THE BANISHMENT OF CHRIST
Filed by PAULY FONGEMIE
  November 30, 2006

The "Holiday Season" in the home of the politically correct and the land of the free for the chosen few is upon us once again. Corporations, government schools, and meddlesome bores of the atheistic kind, who have nothing better to do, vie with one another to see who can come up with the most insulting but imaginative way to ban Christ from Christmas, all in the name of "diversity", you understand. If the honor of Christ, our Savior King and God Himself were not involved it would be to laugh and laugh again. Every year things just get sillier, sometimes with the assistance of those claiming to champion Christ. This year is no exception.

FOX News channel's Bill O'Reilly has weighed in concerning the latest outrages against Christ, and His image during the Christmas season. Now Christmas means Christ's Mass, literally. Remove Christ, no Christmas, but mas, or should I say mess, period-----just a cheap facade co-opting the sentimentality that human beings have attached to the festive aspects of the Holy Day, only expanded into a profane holiday because of the American habit of excess in all things, especially if financial profit can be gained. Truth be told, America does not have a Christmas Season, she has a Shopping Season. Now O'Reilly's intentions are very good, he wants Christ in Christmas, but he goes about this holy task in a wholly peculiar, secular manner, which only serves to further desacralize Christmastide, in this case the prelude, or Advent Season.

He claims that because we are a secular country, we cannot bring religious motivation into public affairs. We cannot use theology, in other words. So he plays into the enemy's hands by informing his audience that we must refer to Christ as a philosopher and Christianity as a philosophy only. Well, who needs the ACLU and Atheists United or whatever the heck their title is? Bill is better at this game than they are. Oh, the ACLU is very clever at weaving arguments against Christ and only against Christ---they never attack Menorahs, just Mangers---but inept in human nature as cowards tend to be. The more the elites attack Jesus Christ, the more fervent we traditional Catholics and Evangelicals become. We are even gaining converts. People who never paid much attention to Jesus Christ before are suddenly fascinated and looking into His teachings. I suppose we could just leave the deicide cabal to its dirty deeds and reap the converts, but God has warned us what will happen at the judgment-seat if we do not defend His honor, so we must. Thus, every year it is one step backward for Jesus as He is banned from the bus, not just the back seat, hither and thither, and one step forward for individual souls who accept the gift of faith.

Now along comes O'Reilly to confuse the folks. How do mean, you ask?

Well, I reply, the definition of philosophy according to the American Heritage Dictionary [how's that title for irony?] is:

A speculative inquiry concerning the source and nature of human knowledge.

And the definition of a philosopher is:

A specialist in human knowledge and one who lives by a particular philosophy.

[It does not matter which one, take your pick, just so it is a philosophy.]

Now, how does this apply to Jesus Christ, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity: Three Divine Persons in one Godhead, the only God, Supreme and All-Knowing?

Jesus said that He is the Truth. There is no need to speculate for Him as He possesses Himself in Eternal Perfection. His teachings concern far more than human knowledge, but Divine knowledge and precepts, which are revealed to mankind by a merciful God Who wills to save it from its sins. To reduce theology, the Queen of the Sciences because it concerns the revealed knowledge of the Divine from God Himself, to its lower sister science, philosophy, is to undermine the mission of the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ the Savior Who took on human nature and consented to be born in a manger. Christ has two natures, human and Divine. And to confuse one science which has a specific purpose with that of the other, which has another purpose.

A philosophy can not save, nor can a philosopher, only Christ, Who is God can and does save.

Bill insists that we cannot win the war for Christ unless we pretend He is a mere philosopher. Oh, he does not employ this precise phrase, but this is the essence of his approach. To see us so hamstrung and weak, so lacking in imagination and courage that this is the best we can come up with before the impious onslaught of Leviathan, is to embolden the enemy further. If we are willing to compromise now, it will be easier the next time. Actually, if we all rally to the O'Reilly whoops-cry, the ACLU will have to retire early and just sit back with its feet up and watch what is left of Christendom evaporate as God withdraws His grace from the likes of us, who would then have become more cowardly than the bullies in the public square. What good is a sentimental philosopher pretend God? Maybe a god that Bill creates for himself and others who follow him serves to serve their own idea of what is good for America, that winning is more important than the Truth. They in effect are banishing Him. As for me and my household only a God Who is the only God, Who is the Way, the Life and the Truth, will do, and rather than have Him serve us and our vainglory, it is we who seek to serve Him in all things, including this little riposte for Bill O'Reilly.



E-MAIL

HOME------------------------SOUND-OFF ARCHIVES

www.catholictradition.org/Christmas/holiday3.htm