Preaching Politics

     I really, really dislike coming home from Mass in a state of pique.

     There’s been enough talk – more than enough, really – about Pope Francis and his open espousal of socialism. It’s deplorable and worse, but the subject has been exercised sufficiently that everyone in Christendom, and points south and east, is fully aware of His Holiness’s proclivities. But not nearly enough is said about the great number of parish priests, here and elsewhere, who preach politics of one sort or another when they should be preaching Christ. Those priests, being in direct contact with the lay faithful, are a greater danger to the faith than the Pope by many orders of magnitude.

     One of the priests at my parish, St. Louis de Montfort of Sound Beach, is one such. His name is Father Henry Vas. He’s a Capuchin Franciscan, originally from India, now a permanent resident of the United States. He’s a very good, dedicated priest. I’m sure, from personal acquaintance, that he’s sincere about his political convictions, as mistaken as I consider them. But mistaken is the mildest adjective I can apply to the practice of preaching politics from the pulpit.

     I’ll resist the impulse to discuss the particulars of Father Henry’s convictions. They’re not really relevant to the main issue, which is what priestly authority is supposed to be used for. The clerical collar, and the pulpit, are not places from which to orate on secular things. Even the worst of the sins are subjects specific to the Christian faith. If somehow it were to become legal – girls, hold on to your boyfriends – to murder, rape, kidnap, steal, and stick used chewing gum on the sidewalk, those things would still be monstrous sins: evils that God has forbidden us.

     (By the way, there have been societies in which some of those things were deemed legal, as long as the victims were of a particular race, or sex, or religion. There are several such places today. You can identify them easily enough.)

     Christianity is the teachings of Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind. Nothing more; nothing less. The proper mission of a Christian cleric is to promulgate those teachings. A Catholic priest has certain other duties as well, but his mandate begins with the teachings of Christ. No matter what his politics, he must not use his priestly authority to conflate them with the Christian faith.

     A realm in which priests preach politics is likely to be one in which they all preach the same politics: a theocracy. We don’t have one, and God willing we never will. As much as I’d like to see the entire world sincerely embrace Christianity and live as best as possible according to Christ’s teachings, I’d rather cut my throat with a rusty bottle opener than live in a land where Christianity or any other religion is mandated by law.

     The great problem is how to correct a priest who strays from his proper mission. It takes more than “knowing better.” I seriously doubt it can be done with words, no matter how eloquent or sincere the speaker. Any Gentle Reader who has ideas about this exceedingly difficult task is exhorted to share them with me.

     May God bless and keep you all.

3 comments

  1. Can’t you go to his boss? I don’t mean the guy upstairs, you’re already doing that, I mean the priest above him in the church hierarchy. It works that way in my faith organization. A few people went to my “bosses” when I overstepped, when I had a more active role.

    1. I tried that with a previous offender, and encountered unbelievable resistance. It might have been just that one occasion, but it seemed to me that it was a matter of the hierarchy protecting its own.

    • hmrct on August 11, 2024 at 1:41 PM

    In the late 60’s / early 70’s, Fr. John Bloms, O.S.B. retired.  The bishop sent us a succession of would-be shepherds who were politically aligned with the whole culture that “informed” the Novus Ordo thinking of Vatican II participants.  Twanging guitars, tympani, tambourines, and a wholesale sacking of centuries’ worth of music conducive to worship and adoration of the Most High ensued.  Our polite (?) protests to the diocese were ignored.  So we as a parish, for the first time in our history, fled en masse (pun intended) to attend Mass in “nearby” Catholic churches, the closest of which was a thirty-minute drive away on narrow two-lane roads during a time when bias-ply tires got punctured by road debris on a regular basis.  The bishop finally relented and assigned us a priest we could accept.  The official scolding we received for our rebellious behavior was a welcome alternative to losing our local church.

    I guess the point of this narrative would be that sometimes an oversized cluebat is required to get management to do its job.

    –Bob T.

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