Saturday, September 12, 2009

Cardinal O'Malley & the Funeral of Senator Kennedy

Those who do not listen to the Church are always looking for excuses and scandals to live apart from the Church. One such scandal was witnessed over the entire planet when Cardinal O'Malley presided over the "Catholic Funeral" of perhaps the most anti-life politician in this nations' history at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston.

It is no wonder that many "Catholics" no longer listen to what the Church says in matters of doctrine.


This article was written at the time of Kennedy's funeral.  Fast forward to October 17, 2013 and look at how a funeral is supposed to go for such a man as Kennedy... http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/diocese-of-rome-sets-example-of-how-to-deal-with-funerals-for-notorious-unr


Continuing now with the article written to Cardinal O'Malley  at the time of Kennedy's funeral ...


Cardinal O'Malley,

It is true that you have been an outspoken critic of abortion even among your fellow bishops and you are to be honored for that. However, the fact that you allowed Sen. Kennedy a Catholic Funeral with such public fanfare, in a Catholic basilica of all places, gives rise to a legitimate complaint that you failed in your duty as a Shepherd of the Flock in a most grievous way. A private funeral for the Kennedy family should have been what you required of the Kennedy family. The message that you have sent to the world is that "relativism" rules the day, even in the Church. "Catholics" get to pick and choose the doctrines they wish to accept without any disciplinary action, in spite of the fact that on the eve of his election to the Papacy, Pope Benedict XVI warned about the "... dictatorship of relativism." You have furthered the cause of this great evil which is a virtual plague in modern society.

There are many well known Catholics in good standing with the Church who feel that your actions brought a great scandal upon the Church.

Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura said:

"Neither Holy Communion nor funeral rites should be administered to such politicians. To deny these is not a judgment of the soul, but a recognition of the scandal and its effects."

He said that when a politician is associated:

"With greatly sinful acts about fundamental questions like abortion and marriage, his repentance must also be public. Anyone who grasps the gravity of what he has done will understand the need to make it public."

He also said that it's not uncharitable to point out the scandal caused by these Catholic politicians:

"The Church's unity is founded on speaking the truth in love. This does not destroy unity but helps to repair a breach in the life of the Church."

Raymond Arroyo of EWTN wrote in his blog saying:

"The prayer intercessions at the funeral mass, the endless eulogies, the image of the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston reading prayers, and finally, Cardinal McCarrick interring the remains sent an uncontested message: One may defy Church teaching, publicly lead others astray, deprive innocent lives of their rights, and still be seen as a good Catholic, even an exemplary one."

There is also one of the most senior Catholic pro-life activists in the United States, Judie Brown of the American Life League. She was appointed by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy for Life. This is what she said about the Kennedy funeral over which you presided:

"The entire travesty, from the television cameras to spectacle itself, goes beyond anything I have witnessed in my more than 65 years of life. In fact, while we all thought the appearance of President Obama at the University of Notre Dame was a scandal, the very idea that he offered a eulogy in a basilica, while the real presence of Christ was in the tabernacle, is perhaps the most dastardly thing I have ever seen."

And there is also Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, President of Human Life International. He had this to say about it:

"We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today...

"Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful...

"It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power...

"Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans."

And there are many more outstanding Catholics who feel the same.

In the matter of Catholic Funerals for those who defy Church teaching we turn to Canon Law which states:

Canon
1184:

§1. - Unless they gave some signs of repentance before death, the following must be deprived of ecclesiastical funerals:

1 - notorious apostates, heretics, and schismatics;
2 - those who chose the cremation of their bodies for reasons contrary to Christian faith;
3 - other manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful.

§2. If any doubt occurs, the local ordinary is to be consulted, and his judgment must be followed.
In the end, the decision to hold a Catholic Funeral for Sen. Kennedy with all the attendant adulation for all the world to see rested in your hands alone as the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston, even if you were not the main celebrant. And that means you have public obligations which need to be considered.

One may argue that Sen. Kennedy went to confession before he died and therefore he should not be deprived of a Catholic funeral. No one is disputing that, but if the funeral had been a family only private affair, as Fr. Euteneuer and many, many others had suggested, there would have been no public scandal.

