LifeSiteNews.com
Wednesday April 5, 2006
Pope Benedict: Church of Love Addresses Heretics with "Drastic Severity"
By John-Henry Westen
VATICAN CITY, April 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "The Church of love is also the Church of truth," said Pope Benedict XVI today, in an address to some 30,000 people gathered to hear his Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter's Square. The bishops, the successors of the Apostles, he said, carry out "above all a service of love; and the charity they live and promote is inseparable from the truth they defend and transmit." The Pope added, "Truth and love are two faces of the same gift that comes from God."
In his teaching, the Pope spoke of "the contrasts concerning the truth of faith and the subsequent lacerations of communion."
"That the early Church was also aware of these potential tensions within the experience of communion is clear from the First Letter of John," said the Pope. "No voice in the New Testament rises with greater force to highlight the reality and the duty of fraternal love between Christians; yet the same voice addresses itself with drastic severity to the adversaries who were members of the community but are so no longer."
The pro-life movement in Canada sees those "adversaries who were members of the community but are so no longer" very clearly in the many Catholic politicians who support abortion and homosexual 'marriage'. Both former Prime Ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin repeatedly pronounced themselves as Catholics but pushed abortion and homosexual 'marriage' legislation with vigour. (see coverage http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/
In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, Rev. Thomas A. Lynch the Dean of Studies at Toronto's prestigious St. Augustine's Seminary explained, "anyone can claim a depth of faith all you want, but faith has to be known in actions, as James said, faith without good works is dead."
"This is very true of most Catholic politicians in the Western world," said Fr. Lynch, "who are confronted with stark choices, do they conform to the easier way to make headway in politics, or do they take a very hard way and thereby pay a price, everybody pays a price for living according to the way of Christ, and it can be a fairly high price."
However, with regard to the Church treating such fallen away Catholics with "drastic severity", Fr. Lynch noted that denial of communion may seem "very severe," but it is carried out in the service of love. The Dean of Studies admitted that it is very difficult for Church authorities to mete out discipline. "We always have to be willing to speak the truth in love, and that truth is not always that which is easy or that which is palatable," he said. He added that all Catholics are called to make such hard choices out of love.
"Do you really think that it's easy for a mother who may have a very tenuous and difficult relationship to say to her son or daughter, who might be very fragile emotionally, 'no dear you can't bring your lover to our place to sleep with him or her because it isn't right', even though you know there's going to be an explosion?" he asked. "Love is really hard, wouldn't it be easier not to discipline your children? But if you really love them, you do. It's very hard."
One bishop who, out of love, has disciplined former Prime Minister Martin saying he would refuse him communion (see coverage http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/
Bishop Henry, who publicly took issue with Martin being referred to in the media as a "devout Roman Catholic" (see coverage http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/
See the full address of the Pope (in Italian):http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/
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