After saying that, "To be a Christian means to do: to do the will of God," Francis
asserted that, "on the last day – because all of us we will have one – that day what shall the Lord ask us? Will He say: 'What you have said about me?' No. He shall ask us about the things we did."
In other words, Francis is saying that it's not belief that matters but social action. If it's not important what we say about Him, why did the Lord Jesus ask His Disciples, "And who do you say that I am?" Mark 8:29.
Back in December of 2012, I wrote, "The "Social Gospel" is more concerned about an earthly future than eternity
Standing before a statue of Mary near the Spanish Steps some years ago, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Benedict XVI reminded his listeners that the Gospel is the good news of freedom from sin, that it is "the proclamation of the victory of grace over sin, of life over death." Proponents of the "social gospel" have forgotten this. The mission of the Church is not to eradicate poverty or social injustice. As Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains, while "a deep interest in the earthly welfare of our neighbor is a central duty of the Christian and an essential demand of the love of neighbor," still, "it is definitely no part of the message of Christ that there is to be no more poverty, no more war, that the earth is to become a natural paradise."
Proponents of the "social gospel" fail to understand, as Dr. Hildebrand reminds us, that "..
the primary task of the Church is the proclamation of the divine Revelation, the protection of it against all heresies, the the sanctification of the soul of the individual, the securing of his eternal salvation - this is the spreading of the kingdom of God on earth, and not the attempt to build up an earthly paradise." (Essay entitled This-Worldliness).
Dr. Hildebrand explains that, "...the motive of many for eliminating poverty (which itself is not morally wicked, but only a morally relevant evil) is not rooted in the spirit of Christ or His Gospel, but in a humanitarian ideal. The widespread tendency today to demand everything as a right and to refuse to accept any gifts is surely no manifestation of a Christian spirit. There is in reality a clear, sharply delineated difference between justice and love. Justice can and should be protected and demanded by state law; but love of neighbor could never be demanded by any law. For it is a duty before God, and no state law could or should prescribe it or enforce it. Love of neighbor presupposes the fulfillment of the claims of justice, but it goes far beyond this. The words of the Gospel, 'if someone asks you to go one mile, go two miles with him,' clearly go far beyond the sphere of justice. Of course, it is a pharisaical hypocrisy to the demands of justice as if one were giving alms. But it is a terrible pride not to want to accept any alms, and to demand that which comes as a gift. The true Christian should be happier to receive alms and to be grateful for them, than simply to receive what he has a right to. When he receives a gift he is happy not only over the good which is the gift, but also over the goodness of the giver; and he experiences it as a great source of happiness that he can and should be grateful."
Priests and deacons who have succumbed to the distortions of the "social gospel" seldom, if ever, preach against sin or remind their listeners of the reality of Hell. Dr. Hildebrand addresses this fact saying that, "this-worldly tendency can be detected in various pastoral letters, and above all in countless sermons. One speaks more about the fight against poverty and for social justice and world peace - in a word, more about improving the world - than about offending God by our sins, sanctifying the individual, about heaven and hell, eternity and the hope of eternal union with God in the beatific vision. The this-worldly tendency emphasizes the earthly future more than eternity..." (This-Worldliness).
The true Christian, in the Creed, proclaims: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi - 'We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."
But proponents of the "social gospel" have largely abandoned such a hope and prefer instead to embrace a humanitarian religion and to work for an earthly "utopia." Robert Hugh Benson, in his classic work entitled The Lord of the World, describes this humanitarian religion:
"Humanitarianism..is becoming an actual religion itself; though anti-supernatural. It is a pantheism. Pantheism deifies all nature, God is the world, but naturally, man above all is God since he is the highest expression of nature. It is a religion devoid of the 'super' natural, because since God is nature itself, there is no longer a distinction between Creator and creature. The creature is God and hence arbitrator of his own destiny and establishes the moral law for himself....Humanitarianism is a religion devoid of the supernatural. It is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is man'; and the rest. It has, therefore, a real food of a sort to offer religious cravings: it idealizes and yet makes no demands upon the spiritual faculties..." (Introduction, p. xvii).
