A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. This continues, of course, the yesterday's discourse of our lord with Nicodemus about being reborn. So Jesus then said to Nicodemus, I solemnly assure you, do not be astonished that I tell you, you must all be begotten from above. The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound that it makes, but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone, begotten of the spirit. How can such a thing happen as Nicodemus? Jesus replied, you hold the office of teacher of Israel, and still you don't understand these matters? I solemnly assure you, we are talking about what we know. We are testifying to what we have seen.
You are the ones who do not accept our testimony. If you do not believe when I tell you about earthly things, how are you to believe when I tell you about those of heaven? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the son of man. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the son of man be lifted up that all who believe may have eternal life in him. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Just on the ball chance that you recently read Karl Marx's manifesto, which of course we all have beside our bed for our twilight reading, you are certainly struck by the similarity between this first reading this morning and what Carl Marx wrote about sharing the wealth. Because the early Christians apparently did just that. That's what at least that's what we're told that those who had property sold. They consolidated their resources and distributed according to the need of the first Christian members of this company.
Now that's all very fine, and some people are still doing it. We still have people living in community who pool their resources and use them as a community. Now that's there's nothing wrong with this at all. Down the centuries, the church has upholding has has upheld this. But in recent days, meaning about this century, there has been a growing tendency which has come to a very definite summit in recent years that this is the ideal.
Other words, that Christianity is basically communism. Now, as I said, when you have a book before you, you can prove almost anything you want from a book because you can select what you want. As I say, you can say that the that the Bible says there is no god. The Bible says it. There is no god.
Of course, the next sentence is says the fool in his heart. So that the early Christians did have a sort of communal living, that they did pool their resources, that they did distribute them according to need, that is beyond dispute. What do you make of it? First of all, is it ideal? Secondly, is it obligatory?
Well, first, is it ideal for everybody? Second, is it obligatory? Answer to the second question is absolutely not. Now, you see, what we have to understand very clearly is that communism just doesn't mean communal property. Every religious order that takes solemn vows solemn vows has this way of living.
But not a single religious order that I know of from one AD has ever renounced the right of private property. Not one. Even Francis of Assisi, who didn't become a priest because, so I've read, because he didn't want to even own a breviere, he wanted to be the absolutely so poor that he owned absolutely nothing. Even he, in his lifetime, found that you just can't get away with it in a practical way. They had to have a house.
Who's responsible for the house? This is right in St. Francis Collins. Now, there's a tremendous difference between a group of people coming together and saying, Let's all chip in. Any of you who've traveled have done this, you all chip in your money, and then you draw it out of the kitty.
When the kitty goes dry, everybody pumps in some more dough. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's not obligatory. You see, the whole difference is this. Communism, by essence, as Karl Marx would have it, is a rejection and a denial of the right of private property. That's the essence of it.
And don't be misled. You can't have Marxism without that idea, without that basic principle, without that basic thesis. There's no such thing as a Christian Marxist. Priests and others in South America to the contrary notwithstanding, you can and you cannot combine contradictors. And so there is not the slightest not the slightest foundation in these texts of the early Christian church that gives any hope or any sustenance or any basis for Marxist communism, nor even for socialism.
It's not there unless you read it. And you as I say, you can read anything you want into a book. You know, one of the earliest reformers, Metzger, here's the way he put it, bible, fable, bubble. That's the way it goes. And so there's a very important point here, though, that we cannot overlook, that while right down the centuries, certainly with Thomas Aquinas, while the right of private property is maintained, Leo XIII, Rare Milbaro, Padre J.
J. Moano, Without a doubt, the Church has stood firmly on this principle, the right of private property. At the same time, the Church has never, never suggested it was an absolute right. Absolute. Never.
Never. Never. On the contrary, it it has held that men and women who are in control of wealth or property or resources or what have you, that they are more custodians of it than absolute owners. So while the church has taken a definite stand on the right of private property, it has not, as officially I mean, the church itself in its official doctrines, in its official statements it has not supported the laissez faire economy even. That's a fine contribution, but it never came from the Catholic church.
And so this idea that what we have is ours by right, by certain norms and standards, even though we can say it is mine, we can't say it is mine, divorced from my neighbor's need. Now this is a very important distinction. Just just Sunday, a gentleman stopped me at as I was trying to run away from the front of the church after one of the masses, and he he asked me about the Cuatro J. Ziobuano. He said, When does a papal incentive to lose its authority?
That's Leo the thirteenth, remember. And the point is that as far back as about 1890, we had a very clear it has not been improved upon. There have been a number of documents since then from the Apostolic See, but they have all been extensions, modifications, but explanations and refinements of Quadrages and Moano. And that document gives you the philosophy, theology, if you will, of the Catholic Church towards property. Of course, it was almost totally ignored.
And to a great extent, it's still ignored. But that doesn't keep it from being the official teaching of the church. For Jackal, this gentleman had never heard of the rare of Arbojays in Guam. So this matter of talking about Christian Marxism, forget and yet this is very much a a contemporary problem, very much a contemporary problem. And remember, there are are are are very sincere, very able, very intelligent, extremely apostolic men and women who are today trying to show that the church basically is a communal society and that we do not have a primitive revelation once and for all, but we have an ongoing revelation from the needs of our society.
This is current. This is yesterday. This is today I'm talking about. Now, on the one hand you can say, Well, it's pretty difficult to know where Catholic truth is. That certainly is a fact.
I'm the first one to admit it. On the other hand, it's not impossible. The pursuit of truth is not an easy thing. I don't care what truth you're pursuing, in physics or chemistry or astronomy or dietetics or anything. It's not an easy path.
And so why should the pursuit of truth in theological, philosophical, moral matters be considered that every man is his own professional? This is the thing that intrigues me no end. But that's the way it seems to be today. But there is what we can certainly point to if we want to take the time of working working our way to it, the Catholic truth on these important matters, if we will just take a little bit of time to find it. Because let me tell you, today, there is an awful lot going around church of Jesus Christ.
In the name of the father, of the son, holy spirit. Amen.