Furthermore, if Sen. Kennedy had been disciplined by the Church and then confessed in the early 1970's when he began to oppose the Church, then one might justify the funeral as it happened. But, the fact is, 40 years passed with no disciplinary action in his regard which leaves us with an entirely different set of circumstances which made his funeral in a Catholic basilica a public scandal.

His funeral was a showcase of his life and career that did not even consider that Sen. Kennedy may be desperately in need of prayer, if in fact he did not lose salvation. It was a Catholic Mass at which undeserved honor was given to a legislator who was a tireless advocate for two of the greatest evils in our day as defined by the Church, namely, abortion and the gay rights agenda in open and flagrant defiance of Catholic teaching. In fact, NARAL repeatedly praised Sen. Kennedy for his 100% pro-abortion voting record for the entire world to see. People of all religious creeds knew of this man's open defiance of Catholic teaching and that he was never called to task by Churchmen who had the power to do so, and that is the greater scandal.

The world saw this man eulogized by Fr. Mark Hession who praised Sen. Kennedy as a wonderful Catholic Christian. Is the world to be convinced of Fr. Hession's suggestion that we can be confident that Sen. Kennedy is already in glory with Jesus Christ?

And there was Fr. Donald Monan, Chancellor of Boston College, who repeatedly informed the entire world that Sen. Kennedy was a man of "faith and prayer" and that he had a deep devotion to the Eucharist. Is that so? Are we now to believe, as Catholics, that one can fight for abortion and the pro-gay agenda in spite of what the Church teaches and receive Holy communion and not be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord as the Apostle Paul warns us about?

We also witnessed non-Catholic politicians who are pro-abortion and pro-gay heap praises upon Sen. Kennedy at a Catholic funeral in the same manner as did priests of the Catholic Church, and you presided over this.

It is no wonder that so many people no longer care about Church doctrine. They have repeatedly seen that Catholic politicians were never punished by the Church by means of excommunication for their crimes against the unborn, a literal holocaust, and other such evils as defined by the Church. Many people now take the position that leaders in the Catholic Church don't really believe what Catholics are supposed to believe for this very reason, and this adds to the scandal of what we have witnessed for many years.

I do not know if Sen. Kennedy repented of these things, one certainly hopes that he did for the sake of his own soul because we should, and do want everyone to be with God. Never-the-less, because of the public scandal that you caused by presiding at his funeral, and the scandal that resulted from your failure to take the proper disciplinary action in Sen. Kennedy's regard, which included excommunication for the sake of his salvation, you have an obligation that needs to be settled. You must make known "publicly" whether or not Sen. Kennedy specifically recanted of his pro-abortion and pro-gay positions to justify not only your presence at his funeral Mass, but a funeral decked out with adulation for all the world to see. And this obligation which you have is not a matter that violates the "seal of confession".

No one wants to know what Sen. Kennedy said in the confessional. That is between him and God. In fact, this entire controversy has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not God would forgive Sen. Kennedy if confessed and if he was contrite for his sins.

And for those who do not realize that penance is an important part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, they must understand that in addition to being contrite for sins committed, penance means that we must try to repair the damage that we have caused by our sins. And no one can argue that between the time that Sen. Kennedy learned of his illness and his eventual death that he did not have enough time to make amends by trying to alleviate some of the scandal that he caused on the matter of abortion and gay marriage. But he never did any such thing publicly.

Sen. Kennedy's opposition to numerous Church teachings was public by virtue of the fact that he was a public figure as a Legislator, and therefore, public restitution must be made for the sake of those he mislead, for the sake of those who would still follow him in his anti-life agenda and other evils which he promoted, and in the name of the 51 million children who were aborted because of his efforts. And this number doesn't even include the dramatically higher number of children that have died as a result of abortifacients which are not unrelated to his liberal policies.

This is in fact why Canon Law states that "signs of repentance must be given" so that there is not a "public scandal", and that means the "signs of repentance" cannot be a "private affair", otherwise a public scandal would ensue, as we have seen. The "public" cannot be left out of the equation, they have a right to know.

