A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Please pay special attention to this gospel this morning. It is very opposite considering the times we are living in. Our lord used images in speaking to his disciples. Can a blind man act as a guide to the blind?
Can an ignorant man or woman act as a guide to an ignorant man or a woman? Will they not both fall into the ditch? The answer is, you bet your life they will. Some people like ditches. A student is not above his teacher, but every student, when he has finished his studies, will be on a par with his teacher.
That's flattering to both of them. Why look at the speck in your brother's eye when you miss the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, yet fail yourself to see the plank that's in your own. Hypocrite, remove the plank from your own eye first, then you will see clearly how to remove the speck from your brother's eye. This is the good news of the lord.
I remind you, this was our lord speaking. The name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen. How can the blind lead the blind? How can the ignorant lead the ignorant?
The answer is they can't. But that's what we're doing today in the year of our lord, 09/11/1987. If you watch the I don't know what you call them, documentaries or commentaries on at least two of the channels last night, you'll know precisely what I'm talking about. Again, I am not interested in goodwill and sincerity. I could care less about that.
I ask you, if you watched either one of those programs last night, if you have read the stuff that's being shoveled out for the last two weeks, if you have seen Phil Donahue, may he rest in peace. If you saw the public TV, channel twenty six, you will know that today we are asking the blind and the ignorant to lead the blind and ignorant. Can you imagine a businessman, an association of businessmen, doctors or lawyers or Indian chiefs, who wanna know something about how to proceed in their business, to go to people who know nothing at all about their business, sit sit them around a circle, they all start shooting off their mouths, and we will come out with it with the truth. I ask you, in all that's been written and produced on the video, how many times have you even heard the word truth? Truth.
It's how I feel. Am I comfortable? Is the church serving my needs? Is it responding to my homosexuality? Is it is it responding to my right to be married after being divorced?
Is it responding to my need to have extramarital intercourse? All of a sudden, adultery and fornication are no longer vices. No longer is homosexual a perversion of the natural usage of the faculties to produce other human beings. God given. We have been submerged with this I was going to refer to a very common product of the barnyard, but it's not very fitting to the pulpit.
I'm referring to the time when we didn't have tractors, had horses and cows. I helped us clean barnyards. I know what it is. A lot of that is being shoveled around today without the benefit of the cattle. I'm not exaggerating this.
Our holy father, who is now in our land, said that lies are being told, and people are accepting. Here we go to find the truth, and we ask people what they think. We are being inundated with polls. Who cares? You can go down in Lorton and take a poll of the inmates there, or you can go into a convent and take a poll in the convent, and you may get different answers to your questions, for all I know.
The whole concept that there's a god, that his son Jesus Christ came into this world, that his son established a church, that that church wasn't to endure to the last of day of time. These concepts are totally ignored, and we're talking about a church which fills my needs. Of course, the church of Jesus Christ is going to fulfill your needs, but who's going to change? We can immediately change the statistics on rape by simply changing the definition. It's being done all the time.
One of father Monsignor Lewis's, may he rest in peace, one of his favorite stories was what happened to him down in Southern Maryland. I forget the details of it, it had to do with the selling of alcoholic beverages. That's the euphemism for wine and beer and liquor. On Sunday, they still had some kind of a law down there, and people were violating the law. There wasn't a so you there was no problem in solving the problem of the violators.
Change the law. So we know had no more violators of Sunday prohibition laws. Now there are some laws you can do that with. You we did it with the idea of not eating meat on Friday. The holy father with a squiggle of his pen could eliminate a celibate clergy in the Roman rite and say, good.
I'll go out and find somebody, my men, who's silly enough to marry you. He could change that with a squiggle of his pen. But he can't do that with abortion. He can't do that with adultery. He can't do that with fornication.
He can't do that with homosexual I mean, practicing homosexuality. He cannot. I said cannot do it because these things are lodged in the law of god, into the very nature of things. But, of course, this distinction is totally ignored, totally people don't think they're not they don't have a brain cell working. We're told that the polls tell us that's I don't know.
Eighty five percent of Catholics I don't know what the number is. Agree that abortion is alright under certain conditions, for example, of rape, but that it is wrong under other conditions. Question. Why is it wrong under certain conditions? Why?
And if it's wrong under those conditions, then what makes it right because of rape? See, there's not this is just a common sense logical question. But, see, you're not dealing with people who think. You're dealing with people who are completely emotional, who are giving vent to their feelings, who are seeking the comforts of this life, and who look upon religion simply as another asset. It's another adjunct to make life more comfortable.
It supports me. I like the music. As Doctor. Devine said. She's a Catholic because she likes to go to church, it's consoling, she likes the music, she hears some good homilies.
That's she should be congratulated on that, of course. And it's community. Oh, above all, community. When in all of this stuff that's been thrown out by the media, have you heard the mention of the word sacrifice of the mass? All this talk about women priests, I could live without without any trouble.
But the whole point is missed. We're not talking about a minister. We're not talking about a YMCA person. We're not talking about a social worker. The church is doing all these things, and they're good things.
But we call the Catholic minister a priest. Why? Why? Visiting the sick, burying the dead, consoling the sorrowful? You don't have to be a priest to do any of that.
A priest is absolutely associated with sacrifice. Sacrifice. And the mass is the Eucharist. But as the the second Vatican Council said, the heart and the soul of Catholic worship is the sacrifice of the mass. Of course, these people don't they've separated themselves from the bible, from the from the councils.
All authority has gone out. See, we are a democracy. We are an American church, and we are building our church on the democratic rights of every in the inalienable democratic rights of the individual person god given. Well, folks, the time is coming when we're gonna separate the sheep from the goats because the church of Jesus Christ democracy. It is God's church.
And if it's not God's church, I don't want any part of it. I don't wanna join merely a community. It's God's church, and God is at the head. And God didn't say to the people of God, thou art Peter. I don't know on this rock I'll build my church.
He said nothing like that. Not a word like that. What the son of God did say to a man named Peter was, on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And don't forget, there are the gates of hell. In the name of the father, son, the holy spirit.
Amen.