Folks,
The people of ancient Judah forsook the Lord their God and followed after Ba'al, even sacrificing their own young children as burnt holocausts to that false god while committing adultery, fornication and all manner of sexual immorality. There is indeed little if any difference between what they did 2500 years ago and what we Americans are doing today. We sacrifice our own infants to the false god of expediency and comfort so that we may enjoy sexual pleasure outside of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony without consequence - and some of us who are married murder our own infants anyways. Jeremiah 3:4-7 states:
Listen to the word of the LORD, kings of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such evil upon this place that all who hear of it will feel their ears tingle. This is because they have forsaken me and alienated this place by burning in it incense to strange gods which neither they nor their fathers knew; and the kings of Judah have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built high places for Baal to immolate their sons in fire as holocausts to Baal: such a thing as I neither commanded nor spoke of, nor did it ever enter my mind. Therefore, days will come, says the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth, or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather, the Valley of Slaughter. In this place I will foil the plan of Judah and Jerusalem; I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those that seek their lives. Their corpses I will give as food to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.
What the Prophet Jeremiah prophesied would happen to Judah may yet happen to us if we fail to repent. If history repeats itself, then a prophecy already fulfilled in history can again repeat itself, too.
As Galatians 6:7 states:
Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows...
Sometimes it's a whole nation of people who have sown the whirlwind...God is NOT mocked.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Do You Miss Him?
Folks,
Do you miss him? I certainly do.
'Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.'-Ronald Reagan'
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'-Ronald Reagan'
The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.' - Ronald Reagan'
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.'- Ronald Reagan
'I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.' -Ronald Reagan'
The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination..' - Ronald Reagan
'Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.' - Ronald Reagan
'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.' - Ronald Reagan
'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.' - Ronald Reagan
'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it' - -Ronald Reagan
'Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.' - Ronald Reagan
'No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.'- Ronald Reagan
'If we ever forget that we're one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.'- Ronald Reagan
Senate Bill S.773 on Cyber Security
Folks,
Many of you may be unaware of Senate Bill S.773 on Cyber Security. The web link below will lead you to that bill.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.773:
What is disturbing in this bill (however well intentioned it might seem to be) is the power given to the President in articles (2) and (6) of section 18:
[The President] may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network;
[The President] may order the disconnection of any Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security;
Article (3) of section 23 gives the following definition to critical infrastructure, and under this definition, critical infrastructure can be whatever non-governmental information systems the President thinks is critical (e.g., non-government information systems that oppose his politics and policies without actually representing a cyber security risk) ; that's why this is so disturbing.
(3) FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND UNITED STATES CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS- The term `Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems and networks' includes--
(A) Federal Government information systems and networks; and
(B) State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical infrastructure information systems and networks.
What this means in simple language is this: if the President perceives your web site to be damaging to him, then he can state that it is "critical" and has the authority to muzzle you and treat you as a criminal, and there is nothing you can do about it.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote so eloquently some 200 years ago:
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
But I like 1st Samuel 8:6-9 best:
Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them. He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer: "Grant the people's every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king. As they have treated me constantly from the day I brought them up from Egypt to this day, deserting me and worshiping strange gods, so do they treat you too. Now grant their request; but at the same time, warn them solemnly and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them."
Many of you may be unaware of Senate Bill S.773 on Cyber Security. The web link below will lead you to that bill.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.773:
What is disturbing in this bill (however well intentioned it might seem to be) is the power given to the President in articles (2) and (6) of section 18:
[The President] may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network;
[The President] may order the disconnection of any Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security;
Article (3) of section 23 gives the following definition to critical infrastructure, and under this definition, critical infrastructure can be whatever non-governmental information systems the President thinks is critical (e.g., non-government information systems that oppose his politics and policies without actually representing a cyber security risk) ; that's why this is so disturbing.
(3) FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND UNITED STATES CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS- The term `Federal Government and United States critical infrastructure information systems and networks' includes--
(A) Federal Government information systems and networks; and
(B) State, local, and nongovernmental information systems and networks in the United States designated by the President as critical infrastructure information systems and networks.
