THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF BRANCH FREEDOM IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC, ABOUT CERTAIN BISHOPS WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT THEY ARE FATHERS OF VACCINATED AND UNVACCINATED

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That beautiful soul of Monsignor Cirulli loses sight of the fact that if necessary it is in his full right to impose a ban on the Catholic faithful from using condoms or birth control pills or even more so the use of morning after pill or even worse than the abortion pill. Just as it can forbid its priests to go to women or men or to ask them to scrupulously observe liturgical and canonical norms, but it cannot force the clergy and the faithful to vaccinate simply because this is beyond its function.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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Franco Califano (Tripoli 1938 - Rome 2013) "Damn boredom", to open the video click on the image

On the Sunday just passed, feast of the Baptism of the Lord, at the time of the homily I reflected with my parishioners on the fact that in baptism the Christian, in addition to the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity receives above all the most precious gift of filial freedom. For us Christians, being free is a prerogative of being children. The Blessed Apostle Paul underlines this very well in his letter to the Galatians [cf.. Gal 4, 4-ss].

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Already the biblical hagiographer, in the Book of Genesis, describing the creation of man, it says that each was made in the image and likeness of God [cf.. GN 1, 26], by similarity we mean those mental qualities, moral and social values ​​proper to God, that the Creator has imprinted in the human creature differentiating it from all the other created ones. From this divine likeness it is sanctioned, in a clear and definitive way, the difference and superiority of man compared to all other creatures, including animal ones.

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We pay attention and clarify immediately a fundamental concept: the gift of filial freedom is not a personal merit that man can boast of but it is an acquired grace that we obtain from the Father (as the Letter to the Galatians will say with the Greek expression dià theōu!) in view of the incarnation of the Word, of Christ the only begotten Son, who made it possible to be children in the Son in a full and lasting way by redeeming man from that condition of sin and death on which ancient slavery was supported, as Jesus remarked before the Jews: «If therefore the Son sets you free, you will be truly free " [GV 8, 36].

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If we understand that Christian freedom it is the prerogative of the Son and of those who knew how to welcome him [cf.. GV 1,12], enough to become the legitimate heirs [cf.. RM 8,17], we can also understand the full possibility of each baptized person to relate fully to God the Father and the Holy Spirit as Christ did. Indeed, only if we are authentically children in the Son can we also exercise that full freedom which implies a recognition of a relationship with the Father as the lover and with the Holy Spirit as love.

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At the time of our baptism, therefore, God's grace gives us the gift of filial freedom just as it was given to Christ who was free before the Father and remained so in his earthly life precisely because he was a beloved son in that anointing of the Holy Spirit which is the guarantee of every perfect communion and communication with God [cf.. RM 8, 14-ss] in freedom.

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From these theological assumptions, it is not difficult to understand how Christian freedom supposes, to be such, of constant relational communication. Just as God is fully liberated in himself precisely because in his intimate mystery the most august persons of the Most Holy Trinity cannot but relate to each other in fullness - which also refers to the Word after his incarnation - so man is truly free only when he is capable of entering into communion with God and relating to creatures.

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Unfortunately, to the proven proof of the facts, to speak of Christian freedom today as a rediscovery of one's baptism and therefore as an evangelical commitment to be witnesses in the world of the freedom of the Son is not at all easy. The current pandemic health crisis has distorted the concept of freedom not only in its theological reference but also in that philosophical and social reference that underlies every civilization. In less than two years we have gone from a health crisis to a social one that has left heavy repercussions on the political and economic sphere of the country, so much so as to undermine those certainties once considered obvious. This global crisis has not spared even the faith that is experiencing a very deep crack so as to lead the freedom of the baptized faithful to drift in favor of a mirage of freedom that is made up of "benevolent concessions" that day after day mortgage filial freedom on altar of emergency, today of the health one and tomorrow of who knows what other.

