The most recent Letter to Friends of Benefactors" of the Society of St. Pius X in Canada has a worthwhile section on a matter recently addressed on this blog. I urge you to visit the link and read it in its entirety. If only we heard such logic and clarity from our bishops.
I point to the matter of wearing a mask over one's nose or mouth in the church where, as in the case of the Province of Ontario, the government's medical authorities and Premier have commanded it and in our churches, our Catholic bishops have affirmed it and even police it.
"If the unjust law goes against God's law, I may not obey it. But if it is not directly against God's law, I am not bound to obey it, but I must make a judgement. If submitting to the law would lead to a greater good, then I may submit to the unjust demand."
If one peruses my posts on this matter, this is the very logic that I used to describe the matter.
The mask is not against the Laws of God, it is not a matter of morality or conscience. While one can ignore the masking request in those things under their own control that is the person's right. In a church, public space and owned completely under corporation sole by the bishop, one may consider the matter unjust. Yet, submitting to the annoying and bothersome and perhaps, inane and insane request does fulfill a "greater good" to the "unjust demand." That is, the very survival of the parish no matter what form of the Mass is at stake.
The matter of the injection is something completely different. It can be good and charitable and necessary, notwithstanding the abortion question and the health effects we see. For example: in one case, a person takes the injection out of charity to one's elderly parents who have taken the injections and have a real fear of the disease. The charity is to take it so one can assist, visit or live with them and relieve them of the stress and concern. This is particularly charitable when the person would have not taken it if the circumstances were different. Another is a man that must provide for his family whose employer has used unjust threats and coercion. He must survive, he must support his family, he cannot allow them to suffer and cannot find a new appointment or receive government insurance due to the evil actions of his employer and the government. Both are cases known to me. Both are justified.
In my own case, I have not and will not take the injections. First, I believe I already had SARS-CoV-2 in that mysterious illness in December 2019 and, I have judged, based upon my research, that there is more risk from the injection rather than the virus, should I catch it or catch it again. The matter of abortion and the testing on fetal stem cells is a factor because so many of our medications have been done this way and we do not even know. For example, is my Wigwag prescription tested on some kind of fetal stem lines? It seems so. What is the difference? I need the Wigwag, it is not my fault how it was developed. I do not need any of these injections. This is how we must each interpret it for ourselves. Using Catholic teaching, our own well-formed conscience and logic.
We are in a time of tyrants. Where insanity, literally, has taken over the minds and spirits of our leaders. Where some, out of misplaced fear, have shut themselves up for 18 months in a prison of real or imaginary walls.
We cannot change them. We must outlast them.
What is the correct attitude towards abuse of power?
We should note first that the power of the state or of the Church is not the same as the power of that of parents. Parents have dominative power over their children. They can command their minor children to do anything except sin. The State and the Church authorities have legal power which is limited. Bob's dad can tell Bob at what time he has to go to bed, but the government can't tell Bob or Bob's dad at what time to go to bed.
Saint Thomas Aquinas sums up the teaching of the Church on how we should treat an unjust law [1]. The laws of God can never be unjust (for He Himself is the rule) and so we are always bound to obey them. The laws of man however can be unjust either because (ed. they are) opposed to God’s Law or because (ed. they are) damaging to some human good. If an unjust law is opposed to God’s Law, it cannot be observed even if we had to pay with the price of our life. Saint Thomas More was ordered to recognise Henry VIII as head of the Church. This was a lie and therefore against God’s Law. He chose to be put to death rather than to lie.
If however the law is not directly opposed to God’s Law, but simply very burdensome, or intended by the lawgiver for some ulterior motive, or quite simply, something that the lawgiver has no power to command, this law does not oblige in conscience. If the government required me to have my children take part in secularist propaganda classes and I refuse; although I am disobeying the law, it is not a sin.
Note the difference: if the unjust law goes against God's law, I may not obey it. But if it is not directly against God's law, I am not bound to obey it, but I must make a judgement. If submitting to the law would lead to a greater good, then I may submit to the unjust demand. This is what our Blessed Lord meant when He said, “if a man were to take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him.” (Mt. 5, 40) He gave us the example in this when he submitted to the unjust sentence of the high priests and of Pilate and gave Himself to die in order to save us from our sins.
10 comments:
Thank you Vox for your Catholic clarity during a time of madness.
This will probably be too long.
I hope there is a point to it, worth spending your time on reading.
