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| Blessed Paul VI |
(Seventeenth Sunday of the
Year (B): This homily was given on July 29, 2018 at St. Pius X Church,
Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.
Read 2 Kings 4: 42-44; Psalm 145: 10-18; Ephesians 4: 1-6; John 6:
1-15.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Seventeenth Sunday 2018]
He
went from almost becoming a king, to almost being completely abandoned. I’m talking here about Jesus Christ, our Lord
and Savior—specifically the Jesus we read about in the 6th chapter
of the Gospel of St. John. Today we
heard the opening lines of that chapter, which tell the famous story of the
multiplication of the loaves and fishes.
We will hear excerpts from the rest of John 6 in our gospel readings for
the next 4 Sundays. (It’s a really long
chapter!) In these opening lines that we
heard a few moments ago, we were told that Jesus fed 5,000 people near the Sea
of Galilee. He fed them with bodily food. He worked an incredible miracle, and gave
them all a meal of fish and bread.
And
they liked it so much that they wanted to make him their king (probably so that
they could get a few more free meals!).
Jesus, of course, didn’t come down from heaven to be an earthly ruler of
an earthly kingdom, so before they could crown him he slipped away and hid
himself on a nearby mountain.
But
Jesus saw this same crowd again the following day; this time on the opposite
shore of the Sea of Galilee. And there
he began to speak to them about another food that he intended to give them in
the very near future: a spiritual
food that would bring them eternal life, namely, the Holy Eucharist.
Which
caused most of the men and women in the crowd to (for lack of a better
expression) “freak out”—especially when Jesus began to say things like, “My
flesh is real food and my blood is real drink”; and “The bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world”; and “Unless you eat the flesh of the
Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you”; and, “Whoever
eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the
last day.”
The
truth about the Holy Eucharist was too much for most of these people to handle,
and so the majority of them walked away after Jesus gave this teaching—even
some who had been following our Lord for quite a while. The text says, “As a result of this
[teaching], many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no
longer accompanied him.”
Thankfully,
the twelve Apostles did remain faithful to our Lord, even though at the time they
didn’t fully understand the message Jesus had given. When Jesus asked the Twelve if they were
going to leave too, Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
But
most of the other followers of our Lord did not continue in their
discipleship. They “threw in the towel”
as his followers—perhaps forever (although we can hope and pray that at least
some of them eventually returned).
Which
brings us to Pope Paul VI. Blessed Paul
VI, who will be canonized a saint later this year, understood what Jesus went
through in John, chapter 6, in a way that most of us (thankfully) never
will. Pope Paul had what I would call his
“John 6 moment” fifty years ago this past week, when he published an encyclical
entitled “Humanae vitae” (which in Latin means, “Of Human Life”). In that document, which is mostly about the
beauty and dignity of marriage, the Holy Father did what many people were
convinced he would not dare to do in the midst of the sexual revolution: he
reaffirmed the traditional Christian teaching condemning the use of artificial
contraception—even within marriage. Now
notice that I call it “the traditional Christian
teaching” as opposed to “the traditional Catholic
teaching.” I do that because, prior to
1930, most (if not all) mainline Protestants believed the very same thing that
Catholics believed: that contraception is immoral.
Many
Protestants (and many Catholics!) today are not aware of that fact—but it’s
true. This was a universal Christian belief.
Then
at their Lambeth Conference of 1930, the bishops of the Anglican Church caved
in to social pressure. They decided that
contraception could be morally acceptable in some limited circumstances. Well, shortly thereafter “some circumstances”
turned into “all circumstances”—and every other mainline Protestant church
followed suit.
Which
is where we’re at today. What ALL Christians
believed about contraception for over 19 centuries, only the Catholic Church
still believes and still teaches today—thanks, in large part, to the courage of
Paul VI.
But
he suffered for it—from July 25, 1968 (the day he published Humanae vitae)
until August 6, 1978 (the day he died).
Like Jesus in John 6, Pope Paul had to deal with opposition from people
in his own flock—especially the intellectuals, who wasted no time in stirring
up an internal rebellion in the Church—a rebellion that’s had a negative effect
on Catholic life in the United States for the last 5 decades. Within a week of the encyclical’s publication,
more than 600 theology professors from around the country signed a “statement
of dissent” objecting to what the Pope said in the document. And it’s gone on from there, such that now
only 20% of Catholics accept the traditional Christian teaching.
Which
is one of the reasons why the divorce rate among Catholics right now is pretty
much the same as the divorce rate in the rest of society. Catholic couples who practice Natural Family
Planning, on the other hand—who do follow
Church teaching—have an almost non-existent divorce rate.
A
coincidence?
Not according to Blessed Paul VI. The Holy Father warned the Church and the
world that when you separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of the
marital act through artificial contraception, certain consequences—though
unintended—naturally follow. He
accurately predicted in Humanae vitae that an acceptance of birth control would
lead to an increase in sexual promiscuity and marital infidelity; that men
would begin to treat women more and more as objects to be used for their own
selfish pleasure; and that people would be pressured and even forced at times by
civil governments to limit the size of their families.
Pope Paul VI was laughed at and ridiculed when he
said these things in 1968, as I’m sure Jesus was laughed at and ridiculed when
he gave that teaching on the Eucharist 2,000 years ago. But the Holy Father was right! He was right on every count.
What was supposed to empower women and strengthen
marriages has had the exact opposite effect in the last fifty years. The widespread use of contraception (even by
practicing Catholics) has resulted in the further objectification of women, an
increase in adultery, more broken marriages and families, a greater number of
sexually-transmitted diseases (some of which are life-threatening), and a
divorce rate that is sky high.
So, contrary to what you’ll normally hear
(especially in the secular media), soon-to-be St. Paul VI was a man ahead
of his time. He was a humble, courageous
and steadfast prophet of God, who spoke the truth about married love and the
transmission of life to a world that desperately needed to hear it.
And still does.