What this means in simple language is this: if the President perceives your web site to be damaging to him, then he can state that it is "critical" and has the authority to muzzle you and treat you as a criminal, and there is nothing you can do about it.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote so eloquently some 200 years ago:
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
But I like 1st Samuel 8:6-9 best:
Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them. He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer: "Grant the people's every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king. As they have treated me constantly from the day I brought them up from Egypt to this day, deserting me and worshiping strange gods, so do they treat you too. Now grant their request; but at the same time, warn them solemnly and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them."
Why I Reject Leftism
Folks,
Here is an excellent article entitled Why I Reject Leftism at the Non Nobis blog site. One paragraph speaks quite eloquently about the Devil's Compassion that the liberal left so ardently embraces:
In fact it is when the radical leftist speaks of love and compassion, more so than when he is speaking of revolutionary violence, that we ought to be truly frightened. According to this malformed “love”, what people need is to be set loose from all social convention and most of all, guilt and remorse. Nature itself must be torn down and all human relationships must be completely “free”, by which they mean, subordinated entirely to pleasure, regardless of the social consequences. This weak and pathetic “love” is never allowed to “judge”, even when a lifestyle is manifestly unnatural and self-destructive. Love is equated with tolerance, and tolerance must be extended to every disgusting practice imaginable, provided that it “doesn’t hurt anyone” (that is, cause direct physical pain) or for the more sophisticated leftist, reinforce in anyway the dominant power relationships. Love also means, to this tortured soul, never holding anyone to account for anything they do, since as a materialist-determinist, the leftist radical believes that free will is yet another Christian invention designed so that old men in robes could assign “blame” and retain their power.
It is high time that the left is revealed for the abomination that it is.
Here is an excellent article entitled Why I Reject Leftism at the Non Nobis blog site. One paragraph speaks quite eloquently about the Devil's Compassion that the liberal left so ardently embraces:
In fact it is when the radical leftist speaks of love and compassion, more so than when he is speaking of revolutionary violence, that we ought to be truly frightened. According to this malformed “love”, what people need is to be set loose from all social convention and most of all, guilt and remorse. Nature itself must be torn down and all human relationships must be completely “free”, by which they mean, subordinated entirely to pleasure, regardless of the social consequences. This weak and pathetic “love” is never allowed to “judge”, even when a lifestyle is manifestly unnatural and self-destructive. Love is equated with tolerance, and tolerance must be extended to every disgusting practice imaginable, provided that it “doesn’t hurt anyone” (that is, cause direct physical pain) or for the more sophisticated leftist, reinforce in anyway the dominant power relationships. Love also means, to this tortured soul, never holding anyone to account for anything they do, since as a materialist-determinist, the leftist radical believes that free will is yet another Christian invention designed so that old men in robes could assign “blame” and retain their power.
It is high time that the left is revealed for the abomination that it is.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Bizarre Views of President Obama’s 'Science Czar'
Folks,
The Catholic Online news service has an excellent article on "The Bizarre Views of President Obama’s 'Science Czar'". As you will see, John Holdren, the President's Science Advisor, believes in forced abortion as a means of population control, and states that even toddlers up to the age of two are not human beings.
These are the kind of men Obamolech surrounds himself with.
These are the kinds of men whom Ted Kennedy and the rest of the Democrats support.
Unless we repent, God's wrath of eternal justice is going to descend on this country like never before and the terrorist attacks of 9-11 will pale in comparison. It happened to Egypt, Judah, Israel, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Germany and Russia all before us. We are NOT exempt. God will NOT tolerate unlimited rule by Robespierre.
The Catholic Online news service has an excellent article on "The Bizarre Views of President Obama’s 'Science Czar'". As you will see, John Holdren, the President's Science Advisor, believes in forced abortion as a means of population control, and states that even toddlers up to the age of two are not human beings.