I am in chronic pain, and fight it by going for walks in the nearby forest most days. Some people get off the path, seeing me, for I never wear the muzzle outside. They live in terrible fear. I have stopped attending so called cultural events or watching TV long ago (they are culture- destroying), so it is not very hard for me to refuse the jab. The mask looks like paper, but is made of plastic, which explains why it is so hard to breathe with it over one's mouth. Every time I am asked how I am doing, I respond: How can I be doing with a muzzle over my face? - But every shop has a sign: 'You must wear a face covering to enter.' When I forget to wear it, store staff are usually polite, when following orders and telling me to put one on, and pull it over my nose.
I fight it as much as I am able. I comment on social media (was to FB jail several times, for sharing facts, which goes 'against community standards').
My daughter, a scientist, is with me on this, and since she can't go on train, ship or plane, this may be the first time in our lives, that we will not see each other at Christmas. We are both rather devastated. She is also very likely to be thrown out of her PhD program (in the last year of it) for non-compliance with mandates.
But my husband is not with us. My daughter and I have tried, but we can't reach him with facts.
All of us are broken-hearted. My daughter's finance's family do not even want to see him, as the only unjabbed among them.
This is a terrible tyranny, our government slanders us, incites hostility against us, deliberately brakes our families apart, wants to override our conscience. Without the ability to be true to what we know is good and right, what value is there to living? I will be, no matter what. God help me with it. I think of all the doctors and nurses, and many others, who served during COVID, only to be deprived of ability to make a living now. My sister in the UK has been given a date - jabbed before April 1, or you must go. She will not submit. She is immune, because she had the virus! They were clapping for her then, they condemn her now.
I always say that we ought to judge everything, and I rebuke those Christians, who like to put me in place with the alleged commandment: 'Do not judge.' There is no commandment like that. Without discernment of what is true and what is false, how can we follow our Lord, Jesus Christ?
But we should be careful not to condemn those, who were given little choice, and those, who for some reason are unable to see the tyranny as anything other than our government protecting us. It may be that the latter are being punished by God. I think that this may be God spitting the lukewarm out of His mouth. They refused to condemn abortion, they celebrated sodomy and gender fluidity, they approved euthanasia, and now they can not see their oppressor as anything other than a benefactor. They turned away from God, and He let them be. God is not a tyrant, like our government. He gives us free choice.
Dear Darota,
No, not too long.
The paranoia and fear that has taken over people is astounding. In Ontario yesterday, there were 540 "cases" out of 14,500,000 people. That is 0.0037%. People have lost their minds.
I too know of families where the jabbed parents have disowned the unjabbed children. Utterly demonic.
When you wear the mask you submit to a lie. Relative to preventing a virus, they are ineffective, humiliating, and unhealthy. They differ from vaccines only by degree of harm.
"But if it is not directly against God's law, I am NOT BOUND TO OBEY IT, but I MUST MAKE A JUDGMENT. If submitting to the law would lead to a greater good, then I MAY submit to the unjust demand."
What is alternately implied by this statement is I have another choice besides submit(I must make a judgement). Therefore, if NOT submitting to the law would lead to a greater good, then I MAY RESIST the unjust demand.
I am free in my conscious to decide whether or not I will wear a mask to Mass and the SSPX statement supports both your perspective and mine.
My judgment is reasoned on the belief that it is more sinful to participate in a lie than to be kicked out of a parish for not wearing the mask. I also wholeheartedly disagree with you that Bishops' ceasing the Mass over mask mandates makes the laity responsible for a decision exercised under the authority of the Bishop (which they have no right to do anyway - that would go against God's Law), and so the laity should comply or be held accountable for the Bishops' decision. It is on this admonition alone you are indefensibly wrong.
I don't disagree with your ideas on the virtue of meekness and the value of the Mass, just your opinion on what judgement may bring about a "greater good." I don't even like that phrase as it sounds Socialist. God will determine the greater good. For now, we remain divided over the issue of mask mandates in dioceses.
And if it meant the loss of the Latin Mass or the closure of the parish in general would you support that in order to maintain your position and not wear a mask? I don’t disagree with what you said mostly so I do think a mask works to some degree particularly if it’s an N 95. The point is clear though, it is not a matter of conscience you can choose not to wear one but if you attempt to come into the church with one in certain places in Ontario it may contribute to serious actions taken by a bishop. You may not like it but this is the reality.
