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.
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