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Stoically we have been able to bring sacrifice of the distance from the Sacraments, of the suspension of Holy Masses, from the remodeling of religious traditions and all in the hope of being able to start again, something that seems increasingly difficult today. Is to the outside that to enter of the Christian world, as well as the civil one, we are witnessing a continuous decrease in the concept of freedom which is curtailed to such a proportional and gradual extent with respect to the increase in the communal distance between man and man and between man and God. We assist helpless, two years now, the impossibility of creating stable relationships, frank dialogues, mature comparisons between the parties. Everything falls under the light of suspicion, of illegality, of clandestinity: we no longer see a Socratic dialogic communication that gives birth to a free and liberating truth and that recognizes in man the most beautiful work done by the Creator. The distance between individuals is palpable and in our churches we experience the desolation of the empty pews where the baptized, once beloved children, they are looking for a father who cannot be found. And paternally a part of our bishops remain closed in their own curie-fortresses to produce Manzonian cries alert and vigilance to the virus, perhaps envying the civil institutions that with a decree can prohibit the weepers some slices of social life fueling the illusion of paradises Covid free held upright by an ethereal GreenPass and from a terrorist communication that is the daughter of a freedom that has lost the reference to paternity and of a communion that is unable to meet one's neighbor.

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We men of the Church, as well as the men of the state, we are finding it very difficult to communicate with people who are no longer seen as children, brothers and citizens to protect and protect, but as categories to be labeled, good in the part of the scapegoat to whom it is right and right to put on. So then there are also the faithful in parishes and convents pro-wax e no-vax; conservatives and progressives; the traditionalists and the reformists. E, together with all this dialectic of opposition, it moves forward on the control and elimination of the opposing party, confusing the truth, with the acceptance of the unique narrative of its own line-up; freedom, with conforming to this partisan truth and the common good with what is affirmed by the majority.

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All this long reasoning it serves me as a necessary introduction to a pastoral issue that creates in me a feeling of inner sadness combined with a pitiful commiseration. As a priest and baptized I assist daily and in a systematic and methodical way, to the dismantling of the Christian freedom of so many faithful who find themselves mistreated by their pastors who now have more propensity to sanitize souls than to their sanctification. The last case in order of time is the one that concerns S. AND. Mons. Giacomo Cirulli, bishop of the Dioceses of Teano-Calvi and Alife-Caiazzo who banned the distribution of communion to those priests not vaccinated (you see who, who), but also to those deacons and laity labeled as no-vax who serve in his diocesan Church. The prelate, who apparently has a degree in medicine, as a good medical officer, he orders the draconian suspension of the pastoral liturgical service of his clergy considered to be reluctant to serum, thus creating a unique pastoral and canonical precedent that has no precedent in the history of the Church until now.

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And yes, because that beautiful soul of Monsignor Cirulli loses sight of the fact that if necessary it is in his full right to impose a ban on the Catholic faithful from using condoms or birth control pills or even more so the use of morning after pill or even worse than the abortion pill. Just as it can forbid its priests to go to women or men or to ask them to scrupulously observe liturgical and canonical norms, but he cannot force the clergy and the faithful to vaccinate simply because this is beyond his duties even if he is a medical graduate, because he as bishop was consecrated essentially to be a father who speaks to the heart of the children that Christ has entrusted to him, which must be exhorted and recovered, even in the unfortunate case in which these departed from the paternal house making a bad use of their freedom.

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We devoutly wish to give advice to Monsignor Cirulli, which is common sense advice and consists in appealing to the conscience and freedom of one's children - priests and lay people - and seeing vaccination not as a dogmatic obligation but as one of the many practicable tools that medicine suggests in this time of emergency health care together with the other appropriate treatments made available to the medical art. Or better understood: at this time, in the current state of scientific knowledge, science and medicine suggest and recommend vaccination to avoid contagion - we know and we have been told by specialists that vaccinated people can get infected -, but to avoid the devastating effects of Covid-19 with all that it can bring to the health of the individual, or to medical personnel who have been experiencing an emergency for almost two years and have to assist the hospitalized, to follow up with the entire national health system which risked collapse during the first wave.

