Last night I was with Father Ray watching the football game, of course Notre Dame. They should have won that game 50-nothing, if you saw it, never mind, I’m not going to talk about it. Fr. Ray said, "You know, John, that was a good message you gave tonight, but you need to shorten it up. You should keep your homilies at seven minutes." He’s known as seven-minute Ray. They’re really looking forward to you coming in March, Ray. He had to learn that the hard way, because he was more talkative when he was first ordained. His first parish was in Harlowton, Montana; and one morning he cut his chin while he was shaving. He was talking to the people and he had a big bandage on his chin, and he said, "I cut my chin this morning—I was thinking about my homily." So, after mass, this fellow came up to him and said, "Father, do me a favor next week, think about your chin and cut your homily." That’s true—you don’t make that kind of stuff up. Well, here’s more than seven minutes.

When I stand before the judgment seat of God, I’m gonna need a lawyer, and I’ve got one and so do you, in Jesus Christ. That’s what that’s about. He did that for us to take our place and defend us and speak for us, so he’s our advocate. You can see what a good lawyer he is today in the reading. The Pharisees want to trick him on this Caesar question. At this time of course, the Roman Empire was second to none in all of Europe, from Northern Europe down to Southern Europe, over to Turkey. Of course, Judea was a little out post under Caesar. Caesar was considered almost a God, so if Jesus had said yes, you must pay the census tax to Caesar, the religious authorities, the Jews, would have got him, because he would have placed Caesar above God. On the other hand, if he said, "No you don’t have to pay the census tax to Caesar", he’s have been in big trouble with the Romans. Instead he says, "Give me a coin. Who is this? Give him what is his due, and give God what is God’s due." Move over Johnny Cochran. But the question isn’t that this Gospel advice among many questions is, what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. Now we Christians are called to be good citizens in the land in which we live--easier for us than for many people. We are so blessed to live in a republic, a nation of laws, in a democracy where we choose our leaders. But Christians have always been, and even before Christ. In the first reading today we see that Cyrus, the king of Persia, which is today of course Iran, freed the Jews in the 6^th century b. c. from Babylon, which is today Iraq. He did so because he was anointed by God, the scripture refers to Cyrus as God’s anointed. He didn’t even know God, but that scripture tells us there is one God, and all authority comes from him, even when the person or persons in authority are not aware of it. So we are good citizens, we pay our taxes; we obey the laws and rules of our society.

What happens when there is a conflict, as there will inevitably be on some issues, a conflict between Caesar, the government, and God. Well, that’s question only you can answer, and only I can answer. So let me tell you a true, wonderful story, about a man named Karl Lisener, the Blessed Karl Lisener. His cause for canonization was put forth by our Holy Father some years ago, not many years ago. Karl Lisener was born in Germany in 1915. He was very active in the Catholic Youth Movement. As he went to grammar school and high school, he was thinking about what he wanted to do with his life, he was attracted to marriage and children, but he also was attracted to the priesthood. He decided he would give God his life in a very singular life, as a priest. He wrote in his diary, "Christ you are my passion." He became seminarian and in 1939 in March he was ordained a transitional deacon. He was supposed to be ordained a priest 2 months later, but he became ill with TB and went to a hospital, a sanitarium, to get some treatment. While in this hospital he made some anti-Hitler comments. The Gestapo heard about it and arrested him. He refused to withdraw his comments, so he was placed in a concentration camp in Frankfurt, and then later in the infamous Dachau. At Dachau, he died really. Although he did live through the war, Dachau killed him. You can imagine the conditions. I visited Dachau in 1960. A person at the last mass said he’d been there 7 times. It’s a haunting place, yet somehow, a holy place, I think you’ll understand what I mean in a moment. He was lying on the cold floor, his lungs were bleeding, and the conditions were so terrible that corpses remained in the rooms for days after their deaths. There was torture, malnutrition, and the very worst of conditions. But on the 17^th of December 1944, his lifelong wish was answered; he was ordained a priest secretly by a French Bishop who was also a prisoner. A week or so later on December 26^th, the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, Boxer Day, he celebrated his first mass, again secretly, the best that he could with what they had. Dachau was liberated in May, and he died in August of 1945. Let me read to you some of his comments that he wrote in his secret journal. He wrote, "God, I thank you for the days of serious illness, and now again for the days of bondage and imprisonment. There is sense in all, you wish all the best for us." Then he wrote, "We poor prisoners of concentration camps they wanted to kill our souls. Oh God, I thank you for the deliverance into this kingdom of love and humanity." He’s talking, of course, of his fellow prisoners, not the Gestapo. "My Lord, make me love you more and more, love and expiation. I thank you for all, forgive me for all my weaknesses." In the hopes that maybe his mother would read this one day, he wrote, "Go on feeding the lovely birds, my dear mother, there is also one who feeds me." Dachau.

