Father Christopher Zugger

How many inches are in one foot?  How many feet in one yard?

How many feet in one mile? If I say there are 5 inches in a foot, and 2 feet in a  yard, and 520 feet in a mile, does that make it true? No, obviously not.

In the same way, proclaiming that something wrong actually is good does not make it true.

John died because he insisted on preaching that Herodias and Herod Antipas were not married according to God’s law, and that by Jewish law and ethical standards not only were they not married, but their union together was a scandal to both the Jewish people and their neighbors. Herodias had divorced her royal husband and left with their daughter. This so-called marriage caused a war with the king of Nabataea, Rome had to intervene in the mess, and ultimately Herod and Herodias were deported to Europe where they died in exile. As for the unnamed princess who performed a dance that delighted the guests, the fact that the princess Salome from the royal family would perform any kind of a dance in front of the men at a birthday dinner shows just how wicked and corrupt the court of Herod Antipas had become. She should have been sequestered with her mother and the other women of the royal court in their own area, and certainly not performing in front of Herod Antipas and other men. When movies and operas show Salome dancing in a very suggestive manner and the men clamoring after her, it is unfortunately accurate as to what probably happened. John obviously condemned the conduct of Herodias, and so she demands his murder at the hands of the king. Herod did not have the moral courage to refuse the wish of his illegal wife and proclaim that murdering a prophet would offend God – as a result, John is considered a martyr for truth, and a martyr in defense of marriage.

Saying that something is so does not make it true, but that is a hallmark of the morally confused times that we live in. Pope Benedict XVI warned about “the dictatorship of relativism” and the denial of moral truths. The writer Aldous Huxley predicted in 1932 in Brave New World that the coming modern world would be one filled with false truths and be a world that would deny truth. It is incumbent on Christians therefore, and especially the Catholic Church, to hold the line when it comes to morality. Truth is not always popular, and that seems to be the case in our world today. But it’s interesting to note that there are now Protestants and of course most Orthodox who support Catholic teachings. We may feel like voices in the desert, but we are not truly lonely ones, since there are other Christians also holding to these values.

And of course, no Christian is ever alone – the Lord always stands spiritually with us, just as He did with the three holy youths in the furnace, with Peter in the storm, and with John the Baptist that day in the prison.

It’s a challenging time to be a Christian, a time when Western society seems to be drifting from its moorings, in the name of tolerance while ironically becoming more and more intolerant of the very Judeo-Christian religious tradition that created Western society and the requirement for tolerance. Going back to Benedict XVI again, though, here is another point he made. The truth comes to rule not through violence but through its own power. When Jesus stood before Pilate, Saint John the Evangelist tells us in his gospel that Jesus professes that he is the truth, not through legions of angels but through his Passion. The Church has to live out its own truth, the truth of Christ, and it is not easy to do that. May we have the courage to do that, in these odd times when in the name of tolerance, tolerance for the historic truths of the Church is abolished. Pope Benedict pointed out that we do not force people to become and live as Christians, and by the same token the new secularist religion has no right to force anyone to live by its new standards and make it obligatory for humanity.

Let us ask the intercession of Saint John the Baptist that we would be authentic missionaries of Christ Jesus and of the truths of the Church which Christ founded, even in these challenging times. Christ is among us.