Fulfilled

The Most Holy Theotokos is our exemplar: simple, silent, faithful, holy. And like most holy Elijah, she completed her journey of theosis before our very eyes, with disciples and apostles gathered round her bed. She is our ideal.

The exemplar of manhood set before us, also announced by an angel, is St. John the Forerunner. He did not leave this world from a quiet and holy deathbed as the Woman wrapped in silence had. For he was an epic warrior, like Achilles or Hector.

No less a Figure than the Son of God pointedly asked,

He was the man from Eden, offended by all the world had to show, seeking to purify it with waters of Eden and with words of power. His would be no gentle theosis moment like unto Enoch's:

.... words that circulated widely in the Forerunner's time. And by the way, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, it was found that the Book of Enoch was the most attested among the scrolls, we might say, "the best-seller" among those many thousands of documents.

His would be a warrior's death: true, heroic, and holy. For God would have bold men when the world is in flames with battle, not women in quiet contemplation (that's fine for women). The angels themselves are warlike and battle-hardened. They are gathered in hosts, that is, in armies (fr. Lu 2:13). (There is no non-military meaning of the word host, in Greek or Latin, in the first century.) The angels are tall, erect, and austere. To come into their presence is a thing of awe, not of comfort. They must always first say, "Be not afraid."

John was a formidable figure. He effected a tsunami across the whole Levant, which Peter likened to a second Noah's flood. He was no sensitive plant (as Shelley would say) "fed .... with silver dew." He was no slender reed startled by every wind, but he was unflinching, mighty, steady, and faithful. He is our eternal ideal for a "man of God." What is a man of God? This is a man of God.

Yet he was no brute. Keeping away from the din of cities, living in the places far from men, and eating a kind of manna (enkrís), he was exquisitely attuned to the sensibilities of God and deeply offended in like measure at the things that would offend Heaven. He was particularly affronted at the perversions of the Herodian rulers — Arabs who inveigled the Romans to secure the throne of Judah. Herod the Great had waded in the blood of innocents, slaughtering not Judean, but Hebrew children (to the North).

And now Herod's son lived the hoggish life or drunkenness and incest .... so drunk at one feast as to drop all propriety begging his adopted daughter to satisfy his lasciviousness, promising "with an oath to give her whatever she might ask" (Mt 14:7). We are shocked at the lack proportion: the curtain of royal dignity drawn aside to reveal a panting boy who would trade his crown for tawdry nothingness. That such sordidness should come near the holy person of St. John, the anointed, should indeed claim his life, grotesquely disfiguring him, reveals a demonic chaos.

Do all those present at these revels consent to this? Does no high Roman official walk away in disgust? But they are all drunk. They are all sunk low in the vile and the debased. And no one is able to apprise the scene with godly eyes.

Have you ever been to a party that lapses into depravity? I have observed such scenes, especially several hours into the revels. The revelers consent to it by not protesting, by not walking away, and in so doing grant permission to all. That is the way humans are: creatures who look to the left and then to the right to see what is permissible.

But who will be the one to speak for the party of God? Who will be the one to risk? — to risk losing his place in society or perhaps losing his job or risking shunning of his family. We are surrounded by depravity even now, but we keep silent. We fear being shouted down as a homophobe or a transophobe. But remember, even the ultra-liberal NPR reported way back on August 29, 2019 that after extensive study and spending of billions of dollars, we have to admit: there is no "gay gene" and no "straight gene." No one is born to homosexuality. It is a preference. And to the person who believes there is such a thing as morality (fewer and fewer people, I might add), it is a moral choice. HIV/AIDS is a moral choice. Unlike cancer, unlike multiple sclerosis, unlike many horrible childhood diseases, it it a choice.

But, you say, what of so-called gay behavior? Isn't this proof .... like the color of your eyes. Of gay walking and gay talking and gay being? I reply: Have you witnessed the marvelous adaptability of humans? I myself use entirely different voices when I tell a story. I served as a Merchant Mariner in the Deep South and, immersing myself in that culture, was able to adapt the accent persuasively. My Uncle Herbie, a Brooklyn Jew, went to Texas and returned a few years later having a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a big belt buckle, and a perfect Texas drawl. We adapt. Some of us are born mimics. And the chameleon art is as near as your local movie theater.

But midst the many colors of our variegated life and living styles are two crucial things: moral choice and our consent. This is what makes the world go round.

Let me tell you a story about moral choice and our consent.

☦

The election of John Paul II to the papacy in 1978 kindled hope. An expectation for new beginnings had taken hold. In the midst of cards and letters praying the new pope blessing and success, was a letter from the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston, Humberto Medeiros. But its mood was far from festal. The Church, the Cardinal pleaded, must confront a grave threat. Homosexuality was being proclaimed as an ideology from within the priesthood and promulgated as a spiritual ideal. He wanted to make it very clear that these were not naughty boys needing correction. This a deeply intentional ideal to which priests had committed themselves and are formed in turning seminaries into magnets for young men pursuing this lifestyle while at the same time repelling all others. This expanding culture, he said, was "widespread" and "ominous." He warned that if this movement should remain unchecked, that the priesthood itself would become "paralyzed."

This ominous and widespread movement continued to expand, though, not only in the Archdiocese of Boston but across the U.S. and, at length, the world.

Within two decades reliable polls were indicating that 60% of the Roman Catholic priesthood actively pursued the homosexual lifestyle. (Cf. Rev. Donald B. Cozzins, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, Collegeville, MN, 2000.) I know this is hard for the Roman Catholic faithful to believe (having served that Church for ten years), so I appeal to them to focus not on polls but upon the infinitely holy lives of children, the vast majority being boys: more than 200,000 in Spain (The Guardian); about 333,000 in France (NPR).

