Today’s Gospel is the second time in two weeks that we hear the words of Jesus:

What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Two weeks ago, in Matthew 16, our Lord was addressing St. Peter alone as he entrusted to St. Peter alone the keys of the kingdom, the sign of his unique office, the Petrine office, entrusted by Christ to St. Peter and his successors, the bishops of Rome, down to Pope Francis today.

But today, in Matthew 18, our Lord addresses the other disciples with Peter as he says to them all, “What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

The keys were given only to Peter and his successors; the power of binding and loosing is shared with all the apostles and their successors, the bishops.

And these two passages where Jesus speaks of binding and loosing are the only places in the Gospels where Jesus mentions the Church! So there’s a fundamental connection between this business of binding and loosing and the Church Christ founded.

Binding, Loosing, and the Fourth Commandment

The power to bind and loose, for the Jewish people in Jesus’ day, was religious authority to declare what was forbidden or permitted. So if the rabbis said something was forbidden, it was bound; if they said it was permitted, it was loosed.

There are really two powers here, two ways of binding or loosing. There’s a teaching power to declare authoritatively what the law of God really says, what’s already bound or loosed by the divine law. Then there’s what a regulatory or disciplinary power: the power to bind people to new obligations they didn’t have before.

For instance, if Suzanne or I say to our kids “You must never tell a lie,” that’s a binding obligation they have under the divine law. If we say “No more than an hour of screen time a day,” that’s an obligation that’s binding because we said it!

And what parents declare bound or loosed on earth for their kids is bound or loosed in heaven! That’s because the divine law includes the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and mother.”

But the moral principle behind the Fourth Commandment applies not only to parents, but also to other legitimate authorities, including the state and the Church.

The divine law doesn’t tell us whether to drive on the right side of the road or the left side. Different countries do it different ways. But it’s important to have everyone driving on the same roads doing it the same way!

There needs to be a rule, a law, and the divine law tells us to obey the laws of the state, just like children have to obey their parents — unless parents or the state tell you to violate the law of God. Then you don’t have to obey.

Bad Authorities

Even when the state is bad, or parents are bad, that doesn’t negate their authority. Remember how Jesus denounced the scribes and Pharisees?

They bind heavy burdens hard to bear on people’s shoulders, but they themselves won’t lift a finger to move them.

He says, “The scribes and Pharisees go around saying ‘Everyone must do this and no one must do that and follow these rules,’ but they don’t even follow their own rules! They’re hypocrites.”

Yet notice what Jesus doesn’t say: “They’re hypocrites — ignore them!” No. He says, “Ignore what they do, but be careful to practice and observe whatever they tell you.” They’re hypocrites, yes, but with authority to bind and loose.

There have been plenty of bishops and even popes (not to mention priests and certainly deacons!) with all kinds of personal flaws — hypocrisy, pride, cowardice, worldliness, just to start with — but what the bishops declare bound or loosed on earth is bound or loosed in heaven.

This happens both through teaching and through regulating. The Church’s teaching authority helps us to understand what the divine law requires; the Church’s disciplinary authority helps to regulate our lives as Catholics.

Divine Law and Human Laws

“You shall not kill” is divine law. Human life is sacred, and the Church’s teaching authority helps to clarify what this means: to respect human life from conception until natural death; to reject offenses including abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide; also torture, contraception, human cloning, in vitro fertilization and destroying human embryos.

All these things are forbidden by the divine law; the Church merely teaches what God commands.

On the other hand, the divine law doesn’t say “You must fast for so long before receiving Communion” or “You must abstain from meat on these certain days.” Those are Church rules, which is why the Church can change them, and sometimes does.

That doesn’t mean the rules are completely arbitrary or they don’t matter one way or the other. It is God’s will that we should fast and practice self-discipline and penance; the Church’s rules are meant to help us apply the divine law to our lives.

It’s like how there’s no divine law about how much screen time per day is too much, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t care how much time we spend on social media or playing Minecraft.

Moderation in all things, nothing to excess, is the divine law. When parents set limits for their kids, they’re trying to apply the divine law to a particular case.

The Law of Love

The divine law says to love your neighbor — and, really, that’s all it says. There’s nothing else! St. Paul hammers this home in the second reading today:

The one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is the rationale, ultimately, for all just laws. Driving on the right side of the road in most countries — or the left side in the UK, the Caribbean, Japan, etc. — is part of loving your neighbor. If you were to get in your car and start driving down the left side the road, sooner or later you’re going to cause an accident, and that’s not loving your neighbor!

