30 - Integrity

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March 2 2025

From the Sermons of St. John Vianney

They have no scruples about buying or selling on the holy day of Sunday, even though they know, or at least they should know, that dealing on a reasonably big scale on a Sunday, when there is no necessity for it, is a mortal sin. Such people regard all such facts as trifles. They will go into a parish on a holy day to hire labourers, and if you told them they were doing wrong, they would reply: "We must go when we can find them there." They have no problem, either, about paying their taxes on a Sunday because during the week they might have to go a little further and take a few moments longer to complete the job....

The most common thefts are those committed in the course of buying and selling. Let us examine this more closely so that you may recognise the wrong that you do and, at the same time, see how you can set about correcting it. When you bring along your produce to sell it, people ask you if your eggs and your butter are fresh. You hasten to answer in the affirmative, even though you know that the opposite is the truth. Why do you say that, unless it is to rob two or three pennies from some poor person who has had, perhaps, to borrow them to keep her house going? Another time it will be in the selling of a crop. You will take the precaution of putting the smallest and the poorest specimens in the midst of the bunch. You will possibly say: "But if I didn't do that, I wouldn't sell so much."

To put it another way, if you conducted yourself like a good Christian, you would not rob as you do. On another occasion, when counting your money, you will have noticed that you have been given too much, but you have said nothing: "So much the worse for the person concerned. It's not my fault."

Ah, my dear children, a day will come when you will possibly be told, and with more reason, "So much the worse for you! "

Someone wants to buy corn, or wine, or animals from you. He asks you if this corn is from a good year's crop. Without hesitation, you assure him that it is. You have mixed your wine with another of poorer quality, yet you sell it as a good and unadulterated wine. If people show signs of not believing you, you will swear that it is good, and it is not once but twenty times that you thus give your soul over to the Devil. Ah, my children, there is no need for you to be overanxious to give yourselves to him -- you have been his for a long time now! "What about this animal?" someone else will ask you." Has it any defects? Don't cheat me now. I have only borrowed this money and if you do I will be in terrible difficulties."

"Oh, indeed no!" you will break in." This is a very good animal. In fact, I am very sorry to be selling it. If I could do anything else I would not sell it at all." In fact, of course, you are selling it because it is worth nothing at all and is no longer of any use to you.

"I do the same as everyone else. So much the worse for anyone who is taken in. I have been cheated; I try to cheat in my own turn; otherwise I would lose too much." Is it, my children, that if others are damning themselves, then you must needs damn yourselves also? They are going to Hell -- must you then go along with them? You would prefer to have a few extra pennies and go to Hell for all eternity? Very well. I am telling you, though, that if you have sold an animal with hidden faults, you are obliged to compensate the buyer for the loss which these defects have caused him; otherwise you will be damned.

"Ah," you will say to me, "we wouldn't think much of all that." You would not think much of all that, my dear people, and I am not at all surprised, because you are worldly. You would like to be followers of God and at the same time to satisfy the standards of the world. Do you realise, my children, who these people are? They are the people who have not entirely lost the faith and to whom there still remains some attachment to the service of God, the people who do not want to give up all religious practices, for indeed, they themselves find fault with those who do not go often to the services, but they have not enough courage to break with the world and to turn to God's side. They do not wish to be damned, but neither do they wish to inconvenience themselves too much. They hope that they will be saved without having to do too much violence to themselves. They have the idea that God, being so good, did not create them for perdition and that He will pardon them in spite of everything; that the time will come when they will turn over to God; that they will correct their faults and abandon all their bad habits. If, in moments of reflection, they pass their petty lives before their eyes, they will lament for their faults, and sometimes they will even weep for them....

From the Straight and Sure Path of St. Anthony Claret

OBLIGATIONS OF LANDOWNERS
1. To give thanks to God for ones goods.
2. To not place in them your trust.
3. To not increase them with usury
4. To not conserve them with injustice
5. To not be served of them to encourage some passion
6. To be charitable with the poor and with the Church
7. To think often that the rich are very in danger of condemning themselves, because of the evil use that they make of riches

OBLIGATIONS OF MERCHANTS
1. To content oneself with a moderate gain
2. To give to all what is just in weight and measurement
3. To not falsify the merchandise
4. To not get the better of everyone in general causing misery to the people
5. To abstain from every species of fraud or trickery.
6. To be charitable with the poor.