These are the kind of men Obamolech surrounds himself with.
These are the kinds of men whom Ted Kennedy and the rest of the Democrats support.
Unless we repent, God's wrath of eternal justice is going to descend on this country like never before and the terrorist attacks of 9-11 will pale in comparison. It happened to Egypt, Judah, Israel, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Germany and Russia all before us. We are NOT exempt. God will NOT tolerate unlimited rule by Robespierre.
Excerpts from Kennedy's letter to Pope Benedict XVI
Folks,
You can read Excerpts from Kennedy's Letter to Pope Benedict XVI by left clicking your mouse cursor on the aforementioned web link. The Holy Father's more measured response may be found there also. Kennedy's unrepentent belief in the rightness of his legislative agenda is readily apparent in the following three paragraphs:
I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my path. I want you to know Your Holiness that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I have worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination, and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty, and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and been the focus of my work as a United States Senator.
I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field, and I'll continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.
I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic Your Holiness. And though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith.
I fail to see how anyone can honestly write those words while openly supporting abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage and euthanasia.
It took a civil war to defeat the horror of the enslavement of black people. Given that what Kennedy wrote is the unshakeable attitude of the liberal left, it will sadly take nothing less than civil war to defeat the horror of the infanticide of the unborn. I write those words not in advocacy of civil war (quite the opposite, in fact - I would that the liberal left repents), but in observation of history. Today's abortion in these United States is just as evil, just as immoral and just as reprehensible as Adolf Hitler's genocide of 6 million Jews in the ovens of WWII, and Josef Stalin's murder of 20 million Russians and Ukranians in the great purges of the 1930s. Indeed, when the devil grows too strong, then sometimes only the fires of hell can drive him back to where he belongs.
You can read Excerpts from Kennedy's Letter to Pope Benedict XVI by left clicking your mouse cursor on the aforementioned web link. The Holy Father's more measured response may be found there also. Kennedy's unrepentent belief in the rightness of his legislative agenda is readily apparent in the following three paragraphs:
I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my path. I want you to know Your Holiness that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I have worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination, and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty, and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and been the focus of my work as a United States Senator.
I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field, and I'll continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.
I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic Your Holiness. And though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings of my faith.
I fail to see how anyone can honestly write those words while openly supporting abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage and euthanasia.
It took a civil war to defeat the horror of the enslavement of black people. Given that what Kennedy wrote is the unshakeable attitude of the liberal left, it will sadly take nothing less than civil war to defeat the horror of the infanticide of the unborn. I write those words not in advocacy of civil war (quite the opposite, in fact - I would that the liberal left repents), but in observation of history. Today's abortion in these United States is just as evil, just as immoral and just as reprehensible as Adolf Hitler's genocide of 6 million Jews in the ovens of WWII, and Josef Stalin's murder of 20 million Russians and Ukranians in the great purges of the 1930s. Indeed, when the devil grows too strong, then sometimes only the fires of hell can drive him back to where he belongs.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Scandal at Mission Church in Boston
Folks,
We live in the last days. Liberalism has infected like a cancerous disease both our government and our Church. But in the end, Jesus Christ wins.
This is from the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts:
SCANDAL AT MISSION CHURCH IN BOSTON
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today decried the scandal which occurred this morning at Boston's most historic Catholic shrine --- the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, known as Mission Church --- where a Mass of Christian Burial was used to “celebrate the life” of one of America's most notorious opponents of Catholic morality, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Senator Kennedy fought for more than three decades to keep the killing of pre-born children legal and unrestricted in the United States.
Surgical abortion has claimed more than fifty-one million human lives since 1973. The Catholic religion defines abortion as an “abominable crime”.
President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy, in which he alluded to Kennedy's support for gay rights. One of the Prayers of the Faithful was a petition to end divisions “between gays and straights”.
