A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. As Jesus was casting out a devil, some in the crowd said, it is by Beelzebub, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils. Others, to test Jesus, were demanding of him a sign from heaven. Because Jesus knew their thoughts, he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. Any house torn by dissension falls.
If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdoms last? Since you say it is by the else above that I cast out devils. If I cast out devils by bells above, by whom do your people cast them out? In such a case, let them act as your judges. But if it is by the finger of god that I cast out devils, then the reign of god is upon you.
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his courtyard, his possessions go undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he comes along and overpowers him, such a one carries off the arms on which he was relying and divides up the spoils. The man who is not with me is against me, and the man who does not gather with me scatters. When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it wanders through arid wastes searching for a resting place. Failing to find one, it says, I'll go back where I came from.
It then returns to find the house swept and tidied. Next, it goes out and returns with seven other spirits far worse than itself who enter in and dwell there. The result is that the last state of the man is worse than the first, and this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you lord Jesus. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
Within well, it's within the last few months. There has been a movement. It's called it in regard to morality, the seamless garment. It goes back to, well, let's leave that alone. Anyway, it's called the seamless garment.
Here's the way it's presented. We all know abortion is wrong, although some Catholics don't seem to have gotten the message. But let us not forget that war is wrong, poverty is wrong. So, they put together see how it goes they put together abortion, poverty, and war, and maybe a few other things along the line. Now, as if these things were the same.
I want to look at this. At whatever you some people may think about war. I'm not going to resolve that problem. All I'm saying is, the Catholic church does not say that war is intrinsically evil. That's not Catholic doctrine.
The Catholic church holds to the possibility that there can be a just war. Just as you can have a right to defend your house if somebody comes in to try to steal it. What man won't protect his wife if there's someone trying to rape her? What nation will will not protect itself if someone else is trying to rape that nation? It's that simple.
So the point I'm making is what I'm not If you want to think words intrinsically, go ahead. But don't say it's Catholic doctrine. It's not. Now let's look at this business of poverty. You if you put poverty between abortion and war and they'll even add capital punishment, some people will.
That's another thing. The Catholic church doesn't say capital punishment is intrinsically evil. You may not believe in capital punishment. I could care less. I should say I couldn't care less.
But the thing is, the church says that capital punishment under certain conditions may be necessary and moral. Therefore, it is not intrinsically evil. But you see these things are put all together as if they were equal, abortion, poverty, war, capital punishment. Now let's look at this business of poverty. It is so self evidently absurd.
Here's a man like Saint Francis of Assisi who held I admit he was an eccentric. I admitted that that his his ideal was extremely for an elite few. I admit all of this. But the thing is, he practiced poverty. He intentionally was poor.
Was he committing something intrinsically evil? You know, even with my poor memory, I can remember something being said about religious taking power vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. One of them was poverty. And we even had solemn and simple vows of poverty. Well, if poverty is such a terrible evil, what are the religious people doing taking vows to do it?
All through the Gospel the poor are praised and in most instances the rich are condemned. How about that? Instead of praying for the poor we ought to be praying for the rich because they're the ones who need the prayers more, shouldn't we? Furthermore, where in this country do you find official legislation upholding and paying for with tax money crimes against human beings, whether they be poverty or anything else. Whereas, as regards abortion, here's exactly what you have.
A million and a half lives paid for much much of it by public funds, where in which lives are simply a completely destroyed. Over a million and a half a year in The United States alone. Now, you've got to get we've got to have our thinking straight, but you can see the propaganda behind this business. Because someone will will even add now the capitalistic system. So the point is that in order to say, well, now don't get too narrow minded and push all your energy against abortion.
Look at all these other evils as if you could mention them in the same breath. Let's get our thinking straight. I'm not up here defending poverty or hunger or any of those things, but let let us know what we're talking about. Because a person has money, has a good home, has good children, has good wife and a good husband, has everything that is good, does that make a good person? Because a person is poor and doesn't have a good wife or a good husband, and good children, and a good home, and a good automobile, Does that make them a good person?
Or does it make them an evil person? See, some people say there if they are evil is because of their poverty. Does poverty make people evil? Is the in other words, is the relationship cause and effect? Well, how absurd can you get?
Some of the finest people that any of us have known were poor people. Most of a lot of people including myself came from poor homes. We didn't think we were committing a crime by being poor. In some instance, we didn't know we were exactly poor. We were surrounded with so many of equal richness or the lack of it.
That we've got to get there our thinking straight. Because, you know, what today we are in this I mentioned this, because you belong to a movement that makes you holy, brings your meaning closer to God, separated from the world. That's what holiness means. It does nothing of the sort. I I may get on the bandwagon to free the Afghanistan's against this apartheid, save the whales.
I could be against the crimes of injustice committed against women, as indeed they have been, and against other people too. But does that make me any holier? Think about it. Yet that's the tendency today, get on a bandwagon. That makes you a better person.
Does it? Has cause and effect? Does that is that bringing you closer to God? We prayed in the opening prayer for salvation. Salvation.
Salvation. And is salvation in this world? Do you have to be rich to be saved? Do you have to be poor to be saved? Or is salvation something independent of them both?
That it is something you individually have to achieve, you individually, and you don't get it by getting on a bandwagon. There is no such thing in the real order as collective virtue or collective vice, or as we say societal virtue, societal vice. That's that's a shibboleth. It's a myth. We come back course, just how many of you people right here have read Saint Francis de Sales introduction to a devout life.
Maybe some of you have, maybe some of you haven't. Well, there's one thing sure it's not making the bestsellers list today, that I'm sure of, and yet it should be. See in most I mean I'm talking in our own Catholic family that's relegated to the Council of Trent. And, of course, we don't even want to mention Trent. That's one of the four letter words.
And yet that's what it boils down to. Rich or poor, Democrat or Republican, Socialist or a capitalist economy. It is your personal responsibility to save your soul, to save yourself. That's what we call virtue. And to put these things like like war, poverty, economic systems, to put these things in the same category with abortion, where you have a a direct intent to kill a living being in a mother's womb, to put them in the same category is hypocritical.
And it's worse than that because I think the intent is very bad, to put these things together and they can't be put together. You come back to the simple point, why did God make you? Not collective, you individual you. Why did God make you? And the answer was and is and will be.
To know him, notice the first thing is to know knowledge. To know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next. Don't forget the last part. The whole point of the Christian life is salvation, which means eternity with God. In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.