Is Bishop Jenky an enemy of Christ?

Daniel Jenky, Bishop of an Illinois diocese, lead a Catholic men's march in opposition to contraception and forcing insurance companies to cover contraception for women. His homily of lies began by claiming the Catholic Church has been persecuted during its entire history and people supporting the health care law are as bad as Hitler and Stalin.

For those who cannot access the video, here is a transcript of Jenky's sermon.

For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire. 

The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism. And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry. 

The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.

May God have mercy especially on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.

As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and be ready to fight to defend our faith. The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction.

In our own families, in our parishes, where we live and where we work – like that very first apostolic generation – we must be bold witnesses to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be a fearless army of Catholic men, ready to give everything we have for the Lord, who gave everything for our salvation.

Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like those first disciples before the Resurrection locked together in the Upper Room. 

In the late 19th century, Bismark waged his “Kulturkamf,” a culture war against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany. Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, President Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.
Now things have come to such a pass in our beloved country that this is a battle that we could lose, but before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.

That is an interesting retelling of history since the leaders of the Catholic Church have engaged in monstrous acts since Roman Emperor Constantine blessed them as the official religion of Rome in the fourth century. What followed has been seventeen centuries of privileged status, not only in Rome, but also throughout Europe, Africa, North America, and South America. Bishop Jenky appears to have forgotten some of the abuses that Catholic Church leaders have engaged in during that period. There was the jihad against Muslims and Jews commonly known as the Crusades. And who cannot forget torture and murder against political and religious opponents of the Catholic Church known as the Inquisition. What fun the Bishops of that era must have had as they watched people strapped into torture machines, burned alive, and hung, with the Church taking their property to teach future generations of Muslims and Jews that they better not live in central Europe. Or how about selling indulgences to people who could afford a sin tax, just one of the many abuses Martin Luther publicized. What about traveling with genocidal Conquistadors as they rampaged across North and South America? Oh, and let's not forget making deals with Hitler and Mussolini. In exchange for  saying nothing about murder of Jews, homosexuals, and political opponents, the Church could keep its privileged position in German, Italian, Polish, and French societies. Surely even Bishop Jenky has not forgotten Catholic religious leaders protecting priests that sexually and psychologically molested children in parishes throughout America and Europe.

Jesus said that what comes out of your mouth betrays your corruption (Matthew 15: 1-20). Perhaps Bishop Jenky should whip out his trusty scripture and check out that chapter, paying ever so close attention to the words in red. Jesus was in great form in that passage. For instance, He rips the Pharisees for their perverse encouragement to give them money instead of telling people to take care of mothers and fathers in their time of need (i.e., when no longer able to work). And when the disciples asked him about irritating the religious leaders, His response was that God would eventually pull these weeds from the garden.

May God have mercy especially on the souls of those Catholic leaders who pretend to follow the teachings of Jesus, but in public, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they distort truth and abuse their authority to gain political power, even if it means engaging others with intrinsic evil.

Bishop Jenky was leading a march of Catholic men to condemn the use of birth control and having insurance companies pay for it. The big lie in all of this is these same people condemn women for ending unwanted pregnancies, but are out marching against contraception and the increase in unwanted pregnancies that will result. Teen pregnancy rates have fallen across the country over the past four decades because of contraception but remain high in places promoting abstinence only education. Just ask Bristol Palin about the effectiveness of abstinence education.  If I were a woman in the Catholic Church, it would be difficult to choose between leaving the Church or leading a revolt against the corrupt patriarchal hierarchy. That is particularly true after Pope Benedict XVI, a member of the Hitler Youth as a teenager, used his homily on Holy Thursday to castigate priests in Europe for supporting the ordination of women.

Jesus should get the last word when we are confronted with a Bishop that says next to nothing about the abuses by the privileged, barely lifts a finger to ease the suffering of the poor and sick, but condemns all who stand in the way of the Catholic Church dictating whether health insurance companies should cover contraception for women. What was it Jesus said about whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27-28)?

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.