Ecclesial participants included Rev. Raymond Collins, Rector of the Basilica; Rev. Mark Hession, Kennedy’s parish priest from Our Lady of Victories Church in Centerville on Cape Cod; Rev. J. Donald Monan, Chancellor of Boston College; and Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, who thanked President Obama for his words and his presence. Both the homilist, Fr. Hession, and Cardinal O'Malley suggested that the late senator had found eternal salvation.
The Catholic Action League called the event “a tragic example of the Church’s willingness to surrender to the culture, and serve Caesar rather than Christ”.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “Senator Kennedy supported legal abortion, partial-birth abortion, the public funding of Medicaid abortions, embryonic stem cell research, birth control, federal family planning programs, and so-called emergency contraception. He defended Roe v. Wade, endorsed the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), and opposed both the Human Life Amendment and the Hyde Amendment. Kennedy maintained a 100% rating from both NARAL and Planned Parenthood. In 1993, he received the Kenneth Edelin Award from Planned Parenthood, and in 2000 received the Champions of Choice Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts at the hands of the same Dr. Kenneth Edelin, the infamous abortionist.
"During his 1994 reelection campaign, Kennedy said ‘I wear as a badge of honor my opposition to the anti-choicers.’ His successful obstruction of the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 effectively prevented the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Beyond his specific positions on human life issues, Senator Kennedy, along with the late Congressman Robert Drinan, provided the cover and the example for two generations of Catholic politicians to defect from Church teaching on the sanctity of innocent human life.
“No rational person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion when a champion of the Culture of Death, who repeatedly betrayed the Faith of his baptism, is lauded and extolled by priests and prelates in a Marian basilica. This morning's spectacle is evidence of the corruption which pervades the Catholic Church in the United States. The right to life will never be recognized by secular society if it is not first vindicated and consistently upheld within the institutions of the Church itself.”
We live in the last days. Liberalism has infected like a cancerous disease both our government and our Church. But in the end, Jesus Christ wins.
This is from the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts:
SCANDAL AT MISSION CHURCH IN BOSTON
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today decried the scandal which occurred this morning at Boston's most historic Catholic shrine --- the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, known as Mission Church --- where a Mass of Christian Burial was used to “celebrate the life” of one of America's most notorious opponents of Catholic morality, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Senator Kennedy fought for more than three decades to keep the killing of pre-born children legal and unrestricted in the United States.
Surgical abortion has claimed more than fifty-one million human lives since 1973. The Catholic religion defines abortion as an “abominable crime”.
President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy, in which he alluded to Kennedy's support for gay rights. One of the Prayers of the Faithful was a petition to end divisions “between gays and straights”.
Ecclesial participants included Rev. Raymond Collins, Rector of the Basilica; Rev. Mark Hession, Kennedy’s parish priest from Our Lady of Victories Church in Centerville on Cape Cod; Rev. J. Donald Monan, Chancellor of Boston College; and Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, who thanked President Obama for his words and his presence. Both the homilist, Fr. Hession, and Cardinal O'Malley suggested that the late senator had found eternal salvation.
The Catholic Action League called the event “a tragic example of the Church’s willingness to surrender to the culture, and serve Caesar rather than Christ”.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “Senator Kennedy supported legal abortion, partial-birth abortion, the public funding of Medicaid abortions, embryonic stem cell research, birth control, federal family planning programs, and so-called emergency contraception. He defended Roe v. Wade, endorsed the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), and opposed both the Human Life Amendment and the Hyde Amendment. Kennedy maintained a 100% rating from both NARAL and Planned Parenthood. In 1993, he received the Kenneth Edelin Award from Planned Parenthood, and in 2000 received the Champions of Choice Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts at the hands of the same Dr. Kenneth Edelin, the infamous abortionist.
"During his 1994 reelection campaign, Kennedy said ‘I wear as a badge of honor my opposition to the anti-choicers.’ His successful obstruction of the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 effectively prevented the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Beyond his specific positions on human life issues, Senator Kennedy, along with the late Congressman Robert Drinan, provided the cover and the example for two generations of Catholic politicians to defect from Church teaching on the sanctity of innocent human life.
