Do Whatever He Tells You

By Charlie Johnston

I think I gave the wrong impression when I wrote passionately about Pope Leo’s formulaic statement opposing American action on Iran, where he said that negotiation is the only answer and that violence never solved anything. Both were trite, nice-sounding platitudes that are easily and quickly disproven. But it did not signal any major discontent with Pope Leo. Rather, it was the opening shot against what I believe are substantial and deeply damaging misinterpretations and the mis-application of Just War theory. Understand that Just War theory is just that – theory. Though several great and brilliant saints have contributed to its development, it is NOT defined doctrine and can be licitly dissented from. As it currently stands, the advocates of Just War theory would very rarely let the good guys do anything to stop the bad guys before those bad guys kill them. When it comes to determined tyrants, the theory is entirely impotent – and would condemn the victims of terror and violence from such to keep being victimized and killed while demanding that honorable people do nothing more than plead for negotiations – which those tyrants twist to avoid any accountability. I think a LOT of innocent blood is on the hands of those committed to the current interpretation of Just War theory – and that will be a subject of serious commentary going forward.

This is not a recent problem within the hierarchy. Just two quick notes on the subject: Islam began a war of extinction on Christianity in 632 A.D. By the time Christianity finally mounted the resolve to fight back it was in 1095 A.D., some 450 years later. By that time, Islam had already taken almost half of Europe. The hierarchy was focused on negotiating with a people who were only determined to conquer and exterminate. The blood of those conflicts is certainly on the hands of Islamicists, but the hierarchy shares in that bloody responsibility because of its refusal and failure to defend Christianity for so very long. Contrary to what you may have been taught, the Crusades were NOT Christians attacking peaceful Muslims. The Crusades were the Christian counter-attack against Islam’s attempted war of extinction against Christianity.

A thought experiment: Jesus violently cleansed the Temple of moneychangers. If the modern hierarchy had been the religious authority of the day and did not understand who Jesus was, how many would have condemned Him for His actions and demanded He only use dialogue? I don’t just say a majority; I say an overwhelming majority. And when Jesus prepared His disciples for His departure in the 20^th Chapter of Luke by telling them that anyone who did not have a sword must get one – for they would need it after He was gone…how many Bishops would have condemned Christ for that martial counsel? Of course, many in the Church hierarchy and intelligentsia consistently misinterpret the statement that, “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.” Using a sword (or other more modern weapon) is NOT living by the sword. Imposing your will by violent force IS living by the sword. The people who use the sword to defend their societies and the innocent from such violence are the very people who ensure that those who live by the sword die by it. But shallow thinkers conclude from this (to me) pretty clear dictum that, “Oh, swords are always bad.” If you don’t have good men who will wield a sword effectively, those who live by the sword will NOT die by the sword: they will effectively impose their will on all.

The point is, Just War theory has long been inadequate in dealing with real world threats to the innocent. In modern times it has become wholly inadequate. That makes it so the hierarchy’s pronouncements in these towering moral decisions become irrelevant and the people who have to make such consequential decisions pay it little mind, less they betray the very people they are morally charged with defending. That is not how it should be. The Church’s hierarchy should have something useful to say on such huge decisions of great moral consequence. But they won’t until they stop simply reciting utopian moral platitudes that are demonstrably untrue – and start grappling seriously with the consequences of both action and inaction…and deal with the reality that many men are completely uninterested in negotiation except as a means of leverage to buy time to grow stronger in their drive to forcibly impose their will on all. Then the hierarchy can genuinely contribute to making the world safer, freer, and more noble. It is a subject I am spending a lot of time on.

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As for Pope Leo, I don’t really know who he is yet…and I’m not sure he has yet decided who he is going to be. I see two major positive indicators and two major negative indicators. I get frustrated with otherwise good Catholics who seem eager to blackpill themselves, treating every negative action as if it is decisive – and all is lost – and that the End Times are upon us (not noting – and perhaps not even knowing – that the End Times are a specific theological era that began with Christ’s resurrection. The End Times are not the end. They are now. Sometime we will reach the end…but not now.)

On the positive side, Pope Leo is not maliciously targeting any entities in the Church, be they orthodox or otherwise. That is a dramatic improvement from Pope Francis. On pure theology, as of yet, Leo is not great, but he is not bad either. He is making no effort to undermine the Magisterium or defined doctrine. (Having decisions that don’t go the way you would prefer is not the same thing as being targeted for destruction.)

On the negative side, Pope Leo emphasizes the purely political and secular far too much and far too boldly. It is an area he has little to no formal authority over or responsibility to God for. Meantime, he has been slow to clarify the many and major spiritual ambiguities that have been allowed to rise for the last decade and a half. That is an area he is directly responsible to God for. Politically, he is the typical suburban Chicago Democrat, forcefully spouting unexamined narratives that do not hold up under examination. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the political problem with Pope Leo is not all the things he doesn’t know, but all the things he knows that aren’t so.

Administratively, he has left the curia and administration of Pope Francis almost entirely intact. If personnel is policy (and it is), though he is not personally targeting either orthodoxy or the Magisterium, he has left in place unmolested many who are.

The most negative analytical construction of this would be that he is just a continuation of Pope Francis. The most positive analytical construction is that he is a very cautious and deliberate man who wants to act without triggering major backlash from any significant faction in the Church.

I take the second option. That is because, as a matter of discipline, I always take the most positive construction I can reasonably mount until it is proven otherwise. That means we do not yet know where Pope Leo will fall on the very major issues that confront him and the Church. I do not know whether he will ultimately be a great – or even a good – Pope. But I do feel confident that he is not a malicious or bitter ideological man. We’ll see how things play out.

