(Seventh Sunday
of Easter (B): This homily was given on May 17, 2015 at St. Pius X Church,
Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.
Read John 17: 11-19.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here:Seventh Sunday of Easter 2015]
If we really believe that Catholic Christianity teaches
the fullness of God’s revealed truth about human life and salvation—in other
words, if we are truly “consecrated in truth” as Jesus says in this gospel his
followers will be—then the most loving
thing we can do for another human being is to witness to that truth and share
it with them, respecting them as a person whether they accept the truth or
reject it.
This means that if we fail
to witness to the truth of the gospel and fail
to share it with others, we are actually failing to love! We are failing to love our neighbor in the
way that Jesus wants us to.
I hope this makes sense to you. If it does, praise God! But please beware of something: beware of the
fact that many people in our modern world see things in precisely the opposite
way!
For them, being “consecrated in truth” and witnessing to
it is not an act of love; rather it’s
an act of hatred and bigotry and intolerance (among other things).
Case in point: what’s gone on recently in Washington,
D.C., at the Catholic University of America.
Have you heard about this? A law professor from nearby George Washington
University has filed a complaint with the Office of Human Rights contending
that the presence of crosses in all the classrooms of Catholic University
constitutes a human rights violation that prevents Muslim students from
praying.
Fr. Ray, you’re
kidding.
No, I’m not!
In his rant—which I am told goes on for 60 pages—this
professor accuses Catholic University of acting “probably with malice” against
Muslim students by putting this “offensive” Catholic imagery all over the
school.
Of course, no Muslim student at Catholic University has
ever complained about any of this—but apparently that doesn’t matter, since a
spokesperson for the human rights office said they are investigating the
professor’s complaint, and the inquiry could take up to six months!
So here we have a Catholic school that could be forced by
the federal government to remove Catholic symbols from all of its buildings. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds
a lot like the kind of thing that took place in Germany in the late 1930s and
in Russia after 1917!
Do you see why we pray so often at Mass for religious
freedom in our country?
When I read this story the other day online, I remembered
an incident I had spoken about in a homily I gave way back in 1998. This incident took place at another Catholic
school, Boston College, which at the time had
removed crosses from their classrooms. (They’ve
since been restored, I’m happy to say).
Dr. Peter Kreeft, who taught philosophy at BC at the time,
spoke about this incident in a talk I once heard him give. He said that in the early 1990s he was
teaching an evening class on world religions which had 24 students in it: 22 of
them were Catholic, 1 was Jewish and 1 was a Muslim. The class was 3 hours long, with a 20 minute
break in the middle of it. Well, one
evening during the break, Dr. Kreeft was speaking with the Jew, the Muslim, and
several of the Catholic students. The
Muslim happened to notice the faint outline of a cross on the front wall of the
room, and so he said to Dr. Kreeft, “Was there ever a cross on that wall?” One of the Catholic students immediately
spoke up and said, “Oh yes, there used to be crucifixes in all the classrooms
years ago, but we took them down.” (He
said it rather proudly.) The Jew said,
“You took them down? Why?” The Catholic student said, “Because we wanted
to be ecumenical.” The Jew said, “Who
are you kidding? You took them down
because the government wouldn’t give you any money if you were a sectarian
school. Well, I hope you got more than
thirty pieces of silver from the government this time!”
The Muslim then chimed in and
said, “I don’t understand this word ‘ecumenical’; could someone define it for
me, please?” Another Catholic student
answered him: “Ecumenical means that we love everybody equally, and we don’t want
anyone to feel offended.” The Muslim
responded, “I see. Well, I must tell you
that I am offended—greatly offended! You’re telling me that you took down your
crucifixes not to insult people like me, a Muslim, and my friend here, the
Jew. Well, imagine for a minute that you
came to my country and enrolled in a Muslim university—knowing that it was a Muslim school—and when you came into the
classroom you saw quotations from the Koran on the walls. Would you
be offended?” The Catholic students
replied, “No, not at all.” The Muslim
said, “And why wouldn’t you be
offended? It’s because you’re not bigots, right? Only a bigot would be offended at that. And by the same token, only a bigot would be
offended by a Catholic symbol in a Catholic school. So you see, by taking down that crucifix, in
effect, you’re calling me a bigot! I am
highly insulted.” The Jew said, “So am
I!”
The Muslim continued.
He said to the Catholic students, “Do you really believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God?” They said,
“Yes.” The Muslim said, “I don’t think
you believe that at all. As a Muslim, of
course, I don’t. The Koran says that’s a
blasphemy. But we do have a very high
regard for Jesus. We believe he’s one of
the greatest prophets of all time. He
performed miracles; he was virgin-born; and, next to Mohammed, he’s probably
the greatest man who ever lived.
Therefore, if we had pictures of him (which we don’t; but if we did) we
would NEVER take them down—not even if government soldiers came into the room
and threatened us! We would be very
happy to position our bodies in front of his pictures and die for his
honor. And now, you have taken him down voluntarily! I think that makes us better Christians than
you are!”
Someone needs to tell that story to that George Washington
University law professor—and to the people at the federal Office of Human
Rights.
I’ll end my homily now in the way I began it, by saying
that if we really believe that Catholic Christianity teaches the fullness of
God’s revealed truth about human life and salvation—in other words, if we are
truly “consecrated in truth” as Jesus says in this gospel his followers will
be—then the most loving thing we can
do for another human being is to witness to that truth and share it with them,
respecting them as a person whether they accept the truth or whether they reject
it—like some university professors do, who should know better.