Yet, there are those who persist in trying to reduce this controversy to a debate over whether or not God would forgive Sen. Kennedy of his sins. And these are the same people who would argue that "we are not to judge" as they go about "judging" and accusing those who disagree with them as being Pharisees or pedantic, being overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points.

Let's be clear about something. The question of what is acceptable in terms of "judging" has been redefined by a culture that has become saturated with "relativism" which says that nothing is absolute in morality and doctrine. And it is because "Relativists" do not accept anything as being absolute that they contend any form of judging is unacceptable, but they have corrupted what it means when the Church says that we are not to judge. While it is true that we cannot judge a person's immortal destiny, and that we cannot judge the motives of the heart, when someone says that killing unborn children is acceptable, Catholics have the obligation to judge that as wrong. And if people want to call that "judging" to mean it is "out of bounds", well, too bad. In fact, they are the hypocrites. They are the ones who are "judging" those whom "they judge" as having judged "others". Relativists are fraught with hypocrisy. What they do in this controversy over Sen. Kennedy's funeral is slight of hand and an attempt to shift the focus away from what needs to be addressed.

In the same manner that Churchmen such as yourself gave Sen. Kennedy a pass on any form of discipline, so it is with public perception regarding his confession. Many believe he may have gotten a pass on that as well? And why shouldn't they? Given that the seal of confession is inviolate, the man may well have died professing his righteousness in his cause for abortion and gay marriage thinking he was justified just in death just as he did in life. it is worth noting that in his letter to the Holy Father, Sen. Kennedy tried to justify his life speaking of the good that he claimed to do, but he mentioned nothing about his recanting for his opposition to Church teaching on abortion and gay marriage. Why did he not recant of his anti-Catholic positions? Was he trying to justify a guilty conscience in that letter, and was he not counseled by his confessor to recant? This would lead one to believe he did not repent of these things, and this is why public perception remains a problem, and that is why Canon Law applies.

If Sen. Kennedy made it known that he recanted of his positions that defied Church teaching to anyone outside of confession, including those priests who visited him at his home, you have the obligation to make that known. If it cannot be said that Sen. Kennedy did recant outside of confession, you had the obligation to deny him a Catholic Funeral to avoid the public scandal that you have caused and which is prohibited in Canon Law.

And furthermore, there was nothing that prohibited the priests who counseled him and absolved him during his time of illness, or that gave him the last rites, to require that Sen. Kennedy publicly renounce his anti-catholic positions as a part of his penance in order to provide evidence to avoid public scandal. And this would not have been a violation of the seal of confession.

As you know, the Catholic Church respects the separation of Church and State, but the Church also declares that moral and ethical values, and doctrine, remain transcendent.

The current Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI said:

"Politicians must have the defense of the right of life in their own heart and mind to offer it to the community. Without this defense, instead of contributing to the construction of society, the politician destroys it."

He also said:

"The Church recognizes that while democracy is the best expression of the direct participation of citizens in political choices, it succeeds only to the extent that it is based on the correct understanding of the human person. Catholic involvement in political life cannot compromise on this principle."

By allowing Sen. Kennedy to remain in open defiance of Church teaching for the entire world to see over these many years, you, and other Churchmen are complicit in his sin and the sin of other "Catholic Politicians". Together, you have allowed a corrosive attitude in belief to set in that says to the world that Catholics can ignore any Church teaching that they do not agree with, without incurring any public penalties from Churchmen. You had the duty to excommunicate Sen. Kennedy and all others who remain defiant to Church teaching for the sake of their souls. You are obliged to make "Catholics" understand that they cannot stand against the Church on such matters without endangering their salvation.

Nor can it be said, as Bishop Morlino of Madison Wisconsin suggests, that "Sen. Kennedy may have been mislead by theologians with whom he consulted". No, that is what the power of excommunication can clear up mighty quickly for those who are obstinate against Church teaching. How is it possible that after all the years of defiance on the part of Sen. Kennedy that he was not told in unequivocal terms that definitive teaching of the Church does not rest in the hands of the theologians? If such was the case, then we are speaking of yet another failure on the part of Cardinal O'Malley. And if it was made clear to him, all the more reason that Cardinal O'Malley should have excommunicated him.

