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Is the Voice
of God Resounding in the Recent Catastrophes?
By Luis Sérgio Solimeo
The string of natural calamities and man-made
tragedies afflicting the world and the United States, particularly
Hurricane Katrina in late August, have stimulated many people
to reflection. Some see these tragic events as God’s
chastisement of a sinful mankind; others see them as yet
one more merciful warning from Providence; others yet deny
both options and give various reasons.
Modern society’s staggering apostasy
from the truth of the Gospel prompts many to ask themselves
if God is not trying to send a message to the world through
these calamities. Could He be saying: “Such as
I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore
and do penance. Behold, I stand at the gate and knock”?1
Could God be showing His supreme displeasure
with the reigning amorality and libertinism, loss of faith
and dissemination of sins that “cry out to heaven
for vengeance” such as abortion and homosexuality?2
If we consider just abortion, for example,
could these calamities be a Divine chastisement for the
blood of millions of innocent victims that rises to heaven
clamoring for justice? “They have poured out the
blood of the Saints as water, round about Jerusalem. And
there was none to bury them. Avenge, O Lord, the blood of
Thy Saints, which has been shed upon the earth.”3
An Archbishop’s
Words
Commenting on 2005’s Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
the retired Archbishop of New Orleans, Most Reverend Philip
M. Hannan was very much of the opinion that these tragedies
were Divine chastisements for sin:
“I’ve been speaking at local
parishes, and here's what I kept telling the people. I say,
look, we are responsible not only for our individual actions
to God, but in addition to that, we are also citizens of
a nation and in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament,
it says that a nation has a destiny and we are responsible
whether we cause it or not for the course of morality in
that nation. We are responsible as citizens for the sexual
attitude, disregard of family rights, drug addiction, the
killing of 45 million unborn babies, the scandalous behavior
of some priests – so we have to understand that certainly
the Lord has a right to chastisement.… We have reached
a depth of immorality that we have never reached before.
And the chastisement was Katrina as well as Rita.”4
That people who deny the existence of
God would summarily write off Archbishop Hannan’s
courageous assessment is understandable. However, we see
some Catholics rush to join the opinion of such atheists
– perhaps unwittingly – emphatically denying
any spiritual significance to these disasters. How can these
Catholics be so sure that these calamities are not “signs
of the times?”5 That they
are not chastisements? Or warnings from God?
A First Objection:
If It Can Be Explained Scientifically It Cannot Be Divine
Intervention
Among these Catholics are some who suggest that natural
catastrophes can be explained scientifically and that there
is no need, therefore, to bring Divine intervention into
the picture to understand what happened. This argument is
only partly correct.
God Uses the
Natural Causes He Created to Intervene in History
Science can explain the mechanics of natural disasters,
but not their transcendent meaning. For this, we must look
to philosophy and theology.
Indeed, to suggest that the forces of
nature act wholly on their own, to the exclusion of any
Divine plan, is to deny that they are God’s creatures.
It is to affirm either that the Creator made things without
an end and purpose, or that He is unable to intervene in
His own creation.
However, if God were to have made things
without a purpose, He would not be wise; and if He were
unable to control events and direct them toward the end
He had in mind when He created them, He would not be almighty.
This would be tantamount to denying His existence, for the
sheer possibility of an imperfect God contradicts the very
idea of God. Either He is an absolutely perfect being, or
the very idea of God makes no sense.
Nothing in
Creation Escapes God’s Government
Indeed, not only did God create all beings through a sovereign
act of His Divine Will, but He sustains them in existence
and directs them toward the end for which He created them:
His extrinsic glory. In other words, all of Creation is
under Divine government and is subject to God’s wise
designs. As Saint Thomas teaches:
“God [is] the ruler of things as
He is their cause, because the same gives existence as gives
perfection; and this belongs to government. Now God is the
cause not indeed only of some particular kind of being,
but of the whole universal being. Wherefore, as there can
be nothing which is not created by God, so there can be
nothing which is not subject to His government.… Now
the end of the Divine government is the Divine goodness.
Wherefore, as there can be nothing that is not ordered to
the Divine goodness as its end, so it is impossible for
anything to escape from the Divine government.”6
Saint Thomas further explains that while
this Divine government is direct and immediate from the
standpoint of design, this does not mean that God cannot
use secondary means for the ultimate execution of His plans.
Consequently, He can use the angels or even men to intervene
in History. He can use natural forces and the physical laws
that are derived from the nature of beings as He created
them and their relationships with each other.7
However, just because God usually uses
these secondary causes to execute His plans, this does not
mean that He is not directing, in a superior fashion, all
things to their true purpose, which is His glory.8
Therefore, just because God does not suspend the laws of
nature, as He did when opening the Red Sea for the Chosen
People, that does not mean events are not obeying His designs.9
In fact, God’s absolute perfection
demands that He act continuously in history. This is abundantly
confirmed by Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Church
Fathers.10 Therefore, when
analyzing the present catastrophes, God’s government
in the world must be taken into consideration.
