Last week Jesus claimed authority over the Torah. They said he spoke with
authority, like he made himself out to be someone greater than Moses. And Moses was
the greatest authority in the Old Testament. But Jesus corrected Moses. He said, you heard
the commandment this, but what I say is, and he raised the bar. He speaks with an authority
greater than Moses, greater than the Torah. In today's gospel, he acts with authority.
He reveals his power over evil. His power over the visible world, like nature, his power
over nature and physical illness, but also over spiritual beings. He casts out demons
in that gospel. So he teaches with authority. He teaches with the authority of God, and
he acts with the power of God. Basically, this is to get people to realize he speaks
the truth. He is who he says he is, and we should kind of...
Be on his side. Recently, there's been a kind of a drawing of the lines in the culture
war, many commentaries on things religious. Some wild-eyed things have been said over
the last couple of weeks. Last Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times, Neil Steinberg, no friend
of religion.
There is this one commentator, who commented on the HHS mandate, requiring the Church to
have its health insurance permit sterilization, contraception and abortion drugs. And Neil
Steinberg took the occasion to say that this is simply the Church imposing drinking. He's
her values on others. That's what Neil Steinberg said. It's the Catholic Church trying to impose
her values on the rest of the world. Well, the response is like, are you kidding? Are
we trying to legislate against sterilization or contraception? The opposite is true. These
things are being imposed on the church by the state. So Mr. Steinberg is just telling
that old story that the church wants to tell me how to run my life. The church wants to
tell everyone how to run their life. The old lie that the church is always the oppressor.
But it's not true. Bishops have called this an unprecedented
lie.
This is a government assault upon moral convictions of our faith. When I was in Washington a couple
of weeks ago in the March for Life, there was a t-shirt that said, friends don't let
friends watch mainstream news. Friends don't let friends watch mainstream news. Well, after
reading the Chicago Sun-Times, we can kind of understand why.
Kathleen Sebelius kind of threw a bone to the Catholics when she was willing to give
the church one year to adjust to the new regulations. And Cardinal Dolan responded by saying that
you have one year to figure out how to violate your conscience. That was what she was telling
us. We have one year to figure out how we can violate our conscience. Cardinal Sebelius
said, it is naive to think that contraception and sterilization will be free under the Health
and Human Services mandate. There is no free lunch. You and I can be sure that there is
no free abortion, no free sterilization or contraception. He wrote, there will be a source
of funding, you. That's the source of funding.
We say that the culture war has just escalated. The lines have been more clearly drawn. Both
sides have kind of dug in their heels. And it's kind of, the world has to choose. People
have to choose which side they're going to stand on. It's very similar actually to what
happened 20 years ago when Sinead O'Connor, the Dublin-born rock singer, held up a picture
of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live and ripped it up and said, fight the real
enemy. Well, there was nothing wrong with her theology because God is the real enemy
of Satan. The Roman Catholic Church is the real enemy of all the forces of evil. The
Pope, the vicar of Christ, is the enemy of every prophet of Lucifer.
And so I think the Obama administration has recognized who the real enemy is. And like
we say, for us, it's up to us to choose sides. And this is the time to pray that some people
have just realized that there is a culture war. That there is a clear battle line to
take a stand on. And so we pray for those who have recognized the war and have to choose
sides.
choose the side of truth. That's the mission of the church, to just
continue to stand firm in the truth despite persecution or whatever comes
her way. Like they say many times in the history of the church, people said
the church has gone to the dogs, but the dogs always died and the church survived.
Two thousand years, the church has seen many political empires rise and fall, but
the church endures. So we pray that many will stand firm in the truth and on the
side of Christ and his church.