Msgr. Charles Pope: The Blind Leading the Blind

Msgr. Charles Pope, along with his fellow trads/conservatives, has railed against the COVID-19 restrictions, and has even condemned those who have not immediately returned to Mass of being "lukewarm Catholics."

Msgr. Pope now has the opportunity to put his money where his mouth has been because he has just tested positive for COVID-19.

Interestingly, although the secular news media has reported extensively on Msgr. Pope ("A pastor who told congregants not to be afraid of the coronavirus was hospitalized with COVID-19"), the only Catholic blogs I have seen report it are John Zuhlsdorf and Deacon Greg Kandra.  Per usual, if the news does not fit into the radical right's version of reality - which, more often than not, does not correspond to actual reality - they just pretend it doesn't exist.

If You Are A Conservative, You Are Probably Not Christian, Part II

To conserve means basically to protect the status quo, to defend against change.  The dictionary defines Conservative as "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion." In our political world today, Conservatives vehemently oppose change and denounce any questioning of conservative traditions and authority as evil.

Many American Conservatives, unlike their liberal counterparts, also self identify as Christians, meaning they claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. However, one has to wonder if any of these Conservative Christians have actually read the New Testament, because the Gospel stories make it very clear that if He walked the earth today, Jesus Christ, as I will show, would completely disavow all political movements and parties, including the Conservative movement.

The Murder of George Floyd Reveals A System Evil To Its Core

We are living in completely unprecedented times.  Never have we witnessed worldwide protests to a single event as we have seen with the George Floyd murder.  

I am old enough to remember the civil rights struggles and race riots of the 1960s along with the anti-war protests.   

I remember 1968 when it seemed riots were happening somewhere in America for almost the entire summer.  

I remember the beating of Rodney King, the subsequent trial and acquittal of the officers involved in that beating and the tension felt around the nation while we watched Los Angeles burn.  We have all seen the horrific videos in recent years of unarmed black men and women dying at the hands of police.  And there have been protests against many of these killings.  

But never, never, never have I seen such a widespread and unified response not only in the United States but around the world as we have witnessed in reaction to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  As I write this, we have seen almost two straight weeks of protest in the United States, even in the face of a pandemic, with no signs of stopping.  

What is different?

If You Are A Conservative, You Probably Aren't Christian

The dictionary definition of a conservative is: "a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics."

A conservative is someone who wants to preserve the status quo.  New or innovative ways and beliefs are evil and must be resisted.   Conservatives live their lives by looking in the rear view mirror.  A Conservative's goal in life is to preserve his way of life at all costs, no matter the effect upon others.

Conservatives never doubt themselves or their beliefs.  They know they are on the side of everything good and sacred and therefore, anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong but evil.  Since they "know" their opponents are evil, they have no problem doing whatever is necessary to silence dissenting voices.

In religious circles, conservatives are called fundamentalists.  Fundamentalists are motivated by the belief that they have a direct line to God, and therefore to disagree with them is to disagree with God Himself.  And because they are so close to God, they believe they have not only a right but a duty to resist and fight against their enemies.

Conservatives view their world with rose colored glasses.  They see everything in their world as perfect, in no need of change or correction. The only correction that needs to be made is to those who disagree.  As GK Chesterton said:

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

Conservatives also live their lives in fear and anger. They are fearful of anyone and anything that challenges their world.  Because of their inability to do any introspective thinking, they lash out with hatred and scorn at those who threaten to upset their worlds.

Nothing has made this more apparent than the reaction of conservatives to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of reacting to the great suffering and death caused by this pandemic with compassion and empathy, we have seen only anger and hate. But it is not the disease that has upset them. Conservatives don't blame the disease, which many claim is a hoax. They blame those trying to control the disease.

Your Response To COVID-19 Could Determine Your Eternal Salvation

Did you ever wonder why obedience to lawful human authority is so important to God?  Certainly we understand that obedience to Our Lord is of paramount importance, but why is it so important to obey our human leaders?  They are sinful human beings just like us.  Why must we submit our will to other sinners?  They can be and often are wrong in their beliefs and motivations.

Yet, we find verses such as these in the Written Word of God:

Titus 3:1 Remind believers to willingly place themselves under the authority of government officials. Believers should obey them and be ready to help them with every good thing they do.

Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. 

Romans 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

God gave us minds so that we are able to think for ourselves.  Why must we submit to human authority, especially when we know, in our great wisdom, that those human authorities are absolutely wrong?

We Have Killed Nature, and Now Nature Is Killing Us

We live in completely unprecedented times.  A microscopic virus that cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled, has brought the entirety of humanity to its knees.  It is as if the Angel of Death depicted in the Biblical book of Exodus has been unleashed upon the whole world.  And 21st Century man, with all of his advances in technology and abilities, is completely powerless against it.

