FROM CONSEQUENCE TO DEFINITION: THE QUIET ECLIPSE EXAMINED

PROLOGUE: THE SENTENCE THEY FIND EASY TO SAY

Think on this:

“THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.”

BUT 

IS “THE LOVE OF GOD THE LOVE OF NEIGHBOUR”?

There is a revealing contrast in the language among the agents of the modernist new order institution occupying Catholic buildings. Formed in the spirit of the modernist robber council, when speaking of the Church, they cannot dare to say plainly, “The Church of Christ is the Catholic Church.” Yet when speaking of love, they can readily proclaim, “The love of God is the love of neighbour.”

Why such hesitation in defining the Church, but such confidence in identifying love of God with love of neighbour?

The issue is not whether Catholics must love their neighbour. Of course they must. Our Lord Himself commands it. The issue is whether the love of neighbour is the necessary fruit of the love of God, or whether it is quietly made the definition, measure, and practical substitute for it.

These are not the same proposition.

Our Lord did not place the two commandments on an equal footing. He declared the love of God with all our heart, soul, and mind to be “the greatest and the first commandment”; love of neighbour comes second, “like unto this” (Matthew 22:37–39). The second commandment is inseparable from the first, but it does not abolish its primacy.

St John teaches that a man who claims to love God while hating his brother is a liar (1 John 4:20). He does not teach that love of neighbour, considered apart from the supernatural love of God, exhausts the meaning of divine charity.

Here lies the distinction modern pretended religious language too often obscures: charity is not the whole of religion, and humanitarian concern is not a substitute for the worship due to God. We must love our neighbour for God’s sake; we must also adore God, profess His truth, obey His commandments, and uphold the true religion He has revealed.

A Christianity that speaks constantly of fraternity but grows reticent about truth, worship, and the unique claims of the Catholic Church has not necessarily deepened charity. It may instead have shifted the centre of gravity—from God to man, from supernatural religion to human solidarity.

I came across this sentence, “The love of God is the love of neighbour,” as the chosen and published title of a sermon for the so-called “30th Sunday in ordinary time” by a Nigerian Novus Ordo most revered lay-robed man, “Bishop” Godfrey Onah.

No doubt, a sermon title alone cannot prove that the intention is to shift from God to man, from supernatural religion to human solidarity. But when such language is heard within the wider framework of Novus Ordo theology, Catholics are entitled to ask what is being asserted—and what is being left unsaid.

Love of neighbour must flow from love of God; it must never be confused with it or made its substitute. The two commandments are inseparable, but not interchangeable.

We do not honour man by obscuring his Creator, nor demonstrate charity by sacrificing truth for human approval. True charity seeks the neighbour’s highest good, which is ultimately his salvation. We do not love man less by loving God above all things; we love him rightly, in the order established by his Creator.

Let us examine the theology.

1. THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE MEANING AND ITS LIMIT

Let us note that the title admits an orthodox interpretation.

If the “bishop” means that genuine love of God necessarily expresses itself in love of neighbour, his point is sound. St John writes:

“If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar.” (1 John 4:20.)

A man cannot credibly profess charity towards God while deliberately cultivating hatred of his neighbour.

But the Apostle does not say that God is identical with one’s brother, or that kindness towards humanity exhausts the meaning of divine love.

The distinction is between manifestation and definition.

Love of neighbour is a necessary manifestation of charity. It is not the complete definition of charity, nor does the outward performance of good works, by itself, prove that a person possesses supernatural charity.

Our Lord established the order explicitly:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37–39.)

The first commandment is the love of God; the second is the love of neighbour. They are inseparable in a rightly ordered Christian life, but they are not interchangeable.

The title is therefore sound if it means love of God “must manifest itself in” the love of neighbour. It becomes misleading if it means “is exhausted by” it.

A necessary consequence must not be substituted for the reality from which it follows.

2. CHARITY IS NOT RELIGION: LOVE IS NOT WORSHIP

Here lies the central theological distinction.

In traditional Catholic theology, charity and religion are distinct virtues.

St Thomas Aquinas teaches that:

• Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake and love our neighbour for God’s sake (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 23, a. 1; q. 25, a. 1).
• Religion is the virtue by which we render God the worship and honour due to Him (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 81, a. 1).

What does this mean?

Charity concerns love. Religion concerns the worship and honour owed to God.

Worship is not merely another name for loving people. In its highest act, adoration, we acknowledge God’s supreme excellence and our absolute dependence upon Him as Creator and Lord. Sacrifice, prayer, reverence for sacred things, and other acts of religion express our duty towards Him.

