A reading of the holy gospel according to Mark. This is a continuation from yesterday's reading. Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent after Jesus to catch him in his speech. The two groups came to Jesus and said to him, teacher, we know that you are a truthful man, unconcerned about anyone's opinion. It is evident that you do not act out of human respect, but that you teach god's way of life sincerely.
Is it lawful? Here's the question. Is it lawful to pay the tax to the emperor or not? Are we to pay or are we not to pay? Now you have to realize that this was an extremely touching and sensitive issue with the Jews, that the idea of paying tax to the Roman emperor was considered almost blasphemy.
So they're asking Jesus, is it lawful to pay the tax to the emperor or not? Are we to pay or not to pay? Knowing their hypocrisy in other words, they're not seeking truth. They're out to capture him. Knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus said to him, why are you trying to trip me up?
Bring me a coin and let me see it. When they brought a coin, Jesus said to them, whose head is this? Whose inscription is on the coin? Caesar's, they said, the emperor. At that, Jesus said to them, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God.
Their amazement at Jesus knew no bounds, and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. In the psalm that was read, there is a sentence, a verse in there about if you're strong, you'll live to be 80, and if you're weak, you'll live to be 70, and perhaps some of us won't live that long. And that when you look back from the vantage point of your 70 or the 80, according to the psalmist, you will find so many of those years wasted in fruitless toil. That's the word, fruitless toil.
Now today we are celebrating you see the red vestments. We are celebrating 22 little known martyrs, little known known martyrs. Charles, Laguanda and 21 companions who were martyred in the year 1867 in Uganda, Africa. The New Catholic Encyclopedia has about an eighth of a page about these 22 men who gave their lives freely for Jesus Christ in a little known land among a little known people at a little known time which is almost forgot. We shouldn't forget them.
They were canonized in about 1964. The church didn't forget them. And this should bring out or you can perhaps see why that text was chosen about fruitless toil. There are 22 relatively young men whose lives were cut very short. When they looked back, there wasn't much of anything, much less fruitless toil.
And yet, all I know about them is what I read in the New Catholic Encyclopedia. They gave their lives for a principle, for a Christian concept of purity, which today is so totally not only ignored from the outside but in many instances disregarded and denied by members within the fold. So these 22 men in 1867 gave their lives. They didn't have to do this. This was a free as I said, all I know is what I read.
But that it was an explicit confession and profession of faith that these men made. They didn't have to do it. They could have simply kept quiet. They were attached to the court. But they chose to come out of the cupboard and to stand up and profess their faith on the principle of protecting the purity of the young pages in the court.
And for that, they gave their lives under extremely cruel torture. The Gwanda was tortured by a very slow fire. Now if there's any there's so many things we can think of in connection with the feast of this when we're recalling 22 men from Uganda 1867. That's well over a hundred years ago. Times have changed.
But you know here's an instance where the church is saying, look at what the Catholic church is. It isn't the church of Garrett Park. It's not the church of San Francisco. It's not the church of Milwaukee or Miami, Florida. It's not the church of Greece or of Athens.
It's not the church of Antioch or of Cairo. It's not the church of Africa. It's not the church of South America. It's the church. One.
We profess in the creed, one holy Catholic church. One of the great marks of the church is unity. Now how do you express unity? Well, of course there are all kinds of ways of expressing unity. You can have unity that amounts to homogeneity, to where the individual is completely I don't know whether you're talking about animals or men or plants where you can reduce something to such a uniformity that it's a one thing.
Well, that never was the unity of the church. The church is built upon individual human beings. Let's not forget that these days when we hear so much to the contrary. A man stands alone before God for his judgment. He comes into the world very much alone, extremely dependent notice, extremely dependent.
But we are individual human beings. Now, so that beginning at that absolutely lowest level and going all the way up to what we call the unity of the church, what are we talking about? What will establish that unity? What will give evident manifestation to that unity? Well, there's one thing sure.
If Jesus Christ brought any kind of truth and if his church is in any way the mouthpiece for that truth, then there should be a unity of doctrine. And right now you hear to read in some of our great minds writing in our great papers in The United States Of America on this matter of artificial contraception, one will say eighty five or ninety percent of Catholic women in The United States are on the pill, as they say. Therefore, the Holy Father coming out and saying it's immoral and a sin and it's wrong, it's grievously wrong, that is completely opposed to Catholic doctrine, their consensus fidelium. Whose fidelium? The USA?
That's not the consensus vidalium in some other parts of the world. And in ritual, how about the ritual manifesting some unity? Now, you see what has happened often enough. Many times, and this is no criticism, my when men lay down their lives for the truth, who are we to stand up and criticize anybody? We're not laying down our lives for it.
But on the other hand, we can see some of the mistakes that were made. When you have had missionaries of of with the utmost sincerity who not only took the word of God and were the mouthpieces of his living church, but they were also the mouthpieces of a living culture and a nationalism. So that to be a good Catholic in some instances meant to be a certain kind of national. Well, nobody says that that's right. So where do you you see, this is a tremendous problem, that the church is to be to be all things for all men.
And yet all men and all women are mightily different, mightily different. They are tremendously more different than the people over in Jerusalem were from the Greeks over in Athens and the people over in Rome or even in Northern Africa. Remember, the whole Mediterranean world there was a certain unity. There was the emperor. It was the Roman empire.
There was nothing like the diversity that in our that we have in our world today. Nothing like it. Therefore, the problem of unity and diversity is even greater because these two have to be maintained. They have to be kept. They have to be recognized.
They have to be dealt with. That's not easy. And in many instances you can't solve it by sitting behind a desk and throwing out ink. It's a matter of common sense and in many instances a pragmatic issue. You trial and error, you try.
But on the other hand, it's well to have some principles in mind. And one of the most important one is a concept of the church of Jesus Christ. What is it? What is it? We can get so tied up in our own tiny little worlds that we forget there's a whole universe outside, a universe of extremely different kinds of people, different cultures, different histories, different languages, different literatures, different concepts of music and art and all of these things.
And yet the church is for all men. It's the church universal. And we say it speaks a universal language. So, of course, we've eliminated the universal language, of course. That was a big help.
Everybody knows that. But anyway, here is a great issue. It's an issue that the church is facing and we have never there has not been a pope who has so profoundly recognized this issue and is doing something about it. Wherever he has gone, and he's gone to very different peoples, very different cultures, he said these two things, he certainly didn't emphasize it in South America and in Mexico and when he went to Poland, but especially in South America where we're having some special troubles. The unity of the church and its obvious manifestations must that it has to be an evident thing that to be a Catholic that you will feel at home in the world.
That used to be a lot truer than it is today. Believe me. And yet we should have some kind of an obvious unity, something that binds us together. And at the same time, as the Holy Father has insisted, we must recognize these differences and use them and use them, build on them, not reject the past, not to ignore it, but to use it. And so today, as we celebrate the feast of these 22 Ugandians of 1867, let us pray for the unity of God's church before the world.
Name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.