This Pope is typical of so many pastors and congregations committed to secular moral exhibitionism residing within the comforting light of the asymmetrical theological analysis as required for premeditated ignorance. Here we have a trade school graduate willfully rejecting even the most basic documents of his trade. However, I believe the Catholic Church will survive even his imbicility.
Now contrast this position with that of C. S. Lewis, who experienced two world wars and a depression during his distinguished academic career. In terms of pure intelligence few surpassed him. After WW I Lewis entered Oxford as an undergraduate student, where he won a triple first; the highest honors in three areas of study. Such was the beginning of an outstanding career. As a Christian few have surpassed him for accurately tempering a superior intellect with the wondrous mystery of the Lord’s existence as absolute righteousness and absolute love resulting in perfect justice.
He balanced those academic achievements with previous experiences from the trenches of WW I. As an Irishman, Lewis could not be drafted, but turned down a scholarship in 1917, and chose to volunteer. Lewis was commissioned while still 18, and was shipped to the front line near Arras, France. He joined Third Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry in the Somme valley on his 19th birthday. He was wounded by an exploding artillery shell in April 1918 and never returned to active service.
The quote I remember comes from Mere Christianity, which included a compilation of radio addresses he gave from 1941 through 1944, and was later expanded into a book. He gave the radio addresses after experiencing the Blitz and the threat of Nazi invasion as well as trench warfare when a young man.
“Does loving your enemy mean not punishing him? No, for loving myself does not mean that I ought not to subject myself to punishment – even to death. If one has committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the bench and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian solder to kill an enemy. I always have thought so, ever since I became a Christian, and long before the war, and I still think so now that we are at peace. It is no good quoting “Thou shalt not kill.” There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. And when the Christ quotes that commandment He uses the murder one in all three accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And I am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery. When soldiers came to St. John the Baptist asking what to do, he never remotely suggested that they ought to leave the army: nor Christ when He met a Roman sergeant-major – what they call a centurion….. We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate or enjoy it.”
For an introduction to reality, this Pope could see the distinction for the Hebrew of the Old Testament by simply reviewing Strong’s Concordance. The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” uses the word ratsach, which by my count appears 33 times in the Old Testament, and always refers to what our civil courts would interpret as a sub-set of first and second degree murder. I find two others words for kill and slay, muwth and harag, and three for destroy, shamad, shachath, and charam. These appear over 230 times and encompass all accounts of warfare and capital punishment. There is another word for killing a sacrifice, but I did not attempt to count its appearance.
When faced with individuals such as this Pope who displays a clearly fledging intellect and mundane life experiences, I would always choose to take my council from people like C. S. Lewis. Lewis expressed a durable morality earned in ultimate bloody deluges and the great economic tragedy of the 20th century.
There’s an old story about a young preacher who was visiting a country church where he though he could really wow them; however, after services one of the elders, a through and through country boy of advanced years, pulled him aside and asked him if he was “sent, or did you just went?”
Now this pope is no whipper-snapper, not by any means, but he’s seeming like he needs to be questioned by the same elder on a number of things.
Well done! You should nail this thesis on the door of the Vatican.