And Bishop Morlino was completely out of line to raise the "Seamless Garment" issue as a defense for the Kennedy funeral. He was wrong to say that all life issues ARE the same. No, Bishop Morlino, they ARE NOT! You cannot compare an "innocent baby in the womb" to an "unjust aggressor" on the street and whether or not a person has a "right to self defense". The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states that each person has a God given right of self-defense. No, Bishop Morlino, a child is never an "unjust aggressor in the womb", and Sen. Kennedy failed in a defense of the most innocent of all life, the child in the womb.

We live in a day when people are content with saying that "God forgives us all", a day when so many people seem to be sainted and canonized at Catholic funerals regardless of how they lived. These people who speak of "forgiveness" in such loose terms must remember that forgiveness requires repentance.

If Sen. Kennedy was damned, God forbid, for his battle against the Church as a staunch advocate of abortion and gay rights, an excommunication may have saved his soul. He may be cursing at you from hell, Cardinal O'Malley, for not having levied it against him so that he could not have failed to understand that the Kennedy name meant nothing at judgment.

In my opinion, you gave in to the politics of the day, and the prestige of the Kennedy name, rather than doing what you should have done as a Cardinal of the Catholic Church over these past years. This matter goes far beyond that of comforting those who were grieving at the present time. This is a matter that should have been dealt with years ago by means of excommunication.

Sen. Kennedy was defiant of Church teaching, and those who are currently grieving need to be clear in their mind about Catholic doctrine so that they do not pick up the banner in his name and further Sen. Kennedy's agenda. And for some years now we have heard voices from the next generation of Kennedy's, and they are in solidarity with Sen. Kennedy's pro-abortion and pro-gay rights agenda. And in spite of this fact, we still hear a bellowing silence from Churchmen like yourself in their regard.

So then, if we are to speak of "solidarity" for those who grieve, you are in solidarity with the new voices calling for abortion and gay rights unless and until you finally levy severe penalties to make these people see the light of day because what you and other Churchmen have done thus far, or lack thereof, has not worked. And it is the height of hypocriscy for you to try and explain away your presence at such a funeral by saying that your presence was a sign to the world of God's mercy and solidarity with the Kennedy family in their time of suffering and loss. Why is it hypocrisy? For all the reasons stated above, but even more so for the following reason. When one of your own priests who is accused of wrong doing dies, you do not stand in solidarity with his family by coming to his funeral in their time of suffering and loss, or as a sign of God's mercy in behalf of the dead priest for the world to see, even if he was guilty. In fact, guilty or not, without evidence or a trial, when an accusation is made you totally cut off your priests and their family as though they are lepers, even in a case where there was no evidence or formal charges that were ever made. In your diocese a priest is guilty even if he is proven innocent, and then he is still guilty. In fact, you turn the life of those priests and their families into a living hell, and even more so for their families when one of them dies. You stand in solidarity with the family of a Senator who was responsible for the death of millions of babies, but you do not go to the funeral of your own priests who are accused which would be neither a sign of guilt or innocense in so doing. No, you are only protecting the money of the diocese.

Judgment before God levels the playing field, and the Kennedy name does not matter one whit to God. And it must be said that it appears disingenuous of you that you should appeal to your efforts to be a comfort for those who were grieving in what seems to be an attempt to assuage your own conscience in light of the fact that you let Sen. Kennedy thumb his nose at the Church in your tenure as his Bishop for years. You could have attended a private funeral, or have sent a letter to the family expressing your condolences if you wanted to do that. You should consider the eternal destiny of those he left behind, and all those who gave ear to Sen. Kennedy. Consider the suffering of those who commit evils against God if they do not repent of their ways if you want to be a comforter and a messenger of those things that matter at judgment and Eternal Life.

And for those who may think that a written exchange that took place between Sen. Kennedy and Pope Benedict somehow equals sacramental confession and absolution, that is not the way it works. You cannot go to confession by means of an exchange of letters. It is absurd to consider the text of Sen. Kennedy's letter, and excerpts from the Pope's responses to argue that the Holy Father gave Sen. Kennedy absolution. Of course the Holy Father would extend his blessing to a dying man, but that is not absolution. One must also note that the Holy Father has remained silent about Sen. Kennedy's death after the fact.