The Church's mission is not to solve poverty. In fact, Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us (Mark 14: 7). The Church's mission is the salvation of souls. When a crowd of people went searching for Jesus and found Him on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they said to Him, 'Rabbi, when did you come here?' And Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you; for on Him has God the Father set His seal."
The crowd said to Him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" And Jesus answered them: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He has sent." (John 6: 25-29).
The work of God is believing in Him whom the Father has sent. Jesus reveals Himself as the Bread of Life. He reveals in the synagogue who He is, where He comes from and the good things He has in store for those who believe in Him: faith, the Eucharist and eternal life.
Proponents of the 'social gospel" have forgotten that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4: 4). Crippled by distorted humanitarian ideals, such confused souls forget Our Lord's injunction to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (food, drink, clothing etc) shall be yours as well." (Matthew 6: 33).
Way back in the 1970's, I purchased an excellent book written by my hero and good friend Fulton J. Sheen entitled "The Electronic Christian" and published by the Macmillan Publishing Company. In this important book (indeed every book written By Sheen could be labelled as important), the saintly Archbishop who thoroughly intrigued his audience throughout the 1950's as "Uncle Fultie" - a Catholic counterpart if you will to Milton Berle's "Uncle Miltie," explains the importance and indeed the necessity of a religion with Dogma. Here is his essay:
The modern man must decide for himself whether he is going to have a religion with thought or a religion without it. He already knows that thoughtless policies lead to the ruin of society, and he may begin to suspect that thoughtless religion ends in confusion worse confounded.
The problem is simple. The modern man has two maps before him: one the map of sentimental religion, the other the map of dogmatic religion. The first is very simple. It has been constructed only in the last few years by a topographer who has just gone into the business of map making and is extremely adverse to explicit directions. He believes that each man should find his own way and not have his liberty taken away by dogmatic directions. The other map is much more complicated and full of dogmatic detail. It has been made by topographers who have been over every inch of the road for centuries and know each detour and each pitfall. It has explicit directions and dogmas such as, 'Do not take this road - it is swampy,' or 'Follow this road; although rough and rocky at first, it leads to a smooth road on a mountaintop.'
The simple map is very easy to read, but those who are guided by it are generally lost in a swamp of mushy sentimentalism. The other map takes a little more scrutiny, but it is simpler in the end, for it takes you up through the rocky road of the world's scorn to the everlasting hills where is seated the original Map Maker, the only One who ever has associated rest with learning: 'Learn of Me...and you shall find rest for your souls.'
Every new coherent doctrine and dogma add to the pabulum for thought; it is an extra bit of garden upon which we can intellectually browse; it is new food into which we can put our teeth and thence absorb nourishment; it is the discovery of a new intellectual planet that adds fullness and spaciousness to our mental world. And simply because it is solid and weighty, because it is dogmatic and not gaseous and foggy like a sentiment, it is intellectually invigorating, for it is with weights that the best drill is done, and not with feathers.
It is the very nature of a man to generate children of his brain in the shape of thoughts, and as he piles up thought on thought, truth on truth, doctrine on doctrine, conviction on conviction, and dogma on dogma, a very coherent and orderly fashion, so as to produce a system complex as a body and yet one and harmonious, the more and more human he becomes.
When, however, in response to false cries for progress, he lops off dogmas, breaks with the memory of his forefathers, denies intellectual parentage, pleads for a religion without dogmas, substitutes mistiness for mystery, mistakes sentiment for sediment, he is sinking back slowly, surely, and inevitably into the senselessness of stones and into the irresponsible unconsciousness of weeds. Grass is broad-minded. Cabbages have heads - but no dogmas. (pp. 74-74).
Francis would have us sink into the senselessness of stones and the unconsciousness of weeds. And so he continues to offer his listerners not solid food but pablum, not mystery but mistiness.