Feeding the hungry is a corporal work of mercy. Adoring God is an act of religion. Instructing the ignorant is a spiritual work of mercy. Offering worship to God is a direct fulfilment of our duty to the Creator.

These acts can be united in a life animated by charity, but one does not replace the other.

Our Lord declared:

“The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Matthew 4:10.)

He did not say that serving one’s neighbour makes adoration unnecessary. Nor did He say that serving one’s neighbour is worship of God.

A humanitarian may perform admirable works without thereby fulfilling the duties of religion. Equally, someone who performs external religious observances while practising injustice and hatred contradicts the demands of charity.

Religion without charity is gravely defective; humanitarianism without religion does not thereby become the fullness of Catholic life.

The Church demands both: worship of God and love of neighbour, each according to its proper object and order.

3. FROM CONSEQUENCE TO DEFINITION

The logical problem in “Bishop” Onah’s chosen title can be stated in three propositions:

• Genuine love of God necessarily bears fruit in love of neighbour.
• Love of God is the love of neighbour.
• Love of neighbour, by itself, constitutes the whole meaning of love of God.

The first is Catholic doctrine. The second is ambiguous. The third, if intended literally and exhaustively, is false.

Why? Because supernatural charity includes a direct love of God for His own sake. It cannot be reduced to benevolent behaviour towards human beings.

A person may feed the poor, defend the oppressed, and serve the community without thereby demonstrating that he possesses supernatural charity. Conversely, a person who claims to love God while deliberately hating his neighbour contradicts his profession.

The relationship is asymmetrical: neighbour-love is indispensable to the authentic practice of charity, but it does not exhaust charity’s theological content.

Nor can the Second Commandment absorb the First. God is the supreme Good and our final end. Our neighbour is to be loved for God’s sake, not elevated into a substitute for Him.

The title becomes dangerous when the visible, socially recognisable act of helping another person is treated as the complete measure of a supernatural virtue.

The consequence of loving God must not become the definition that displaces God Himself.

4. THE MODERNIST TENDENCY: HUMAN FRATERNITY AS THE CONTROLLING FRAMEWORK

Anyone with a little sense of Catholic history remembers that Pope St Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), condemned Modernism’s attempt to reconstruct Catholic doctrine according to principles incompatible with the Church’s understanding of revelation and dogma.

The relevance here must be stated precisely. 

The sermon title alone does not prove that its author is a Modernist in the technical theological sense. But its wording can be examined within a broader tendency associated with modernist theological horizontalism: interpreting Christianity predominantly through human experience, fraternity, and social relations, while the supernatural claims of religion recede from view.

The problem is not that the Church promotes justice, compassion, or peace. She has always commanded works of mercy.

The problem arises when human fraternity becomes the principal interpretive framework for religion itself.

Then the emphasis shifts:

• Worship becomes less prominent than social service.
• Revealed truth becomes secondary to the practical value of religious ideas.
• Supernatural charity becomes indistinguishable from humanitarian goodwill.
• Conversion and eternal salvation are overshadowed by earthly solidarity.

Under this approach, Christianity is presented less as God’s revealed religion, ordered to His glory and man’s salvation, and more as a programme for improving relations among human beings.

That is the danger of modernist horizontalism: the horizontal relationship between man and man eclipses the vertical relationship between man and God.

The ambiguity of the title is particularly significant in this context. “Bishop” Onah is not merely associated with the Novus Ordo emphasis on fraternity, dialogue, and interreligious engagement; he actively promotes and participates in that theological programme. His position and public activities are therefore matters of record, not conjecture.

In that context, the slogan reinforces the very framework he advocates by presenting human solidarity as though it were the definition, or an adequate expression, of divine love.

But it must be reiterated: love of neighbour is a fruit of love of God; it is never a substitute for the worship, adoration, and obedience due to God alone.

5. THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL PARALLEL: WHY IS THE IDENTITY OF THE CHURCH SO QUALIFIED?

The contrast becomes sharper when we consider ecclesiology.

Traditional Catholic teaching does not present the Church of Christ as an undefined spiritual community whose concrete identity is left open. Pope Pius XII, in Mystici Corporis Christi (1943), identified the Mystical Body of Christ with the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII had likewise defended the visible unity of Christ’s Church in Satis Cognitum (1896).

The Modernist Robber Council’s Lumen Gentium (§8) states that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, and acknowledges elements of sanctification and truth outside her visible structure.

Much ink, real or virtual, has been spilled by uncompromising Catholics in highlighting the theological implications of this formulation, particularly its blurring of the exclusive identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church.

