PURITY OF HEART
Letter to Cardinals and Bishops of the Catholic Church
Dear Eminence, dear Excellence,
it was granted to You to represent the Church and to speak in her name. It is quite hard for You
to defend her, so long as You are exposed to a one-sided pressure of the world and it is required of
You to answer delicate questions which are often put in front of You in such manner that if You
answer differently from how the world desires it, You are going to be ridiculed. Particularly delicate
are the issues of morality whereof in the first place is the issue of moral purity.
Answering this question is not possible without being rooted in a living faith which views life
from the perspective of eternity and counts upon God’s grace. Provided that one is really converted
and finds a living relation to Jesus, then all problems will thus be solved.
You, dear fathers, are standing before a historic time and that is an internal reform of the Church.
The liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council turned the altar to face the people but did not turn
heart to face God; this most important period is now standing before You!
Begin the reform from Yourself. Jesus is admonishing bishops of the early Church to repentance,
His word is topical for each of You: “To the angel (bishop) of the Church in Sardis write: ‘I know
your works; you have the name of being alive, and you are dead. Strengthen what remains and is on
the point of death!… Repent.’” (Rev 3:1f)
Saints began repentance from themselves! And that is the way for You as well; thereafter it is
necessary to begin with a reform of seminaries and of priests. What needs to be done in favour of the
students of theology is to bring to light in front of them the spirit of death connected with the
mendacious system of historic-critical theology (HCT) and with the false respect for other religions!
They must be led to a personal conversion and to the following of Jesus by way of interior prayer and
God’s Word (cf. Acts 6:4). In this way all questions of morality will be settled for them. Provided that
the life of Jesus becomes our life, then we will preach and witness to Christ and His Gospel in the
power of God. If we do not have this spiritual power, then we will turn into stale salt which is thrown
out and trampled under foot by men (Mt 5:13).You as shepherds are fully responsible in this historic
time first of all for this most relevant concern and that is the internal revival of the Church.
In the late years faith has been torn from the living relation to Jesus and thereby from life as well.
In many places Christianity has turned into a mere spiritless ideology. The morals have thus lost their
fundament as well as their substantiation. Where it becomes evident most sensitively is in relation to
the 6th and 9th Commandment. The only way out of this vicious circle is not to handle the issue of the
morals atomizedly without linking it to the substance, namely to a living relation to Jesus; the way out
is to preach living Christ and the Gospel in fullness and thus to perform true reevangelization!
Subsequently, we will be able to understand even the delicate moral demands which are given in the
Sermon on the Mount: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you.” (Mt
5:29) What does it mean? We have a double sight – physical and psychical. The psychical one is our
imagination which has an ability to revive certain concreteness from our memory, which in
consequence evokes our sensual desire. Therefore immediately when some image or memory
emerges, I must pluck out my inner eye from the connection with this object and cast it from me. Here
the point practically is an inward self-denial, a break with the interior or exterior impure look. This
plucking out of eye is not a one-shot act, it is a programme, a way of faith and love to Jesus. “This is a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Rom 12:1f)
DIGNITY IN CHRIST
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?… Flee sexual immorality… Or do
you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you…” (1Cor 6:15f)
St. Paul the Apostle was exhorting both men and women to remain as he was. He not only that
did not have a wife, but he even was indeed free from the cares of the world. What he cared for was in
the first place his living relation to Jesus and then also the salvation of souls! And what about us –
what are we caring for? We have to follow St. Paul. “Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ.” (1Cor
11:1)
CCC 2361: “Sexuality is not something biological only, yet it touches the innermost core of
human being as such. Sexuality is realized in human way only when it is a part of the bond of
matrimony and when it is an integral part of the love by which man and woman bind one another until
death.” Love has a physical level, which is eros, then a mental level, which is love of family, nation –
philia and finally there is agape, pure love which is anchored in God and in relation to a neighbour it
is manifested by unselfish sacrifice.
God has put love especially in the heart of mother. Its substance is expressed in the following
Arabic myth, too: There was one villainous son to whom the devil offered a bag of money provided
that he would kill his mother and during the night bring her heart into a dark forest. The son did as he
had been told, yet in the dark forest he stumbled, the bleeding heart of his mother dropped to the
ground and he could hear a gentle groan: “Sonny, haven’t you got hurt?” This is only a weak picture
of Jesus’ love which does not stop loving us in spite of being constantly cast away, hurt and killed by
us.
Sexuality has been torn from love and fertility. In the marriage man and woman are to attain to
fatherhood and motherhood. Partly because they pass over natural life and besides this also because as
Christian parents they are to graft upon this life even the life of God through holy baptism. They are
further to bring up their children in truth, not only by word but by their example, too, leading them to
a love of God, to justice, to an ability to distinguish between good and evil, to a willingness to prefer
Jesus at every time and for the sake of moral values to bring even the highest sacrifices.