“No rational person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion when a champion of the Culture of Death, who repeatedly betrayed the Faith of his baptism, is lauded and extolled by priests and prelates in a Marian basilica. This morning's spectacle is evidence of the corruption which pervades the Catholic Church in the United States. The right to life will never be recognized by secular society if it is not first vindicated and consistently upheld within the institutions of the Church itself.”
Liberalism: The First Stage of Nihilism
Folks,
The former Eugene Dennis Rose who had become the Russian Orthodox priest and monk Father Seraphim Rose wrote a very interesting work entitled, “Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age” Now there are problems with some of Fr. Rose’s other works (e.g., The Soul After Death), but this work which we are discussing here quite appropriately identifies the four stages of the Nihilist Dialectic as:
Liberalism
Realism
Vitalism
The Nihilism of Destruction
I encourage the reader to left click his mouse cursor on the aforementioned web link to read the entire text of this work which is now provided by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, the Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation and The Augustine Club at Columbia University. In the interest of brevity, I will only quote from the first major section entitled “Liberalism” since that is the disease which today infects our politics and our Church as a raging pathogen of death and destruction, starting with the most innocent and vulnerable in the wombs of their mothers and ending with the suffering and dying of the elderly. There is a reason for this destruction, this nothingness from liberalism, and that reason is that liberalism is but the first stage towards the end Satan would have for all of us: Nothingness which in Latin is “Nihil” – hence the term “Nihilism”.
What follows below, therefore, is highly condensed from Fr. Seraphim’s work, but it gives the reader the essential clue that Liberalism always and everywhere leads to Nothingness.
The Liberal still speaks, at least on formal occasions, of "eternal verities," of "faith," of "human dignity," of man's "high calling" or his "unquenchable spirit," even of "Christian civilization"; but it is quite clear that these words no longer mean what they once meant. No Liberal takes them with entire seriousness; they are in fact metaphors, ornaments of language that are meant to evoke an emotional, not an intellectual, response--a response largely conditioned by long usage, with the attendant memory of a time when such words actually had a positive and serious meaning.
No one today who prides himself on his "sophistication"--that is to say, very few in academic institutions, in government, in science, in humanist intellectual circles, no one who wishes or professes to be abreast of the "times"--does or can fully believe in absolute truth, or more particularly in Christian Truth.
The modern mentality cannot tolerate such a God. He is both too intimate--too "personal," even too "human"--and too absolute, too uncompromising in His demands of us; and He makes Himself known only to humble faith--a fact bound to alienate the proud modern intelligence. A "new god" is clearly required by modern man, a god more closely fashioned after the pattern of such central modern concerns as science and business; it has, in fact, been an important intention of modern thought to provide such a god.
Whether "deist," "idealist," pantheist," or "immanentist," all the modern gods are the same mental construct, fabricated by souls dead from the loss of faith in the true God.
The atheist arguments against such a god are as irrefutable as they are irrelevant; for such a god is, in fact, the same as no god at all. Uninterested in man, powerless to act in the world (except to inspire a worldly "optimism"), he is a god considerably weaker than the men who invented him. On such a foundation, needless to say, nothing secure can be built; and it is with good reason that Liberals, while usually professing belief in this deity, actually build their world-view upon the more obvious, though hardly more stable, foundation of Man. Nihilist atheism is the explicit formulation of what was already, not merely implicit, but actually present in a confused form, in Liberalism.
The ethical implications of belief in such a god are precisely the same as those of atheism; this inner agreement, however, is again disguised outwardly behind a cloud of metaphor. In the Christian order all activity in this life is viewed and judged in the light of the life of the future world, the life beyond death which will have no end. The unbeliever can have no idea of what this life means to the believing Christian; for most people today the future life has, like God, become a mere idea, and it therefore costs as little pain and effort to deny as to affirm it. For the believing Christian, the future life is joy inconceivable, joy surpassing the joy he knows in this life through communion with God in prayer, in the Liturgy, in the Sacrament; because then God will be all in all and there will be no falling away from this joy, which will indeed be infinitely enhanced. The true believer has the consolation of a foretaste of eternal life. The believer in the modern god, having no such foretaste and hence no notion of Christian joy, cannot believe in the future life in the same way; indeed, if he were honest with himself, he would have to admit that he cannot believe in it at all.
