January 23, 2010

Recently I was greatly distressed to read in a local newspaper that the renowned Evangelist, Rev. Pat Robinson, attributed the natural disaster in Haiti to the work of the Devil. Specifically he attributed the Earthquakes which rocked the island Nation to a pact Haitian patriots had made with Satan when they forged the Independence of this slave state in the late 18th-Century/early 19th-Century.

I find this both religiously and theologically downright insulting! Natural disasters are the work of Mother Nature, not some fantasy creation of people who hate both Black People and the Catholic Church.

According to the Bible which fundamentalist Christians accept as the literal Word of God, the Creator created our Universe and left it to its Laws. That's why the Founding Fathers who were both Deists and Freemasons referred to the Creator as The Divine Architect. Once created the structure had to follow the laws of the Universe.

The Ancient World, perhaps, understood this better than the Judaeo-Christian Community. Natural Forces were deified and transformed into powerful gods and goddesses. An earthquake is an act of Nature, neither in itself good nor bad but depending on the results. In Haiti we see that because of faulty construction, the magnitude of the quake and the lack of governmental response and preparedness, this great tragedy unfolded as an immense human disaster.

However, the UN and the US and other advanced industrial nations have responded in the Christian and Biblical manner that Rev. Robinson did not. Instead of calling upon his followers to mount a giant relief effort with the funds at their disposal, he blames the Devil! What utter nonsense and crass indifference to human suffering. God acts through Man. St. Augustine said that you show your love for God by loving mankind. St. John wrote that if you say that you love God and then hate your brothers and sisters, you are a LIAR!

Natural disasters will come and have always attacked civilizations from the Biblical Flood to today's Tsunamis and Earthquakes. They are not punishment from God. They are Nature's laws and forces in operation for millennia. In the 1950's there was a very popular scientific book, Worlds In Collision. It dealt with the natural disasters which formed the planet Earth. This was part of the Divine Plan.

If men had been more concerned with their fellowman in Haiti before the quake, the results might not have been so tragic. Haiti was already reeling from poverty and illness and lack of infrastructure long before this immense earthquake. If any one is to blame, it's not the Devil but selfish, corrupt plutocrats who for decades have frustrated the will of the people to make as much wealth as possible.

All decent and religious caring persons should be revolted by Rev. Robinson's attributing this Tragedy to the Devil.

+Bishop Francis C. Spataro
The Vilatte Guild/Society of St. Cassian