You must face the fact that there are many who simply refuse the Church. Be mindful that Jesus Christ didn't back down so that people would not walk away from him when He told them that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Not only did He refuse to tone it down so that "people would not feel alienated and come to see things His way", He raised the level of tension between Himself and those who refused to take what He said as literal, and it did not matter if they didn't like what they heard. The Greek words "Phago" and "Trogo" prove this. After they rejected what He told them they were obligated to do, He went from just saying they had to consume His Body and Blood to saying they had to "literally chew, gnaw" when they consumed Him. He was not interested in "convincing" them if they did not want to hear Him. In fact, He let them walk, and then He turned to His apostles (and their successors) and asks if they too will walk?

And this brings us to the question as to why the television cameras panned away so that "the public" was not able to see who received Holy Communion. For nearly 10 minutes the cameras zoomed in on Placido Domingo, stain glass windows, and candles with no view of who received communion on the left side of the center isle. This leaves the faithful questioning whether or not non-Catholics and Catholics who should not be receiving did in fact receive, and this makes the Kennedy funeral even more scandalous.

Lastly, Cardinal O'Malley, you cannot speak about the "level of the rhetoric" that has resulted over the issue of abortion as being divisive and then act as though you bear no responsibility in part for it. It is duplicitous of you to tell the faithful that the rhetoric must be kept at a minimum in the hope that others will come to an understanding of the Church. That is essentially telling the faithful to keep quiet. The mere fact that you said "zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another" shows you failed to see why this was in fact a scandal. It was never about whether or not God would forgive Sen. Kennedy if he was truly contrite. In fact, it is the failure of Churchmen to do their duty that causes "irreparable harm to the doctrine of the Church". How can there be "communion in the Church" when there is no "communion in doctrine"? No! There cannot be communion in "relativism"! What you advocated is a facade, and to use your own words, what YOU did "was a great disservice to the Church". And your disservice to the Church in this matter was not only surrounding the events of Sen. Kennedy's funeral, but it has been your unwillingness to take strong disciplinary action against Sen. Kennedy, and others, that has raised the level of tension on the issue of abortion and other such evils which you now find yourself trying to quell. And yet, you seem to be scolding the faithful who disagree with your actions.

May God grant His Church men worthy of wearing the Red Zuchetto in that it signifies those who wear it are willing to shed their blood for the Church and Her teachings.

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ABC News Focus on Faith, Fr. Becks' shocking comment on the celibacy of Jesus needs to be corrected.

Click HERE if you first wish to view Fr. Beck's shocking response to Chris Cuomo when he was asked if Jesus was celibate. When you arrive at ABC News Focus on Faith, scroll down to: " Dive Into the 'Focus on Faith' Mailbag - Chris Cuomo and Fr. Beck tackle your emails."





Fr. Beck, this response is to you. Please take it as a fraternal correction with the assurance of prayers for you. Chris Cuomo asked you this question:

"Do we know for sure that Jesus was celibate?"

Your response was:

"We do not know for sure. There is no allusion that he was "partnered" with anybody in the Scriptures, but there is no reason to believe that he wasn't either."

Father Beck, I must say to you that as a Catholic, I am shocked and dismayed that you, as a priest of the Catholic Church who is vowed to celibacy could not and did not forthrightly and unequivocally denounce any notion that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world to have sex with His creatures. Consider how heinous and despicable it is that a father would have incestual relations with his own children, and then consider how insulting it is to the very Majesty of God for anyone, let alone a Catholic Priest, to suggest that God came into this world and may have had sex with His creatures! The sole purpose of the Incarnation was to redeem man.

The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ was like us in all things "but sin". What you have said is the same as saying "There is no reason to believe that Jesus was celibate" which is tantamount to saying 4 things about Jesus:

1) Jesus may have fornicated with others, which is sinful.

2) Jesus may not have been chaste in other ways, which is sinful.

