I will go to jail. . .

Below is an excerpt from the Diocese of Baton Rouge's public response to the LA Supreme Court's recent ruling on a civil lawsuit filed against the diocese and a BR priest:

The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the seal of confession preempted the Civil Court from ordering the priest to testify as to whether or not there was a confession and, if so, what the contents of the confession revealed. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit dismissed the case against both Fr. Bayhi and the Catholic Church of the Diocese of Baton Rouge.

A Writ of Certiorari was filed by the plaintiffs to the Supreme Court of Louisiana. The Supreme Court of Louisiana granted the Writ, reversed and vacated the First Circuit Court of Appeals judgment, in its entirety, reinstated the judgment of the trial court, and remanded for further proceedings in the District Court to hold a hearing concerning whether or not there was a “confession.” We contend that such a procedure is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the U. S. Constitution. The Supreme Court of Louisiana cannot order the District Court to do that which no civil court possibly can—determine what constitutes the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Catholic Church. Indeed, both state and federal jurisprudence make clear that there is no jurisdiction to adjudicate claims that turn upon such purely religious questions.

A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years mandates that the seal of confession is absolute and inviolable. Pursuant to his oath to the Church, a priest is compelled never to break that seal. Neither is a priest allowed to admit that someone went to confession to him. If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty and violate the seal of confession and his duty to the penitent.

This is not a gray area in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. A priest/confessor who violates the seal of confession incurs an automatic excommunication reserved for forgiveness to the Apostolic See in Vatican City, Italy.

In this case, the priest acted appropriately and would not testify about the alleged confessions. Church law does not allow either the plaintiff (penitent) or anyone else to waive the seal of confession.

Attempts by secular authorities to force priests to violate the seal are increasing in both number and intensity. This is a direct attack on Christ's Church. 

The Enemy is trying to destroy the confessor-penitent relationship so that Catholics will be hesitant to make frequent use of the sacrament. 

In the current atmosphere of militant secularism and in the animosity of the current administration in D.C. to the Church, these attempts to force priests to violate the seal may find an eager assistant. 

Keep in mind: even though this attempt to undermine the sacrament will likely fail, there will be another attempt and another. The Enemy is perfectly happy with tiny victories and small advances. Each quarter-step makes the next step that much easier.

Pray for your priests!

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14th Sunday OT: audio file

Audio File for 14th Sunday OT:  You call that an easy burden?!

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You call that an easy burden?!

14^th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Jesus says that his yoke, the burden he imposes is light. Let's review. Turn the other cheek. Forgive your neighbor not just seven times but seven times seventy times. Go the extra mile. Love God and neighbor as you love yourself. Hate your parents, your siblings if you will follow him. Die for the love of a friend. Eat his flesh and drink his blood. Be prepared for persecution, torture, and death for spreading his Good News. Pray for your enemies. Don't worry about tomorrow b/c God even takes care of the sparrows. Go, and sin no more. We could go on. But the picture here is perfectly clear. There's nothing easy, light, or in any way casual about putting on the yoke of Christ. Just figuring out what some of these commands mean is burdensome enough w/o trying to actually carry them out. Does he understand the burden he's putting on us? He says that he will give us rest. He says that we will learn from him – his meekness and humility. So, when Jesus invites us to take on his yoke, what is he asking us to do? Is taking on his burdens worth the time and effort?

In one of his many sermons,* St. Augustine has this to say about our gospel passage, “All other burdens oppress and crush you, but Christ's burden actually lightens your load. All other burdens weigh you down, but Christ's burden gives you wings. If you cut away a bird's wings, it might seem as though you are taking off some of its weight, but the more weight you take off [by removing its wings], the more you tie the bird down to the earth. There it is lying on the ground, and you wanted to relieve it of a burden; give it back the weight of its wings, and you will see how it flies.” The wise and the learned know that the heavier an object is the more work it takes to make it fly. Lighter objects need less work to fly. But the little ones know that a bird cannot fly without the weight of its wings. Christ’s yoke, his burden on us weighs less than bird bones and feathers. Nothing he asks of us is foreign to him. Nothing he demands of us is beyond our strength. Everything he teaches us and preaches to us is as familiar to him as his own skin. He knows our trials. He knows our weaknesses. Above all, he knows that we are made strong, durable, and patient by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Paul, writing to the Romans, teaches us, “You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you…” As baptized and confirmed members of the Body of Christ, God’s Spirit does dwell within us. And since God’s Spirit abides in us, “the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to [our] mortal bodies…” And since our mortal bodies will be given the life of the resurrection of the dead when our Lord returns for us, “brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh…” And so, we are to live as Little Ones – the poor, the broken, the thrown away, the diseased, those who rush to Jesus for a word of healing. 

 

Why must be become so little? Because to be filled with the Spirit we must first be emptied out as Christ himself was emptied out for us on the Cross. There is no room for God’s Spirit in a body crowded with fear, worry, anger, a lust for revenge, a desire to punish; there is no room for God in a soul stuffed full with the need to worship alien gods; to kill the innocent; to torture the enemy. Greed, jealousy, rage, promiscuity, dissent, all elbow sharply at our souls for more space for themselves but make no room for God. Paul warns us: “…if you live according to the flesh, you will die…” If we will live, we must “put to death the deeds of the body…”

Nothing that you have heard Jesus or Paul say this evening should surprise you. You know the consequences of sin. Firstly, sin makes you stupid. Disobedience quenches the fire of the intellect, so that you choose evil over good. Do this often enough and you become a fool. Secondly, since sin makes you foolish, you come to believe that you are wise. If you are also learned, that is, well-educated in the world, you might even begin to believe that you better than God Himself what is best for you. Enter all those nervous questions about the nature of Jesus’ burden and the weight of his revelation on you. Finally, since sin makes you a wise and learned fool, you may come to believe that you can do without God altogether, becoming, for all intents and purposes, your own god, worshiping at the altar of Self. At this point, you have excluded yourself from God’s love and the company of the blessed. Welcome to Hell. Maybe the Devil will let you rule a small corner of your favorite level, but don’t count on it. You know the consequences of sin. So empty yourself. Make plenty of room for God’s Spirit and Christ's featherweight burden.

If we will come among the blessed and thrive in holiness, then we will take on the light and easy yoke of Jesus and let him teach us the one thing we must know above all else: He is the Christ sent by the Father so that we might have eternal life. This is not the end of our spiritual journey; it is just the beginning. Christ’s warnings about the wise and learned are not meant to push a kind of anti-intellectualism, a know-nothing party of prejudice and blindness. In fact, it is because we are first weighted down with the feather-light wisdom of Jesus’ yoke that we must then come to understand our faith, to use our graced minds to explore and comprehend God’s creation – ourselves and everything else. If we are emptied of the deeds of the flesh and infused with the Spirit of God, then our bodies too are graced, and we have nothing to fear from the mind, nothing to worry about in seeking out knowledge and understanding. To know God’s creation better is to know God Himself better, and when we know God better and better, we become smaller and smaller and more and more ready to receive the only revelation we need to come to Him, the only burden from Him we must carry: Jesus is the Christ!

*Sermon 126
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