A Second
Objection: God is Goodness Itself, So He Never Chastises
Men
Other Catholics disagreeing with Archbishop Hannan’s
assessment raise a second objection: “God is supremely
good, in fact He is Goodness itself, therefore He never
chastises men.”
Actually, since God is the absolute perfect
being, and the cause of all perfection, He must have in
Himself all possible perfections.11
Thus, He is not only infinitely good and merciful, but also
infinitely just. As the Psalmist so aptly says: “Mercy
and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed.”12
Therefore, while God reserves definitive
reward or punishment for the next life, as seen in the parable
of the wheat and the chaff,13
He also chastises on this earth. This truth is formally
found in Revelation. Some examples are: the plagues of Egypt,
14 the Flood,15
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah16
and the destruction of Jerusalem.17
God Does Judge
and Chastise Men, and Each Man Individually
Also, Saint Paul says that earthly authority “is
God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that
doth evil.”18 Clearly,
human authority could not be a “minister” or
agent of Divine justice if God Himself did not meet out
earthly punishment.
According to the Apostle, man cannot escape
Divine justice, be it in this life or the next: “And
thinkest thou this, O man … that thou shalt escape
the judgment of God? … But according to thy hardness
and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to thyself wrath,
against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment
of God: Who will render to every man according to his works.”19
Finally, Mary’s prayer, the Magnificat,
teaches that God’s mercy is manifested “to
them that fear him.”20
It is because God judges and chastises that we should fear
offending Him.
A Third Objection:
Since the Calamity Affected Both Good and Bad It Cannot
Be Divine Chastisement – God Would Never Chastise
the Good
Other Catholics bring up a third reason why they would disagree
with Archbishop Hannan: “These natural disasters,
did not only affect evil men, they also brought untold suffering
to good people. Thus, they cannot be a chastisement from
God. Were God to punish the good, He would not be infinitely
just.”
To properly address this objection we must
first recall some basic teachings of our Catholic faith:
a) God is the Lord of life: We
owe our existence to God and just as He freely gave us life,
He is free to take it from us. There is no injustice when
He does so, regardless of the stage of life, be it that
of an infant, a child, an adult in the full vigor of manhood,
or one who has reached venerable old age.
b) Eternal, not earthly, life and happiness
are our ultimate goal: Moreover, our earthly life and
happiness are not ends in themselves. They are not the supreme
reason for our existence. They are the road, the means,
for us to attain eternal life, our true goal. Thus, Saint
Paul reminds us, “Our citizenship is in heaven.”21
God’s way of acting becomes incomprehensible when
we lose sight of eternal life and heavenly happiness.
c) God punishes collective sin, collectively:
When sin becomes generalized, is greatly tolerated, or is
committed by particularly representative individuals, it
involves the whole family, city, region, nation, or even
historical eras. This collective dimension makes sin particularly
grave and offensive to God and the result is that Divine
chastisement is also collective. Both good and bad suffer.
The first suffer to become more perfect; the second as a
chastisement for their faults.
Saint Augustine
Explains Collective Chastisement
The great Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa,
and Doctor of the Church, lived during the barbarian invasions
that brought about the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Indeed, the Vandals were storming at the city gates as he
died.
During this troubled period, pagans blamed
the Church for the collapse of Empire and civilization.
If the Empire had not become Christian, they argued, Jove
and the other gods of Rome would have saved it from destruction.
Moreover, they added, the God of the Christians was no god
at all since He had not spared the Christians from the barbarians.
Saint Augustine wrote The City of
God to defend the Church and shore up the faith in
hearts. In his masterwork, he explains the reason for collective
chastisements. His reasoning can be summed up as follows:
1. Since nations as such do not pass
to eternal life, they are rewarded or chastised in this
life for the good or evil they practice; good and bad
alike feel the effects of both reward and chastisement.
2. As for the good, the chastisement
purifies their love of God, and may even take them from
the tribulations of this life to the eternally happy life
of Heaven; “Job’s case exemplifies that the
human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested
with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary
a love, it cleaves to God.”
3. On the other hand, very often the
good are justly chastised for a certain selfishness, a
lack of courage and apostolic fervor, that prevents them
from pointing out to the bad, the evil of their ways:
“Because they weakly relish the flattery and respect
of men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the
pain or death of the body; that is to say, their non-intervention
is the result of selfishness, and not of love.”
