THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD'S

A SERMON FOR THE 22nd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

This business of rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s is something that, on the face of it, is a very simple distinction.  To put it in modern terms, it is the distinction between Church and State, and the claims that each of these perfect institutions have on all of us.  In the days of our Lord, it was even easier to understand than it is today:  in the land of Palestine the “Church” was easy to identify.  It was the “Church” or congregation of God’s chosen people, the Jews.  Its authority was represented by the elders of the people, the Pharisees, and above all the Sanhedrin, who were the sole and authentic interpreters of God’s covenant with man.  And the State?  At the time of our Lord, Judea was under the yoke of Roman occupation, and the people were very clearly ruled, oppressively, brutally even, by the Romans, under the supreme authority of Caesar

The Jewish Sanhedrin saw the Roman occupation as a sacrilege, and looked forward to a military Savior who would rid the land of these invaders.  But of course, the Jews could not openly voice rebellion against the Romans, and they were forced to live in a very uneasy peace, occasionally broken by ineffective acts of rebellion.

After the Emperor Constantine's edict giving freedom of worship to the Christians, Church and State at first worked in harmony together, at least in theory.  In the Church, divine authority passed down from God, via the Pope of Rome, to a network of bishops and clergy, while in the State, that same power was invested by God in the hands of the and King or Emperor, who delegated it to his appointed aristocracy or ministers of state.  Both Church and State found the source of their authority and unity in the same God, and recognized each other's authority in their own sphere of jurisdiction, one civil and the other religious.  This knowledge enabled both to maintain a perfect balance, at least in theory, and live in peace with each other.

Not always, however.  Kings had often tried to affect that balance in favour of the State—two famous examples in England that we are all familiar with involved two kings named Henry and two chancellors named Thomas.  First Henry II tried to use his chancellor, Thomas à Becket, to divert the Church’s wealth into his own coffers.  Thomas, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury as well as Chancellor, resisted the demands of his old friend, King Henry, and was exiled and eventually brutally murdered in the cathedral of Canterbury as he officiated at Vespers.  A few hundred years later, King Henry VIII sought to dispose of his wife Katherine, and marry Anne Boleyn.  The Chancellor of England, Thomas More, like Thomas à Becket before him, again resisted the demands of his old friend, and was eventually martyred for his defence of the rights of the Church.  So yes, the theoretical balance between Church and State was often marred by the greed and corruption of man.

Today, we have a far more complex situation.  The unity of Christendom has been shattered by the Protestant rebellion, and no longer do states consider themselves Catholic.  The eldest daughter of the Church, France, for example, since the Revolution of 1789, now considers herself officially a “secular” nation, and no consideration is given to the rights of the Church.  Many other nations followed this example, not least, the United States of America, which made the separation of Church and State and the freedom of religion, a major article of its Constitution.  This fundamentally flawed principle did at least give to Catholics the constitutional right to worship God according to the way God himself decreed that he should be worshipped, namely in the truth and holiness of the Catholic faith and our Holy Mass.  But according to this principle of "freedom of religion," other men have an equal right under the Constitution to worship any false god they choose, even Lucifer himself.  We must acknowledge that our beloved Constitution is in fact seriously flawed by its endorsement of the fundamental error of religious liberty, so cherished by the freemasons and deists who founded this nation.

Church and State in this country are separate.  Supposedly.  But as we have seen throughout history, there have always been ministers of State who are ready to trample upon the rights of the Church and usurp her power as the sole and authentic interpreter of the law of God.  The Constitution simply makes it easier for them to do so, as it forbids even the notion that there could exist a "true" Church.  Our holy Catholic Church founded by God himself is recognized in this country merely as one church among many hundreds of others, including the Church of Satan, all with equal rights under the law. 

We should not wonder that the followers of Satan have taken full advantage of having the same rights as the Catholic Church in this country.  When I first came to America I remember being very upset by the phrase "Happy Holidays" which had become so prevalent at Christmas time.  But this was only the first stage of an attack, driven supposedly by concern that anything overtly Christian would offend the non-Christian minorities.  This was a very dangerous premise which is now reaching its ultimate and logical extent.  Once prayer was successfully removed from our schools, the enemies of God were always able to find some offended person, so that all references to God were banned wherever they occur.  They painted over the ten commandments in the courtrooms, and removed crosses on the war memorials.  Satan is never satisfied of course, and the battle continues, no longer simply with the intent of removing Christianity—God— from the public forum, but now replacing it with something else, something far more loathsome and dangerous.

In 1972, the Supreme Court of this land approved the practice of abortion and the slaughter of the innocents began, despite the fierce but ultimately futile protests of Catholics and other Christians.  In 2015, they approved the practice of same-sex marriage, taking their attack on the nature that God created a step further.  We seem to be rushing faster and faster down a path that leads to a precipice.   We continue to remove the things that are God’s from our life and replace them with what evil men falsely claim to fall under the domain of Caesar.  The recognition of so-called "gay" rights is a lethal and irreversible step towards the total abolition of the laws of nature.  Already, local governments are being forced, in the name of the Constitution they are obliged to uphold, to permit Satanic shrines next to our manger scenes, and public Black Masses with all the filth and sacrilege they entail.  What, we may ask, is next?

Today, we pick up our money and, just as in the time of our Lord, we see the images of our Caesars, surrounded by the masonic symbolism whose purpose was to create a new world order, a novus ordo sæclorum, from which God would be eventually banished.  Nevertheless, we must heed the words of our Lord and render unto these Caesars the things that are Caesar’s, being careful to recognize the line that separates the things that are truly theirs from the things they claim to be theirs.  And when our presidents trespass on the affairs of God, and especially when our popes join them in their own Novus Ordo Sæclorum, it falls to us and is our solemn duty that we render unto God the things that are God’s, and by refusing to Caesar the things that Caesar was never meant to have.