Does Fred Want Real Love?

Using a Queen song to help illustrate #1 in the Introduction to Caritas in Veritate.

To the best of your knowledge, what word has been attacked by our modern world, more than any other word in the English language? I submit to you that the word is "Love". Think of all the songs that claim to be about love, the TV shows dramatizing a warped love, the latest vampire novel about love, the magazine articles on love (code word for having sex). I will be using "Love" and "Charity" interchangeably throughout this blog post, so don't get confused.

Where can you find Christ in the song "Somebody to love", by Queen?

I don't know about you but it's a song that sticks in my head. I enjoy it musically. It's catchy. But I don't think it is about someone who is searching for real love and so I recognize that it does not deepen my understanding of what love really is but rather, it offers an empty satisfying of a vague emotion by way of rhythm. It uses a gospel style which was developed for the purpose of showing love for God through music, but the composer of this song uses the gospel style to suggest doubt in God to the listener.

The singer Fred Mercury clearly depicts a longing of one person for another person. But is that longing concerned with Truth? I don't believe it is. Fred Mercury died of AIDS. He was a man who suffered from same sex attraction and who contracted HIV by living a promiscuous lifestyle and engaging in homogenital acts. He was definitely longing to find meaning in his life, and the words of the song suggest that he had turned to God for answers and companionship, but as Pope Benedict states in #1 of C in V, Christ wants "the authentic development of every person and of all humanity". Authentic development means living according to natural law and not letting base disordered emotions enslave you and minimize your humanity. Fred was a victim of his passions, and he wrote songs that fooled many people over to his side of pseudo-enlightenment. He either wanted to be free of God, or to design a man-made god that didn't prick his conscience whenever he wanted to indulge himself. But he died of AIDS, and that is no joyful fact for the Christian who is concerned with Truth and Charity.

The truth is that whether or not you believe in God, nature is unbending in her observance of truth. Natural consequences stem from every action, regardless of whether we wish for them or are even conscious of them at the time. Nature punishes promiscuous humans. This is truth that is sadly observable on a day to day basis when remembering the victims of AIDS.

As an act of love for all men, the Church has gone to great lengths to invest in AIDS research and is one of the leading institutions in building AIDS clinics throughout the world. The truth is that promiscuous people contract and spread STDs, whether homosexual or heterosexual. They suffer and they cause others to suffer. The charitable response is not to cast them off to sin and suffer alone, but to teach them the hard truth and at the same time have compassion and seek for a cure for the disease and also try and gain a better understanding of what causes and enables a person to live promiscuously.

A person becomes free when they live according to Truth, not when they give in to every desire that arises. Can Fred Mercury be expected to take on the world, the flesh, and the devil all by himself? No, because man is by nature a social creature and if Christians give in to the emotion of fear and abandon the preaching of the truth, then I'd have to say that I find little difference between the fearful Christian and the lustful Fred Mercury. You see, we are all connected. Our sins may be different but they are all a monophonic "no" to God's natural laws. The Christian who doesn't preach the truth, by his inaction, builds a society that works against his faith. How else have institutions like Planned Parenthood or the ACLU gained so much ground in our world but by the inaction of Christians who have been charged with spreading the Truth?

God gave YOU a vocation. I'm not talking about how you provide for your family or pay your bills, I'm talking about your mission to learn the truth and preach the truth in this life. The pope says that Charity and Truth make up God's Face in our world. People are complaining that they can't see God, so they refuse to believe in Him. Well, have confidence fellow Christian. Learn the Truth and learn the way to charitably teach the truth to others so that Christ's face might become clear to everyone before they die.