St. John Fisher: The Fort is Betrayed Even of Them That Should Have Defended It

Torch of The Faith News on Thursday 28 July 2016 - 10:31:26 | by admin

Tolkien's fictional Grond the Warhammer Battering Ram - Just how obvious does the threat have to be before leaders in Church and State wake up?

Absurd Denial

It should have been obvious that the sacrilegious slaying of Fr. Jacques Hamel in France two days ago changed everything for the safety of Christians in Europe. After all, what could be more in-your-face evil than two Islamist soldiers entering the very sanctuary of God to slaughter a priest of Jesus Christ as he offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

Whilst politicians and mainstream media outlets hid behind their typically kneejerk reactions regarding the supposedly ''unclear motives'' of the killers (!), one would have hoped for something more from Church leaders.

Instead, the first day after the killing was noteable only for the ineffectual responses of Pope Francis and Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen.

It was bad enough that these leaders failed to express with sufficient gravity the really demonic nature of that attack on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the holy sanctuary or the sacred priesthood.

It is sad to have to say it, but Pope Francis' generic denouncement of ''all forms of hatred'', and his lamentation over the ''absurd violence'' just did not cut it. Neither did Archbishop Lebrun's effete invitation to non-believers to join in the crying. The Islamists must be laughing into their Erk-Soos...

And frankly, what a disgrace that Justin Welby, the faux Archbishop of Canterbury, recently welcomed Muhammed Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman to Lambeth Palace. These two Pakistani clerics have been allowed to enter Britain to tour mosques in Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle, even though they have led a high-profile campaign in Pakistan in praise of an Islamist assassin.

This would all be bad enough if it were not for last night's news that Pope Francis had given another (!!!) problematic in-flight interview en route to the irreverences of World Youth Day in Poland.

It seems that Pope Francis said: ''When I speak of war, I talk about it seriously, but it's not a war of religion. It's a war for money, for resources, for nature, for dominion. This is the war... Could one think of a religious war? No. All religions want peace. Others want war. Is that clear?''

Erm... abundantly!

Thoughtful people can only respond to that concluding question by considering the actual life history and actions of Mohammed, those of his immediate followers and the general trajectory of Islam throughout history.

In the immediate circumstances, those of the very recent slaughter in France, one can only ask: Did the two Islamic soldiers who murdered Fr. Jacques Hamel believe they were in a war for money, resources, nature or domination?

Exactly!

Clearly, these characters believed they were in a war for religion.

You see, you can sit there all day and say you believe the moon is made of cream cheese. But it ain't so.

And you can sit there all day and say that all religions want peace and that mass immigration of Islamic hordes into Europe is a good thing, but that is not going to diminish the very real existential threat that Catholics now face after the barbarous events in Sainte-Etienne-du-Rouvray two days ago.

Instead of facing this threat, and using the opportunity to teach the world about the central importance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Universal Kingship of Jesus Christ and the need to be converted to Him, Pope Francis has just opened his visit to Krakow with calls to the Polish to open their borders, as well as their hearts, to the mass influx of Muslims.

Bet that's going down well with the Poles...

Legitimate Self Defence

When I was 18 years old, my late father and I were waiting in my car next to a railway station in a dicey part of Liverpool. It was after work, so we were wearing smart business suits and ties. We had parked there to await and protect my mother, who was shortly due to arrive at that station.

Perhaps we looked comical sitting there so dressed in that neighbourhood in a bright red Austin Mini.

In any case, after just a few minutes, a gang of thugs passed the car and began to taunt us through the windows. That was when they suggested that we were a pair of ''queers''. With natural disgust about this accusation, and with typically youthful impetuosity, I began to snarl and shout back that we were not ''queers''.

At that point things took a dramatic turn for the worse. The gang suddenly surrounded the car and attempted to drag me out from the driver's seat. Thankfully, I had already locked the doors! Not to be thwarted so easily, they began to rock the car from side to side, whilst chanting such niceties as ''Get him out and kick his head in'' and ''Waste him!'' My father and I quickly realized the full gravity of our situation and I worriedly fumbled for my car keys.

It was then that my father suddenly opened his door, scrambled out and demanded that these thugs back off and show us a little respect!

As this picture from those times shows, my dad was a man of faith, family and business, not of violence. Yet, there he stood in his smartest clothes surrounded by a violent mob. The ringleader thrust his face and his forefinger right into Dad's face and announced that, whilst he had never hit a man with glasses before, he was about to make an exception if Dad didn't just sit down, shut up and let them get on with dragging me out and kicking my head in!

I'll never forget the deep surge of love and pride that I felt for my father when he refused to back down in his defence of his own son against seemingly impossible odds.

With righteous indignation on his face, he stated that he was old enough to be this gangster's father, that this entitled him to some respect, that we were not ''queers'' but father and son, that we had been minding our own business when they came along and that it would be wisest for them to just let the whole thing drop and move along.

I was amazed when the gang leader, perhaps moved by the tremendous capacity of my father's raised voice to instill fear into even the boldest of men, suddenly shrugged and told his gang to come away with him. In a few seconds this hard-knock thug had been reduced to the state of a hunch-shouldered puppy.

We were not quite out of the woods yet though.

As the gang leader's initial humiliation subsided, I suddenly noticed the gang's collective realization that there was but one exit from the railway station car park. Perhaps the leader spotted a chance to restore his own authority with the gang, maybe his anger had flared again; whatever it was, he and his mates began to run towards this exit to block us in. At this point, I made some judicious use of the accelerator and steering wheel to get us out past them before they could stop us and do any likely damage to the car.

My lessons were not over that day: after swooping in to pick up my mother, Dad also had some sharp words in reserve for me about learning to control my impetuousity and learning to be more prudent. God bless Dad!

The point here can be summed up in the words of CCC 2265 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. These state: ''Legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the state.'' 

The erudite Fr. George Rutler has written an insightful article at FaithZette. Entitled A Christian Duty in the Face of Terror, his article recalls: ''A father is culpable if he does not protect his family. A bishop has the same duty as the spiritual father of his sons and daughters in the Church, just as the civil state has as its first responsibility the maintenance of the ''tranquility of order'' through self defence.'' 

Conclusion

After 26 years, I still experience feelings of love and pride for my father whenever I think of that far-off incident. It would be nice to be able to feel it for our Pope and other leaders in the hierarchy today.

Then again, we're grown men now and clearly must look to protect our own families. 

At least Cardinal Sarah continues to face generally in the right direction. I'll conclude with his words on the whole matter: ''How many deaths does it take, how many severed heads, for Europe to understand the situation in which the West is?'' 

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