But notice the telling contrast that emerges.

• When speaking about the Church, the revered and most revered lay-robed agents of the Novus Ordo employ language that qualifies her identity and gives considerable attention to elements said to exist (by right, and salvifically efficacious) beyond her visible boundaries.
• When speaking about love, however, they readily advance an unqualified identification of love of God with love of neighbour, as though the two were interchangeable.

The fundamental here question is straightforward:

Why is the identity of Christ’s Church expressed in qualified language, while the distinction between love of God and love of neighbour is so readily blurred?

The Church is not merely one expression of a wider Christian reality. She is the one, true Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Likewise, love of neighbour is not the definition of love of God, nor can human fraternity replace divine worship.

The traditional Catholic doctrine is clear: God must be loved above all things, for His own sake; our neighbour must be loved for God’s sake. The second commandment flows from the first and derives its proper order from it (Matthew 22:36–40; St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 26, aa. 1–2).

We must not obscure the identity of the Church in the name of ecumenism, nor obscure the primacy of God in the name of fraternity.

The boundaries of the Church must be taught clearly, and the hierarchy of charity must be preserved. Human solidarity is not divine worship, and love of neighbour is not a substitute for love of God.

6. HUMAN SOLIDARITY DOES NOT EXHAUST MAN’S FINAL GOOD

The ultimate good we should desire for our neighbour is not merely comfort, prosperity, education, safety, or social acceptance.

These are genuine goods. But man was created for God and is called to eternal beatitude.

Consequently, charity must be concerned with the soul as well as the body, with repentance as well as relief, and with eternal salvation as well as temporal welfare.

This is why the traditional spiritual works of mercy include instructing the ignorant, counselling the doubtful, admonishing sinners, and praying for the living and the dead.

Such duties do not justify harshness or presumption. They demonstrate that charity seeks a person’s true good, not merely what makes him comfortable in the present moment.

A Christianity that speaks continually about social suffering but neglects sin, grace, conversion, and salvation presents an incomplete account of the Faith.

Likewise, universal human dignity does not imply that every religion is equally true. People of different beliefs may perform naturally good acts, but kindness does not settle questions concerning the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, or the true religion.

We must love every person. We must not confuse that universal duty with religious indifferentism.

SUMMING UP: LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR; BUT DO NOT PUT HIM IN GOD’S PLACE

“Bishop” Onah’s title, “Love of God is the love of neighbour”, has a defensible meaning if it teaches that authentic love of God necessarily manifests itself in love of neighbour.

But if it identifies divine love with humanitarian benevolence, obscures the direct duties of religion, or makes human fraternity the controlling measure of Christianity, it becomes theologically misleading.

At best, the title is grossly ambiguous.

An ambiguous title is dangerous because it can smuggle theological error into seemingly harmless language. It frames the reader’s understanding and can blur distinctions that Catholic doctrine requires us to preserve. What should clarify the truth must never become a vehicle for confusion and error. 

Any of the following alternatives would have been a precise, unambiguous title:

• Love of God and Love of Neighbour
• The Two Precepts of Charity
• Charity in Its Proper Order
• The Primacy of Love of God
• God First, Neighbour for God’s Sake
• The True Meaning of Christian Charity

One can only wonder why none was chosen but “Love of God is love of neighbour”. 

Be that as it may, the traditional Catholic position is clear.

• God is loved above all things, for His own sake. 
• Our neighbour is loved for God’s sake. 
• Religion renders God the worship due to Him. 
• Charity unites us to God in love and directs our love of neighbour towards his true good.

The virtues belong together, but they are not identical.

This is why theological slogans deserve scrutiny. It is not enough for a sentence to sound compassionate. It must preserve the order of revealed truth.

We must be equally exact when confessing the identity of Christ’s Church and when explaining the relationship between divine love and human love.

• The Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. 
• Love of God necessarily bears fruit in love of neighbour.

Neither truth requires us to blur the distinction it establishes.

• The neighbour is not God. 
• Human fraternity is not the Holy Trinity. 
• Social service is not adoration. 
• And kindness, however admirable, cannot replace revealed truth or the worship owed to the Creator.

Let us feed the hungry, defend the innocent, comfort the sorrowful, and work for justice. But let us also adore God duly, obey His commandments truly, profess His truth integrally, repent of our sins entirely, seek His grace lovingly, and direct our lives towards our supernatural end simply.

For the First Commandment remains the first, and the Second remains the second.

We do not make humanity the measure of religion. We love humanity rightly by loving God above all things.