eyes of God. Thankful that Father addressed this terrible act of terror from a Christian perspective .The difference between Christianity and Islam is that while we abhor the sin we don’t murder the sinner.Islam calls for stoning women caught in adultery, gays to be put to death and the blame for rape falling squarely on the woman.Islam calls for the death of all infidels.That’s anyone who does not accept Islam. The Nazi’s were hell bent on the extermination of Jews but they also went after Catholics and homosexuals.There isn’t much difference between the Nazi’s and fundamentalist Muslims.The problem here in the United States [that is being spread worldwide] is the attack on the family that is clearly diabolical;thus the acceptance in our culture of the ‘gay lifestyle.’We’re caught between condemning all terrorist acts no matter who they are directed against and glorifying a lifestyle that is destructive. I’m a revert to the Catholic faith having lived a spiritually destructive lifestyle myself.While not homosexual in nature it was still destructive. Since returning the one sin that i struggle frequently with is pride. There is a danger in thinking the other persons sins are worse than our own.It is good to be on guard against it and I constantly have to pray for the grace to avoid it.Thankful that Father addressed the terrorist attack and the spiritual component rather than just the terrible loss of life. He is warning us against the 2nd death. The one that kills us spiritually; not just physically. It is good that he points out we must pray for their souls.it is good that we think of those poor families,as he noted some may have had no idea their children were at this club.How devastating would that be? Islam has no such doctrine.Secular humanism has no such doctrine. Finally,the thought also occurred to me that these terrorists are now going after ‘soft targets’ meaning groups that are easy to get at;who have little to no protection.Groups that may not be high on the watch list of possible targets. When they’re done targeting one group who’s to say they won’t go after another? Churches could just as easily be deemed a soft target as a club,park or sporting event.
I love the prayer that goes, “I beg the conversion of poor sinners.”
When I pray this prayer, I have to remember that I, too, am a poor sinner, and I must remember to pray and work for my own conversion first.
We’re all of us poor sinners, kneeling at the Foot of the Cross, while our dear Savior Christ is raining down the mercy.
Praise the Lord for His goodness to us!
Wow! With shepherds like this, you don’t need mass-media, political parties, or the entertainment industry (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re mutually supporting):
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/14/florida-bishop-blames-orlando-massacre-catholic-contempt-homosexuality/
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