4. As for the bad, they are chastised
by “Divine Providence, which is wont to reform the
depraved manners of men by chastisement.”22
Such is also the teaching of Saint Thomas
who says: “Justice and mercy appear in the punishment
of the just in this world, since by afflictions lesser faults
are cleansed in them, and they are the more raised up from
earthly affections to God. Likewise, Saint Gregory says:
‘The evils that press on us in this world force us
to go to God.’”23
Our Lady at
Fatima: A Prophetic and Maternal Warning
Prophets in the Old Testament continually warned the Chosen
People of chastisements that would come on account of their
apostasies. Hence, we read of the prophet Jeremias warning
of the Babylonian captivity. In the New Testament, Our Lord
warned that Jerusalem would be destroyed because it had
rejected Him.24
In 1917, the Blessed Mother appeared in Fatima
to warn that if the world did not convert and do penance it
would be chastised: “When you see a night illumined
by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given
you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes,
by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and
of the Holy Father.… [Russia] will spread her errors
throughout the world.… The good will be martyred…
various nations will be annihilated.”25
At her last apparition in Fatima on October
13, 1917, Our Lady performed the famous miracle of the sun,
perhaps to give us an idea of the natural or man-made cataclysms
that could strike mankind, if we do not convert. The miracle
was witnessed by 70,000 people and was reported extensively
in the Portuguese anti-clerical secular press of the time.26
Has the world converted and done penance
during these 88 years since Our Lady made her request? Archbishop
Hannan’s words suggest that it has not. He mentions
a few of the evils that plague us, but many more can be
added to the list. The world has fallen into an almost universal
apostasy. Its immorality is unparalleled since the advent
of Christianity. More than just an aggressive libertinism,
this sad state of things represents a sin of the spirit
whereby moral aberrations are esteemed and even protected
by law. Massive public parades that glorify homosexual vice
have become frequent in nearly all of the world’s
major cities. In 2000, a world “homosexual pride”
festival took place in Rome. And in August 2005, another
10-day one was to have taken place in Jerusalem, but the
vigorous reaction from residents forced the organizers to
postpone it for a year.
New Orleans:
Tears of Maternal Sorrow and Warning
In this regard, it is certainly significant that the International
Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima, one of the
four statues carved under the direction of Sister Lúcia,
the main Fatima seer, shed tears in New Orleans in July
1972.27
One month after that miraculous weeping,
the beautiful port city saw the beginning of Southern
Decadence – days filled with the public display
of naked flesh and homosexual lewdness28
– and with every passing year, New Orleans became
increasingly a symbol for those who ignore Our Lady of Fatima’s
message of conversion.
Could Our Lady have chosen New Orleans
for this miraculous weeping because, in weeping over New
Orleans, She was weeping over everything it would come to
symbolize?
A Call to
Conversion and Penance
This brings us back to the original question. How should
we look at Hurricane Katrina and the string of tragedies
that have befallen our nation and the world? As a chastisement?
As a new warning from Divine Providence?
The answer is that regardless if the causes
of tragedy are natural or man-made, we cannot exclude Divine
Providence’s wise and unfathomable designs. Rather,
for all the reasons laid out above, and particularly Our
Lady’s message at Fatima, it seems to us that prudence
demands we give serious consideration to the possibility
that God is warning us of our faults and calling us to repentance.
God does not want the death of the sinner,
but his conversion. However, if the world does not heed
Our Lady’s call to conversion, we cannot be surprised
if even worse tragedies afflict the world – the annihilation
of whole nations, for example, as mentioned by the Blessed
Mother at Fatima.
Whatever the future may have in store for us, however, we
should always remember that Our Lady also foretold at Fatima
both mankind’s ultimate conversion and her final victory,
“Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
May the series of catastrophes that have befallen America
and the world help us to take to heart Our Lady’s
maternal call to conversion.
Notes
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Fatima’s
miracle of the sun
Since Our Lady had promised to do a miracle,
so that the world would believe her, a large crowd had gathered
at Fatima for the sixth and last apparition, on October 13,
1917.
Two of Portugal’s largest newspapers
at the time – both known for their anti-clerical, secularist
ties – also had reporters there. They were confident
their story was going to be on how the promised miracle did
not happen, how the “apparitions” were just another
lie of the Church.
This is part of the news account written
by Avelino de Almeida, the reporter from O Século:
“From beside the parked carriages
and where many thousands stood, afraid to descend into the
muddy soil of the Cova da Iria, we saw the immense crowd turn
toward the sun at its highest, free of all clouds. The sun
seemed to us like a plate of dull silver. It could be seen
without the least effort. It did not blind or burn. It seemed
as though an eclipse were taking place. All of a sudden a
tremendous shout burst forth, ‘Miracle, miracle!’
“Before the astonished eyes of the people, whose attitude
carried us back to Biblical times, and who, white with terror,
heads uncovered, gazed at the sun which trembled and made
brusque and unheard of movements beyond all cosmic laws, the
sun seemed literally to dance in the sky.
“Immediately afterward the
people asked each other if they saw anything and what they
had seen. The greatest number avowed that they saw the sun
trembling and dancing; others declared they saw the smiling
face of the Blessed Virgin herself. They swore that the sun
turned around on itself as if it were a wheel of fireworks
and had fallen almost to the point of burning the earth with
its rays. Some said they saw it change colors successively
(John M. Haffert, Meet the Witnesses [Washington,
N.J.: Ave Maria Institute, 1961], p. 107).
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