Timothy Birdnow

Pope Leo went and done it now; he's completely removed any right of the Church to admonish the State in his first encyclical.

The state does not have autonomy from the Church, but the Church DOES have autonomy from the state, and that is as it should be. The State is there to protect her citizens from evildoers and to protect them from invasion. The State was also intended to enforce legal contracts.

Other purposes have been invented over time, including the performance of charitable acts via social programs, and laws forcing the citizenry to behave in a certain fashion, mostly out of a societal outcome they believe is worthwhile (and some are). Civil rights, for example, is a euphemism for promoting black people into society at large and it's been done whether owners of businesses or anything liked it or not. Now many of these programs are in place and they many times go against the will of the People and would not pass a referendum but the State took that on itself.

It was the usurpation of these other things that has often led to the State metastasizing and pushing immoral or destructive things, and those things fall under the purview of the Church. I don't care what Pope Leo the Chicken Hearted has to say about it; the Church has a duty to call out anything that will destroy the souls of people.

Transgenderism and homosexuality are two such things that are specifically mentioned in the Bible as grounds for eternal damnation. So too is adultery, fornication, drunkenness, wrath, and a host of others. The government does not promote wrath so much (well, Obama and Biden closed their eyes to Antifa and Black Lives Matter and the like) but it most definitely has promoted the LGBTQ agenda not just in America but around the world via USAID and other such tools. And the Church was silent about that because of Pope Francis and now Leo. The Church had a moral duty to protest what was happening. Abortion is another legal issue the Church is morally bound to oppose.

Separation of Church and State is primarily an American idea, and even then it was not the radical split that we now think it was, but rather an idea of limiting the authority of government over churches, not establishing a national religion or messing about with churches the way the King did in England. The "separation" was not a separation but a one-way restraint. Thomas Jefferson wouldn't recognize what Leo has done here.

Jesus did say "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's" but he was talking about obeying legal authority at the time and about paying taxes. The preamble to this was "should we pay Rome taxes" and Jesus took out a coin and asked "whose face is on this coin?" Jesus was telling them they were duty bound to pay taxes, and accept laws up to a point.

But Paul made it clear that there were laws you could and should not obey. For instance, at the time eating food offered to idols was a big deal; many Christians refused to partake despite the fact it was a law. So many of them refused. Pauls said that was fine if your conscience said not to.

The very fact the Apostles all were executed except John is proof that the government is not supposed to be completely exempt from Church meddling; the Apostles refused to renounce Christ. Eventually Christianity became illegal and Christians were fed to the lions or forced to face execution in the gladiator contests or crucified. That was because the State demanded to be obeyed even when it was an immoral thing. Bucking them led to deaths and tortures but the Church persevered.

Interestingly enough it was Pope Leo III who crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor, so this Pope Leo is spitting on the man whose name he took.

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed it was the Church that was forced into the leadership of Europe. They didn't ask for it. That tells me God Himself was telling the Church they had a job to do and it was as much secular as other-worldly. God put the Church in a position of temporal authority for a long time.

Leo rejects all this in his encyclical.

Yes, the Church should not simply take over a country just because it can; Jesus never intended the Church to be the King too. But it also means the Church must involve itself on matters of faith and morals.

I rather suspect Leo isn't going to stop having Catholic Charities recruit illegal aliens to invade the U.S., or quit pushing for America to amnetize illegals as they have been doing (Catholic Charities has been one of the worst NGO's bringing aliens into this country). I suspect what Leo is doing is trying to get good Catholics out of the fight to save America. He wants us to bow out of the political process, I suspect. Otherwise, why write such an encyclical now? There are serious issues he needed to address and he's out there telling the Church to sit down and shut up.

Why didn't he address the trans movement, for instance? That is most definitely in the Pope's wheelhouse.

1Corinthians 6:9-10 says:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

And yet government is full of such and indeed it itself practices many of the later sins mentions (like thievery, greed, slandering, swindling). And most assuredly many, many souls will be damned because the Church never made a peep about any of this out of fear of offending Caesar.

Now Pope Leo, rather than tackling this laundry list of evil, is admonishing Christians to not speak up.

This is why we are in this mess in the first place; the Church remained silent when it needed to call out sins.

The Church has long believed that the False Prophet would be a Pope. I can see that. Frankly this encyclical in some ways appears to be a forerunner to the False Prophet, who will give his authority to the Beast. This encyclical kind of just did that.

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