But many people do not believe this.  They believe that we should have handled COVID-19 the same way we do with any flu.  These people believe that the lockdown, which has caused so much economic hardship, was completely unnecessary.

Those who make such arguments are showing their complete ignorance of the threat we are facing.

Nothing Like A Crisis To Show The True Colors of People

Last year, 2019 (which seems like at least 100 years ago now), countless "Catholic" traditionalists/conservatives in the Church were very upset about the Synod on the Amazon.  They warned the rest of us for months before the Synod even began how "dangerous" it was.  Cardinal Raymond Burke said the Synod would result in the "dismantling" of the entire global church.  He and other anti-Francis prelates urged Catholics to pray and fast about the Synod, warning that it was apostasy.

However, none of these people seemed in the least concerned about the Amazonians.  Many of the faithful in the Amazon go for months or even years without access to the Mass or the Sacraments because of the lack of priests.  Yet I never heard any concern about this problem on any of the blogs/websites of these self-righteous critics.  No one ever called for fasting and prayer on behalf of the people in the Amazon.

Now those who were so critical of the Amazon Synod have themselves been deprived of access to the Mass and the Sacraments.  This is not the result of the lack of priests but of a worldwide pandemic called COVID-19 that is sickening and killing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide (1,923,935 confirmed cases and 119,612 deaths as of this writing).  Here in the United States, as I write, there are 586,941 confirmed infections and 23,634 deaths (source).  You can click the links to see how much this has changed from the time of my writing (April 13).

As a result of this nightmare in which we are all living, all Masses have been canceled in the United States and most other parts of the world, and there is little to no access to the Sacraments.  This is done in an effort to try to save lives.  Nevertheless in Italy, which is in total lockdown, more than 100 priests have died.  We have lost two priests here in the Diocese of Brooklyn:  Father Gioacchino Basile, 60 and 49-year-old Father Jorge Ortiz-Garay.  At least one priest in the New York Archdiocese has died.

I see no concern on any of these blogs about the death of these priests or anyone else for that matter.  They are all concerned basically about one thing:  they don't have the Mass or the Sacraments, and they are mad!

Even a worldwide pandemic has not helped them develop any empathy or concern for others.  They are still unable to see outside their own little circle, viewing everything that happens in the world only as a conspiracy to destroy these last remaining "faithful Catholics."

Is Being Willing to Die for a Disease an Heroic Act or Just Plain Stupidity and Selfishness?

As I write this, the world is in the midst of the worst pandemic of the 21st century, and the worst in many, many decades before that.  We have never seen a virus travel so quickly throughout the world or one as deadly as COVID-19.  

At the moment, there have been 1,182,830 confirmed cases and 63,925 deaths worldwide.  In the US, there have been 301,147 confirmed cases and 8,173 deaths.  And this all began only a little more than 3 months ago, on December 31, 2019 when the first COVID-19 infection was diagnosed. [SOURCE]  If you click on the link, you will see the updated numbers, which will be much higher than those I have stated here.  

COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the United States.  From The Hill.com. April 1, 2020:

The coronavirus has become the third-highest cause of death in the U.S., according to a doctor's analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. 

Maria Danilychev of San Diego charted coronavirus growth throughout the country and found that COVID-19 fatalities had surpassed Alzheimer's, stroke and chronic lung disease with 748 deaths per day and rising, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday. 

The analysis is based on reports from a single day, assuming the rate of deaths remains the same or increases from now until the virus hits the projected apex towards the end of April.

Yet, there are still many people who are insisting on their right to meet together during this storm. Sadly, that includes many Catholics who have condemned their bishops for closing churches everywhere in an attempt to save as many lives as possible.  

Selfish Conservatives/Trads Acting Like Spoiled Spring Breakers

We were all shocked at the callousness and selfishness displayed by these Florida spring breakers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.  People are getting sick and dying around the world, but all these young people can think about is the fun they want to have, giving no thought or concern whatsoever to their role in spreading this pandemic to others, causing even more sickness and death.

This is the exact same attitude I see displayed on conservative/trad websites in regard to attending Mass.  C'mon, you say!  Going to spring break and Mass are hardly the same thing!  We want to worship God, not party down with sex and drugs!  

The trads are telling us that there can never be a reason to cancel Mass and close the churches, not even in the midst of a pandemic.  After all, they didn't even close churches during the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages.  We must always have access to God and the Sacraments.  (I guess they believe that God can only be found in churches and nowhere else)

But the fact is, all large gatherings, no matter what the purpose, are putting people at extreme risk with COVID-19.  This is the most infectious disease we have seen in the 21st Century, and for many decades before that.  Church doors, unfortunately, do not have the capability of holding back this coronavirus, a completely new disease about which very little is known and to which no adult seems to be immune.