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Suspend like this, in coercive mode the power ministerial of their own priests, until proven otherwise they are not affected by any canonical penalty, in fact requires a lockdown to the conscience of the presbyter who has the duty to rush attentively to every member of the faithful who legitimately requests his spiritual assistance. I also see a clever and malicious use by the bishop of the words spoken by the Roman Pontiff to get vaccinated. Indeed, the phrase of the Pope: "Getting vaccinated is an act of love" obviously makes sense, but it is a paternal parenesis and not a pronouncement from the throne, a dutiful exhortation, not a dogmatic pronouncement that binds in matters of faith and morals. Because, at this point, also vaccinating for other diseases can rightly be considered an act of love, as well as maintaining a healthy body or observing a healthy and morally irreproachable life. I ask, there is a need for the Pope or a bishop to understand this or exhort this? We Fathers de The Island of Patmos, that we were all three authors of a book dedicated to this delicate subject The Church and the coronavirus, we have publicly stated on several occasions that we have been vaccinated, when the vaccine was available and when it was our turn, because we have freely and consciously decided to trust science and the indications given by experts and specialists. But pay attention to the words and the meaning of the words: we did it by exercising our freedom and by deciding to trust, so we acted for act of trust, which is an action never to be confused with a act of faith, which is quite another thing. Today one seriously wonders: the science we first trusted, but above all the politics that sometimes seems to use science as a blunt instrument, he wants one of ours act of trust or one of ours act of faith? Because faith is based on dogmas, but science is not, indeed, if anything, it specializes in laughing at it, up to reaching certain currents of psychiatry that place religiosity in the context of neuroses.

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I do not seem to remember that episcopal exhortations have been made in the past to ensure that the secular or religious clergy ate or drank more moderately - in the face of the many cases of chronic alcoholism and severe obesity still present among consecrated persons - let alone the advice to practice a more sporty life, something that he would no doubt have avoided wearing, already from the years of seminar formation, the size 52 of the trousers that increases with the increase of the assignments received. And I do not want to dwell on the pitiful and delicate case of the priests who have fallen into the various addictions, something that cannot be said for clerical modesty but which from time to time comes to the fore in the news columns [you see who, who], but if anyone wants to deepen these painful issues related to the moral decay of the clergy, just read the book And Satan made him triune at Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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Most Reverend Excellency what we do? We also ban ai fat people, to drunkards and employees of various kinds the care of souls because they are incapable of acts of love? We want to propose to the Congregation for the Clergy a pastoral catharism in which only the hard and pure can exercise the priestly ministry while the others are sent home? While Your Excellency thinks about it, I would like to reiterate the concrete danger of using the alibi of love free from everything and everyone as a reinforcement of one's own ideologies slogan. We have already seen legions glitterate e rainbows of men who want to convince us to the sound of Love is Love, this theme to which Ariel S and I. Levi di Gualdo we have dedicated our book: From Prozan to Prozac. At this point, if an act of love is enough to fix things, how can we still blame him? If an act of love is enough to justify everything, we also consider euthanasia as an act of love towards the dying or abortion as an act of love towards a woman who wishes to fulfill herself.

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The truth, Excellency, it does not consist in the fact that his priests are reluctant to offer their arm to the homeland to be vaccinated - considering that almost all of us Italian priests are vaccinated -, but that there is probably an obvious difficulty in relating to them. This precludes all freedom, favoring hasty limitations and tightening between the parties.

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If God did this to us every time we sin or that we deliberately disobey his will, what would become of us? What would become of God? But no, God continues to have a relationship with us, a communion proper and above all when our freedom as children is more shaky and fails. God continually sends his incarnate Word to give us that mercy made flesh which is the only one that can restore our compromised filial freedom to health.. We are free only if we are in communion, as father bishop you wait with concern and trembling for his sons, priests and lay people on the doorstep, not to circumscribe them with restrictive measures but to wrap them with that hug around the neck [cf.. LC 15, 20] which dissolves all resistance and makes it clear that the father is always such, especially when he makes a mistake, and he is the father of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, who as a father seeks, sometimes with difficulty, the unit, it certainly does not lend itself to creating dramatic fractures and divisions. Therefore he is the father of consecrated virgins and at the same time - perhaps even more so - of women who have abortions, in need of his acceptance and his forgiveness much more than we do the consecrated virgins.

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But these of ours are Catholic speeches, perhaps obsolete and perhaps even annoying, while everything else is boring, as Franco Califano sang: but boredom, girl, girl …

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Laconi, 13 January 2021

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