On the 7th Commandment If you have intended or desired to harm the goods of your neighbor. If you have stolen or retained what is anothers. If you have not fulfilled the obligations of your profession or returned what is found or restored what you should restore. If buying and selling you have committed some injustice in the price, measurement or quality of the thing. If you have given with usury. If in questions of lawfulness of some agreement you have not consulted with your confessor.


MOST IMPORTANT MAXIMS

1st. You must die, and in the hour that you least think. As much if you think it as if you don’t think it: as much if you believe it as if you don’t believe it; you shall die and be judged: and you will save yourself or condemn yourself according to the good or the evil that you have worked, and from that you will not escape, no matter how much you say or do.

2nd. And what advantage will you have acquiring all riches and obtaining all honors and giving the body all pleasures, if you lose your soul?

3rd. Riches and honors shall remain in the world; the body in the sepulcher to be food of worms; and the soul in sin, as [the soul] of that epulo*, in hell [*referring to the rich man in the story of the beggar Lazarus]; where the Gospel tells us that he [the soul] was buried.

Now the other day

I was talking to a young guy who proudly told me how he bought this car from this guy and turned around and sold it for more than twice what he bought it for, and I couldn't help but think, wow, what a jackass. Because, he either took advantage of the man not knowing what it was worth, or he took advantage of the man's charity. The argument could be made that his advertising prowess is worth something, but listing a car on facebook for a week is not worth half the price of the car. People take this further by cornering the market, creating an artificial scarcity, driving the supply down, and being able to justify higher prices and more profit. Price gouging. And everybody is against it when it comes to toiletpaper but when they have the opportunity to do the same they do.

gratis you have received, gratis give ye.

And how many find a problem with their car and leave that detail out of the listing. You can hear the words St. Vianney just said in a facebook listing

"This is a very good animal. In fact, I am very sorry to be selling it. If I could do anything else I would not sell it at all"

and how chilling his warning

"I am telling you, though, that if you have sold an animal with hidden faults, you are obliged to compensate the buyer for the loss which these defects have caused him; otherwise you will be damned"

Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. And content yourself with a moderate gain. There is no such thing as an honest completely passive income. You either provide a good or service or your money is unjustly acquired, you are a modern day slave owner.

The work we engage in must be morally upright as well. It's easy to say well, I'm not a hitman or a prostitute... but do you do unneccessary work on Sunday? Even something as small as paying taxes. Do you sell things bad for your clients? Working a bar or liquor store ain't wrong in itself, but if you sell to people you know will abuse it, you know you are responsible. You are your brother's keeper. And you know you'll lose your job if you don't. So sell your soul for 15-20$ an hour.

The same goes for scheduled drugs, tobacco, television, internet, donuts. Can you work at a pharmacy and not sell contraception? Heck, can you work at a dollar general and not sell contraception? Can you be an ultrasound tech when the whole purpose of ultrasounds is to give you a reason to have an abortion when there's still time. Newsflash, ultrasounds have no bearing on the outcome of the pregnancy. Can you be a nurse who assists the gynecologist in unnecessary c-sections for profit and sterilizations? You can say it's the doctor's fault, but you are there. The ol' hitler made me do it. Maybe do some research into nurses of the third reich.

Can you work at a public school knowing the damage it causes society? Can you work at a walmart that sells ouija boards? Can you join the military with our political posturing and track record?

The truth is there aren't many moral companies to work for, and I know that puts us in a tough spot. But don't compromise your morals (God's commandments) or you're a sack of shit. Get the worse paying job if that's what it means. Trust in God, He became poor so that you might become rich. P.S. He worked construction.

In the documentary "End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless" they say there is a growing sense of unease due to the reality that fiat currency has no inherent value. But the sense of unease is not because wealth isn't guaranteed now. It has never been guaranteed. But the unease comes when we stop trusting in God and try futilely to trust in ourselves.

With the pope's health deteriorating, I'm saddened by the number of our countrymen who rejoice in it. Especially from the "conservatives" who at least historically have been our allies on so many social issues. From the babylon bee to gun clubs. I guess the babylon bee is aptly named after the great whore. If you believe in the eucharist, if you believe in absolution, you'd know that insubordination to the holy father is insubordination to God's will. It's like cursing your own father. Whoever curses his father shall die the death. God bless the pope. If you don't believe, fuck off. Thieves of scripture, "I never knew you".

Jesus, I trust in you