3) In the context of today's cultural milieu, your use of the word "partnered" can be construed to mean that Jesus may have advocated or even lived in a same-sex relationship which you, as a Catholic Priest, should know that the Church teaches is a sinful lifestyle. The Church clearly teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Furthermore, in Matthew 19:4 Jesus said:

"Have you not read, that He who made them from the beginning, made them male and female"?

And in Mark 10:6 we also read:

"But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female".

4) That Jesus lived a "secret marriage" or a "public marriage" that is not recorded in Scripture. In this, you've fallen prey to several grievous errors regarding what we know about the life of Jesus and the teaching authority of the Church itself.

a) The Church does not depend on the Bible alone for its teachings. The Bible came from the Church, not the Church from the Bible.

b) The teaching authority of the Church has always made clear that Jesus lived a completely celibate life. We see this reiteration in numerous documents of the Church, one being the encyclical entitled "Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (The Celibacy of the Priest) by Pope Paul VI, promulgated on June 24, 1967, which unequivocally states:

"# 21 - Christ, the only Son of the Father, by the power of the Incarnation itself was made Mediator between heaven and earth, between the Father and the human race. Wholly in accord with this mission, Christ remained throughout His whole life in the state of celibacy, which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men. This deep concern between celibacy and the priesthood of Christ is reflected in those whose fortune it is to share in the dignity and mission of the Mediator and eternal Priest; this sharing will be more perfect the freer the sacred minister is from the bonds of flesh and blood."

c) Jesus Himself counseled for celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom. In his "Decree on the Ministry and life of Priests - Presbyterorum Ordinis" promulgated by Pope Paul VI, December 7, 1965 we read from Chapter III "The life of Priests", Section II, #16:

"(Celibacy is to be embraced and esteemed as a gift). Perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, commended by Christ the Lord (33)."

And in Luke 18:29-30 Jesus said:

"Amen, I say to you, there is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake."

"Who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."

Fr. Beck, Jesus Christ raised marriage to the level of a sacrament in His Church. It is a public and communal contract that He would not be embarrassed about living in the light of day rather than in shadows if He were married, and if He had lived a married life we would know about it. And He did not bend to "cultural standards of His time". Like good Bishop Sheen said "any time the Church marries an age it becomes a widow in the next age". And so it is with "political correctness" and passing fads.

It is worth repeating to you, Fr. Beck, that Jesus was "a man like us in all things but sin", and if you wish to argue that Jesus was "human like all of us" when considering His needs, you cannot fail to make an important distinction between us and Jesus. We are not a "Divine Person" but "Jesus is a Divine person". You and I are "human persons" but Jesus is not a "Human Person". He assumed fully a "human nature" just like ours which He created and made "consubstantial" with His Divine Person, but, He was "not a human person". He is a "Divine Person only" with a human and divine nature. He is "One Divine Person from all eternity" in whom two distinct natures, though remaining distinct from each other, come together and subsist in the "one Divine Person of Jesus". The claim that Jesus was a "human person" was condemned as a heresy at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.

So then, if we are to look at the "needs of Jesus in light of His Person", we do not look at Jesus as "two persons" and ascribe to Him the needs of a "human person Jesus". And this means that when you consider the needs of Jesus as a man (not human person), you do not want to fall to "Nestorianism" or "Arianism" to accommodate the notion that Jesus had "human needs" like all "human persons" because He was not a "human person". The need to sleep, to eat, and to drink are necessary for us to live, but not so with sexuality. The human nature of Jesus which would include not only his fully human body and blood, but His fully human mind and human will, were infused with grace by the power of the Holy Spirit, and His human intellect was infused by His own divine intellect which He possessed as an omniscient, divine Person. So, when considering the "needs of Jesus" in His human nature, as a priest in the Catholic Church, you do not want to consider that Jesus was anything other than a Divine Person because you would immediately incur the excommunication of "Latae Sententiae".

And to the notion that Jesus may have lived a "secret married life", any reasonable person would ask what does that mean about the life of any priest? Would that mean priests live a public celibate life but have a secret sexual life on the side derived from speculation that Jesus may have lived a secret married life? Such a notion is an insult to all priests who are committed to live the life of celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom.


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