The divine law doesn’t specifically say that you must wear a mask in church during the pandemic. Our archbishop said so. He has the power to bind and loose. It doesn’t matter if someone thinks the coronavirus is a hoax or that masks don’t matter — and it’s not and they do, but even if someone disagrees, what the cardinal binds on earth is bound in heaven.

That doesn’t mean it’s arbitrary! The divine law says to love your neighbor, which includes doing what we can both to avoid spreading illness and also to put others around us at ease, to help them feel safe. Also, at Mass, we don’t want to be a cause of concern or distraction to each other. Rules like wearing a mask during the pandemic — and receiving Communion in the hand, as the cardinal has instructed — is an application of divine law by Church authority.

Note that the Church can loose as well as bind. For example, right now, due to the pandemic, coming to Mass on Sunday is not an obligation under penalty of sin. It’s good that you are here — assuming you’re not sick or at high risk if you were to get sick or whatever — but Catholics who don’t come to Mass today are not sinning against Sunday obligation.

Wanting What the Church Wants

Now, it goes without saying that we should all want to participate in the Mass as often as possible! Our souls should long to be here, as I’m sure many of us did during those terrible weeks when there were no Masses even on Sunday. The Sunday obligation is for the good of souls, because we need the Mass. If someone only ever comes to Mass because it’s a sin not to, they’re like a child who would never play outside if their parents didn’t make them.

To want to come to Mass, obligation or no, or to come to daily Mass if you can, is to be not just governed by the Church’s law but also guided by her heart. It’s not like the Church only cares about the rules, like “You must do exactly these things and that’s all that matters.” You can follow all the rules but not have the right attitude in your heart.

In passing, did anyone ever tell you that when the bishops of the United States, along with bishops in many other countries, ended the law of abstaining from meat on all the Fridays of the year as the one prescribed way of practicing Friday penance, they expressed their hope that Catholics would ordinarily choose to continue to abstain from meat on Fridays voluntarily? There’s no penalty of sin for eating meat on Fridays outside of Lent, but choosing to abstain from meat on Fridays can be a beautiful way of being guided by the Church’s heart as well as governed by her laws.

Politics and Being Guided by the Church’s Judgment

The Catechism also teaches the importance of the faithful allowing themselves to be guided by the Church’s judgment in political matters — something we should all be thinking about as November approaches.

There is no one true Catholic form of government, and certainly no one true Catholic political party, but of course our faith has political implications. The Catechism states that

It is a part of the Church’s mission “to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.” (CCC 2246)

These judgments aren’t all binding matters of faith and morals, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore them. The Catechism also states:

The Church’s social teaching comprises a body of doctrine, which is articulated as the Church interprets events in the course of history, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in the light of the whole of what has been revealed by Jesus Christ. This teaching can be more easily accepted by men of good will, the more the faithful let themselves be guided by it. (CCC 2422)

I’ve already mentioned some of the most important issues in our political arena, including abortion and euthanasia.

Under the last three popes the Church has also called us, with increasing clarity, to oppose the death penalty. While Pope St. John Paul II acknowledged that the death penalty could be permitted if there was no other way to defend society from an aggressor, he also insisted that modern societies do have the means to protect innocents without resorting to capital punishment.

Last Tuesday, September 1, was the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, first observed by the Eastern Orthodox and introduced in the Latin Church by Pope John Paul II. The Church’s social teaching in regard to the environment includes principles of conservation, responsibility and sustainable use of the environment that should be a part of our political thought.

Tomorrow is Labor Day. There are Church teachings about the rights of workers that should guide our social and political thinking. The Church teaches that workers have a right to safe working conditions, to adequate support in connection with injury, illness, or maternity, to a just wage proportionate to the cost of living.

On these issues and so many others — marriage and the good of families; the rights of immigrants; religious liberty; racism and social justice — the Church doesn’t so much bind and loose as exhort, crying out like a watchman, like Ezekiel in the first reading, calling us to reform our culture and our society to embrace the good and reject the evil, and to make the best choices we can from the often imperfect alternatives we have.

May we hear the Lord’s voice and not harden our hearts.