At this time Dachau was the largest religious community in the world. There were 2720 catholic priests as fellow prisoners with Karl. There were 200 evangelical ministers, 2 Muslim clerics, but no rabbis they were killed immediately. One thousand five hundred priests died in Dachau, 950 were Polish. I’d be so proud to be Polish. I tell you as a priest, I’m moved when I read this story, because of all the negative and terrible things that wayward and criminal priests have done. I think of those 1500, the 2720 who were in Dachau on their choice. They were there because their conscience said, "I will not submit to Caesar. I will not give to Hitler what is God’s: my loyalty, my faith, my heart, my soul. The martyrs of Dachau. They followed their conscience. Just a word about conscience, St. Thomas Aquinas defined conscience as "the mind of man passing moral judgment." A conscience is not an emotional thing. It is not a feeling. People think it is. People come to confession all the time, and say, "Bless me Father, I got angry." To be honest with you, I’m getting angry when I hear that. I mean, was Jesus angry when he said, "You hypocrites." Or maybe he said, "You hypocrites, I’m not angry." Or else where he calls the Pharisees, "You nest of vipers." He is angry. It’s ok to be angry. It’s what you do with the anger that is potentially sinful or not sinful. Here is an occasion of sin or an occasion of grace, it depends what you do with it. But conscience and feelings are separate entities. Conscience lives in the intellect. It is a function of the will and the intellect of the mind. It is not a function of the heart. That’s why in this world today, and you hear all the time in our nation and others, that what ever your personal taste is is true. If there is some matter of moral truth that you and I disagree with, today you’d just say, well, you have a right to your opinion, you have a right to yours, which of course you do, but both opinions are not true. If that’s the case, there is no truth, there is no natural law, there is no God, there is no order to this universe, there is no science if there’s no truth. Yet we’ve slipped into this nonsense that everyone’s opinion is as good as the next persons concerning the truth. We must follow our conscience, and we’ll be judged on that. Actually, if one follows his conscience, even though he’s wrong, he does not sin. However, we will be judged equally on how we formed our conscience, what we did to find out what’s true, what’s right, and what’s wrong. So that’s your obligation and mine to form our consciences. We can do that by prayer and by reading. We Catholics are blessed, because we stand not just on the one leg of Sacred Scripture, we stand on the three legs of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium, which is the teaching authority of the church, inspired, we Catholics believe, by the Holy Spirit. And the church teaches with clarity some issues that are argued today. Absolute unambiguous clarity, on the dignity and the sacredness of life, of human life, that each human person from the very moment of conception is created in God’s image and is sacred and holy. That’s not an argument. There is a bumper sticker; you can’t be pro-choice and Catholic. Well, that’s true. You can’t just leave the church and live this other truth in your mind. That needs to be reconciled. If you find yourself in that position, see me, and we’ll talk about it. There are so many of these things that are clear, and there are other things that are less clear, that the church teaches. Capital punishment, for example, 30 years ago the church has nothing much to say about it. The church clearly teaches today that capital punishment is unacceptable. And I have trouble with that, and I know some of you do, but I’ve come to understand it because it’s a matter of mercy, not justice. God’s justice is mercy, and His mercy is His justice. Maybe when we come as a nation to the day when we can spare the lives of the guilty, then maybe we’ll really protect the lives of the innocent. Because human life is sacred, even when that person is a criminal and has done terrible things.

You know, the less clarity, the more struggle of conscience. Right now we’re looking at war against Iraq and others perhaps in the future. And there are lots of opinions and lots of controversy and each one of us needs to think about these things. I would just say, beware of the extremes. You know there’s the one side that says, "Well, just nuke them." Kill them all, and let God sort them out. Last night I got an email after mass, and this guy sent me an email telling me where that came from. Like 600 years ago in some battle, some king said. . . This is an amazing parish. Every priest knows that collectively you all know more than the priest, but in this parish, everyone knows more than I do. Really. Beware of that extreme. Then the other extreme is, "Oh no, no violence." And that’s fine, that’s a valid option for a Christian and a Catholic to be a pacifist. When I speak to someone about that I say, "Ok, that’s fine for you." It’s not a teaching of the church, but it’s accepted and even honored, so I said, "So you wouldn’t defend your country." He says, "No." I said, "Would you defend your family?" He said, "Ugh, no, I’d never." "So let me make it simple, would you defend your little girl." And if your answer is no, then you’re a pacifist. But if you said, "Well, I'd use violence, I’d do something, I’d fight back", then you’re a selective pacifist. You don’t want to fight because you could get hurt, and someone else might do it for you. Now we admire pacifists, and don’t misunderstand me, but there are very few pacifists, true ideological, conscientious Pacifists. This concept is hard to work, but it’s necessary. I don’t think, I hope not anyways, that any of us will have to face with Karl Liesner faced, although he didn’t know what was going to happen in 1930, but we all will face little minor crises of conscience, when we have to speak up. I hope every one of us has the courage to do that. Especially when it causes a little bit of persecution, when people are mad at you for saying something. You have to accept that as a Christian. Some of you know this prayer. Could you please join me with the Prayer of Serenity.

"Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

The Blessed Karl Leisner, pray for us, and all holy martyrs of conscience, pray for us.