At the beginning of the 20th century (1902) in Nettune in Italy there was a 12-year-old girl
murdered who preferred to die a martyr rather than to lose the crown of purity. The Church canonized
her!
Every day one can see a number of dead birds lying by the Statue of Liberty in America, which
during the night fly towards a false light, run on the statue and with broken wings fall down. This is a
picture of young man who longs for freedom and happiness, but as there was noone to point him to
Jesus - the only true Happiness, one finds only false happiness and pays for it with his/her life (today
the mass deaths from AIDS).
What is the value of purity? The most precious stone Koh-I-Noor was discovered in Africa. Little
children were playing with it along with other stones. A certain European gave them sweets for an
exchange and the children gave him the stone. The same happens with the treasure of purity. Young
people lose it for a transient delight.
CCC 2350: The betrothed are obliged to keep purity in self-control.
A certain psychiatrist explained: “I am persuaded that a girl is in essence able to love only one
man. Her heart is woken up only once. Supposing that a girl had seven lovers, she is (he literally
expressed) rotten for marriage. She marries the seventh one and still thinks about the first one to
whom she wholly devoted herself.” Only a few years ago it was normal that the betrothed entered the
marriage with pure heart. Both of them saved a pure heart for the one and only to whom they wished
to devote themselves, yet this was until death. Divorces have their roots in unclean youth. As many
sins there are before the marriage, as much suffering is there in the marriage. Sexual relations before
marriage, adultery, all these are sins for which one must render accounts in front of the face of Holy
God!
PURE LOVE – AGAPE
W. Busch (1897-1966) as an evangelist and a missionary in Germany had the courage to say to
the young women after the war: “In the II. World War five million men from our nation fell. Five
million girls have to go through life in solitude. We should come to realize what it means for our
nation, this silent adversity in the life of five million girls. Those men are lying in the battlefields. I
would like to say to these girls: ‘Now, please, do not steal in a sinful way what you have not received!
Do not steal into married couples!’ ‘But what with us?’, they ask. I reply: ‘You, young girls, who have
not been married, fill your lives with pure love – agape, with a relationship between you and Jesus,
and you will come to know the true happiness, one that will fill your hearts and that no man can give
you. This agape in relation to people is expressed in an unselfish and self-sacrificing service to the
sick, suffering and lonely. The world is longing for this self-sacrificing and devoted love!’”
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Without a living faith either after the war or today it is not possible to bring sacrifices of life
and to find the true love and true happiness – Jesus. Yet this faith is being systematically poisoned
and liquidated by various half-truths, phrases, philosophies and new theologies!
There is a natural law of gravitation. Whatever is heavier than air falls to the ground. Man is held
by this law. So that he could fly up he used a balloon filled with gas lighter than air. Thus he broke
through the law of gravitation. Similarly, there is a law of sin (Rom 7:1) which is pulling us down;
however, there is also a law of the Spirit which has set me free from the law of sin and death. This
refers only to those who are in Christ Jesus (cf. Rom 8:1-2).
We are asking: What moral contribution for the contemporary mankind is there of the psychology
of C.G. Jung and the psychoanalysis of S. Freud? We can state that it is minus. Their practices do not
lead to Christ, to forgiveness of sins, to deliverance from sinful dependence; on the contrary, they lead
astray to false ways and legalize the sin. Regrettably to say, not only patients at psychiatric clinics but
even many religious sisters are supplying their spiritual life in this way. To whom has Freud given
strength to fight with the so-called libido – sinful sensuality? Whom has he relieved of sin? With
natural strength we will neither win over the so-called libido nor will we be able to fulfil the demands
of the Gospel. Yet supposing that we have a living relation to Jesus, He will give us the strength (cf.
Phil 4:13).
John the Apostle writes: “Young men, you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and
you have overcome the evil one.” (1Jn 2:14) The Apostle knows that young men have to fight above
all with the temptations in the sphere of purity and he likewise knows that this sphere is finally abused
by the evil one (i.e. unclean demon). How did they overcome? So that they abode in the word of God!
“If you abide in My word… you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (Jn 8:31-32)
This promise is fully valid even nowadays and not only for young men but also for everyone who
received Christ. The condition for us to overcome the evil one is to abide in Jesus’ word.
