Thursday, October 06, 2005
CHASTISEMENT
"I've been speaking at local parishes, and here's what I kept telling the people," he says. "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. If you ask me if the Lord knew of this, this was the greatest storm in the history of the nation. He is the creator. He certainly permitted this. It would be as silly as asking if Henry Ford knew how a car worked."
According to Hannan, people who experienced it "are beginning to react according to that concept of morality." He says that when he preached on the topic last Sunday in the devastated area of Mandeville, where 1,000 attended Mass, "people loudly applauded. They want to be told the truth."
"We have reached a depth of immorality that we have never reached before," he says. "And the chastisement was Katrina as well as Rita.
"I keep telling people, you have got to talk about this chastisement, you've got to let not only your children and grandchildren, but other people know about it -- the others who have not gone through it, how much of a penance it was. To come back to your home and find it destroyed is an enormous shock, not only to the father and the mother, but to the children. Because this is the worst storm in our history, it should become part of our heritage. We should tell our descendants just how terrible it was so they will understand that it was a chastisement and should improve our morality."
Archbishop Hannan says he was asked by the sheriff to speak to police about the connection of immorality to such events, "how this thing was so strong that it is the movement of God and that they should behave accordingly."
"The politicians really have mentioned God a lot," he told Spirit Daily. "They didn't mention chastisement, but said we had to ask God to help us and we have to do better. What's paramount for the recovery is a tremendous sense of charity and being helpful towards our neighbors."
"I think it's up to us to preach very strongly and candidly and directly to say that this was a chastisement from God," says the archbishop. "God gave us our rights and therefore He gives us our duties too. We have got to pay attention to this chastisement. The Old Testament and the New. God has told us from the very beginning that we are responsible. To me it's inescapable if you read any Scripture at all."
"Everyone I know, priests and bishops, believe that too," he says. "This storm was so disruptive, so destructive, that if you believe there is a Creator, He certainly knew or permitted it to happen. He certainly knew."
Those are the words of New Orleans Archbishop Emeritus Philip M. Hannan given in an interview with Michael Brown of Spirit Daily. Wise man, the Archbishop. Too bad so many people are trying to destroy his message by claiming it isn't so.