These are the points I have been trying to make. At what point do you say I will defy you and who cares about the other people in the parish or do you simply say I will humble myself and put it on so that I don’t put the whole community at risk from the authorities if not the virus. Or you stay away.
When I wear a mask, I do not submit to a lie any more than when I work to pay for promotion of abortion, gender ideology, euthanasia and sodomy, via taxes, home and abroad. I do not submit to a lie any more than when I tolerate a co-worker or a client (do not admonish him) for wearing women's clothes as a man, and pretending to be a woman. I do not submit to a lie any more than when I pay tuition for my child's university, from which a biology professor was fired for stating that biological sex is real, or an ethics professor was fired for resisting vaccine mandates and demanding a right to informed consent. I do not submit to a lie any more than when I ask a priest to bury my Father, a priest who prays for J M Bergoglio as the pope.
My Father sent me to First Communion, as an officer in the Polish military, and for refusal to swear off the Church after a report of this event was officially filed with his superiors, he lost his job. We became poor as a result. As children, we watched lies on the news and read them in our school books every day. (We never had propaganda in form the daily paper in our home, unless there was no toilet paper in the stores, which happened a lot.)
Then I came to Canada, and after a few years here I realized that the government here has been lying to us all as well.
All my life I was fighting lies, getting in trouble for it in school and in work places. It was hard to bear the consequences, but I had to say something. Maybe this is the reason I developed a tumour on my brain and am now suffering the fallout of a nasty and rare disease the tumour had caused. Living under the weight of never-ending deception has been very hard for me. Other people I met were not as upset about it as I have always been. I even believed until not long ago, that people desired Truth more than anything else in the world, and so I always told them, how they fell victim to deception. This never ended well for me. After I did, they distanced themselves from me, every single time.
This is about our nature. We are full of lies. We tell ourselves lies, we tolerate lies. They saturate this world, they always have.
Our Lord Jesus Christ knows about it, and yet He tells us to give Caesar what is his. He knows how hard it was for my father or has been for me to live under the burden of these lies that permeate this world.
There is a difference between putting a muzzle on my face (we breathe car exhaust in while in the city, we drink fluoridated water, we work under government and corporate degenerate policies, academic political correctness, unjust taxation) and taking an experimental injection. They are both oppressive, but one is much more unethical and harmful than the other. One is like a cat-call in the street, the other like rape.
Dear Darota,
Have I said how glad I am that you are back, please never to leave? Oh my goodness, I read every word and then read it again.
Your point about taxes and abortion and gender ideology is salient. They are lies, we are not responsible for them when paying our taxes.
Brilliant commentary, thank you.
David
If the mask is like a cat call, it's one where you have to give them your number, and they proceed to text you at every moment of public life thereafter. And you have to text back, politely...
It's not some one off rejection like a cat call unless, you know, you reject it.
Comparing forced vaccination to rape is fair.
Thank You, Vox.
Seven Sorrows, I knew it was not a perfect analogy. But I hope I got my point across. Why make the masks the focus of our attention, when we have been suffering under the other crimes perpetrated against us for so long?
After I sent my comment, I realized that when Archbishop Vigano responded to Mr. Kennedy's request to address the Swiss people about green passes, he went all the way back to when we as a society first began agreeing to these crimes.
What we are experiencing now, seems to be a logical conclusion to our unfaithfulness and slavery. This time the enslavement is visible. We are told to wear it on our faces. But I insist, it is nothing new.
I read with interest on the opinion's of the mask, and frankly I am very confused as to the conclusions you have made.
The mask is the bane of my existence, I agree it signals that you are following a lie. But it also looks horrible. Like you are have to swallow and shut up, seeing people with masks, triggers me. Its a faceless generic society. Unhumane, no smiles no warmth, robots, accepting a false god.
They think its a safety measure, although I had that word, 'safety'..its a false sense of security.
It alerts all those people that there is a threat, some people have fashion ones, my God! how weak are those that are welcoming of compliance to a false god. The mask, I NEVER wear, I refuse! I go to church, I go to the malls, I go to stores, and I will not wear it. when I am asked, I simple say I do not obey to the masks. Most people leave me alone, I have had NO problems. I think now the cashiers and employees must be SICK of breathing in such toxic, that when they see you without one it gives them HOPE! Get this thing off my face! Imagine wearing that for 8 hours a day, one hairstylist I went to told me she fainted many times..its choking her! Yet people OBEY what out of fear!
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