by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Traduction française

From our earliest days in Catechism class we learn that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai 10 laws or commandments which obliged every man, woman and child everywhere and for all times. The keeping of the 10 Commandments — also known as the Decalogue, from the Greek for “the 10 Words or Sayings” — is the most fundamental condition for being a friend of God, as Christ Jesus teaches, “If you love Me, keep My Commandments” (John 14:15).

The 2nd Commandment Revealed to Moses

You can find the text of the 10 Commandments in two places in the Old Testament: in the Book of Exodus 20:2-17, which Moses wrote to record the Passover of the Hebrews from the slavery of Egypt to the religious liberty of the promised Land; and in the Book of Deuteronomy 5:6-21, where Moses writes them down a second time, as he recounts in his final years, the wondrous deeds the Lord had done.

In the Catholic Church, we number the Commandments in a synthetic manner, following neither the numerical order found in the Book of Exodus nor in the Book of Deuteronomy, since as a didactic method, the Doctors and Fathers of the Church had reordered them in proper theological order, for memnotic sake.

So, the Second Commandment reads in our Catechisms, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord in vain.” — This corresponds to Exodus 20:7, which reads in the Douay Rheims English translation:

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the Name of the Lord his God in vain.

And to the Deuteronomy 5:11, which reads in the same translation:

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain: for he shall not be unpunished that taketh His Name upon a vain thing.

Why does God command the proper use of His Own Name?

From the two scriptural verses we see that the universal prohibition of the misuse of the Divine Name is founded upon the same moral principal: Yahweh, the one true God, is Our God and Lord, and therefore we must show the obedience of faith in the respect of that Word which names Him as such.

As Saint Bonaventure explains in his commentary on the First Book of Master Peter Lombard, God is called “God” because that word names Him, the Eternal Infinite Being. In English, our word, “God” names Him not as the eternal infinite being, but as the One who is invoked in prayer — this is the origin of the Old Germanic word, “God”.

Again, as St. Bonaventure teaches in the same place, but God is named “Lord” no on account of being God, but on account of creating creatures, because there is no one in God who is subjected to another, as a servant is to a Lord, or who has superiority as a Lord does to a servant. And so, before God created, He was never called Lord. But with the creation of Angels and men, God is now called, “the Lord” because He is the One who made all things.

And this is why God says to Moses, “I am the Lord, thy God. … Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

Misusing the Divine Name is the worst of Sins

According to the two passages of Scripture, we can see that the misuse of God’s Name can never be without guilt and will never go unpunished. From this teaching the Saints and Doctors of the Church explain that blasphemy against God is punished the worst and most by God than all other sins. That means it is far worse a sin that adultery or murder or theft. And this is because it is a sin against God Himself, Who is of infinite dignity, majesty and holiness.

Now to take the name of the Lord “in vain” means to do so unnecessarily, that is when there is no need to name Him. Because one should not use a name of anything, except to name it; so one should not use the name of a person, except to name him. — For example, no one shouts out, “Thomas Aquinas!’ when he smashes his finger, accidentally, while misusing a hammer. For there is no purpose in naming the Dominican Saint at such a moment.

All the more reason, we should NEVER utter the Name of God without the purpose of referring to Him or invoking Him. So important is this, that in the Book of Job, God praises Job and not his learned friends who spoke so eloquently about God and His justice. As Peter Kreft says: this is because Job’s friends named God to talk about Him; but Job named God to talk to Him.

Invoking God’s Name to approve of evil is an even worse Sin than misusing It

So we can imagine how great the sin is, if we were to use the Name of God in something that is not only useless, but evil, sinful, or even worse to approve of evil or sin!

That is the spiritual equivalent of rubbing the Divine Face into the mud of moral depravity.

And this sin becomes all the greater, if one not only names God with the word, “God’ or its equivalent, but when one uses the revealed names of God, such as “Yahweh” or “Jesus” or some other revealed name such as “Sabaoth”, “El Shaddai”.

And this sin would be even greater if the person misusing the Name of God to approve of sin or evil, had the dignity of one of God’s Ambassadors, as does every Bishop and priest of the Catholic Church.

But Fiducia supplicans is the worst sin ever in world history against the Divine Name

But though we can imagine such a horrific and monstrous perpetration of such a horrible sin; Fiducia supplicans goes way beyond this in moral depravity.

Because in Fiducia supplicans, we not only have advocated that Catholic Bishops and priests approve of sinful unions or sinful despair with the imposition of a blessing which invoked the Divine Name by His sacred ambassadors, but we have also the attempt by the arguments it contains to convince the world that such is not only morally licit, but the more perfect fulfilment of the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

Fiducia supplicans, therefore, is a document straight out of the inferno. It is the consummate violation of the Second Commandment of the Decalogue and is certainly worthy of the Antichrist in the universal attempt it is making to overthrow the House of God and the Pillar of Truth, which is the Church.

And for this reason, Fiducia supplicans not only must be entire rejected and condemned, but all those who adhere to it in any way, should be sternly warned of their eternal damnation and the pending Divine Vengeance which they have merited by accepting, agreeing, praising or tolerating it.

Credits: Hell depicted in mosaic in the Baptistry of the Catholic Cathedral of Florence, Italy. The image shows Satan devouring souls and bodies in the Inferno.