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My own Archbishop, Samuel Aquila, enters into emeritus status next week. He is a man – and Bishop – I have come to greatly admire. Of course, most here know of the role he played in commissioning an investigation of me in 2015-16 and then issuing instructions on my supernatural experiences and claims. As some know and some don’t, the Catholic Church does not endorse such things while they are going on. It either condemns them or allows them to continue, usually with some restrictions. Abp. Aquila made his decision in the spring of 2016, allowing me to continue. The only restriction he put in place was that I could not give a presentation on Catholic property within the Archdiocese of Denver. That was a perfectly reasonable restriction, given that being an approved speaker on Catholic property in the Archdiocese responsible for me would be a tacit endorsement, which the disciplinary authority should not do. It did not affect my status as an occasional extraordinary minister of Communion, a reader at Mass, or participating in Bible studies and other such semi-public events that were not focused on my mystical experiences.

In the first place, the easiest thing in the world for the Bishop to have done would have been to put heavy restrictions on me – which he could have done perfectly licitly. And he had confidence that I would obey. Obedience to legitimate authority legitimately exercised is NOT a contest of wills for me. It is the system Christ set up and a means of opening up channels of grace. If my Bishop were ever objectively wrong in such a decision provided he had worked to be just and true, my obedience would sanctify any error he made. If I am disobedient to legitimate authority, the prudence and the thoughtfulness with which such authority was exercised could sanctify my disobedience. It is a means of showing Christ that we legitimately love and obey Him. I had several people ready at the time to conform the website to whatever decisions Abp. Aquila made. In the ensuing decade he made a couple of corrections to me and would have the Chancelor ask a question if clarification was needed on something I had said. Most of it was done privately. What he never did was try to influence what I said politically – and I was given to saying some controversial stuff, as you all know. That would have been outside his authority. I had come to respect him so highly that if he had, I would have considered it very seriously – simply because he was so restrained and focused on what his duty as Archbishop was, both to me and to his flock.

Over the six-month course of the investigation, a serious respect and trust was built up between most of my examiners and me. They had come to trust that, if the decision was permissive (as it was) I would not try to pretend The Archbishop or the Archbishop endorsed me. I would take full responsibility for what I said. If it seemed improbable, I would let it play out over time and let the chips fall where they may, without citing the Archdiocese’s functional permissiveness as some sort of endorsement. This was a difficult decision for the authorities. At the time, all manner of people were screaming for my head – and calling the Archdiocese about it. When people would call demanding that I be banned, excommunicated, or burned at the stake, the Archdiocese would simply tell them, “No, we’re not going to do that.” Though they frequently used stern language towards me, it was usually to mollify the critics without changing the terms of the decision. When a matter of substance came up, I could count on authorities to act. Immediately after the decision was released, a prominent publication announced that I was “banned” in Denver. Before I had even seen that headline, the Chancellor called me to tell me about it and to tell me that he had called the publication to tell them if they had not corrected that headline shortly, the Archdiocese would issue a formal statement correcting it by name. The publication corrected it. When some obsessive types constantly followed my schedule and would try to get me cancelled in various areas (and they succeeded in a couple of cases), the Archdiocese issued a letter which it copied to me noting that I remained a Catholic in good standing in the Archdiocese of Denver – which put an end to the antics of the obsessive cranks.

Besides the personal reasons I have for affection for Abp. Aquila, he has been a great and courageously outspoken advocate for Church teaching. He was often underestimated because he is not a clubby, hail fellow, well met type. But whenever a great issue would arise, such as the Supreme Court imposing gay marriage on the country in 2015, Abp. Aquila issued a strong statement within a day or two defending and upholding authentic Magisterial teaching. There was no mealy mouthing in his statements, either. He said it boldly and plainly. During Covid, when some Dioceses were unhinged in their fear of Caesar and would not even issue their own people letters of religious exemption, my Archdiocese publicly issued letters that any Catholic in the country could use. I forwarded those letters to a LOT of people around the country during that mess. I do not know what Abp. Aquila thought, personally, about Covid at the time. We had certain restrictions for worship as did all other areas of the country. But he forcefully defended the right of his flock to maintain their autonomy over decisions on their own health – and that was a very courageous decision given the hysteria that had been manufactured in the country -and with which secular authorities were trying to bring the Churches to heel.

Early in his tenure, Abp. Aquila moved back the age for confirmation by several years. I spoke to some officials at the Chancery privately and they told me his reasoning was that, for many people, confirmation came at a time when adolescents were almost ready to move out of the house…and had come to be effectively seen as “graduating” out of the faith. Abp. Aquila wanted to change the age here so it would come to be regarded as graduating more deeply into the faith. What a deeply subtle and insightful way of evangelizing young people in a way more likely to last through their tumultuous early years on their own!

In everything he has done, Abp. Aquila has endeavored to be just and to protect his flock – and to boldly and clearly proclaim the faith to all. For years, his standing order has been that the St. Michael Prayer be recited after every Mass in the Archdiocese. In the little things as well as the big, he has endeavored to be a true shepherd to all of his flock. This was foreshadowed in his Episcopal Motto, taken from Mary’s instructions to the servants at the Wedding at Cana after they ran out of wine, concerning her Holy Son: “Do whatever He tells you.”

I will miss the guidance of Abp. Samuel Aquila…and I am glad to have known him during this turbulent time in the Church and the world.

If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.

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