Then how many in the ultra-permissive United States? Are there many millions? Do you know that there are more Roman Catholics in the U.S. than there are people in France? How many millions then? Let me answer by quoting the Murphy Report (2009) in Ireland. Because the Roman Church has so obsessively concealed the abuse and tirelessly obstructed investigations into individual priests, refusing to share records, transferring priest, verified cases in Ireland, where witnesses testify that the abuse was seen in every parish, are grossly under-reported.

Another way to conceal the number of victims is to settle out-of-court. In one twelve-month period — June 2017 to June 2018 — the Roman Church paid $301.6 million in the United States alone. And only a few months ago, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles paid out more than $1.5 billion in sexual abuse settlements. But in all of this, the Church sought one thing in return for its money: silence. "You are not reveal the details."

To quote The New Republic,

Secrecy. Is that a word that rings true to you who are familiar with this culture?

Let us note that astronomical sums were paid only twenty years ago. These recent payments are for child abuse committed since that time. The conclusion of the Vatican's own child protection commission (reported in The Guardian 10/29/2024) is that no progress has been made. None.

Meantime, a book published first in France in 2019, Frederic Martel's, Sodoma (American title, In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy), tells of a homosexual culture throughout the Roman Church that is so dominant that it is not possible to serve the Church's upper echelons unless one consents to this widespread depravity. In one example, apartments reserved for the Curia's senior officials was the scene of a multi-day, drug-fueled, homosexual orgy reported by EWTN's National Catholic Register (July 8, 2017).

The Roman Church is paralyzed by this mania. And we must admit that Humberto Medeiros was a true prophet.

We do know that the now famous Medeiros letter made a deep impression on one mind: the man destined to become Prefect of the CDF and later a future pope, Joseph Ratzinger, consecrated as Benedict XVI in 2005. He foresaw a related crisis even more profound than just the homosexual piece (deeply disturbing as that was). Cardinal Ratzinger said in a radio interview:

Upon receipt of the Medeiros letter, he was determined to undertake the Herculean labor of stemming the tide of homosexual men entering the priesthood. Yes, cleansing the Church would not be completed in a month or even a year. But at least the poisonous streams flowing into the priesthood would be stopped. Upon his election in 2005, he immediately implemented work he had prepared as CDF Prefect. After more than eight years of study, the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education issued "Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in the View of the Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders." In plain terms, this nine-page instruction forbade the ordination of men who support "gay culture" or who self-identify as "gay." The Pope later clarified that this Instruction was valid for all houses of priestly formation including the Congregation for Eastern Churches (i.e., the so-called Uniate Churches), the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (i.e., missionary societies), the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life (i.e., religious orders), the Societies of Apostolic Life (i.e., people living religious life not under vows). Everywhere .... there be no ordination for men who self-identify as homosexual or who support homosexuality.

But the man who rose to his feet to the near stature of St. John the Baptist, who spoke truth to power — that is, to the prince of the air (Eph 2:2) and the sovereign of this world (1Jn 5:19) — that man would be decapitated in the sense of removing the head of Roman Catholic Church. He had said in his prophecy, "at the most dramatic moment."

Those of us who have watched the appointment of great prelates to powerful sees can only conclude that the Roman Church cannot be reformed. Notorious bishops elevated to high honors of the altar. For who is left to reform her. Who? I know there are people who think that God runs the contingent world, but St. Teresa of Avila wrote, Christ has no body but ours. He has moral choices but the choices we make and no consent but the things we consent to.

And ours in the evil that does unspeakble evil. As the Lord Himself said,

Still God will have the last say. He continues to call to us in the night. And He mysteriously weaves His inscrutable tapestry from the strands we call "the timing of things." The Father is alone the Master of all timings (Mt 24:36). And He replies to the ardent prayers of His gentle prophet, Joseph Ratzinger. He points to the great events of history and the timing of things.

The Church has been reborn. She has been tried and purified through the furious fires of atheism. She has endured the martyrdom of 100,000 bishops and priests, not to say of still more monastics. Her cathedrals and churches have been crushed and destroyed. She has endured these fires with adamantine faithfulness. Her name in the United States is the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. As Cardinal Ratzinger prophesied, she is smaller. She it poorer. She is undoubtedly holier. (This I say after six and seven years.)

When the Apostolic Father St. Ignatius of Antioch coined the phrase "the Catholic Church" in about 110, he surely did not mean a schismatic jurisdiction one thousand years later. The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church endures in the same form she began, East and West.

In the West, we who are Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics must choose. If we do or say nothing, we irretrievably consent. We grant our permission.

"Oh, it can't be that bad," I hear people say. "These things happened a long time ago," I hear people say. All untrue. It is incommensurably evil. And it is happening now, unabated. If we support the status quo, we materially cooperate with evil. This is a very grave crime.

Cooperating with God is never comfortable. He commands that we pick up our crosses (Mk 10:21, Mt 10:38, Lu 9:23). He longs to set fire to the earth (Lu 12:49). He brings not peace but a sword (Mt 10:44). And we see our exemplars before us: the Heavenly host in harness for battle, the unflinching Apostles, the saints in light, and, yes, then there's the man of Eden. He promises that beyond the altar of oblation lay the pastures of Paradise. "Be not afraid," he says, "for the way ahead is life." And we walk with the King of Heaven Who safeguards our way.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.   Amen.