To comment please open your gmail account, or use my email address FB or Messenger.
At last. Christians have finally found their voice in the public square and are calling out Jacinda Ardern's socialist Government for its disregard and disdain for God and His people.
It's a quiet voice, not sounding at all like Christ calling out the scribes and the Pharisees, but it's claiming that the COVID "Traffic Light" system has breached the religious freedoms protections enshrined in the NZ Bill of Rights.
It's the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which should be tilting at totalitarianism, but in the 500 supporters listed on Free To Be Church's website there are precisely 2 Catholics. And they're not bishops. Not even priests.
In early June, Free To Be Church, a group of Christian Ministers from around New Zealand, will be seeking a ruling from a Judge as to the legality of the COVID ‘Traffic Light’ system. Their focus will be on challenging whether these rules have resulted in a breach of the religious freedom protections enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.
“We recognise that this pandemic has presented some major challenges to day-to-day living”, says Free To Be Church spokesperson Rev. Logan Hagoort.
We would suggest that the major challenges have been presented not by the virus, but by the Ardern Government's handling of the virus.
“At the same time, we also know that it is vitally important that a crisis like this does not result in an unjust erosion of legitimate democratic freedoms, such as the freedom of religion.”
Does the New Zealand Conference of Catholic Bishops know it's vitally important to uphold justice in this matter? Surely, after all their seminars and workshops on social justice they should recognise this erosion of legitimate democratic freedoms, especially that of freedom of religion?
“Our goal here is to ensure that the important principle of the separation of Church and state is protected and that the NZ Parliament and/or her bureaucratic mechanisms, does not become the de facto ruler of the church in the midst of this unprecedented upheaval.”
The NZ Parliament has indeed become the de facto ruler of the Catholic Church in New Zealand, with bishops and priests doing Ardern's bidding to the utmost and even outdoing her and anticipating her. But that's not an argument in favour of separation of Church and state, a principle which is opposed to Catholic teaching - even though the current occupant of the Chair of Peter has stated the opposite.
In his infamous remark to the French newspaper La Croix, once again Jorge Mario Bergoglio reveals himself to be a Protestant. He said, “States must be secular. Confessional states end badly. That goes against the grain of history.”
This view not only defies centuries of Catholic tradition, but also fails to recognize that the state relies on sanctifying grace – ordinarily given only through the sacraments of the Church – to fulfill one of its defining purposes: peace. Since the Fall, sin has caused widespread conflict that man, in his brokenness, cannot eradicate on his own, so he requires God’s gift of sanctifying grace, the only thing capable of creating lasting peace. Because God has bestowed this gift on the Church – not the state – to dispense to us through the sacraments, the state relies on the Church to achieve its goal of peace. https://onepeterfive.com/papal-dots-amoris-church-state/
But to return to the subject in hand, a challenge to the Government's churlish treatment of churches:
“This is the first case to challenge the Protection Framework Order, which is the cornerstone of government policy”, says Free To Be Church lawyer Alex Summerlee. “Free To be Church are asking the Court to declare that a centrepiece of government policy is an unlawful breach of the right to practise their faith.”
Hagoort says that “It is essential that the leaders of the Church are able to self-govern when it comes to matters related to the practice of our faith. What should be a healthy and respectful dialogue between Church and state has lately felt more like a set of one-way edicts from the state that cross appropriate boundaries of governance.”
Behold, a glaring example of the lack of sanctifying grace in the affairs of state.
“At the end of the day, this is the last thing we want to spend our time doing, but we believe that God desires us to defend our people’s rights, and we want to be free to worship our God and King”, says Rev. Hagoort.https://thebfd.co.nz/2022/04/20/nz-church-leaders-ask-for-judicial-review/
God does indeed desire the Church to defend her people's rights. The Catholic Church is the Church militant, not the Church pacifist. Christians must defend Christ and His Church in the courts of law if necessary, as everywhere else.
And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles ... Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword (Mt. 10:18, 34).
No comments:
Post a Comment