Pope Francis may have been the worst pope in history

OPINION:

A little over a year ago, I spent a week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a university-style organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last year, the academy addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on the 750th anniversary of his death.

This is not an esoteric subject. Aquinas taught that all rational people can discern right from wrong and good from evil by exercising free will and human reason, and they do not need the government to aid them in this endeavor.

This is generally known as natural law. My presentation was on the concept of natural rights, a derivation of natural law.

The Vatican, which is a fraction of the size of Central Park in New York City, has a fine guesthouse on the grounds called the Domus, which was my home for four days. It was also the permanent residence of Pope Francis.

On our first day there, my 24 colleagues and I were dining in the small Domus dining room when the pope came in and sat two tables away from us. It was surreal.

Here is the backstory.

How do we know what we know?

Aquinas set about to answer that intriguing question. How do we know that we exist, that 2 plus 2 equals 4, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? These are truisms; thus, they cannot change, and all rational people can discern them. They are true intrinsically, whether we believe they are or not.

Aquinas taught that all rational adults could discover the truth by exercising free will, which requires rational thinking. When he taught this, it was radical, as other scholars taught that forces outside us drew us to discover truths.

Let’s say you like chocolate ice cream. Aquinas taught that you can rationally choose chocolate whenever you have an ice cream choice to make. Others taught that you didn’t choose chocolate; it chose you, meaning you can’t control your taste buds.

This is not hairsplitting; rather, it is central to Western thinking. If we don’t have free will or are just animals drawn to satiate our tastes, then are we responsible for our behavior? Can we take credit when we hit a home run or compose a symphony, or is all this just animal instinct acting out?

Aquinas’ views are known today as natural law, and natural rights are a derivative of natural law. Aquinas taught that the same God who made us in his own image and likeness gave us the gift of free will. We can use that free will to discover the truth, practice baseball, learn music or choose our favorite ice cream. We can also use that free will to harm others, such as stealing a purse or robbing a bank.

Aquinas taught that when we see a purse being stolen or a bank being robbed, we instinctively know we are witnessing evil. How do we know this? Our Creator hardwires us to discern good from evil.

We cannot know this without the free will to reject it. As God is perfectly free, so are we, his creatures, perfectly free.

The theory of natural rights, extrapolated from Aquinas, teaches that our rights are permanent claims against the whole world that no one, not even government, can take away. Of course, the purse snatcher and the bank robber give up their rights when they violate the rights of the purse owner and the bank depositors.

Today, we allow the government to take our property, privacy and free speech from us all the time.

Aquinas knew that government is the negation of liberty. In the 21st century, we realize we have a government that is utterly indifferent to our rights. The folks who run the federal government, no matter which political party is in power, believe they can kill any foe, steal any property, extinguish any right, declare any wrong, regulate any behavior, tax any event and insinuate themselves into any relationship so long as they can get away with it politically, all in defiance of natural law.

In America today, we see the destruction of natural law principles and the rejection of natural rights.

Now, back to the pope.

Catholics believe he is the Vicar of Christ on earth. However, Pope Francis may have been the worst pope in history. He watered down church teachings on marriage, sexuality and confession. He declined to judge right from wrong. He forbade the Mass that every canonized saint in heaven attended and participated in since 1564. He even claimed that all religions were equal and welcomed in the eyes of God, contrary to 2,000 years of express church teaching. This is heresy.

He attacked long-standing theology, universal liturgy and Thomistic natural law when his principal job was to preserve them. He even questioned the concept of sin.

Nevertheless, it was surreal when he was brought into the guesthouse dining room, using a walker and an assistant at each arm. It was bizarre when he sat with his back to us. I wanted to go up to him and greet him, but the Swiss Guards had warned us not to approach him or call his name.

Two days later, I turned a corner in the guesthouse lobby, and there he was, 10 feet away — just the two of us. I gently bowed and whispered, “Your Holiness.” He looked at me and moved on.

Now, mercifully, Francis is gone. I pray for his soul and for his successor. Please, Lord, may the next pope be a Catholic pope.

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