An Open Letter to Pope Francis

Your Holiness,

The world is so filled with controversy, ignorance and moral decay that I can't help but be facing a great despair. Your predecessor, Pope John Paul II, said many times, "Be not afraid." The instruction has sustained me ever since through the worst news and the seeming hopelessness of living in a sordid and sinful world. Unfortunately, the sustenance of his sentiment has been overcome of late by the progressive destruction of every moral truth I have ever known. If ever there was a time for the strength of spiritual leadership and the wisdom of God's messenger on earth, this is it. But, Your Holiness, I am still waiting. The governor of our state has defied the truths of natural law, giving his support to gay marriage and abortion. The President of the United States has been derelict in his duty to uphold our God-inspired Constitution. And now, Holy Father, I hear you suddenly testing the waters of truth, teasing the media with the liberal inclinations that please the world but frighten the faithful.

Allow me a question, Your Holiness. What do you believe the greatest destruction the world has ever known is—that thing that will end life as we know it?

You might be quick to answer that it has been war. I believe not. War is terrible—a great evil. However, war has been a part of humanity since we were able to walk upright, and yet, nations have formed, civilization has risen, and humanity has increased its numbers despite the death apparent in war.

You might offer that it has been the plague of disease. I believe not. A disease is a terrible blight on humanity, and we spend endless time and money attempting to eradicate the threats. However, disease is as old as humanity, and yet, we thrive; we overcome, mankind has increased its numbers despite the sickness and death apparent in disease.

You might consider poverty to be a scourge that will continually eat away at society until we eventually begin to feed upon ourselves through greed and indifference that will collapse civilization. I believe not. Poverty, slavery, and destitution have been a crime inherent in all societies since the beginning of all civilization. It is a constant pressure that often forms geysers of virtue from a concerned humanity. Not only have the poor survived, but many have made their way out of its grip while the world continues to overcome the scourge.

But if you were to say that the collapse of moral law, natural law, and God's law were to be the final blow to human existence, then I believe you would be correct. These things are unstoppable evils that no world, no humanity can overcome and still survive. God told us not to divorce our wives or our husbands and that we were to cleave to one another. He said that laying together in unholy ways, men with men and women with women, is an abomination. Natural law told us that only one man and one woman could create a new man and sustain humanity. The moral law was designed to defend the primal law of all civilization so that we may live together without destroying each other. Together, these three laws put a natural perimeter around our free wills demonstrating a threshold of tolerance that cannot be breached without failing humanity.

Today, free will in the modern world has nearly collapsed the civil society: seven billion people who would will us in seven billion directions. We are minutes away from losing our souls, no longer an image of anything but ourselves. We follow no one and no belief system. In fact, our most moral action is to destroy religion, and we are fast becoming a Sodom and a Gomorrah from which there is no return. The world wants the Church to modernize. It is a fallacious request, because modernizing eliminates the laws that support humanity and will send us back into the dark ages by which we will be lost. You are unwittingly adding to the threat. The modern world does not want the moral law or God's law. It wants moral anarchy!

Your Holiness, I implore you not to tread into this political cesspool spawned by atheism, socialism, communism and hatred for the Church and its traditions. These are tricks meant to persuade us all over the dam. Christ warned us not to be led astray.

Love thy neighbor as thyself is a good intention and a worthy teaching, but beneath the meaning is a question that asks what 'self' is and what do I love of it that I can imitate on behalf of my neighbor. Self, as I define it, is Christ-centered, heterosexual and monogamous. 'Self' loves life and the lives I help procreate. 'Self' worships one God. 'Self' believes that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 'Self' loves righteousness and would never give aid to sin. 'Self' seeks perfection in God, the Holy Eucharist and the Communion of Saints. 'Self' limits free will and avoids the near occasion of sin. 'Self' believes in the Natural Law and obeys God's law. 'Self' does not forgive without saying, "Go and sin no more."

So, Your Holiness, I love my neighbor as myself, but I do not love my neighbor who is nothing like me and who has come to destroy me. It is sinister to believe that you can bring the fox to the hen house or wolves among sheep and expect all to survive. I pray that you will reconsider the mantle entrusted to you for protecting the bride of Christ, his Holy Catholic Church.