UNCLEAN DEMONS
These were active not only in the times of Christ but they are active even in our times (sexual
murders, perversities…). Claiming that unclean demons nowadays took a holiday and that they are
unemployed is a sign of spiritual blindness. In the Gospel we can see that unclean spirit is frequently
tied up with particular diseases and after this spirit is cast out, the people are healed. “Jesus rebuked
the unclean spirit: ‘Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him!’” (Mk 9:25) “And those
who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.” (Lk 6:18) How an unclean spirit affects the
psychosomatic system is a secret. Jesus gave the apostles power to cast out demons (Mt 10:1). And
what about us? That command concerns us, too. We are also to cast them out by the finger of God like
the apostles and saints who received this power of God and cooperated with it.
THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI. (former Cardinal J. Ratzinger)
“In the world, where money and wealth are the measure of all things, the true Catholic ethic must
seem to many as a foreign matter from times bygone long ago… What happened in the culture of the
‘developed’ world was that in the first place there was the inseparable bond between sexuality and
matrimony broken… What seems to be ‘liberation’ turns into its opposite and in deeds unveils its
demonical face. The core of the temptation of man and the core of his fall is comprised in the
programmatic words: ‘You shall be as God’ (Gen 3:5). As God, that means free from the law of the
Creator, free from the laws of the very nature, absolute masters of their own destiny… What is in
store for man in the end of (such) way is surely not a paradise on earth. (And the less so after death.)
In the present time moral theology is the main source of tension between the Magisterium and the
theologians. Some theologians come to a conclusion: ‘No more Magisterium, no more God of
revelation with His commands and His Decalogue! According to their opinion the Decalogue is
nothing else but a product of culture tied with the ancient Semitic central East… so a kind of relative
norm dependent on antropology and history, yet not at all a norm given specifically for us…’” So
much by the Holy Father, we add: How do the theologians want to defend Jesus if they practically
deny Him?! How do they want to defend spiritual life if they do not have any?! How do they want to
speak about morals if they do not recognize any?! One must change the name; not a theologian, but a
“heresian”. Jesus is warning: “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches
men so…” (Mt 5:19); however, these so-called theologians are breaking not only the least but all of
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the commandments and all basic truths of the faith, and teach men so. What is then in store for them?
They are going to hell themselves and pulling others along with them. The most intelligent theologian
is the devil – satan himself. The theologians who have the spirit of the world are his disciples. They
are a n o n y m o u s s a t a n i s t s .
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)
2352 Onanism: As the Magisterium of the Church in the course of the standing tradition, so the moral
feeling of the believers in Christ can declare without hesitation that onanism is both internally
and significantly inordinate act… One must take into account factors which can reduce, or even
minimalize the moral guilt to the least measure.
2354 Pornography: It is an insult to purity. It heavily affronts the dignity of those who are engaged in
it (actors, traders, spectators)… These as well as others are plunged by it into illusions of unreal
world. It is a heavy offence. Civil authorities are obliged to stop and prevent the production and
distribution of pornographic materials.
2357 Homosexuality: The tradition leaning on the Holy Scripture presents homosexual relations as
extremely heavy perversity. It is against the natural law.
2380 Adultery: Christ condemns adultery committed even by a sheer desire. The Sixth Commandment
and the New Testament absolutely prohibit adultery.
2388 Incest: St. Paul condemns it as an extremely heavy trespass. The one who commits incest ruins
family relations.
2390 Free love (bond): Is when man and woman refuse to give their relation a legal and public form.
2991: Today many are appealing to a kind of right of a try-out… Human love does not admit any ‘tryout’, it requires a total and definitive mutual devotion of persons.
Résumé:
2396: Among the sins which are at variance with purity one has to mention onanism, fornication,
pornography and homosexual relations.
2400: Polygamy and free love, adultery and divorce are a heavy offence against the dignity of
matrimony.
CONCLUSION:
Your Eminence, Your Excellence, it was granted to You to represent the Church and to speak in
her name. Particularly delicate are the issues of morality. Many so-called theologians instead of
building up a living faith and moral principles are doing quite the opposite.
Dear fathers, the state of the Church is critical! Together with the Holy Father Benedict XVI.
You are put into a responsibility from which You cannot flee: to perform a spiritual operation.
You will render accounts for the life or death of millions of souls not only after death in front of God
but even here in front of the human judgement of the believers and of the people of this world.
The aim of the operation: “To renew everything in Christ!” (Pius X., 1907)
Elaborated by:
Fr. Eliáš A. Dohnal ThD. OSBM
Fr. Cyril J. Špiřík Ing. ThD. OSBM
Fr. Metoděj R. Špiřík ThD. OSBM
Fr. Markian V. Hitiuk ThLic.OSBM
Literature:
Encyclical letter “Deus caritas est” of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI.
Dialogues with V. Messori
Pidhirtsi 18th June 2006
Address: Monastery OSBM, 80660 Pidhirtsi, Brody district, Lviv region, Ukraine
Copy to: His Holiness Benedict XVI.
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