In either case, in that of the Liberal "Christian" or the even more Liberal humanist, the inability to believe in eternal life is rooted in the same fact: they believe only in this world, they have neither experience nor knowledge of, nor faith in the other world, and most of all, they believe in a "god" who is not powerful enough to raise men from the dead.
Behind their rhetoric, the sophisticated Protestant and the humanist are quite aware that there is no room for Heaven, nor for eternity, in their universe; their thoroughly Liberal sensibility, again, looks not to a transcendent, but to an immanent source for its ethical doctrine, and their agile intelligence is even capable of turning this faute de mieux into a positive apology. It is-in this view-both "realism" and "courage" to live without hope of eternal joy nor fear of eternal pain; to one endowed with the Liberal view of things, it is not necessary to believe in Heaven or Hell to lead a "good life" in this world. Such is the total blindness of the Liberal mentality to the meaning of death.
The Liberal lives in a fool's paradise which must collapse before the truth of things. If death is, as the Liberal and Nihilist both believe, the extinction of the individual, then this world and everything in it-love, goodness, sanctity, everything-are as nothing, nothing man may do is of any ultimate consequence and the full horror of life is hidden from man only by the strength of their will to deceive themselves; and "all things are lawful," no otherworldly hope or fear restrains men from monstrous experiments and suicidal dreams. Nietzsche's words are the truth-and prophecy-of the new world that results from this view:
Of all that which was formerly held to be true, not one word is to be credited. Everything which was formerly disdained as unholy, forbidden, contemptible, and fatal--all these flowers now bloom on the most charming paths of truth.
Now a government is secure insofar as it has God for its foundation and His Will for its guide; but this, surely, is not a description of Liberal government. It is, in the Liberal view, the people who rule, and not God; God Himself is a "constitutional monarch" Whose authority has been totally delegated to the people, and Whose function is entirely ceremonial. The Liberal believes in God with the same rhetorical fervor with which he believes in Heaven. The government erected upon such a faith is very little different, in principle, from a government erected upon total disbelief, and whatever its present residue of stability, it is clearly pointed in the direction of Anarchy.
A government must rule by the Grace of God or by the will of the people, it must believe in authority or in the Revolution; on these issues compromise is possible only in semblance, and only for a time. The Revolution, like the disbelief which has always accompanied it, cannot be stopped halfway; it is a force that, once awakened, will not rest until it ends in a totalitarian Kingdom of this world. The history of the last two centuries has proved nothing if not this. To appease the Revolution and offer it concessions, as Liberals have always done, thereby showing that they have no truth with which to oppose it, is perhaps to postpone, but not to prevent, the attainment of its end. And to oppose the radical Revolution with a Revolution of one's own, whether it be "conservative," " non-violent," or "spiritual," is not merely to reveal ignorance of the full scope and nature of the Revolution of our time, but to concede as well the first principle of that Revolution: that the old truth is no longer true, and a new truth must take its place.
This fact, which is understandably irritating to well-meaning critics of Liberalism, has only one plausible explanation. The Liberal is undisturbed even by fundamental deficiencies and contradictions in his own philosophy because his primary interest is elsewhere. If he is not concerned to found the political and social order upon Divine Truth, if he is indifferent to the reality of Heaven and Hell, if he conceives of God as a mere idea of a vague impersonal power, it is because he is more immediately interested in worldly ends, and because everything else is vague or abstract to him. The Liberal may be interested in culture, in learning, in business, or merely in comfort; but in every one of his pursuits the dimension of the absolute is simply absent. He is unable, or unwilling, to think in terms of ends, of ultimate things. The thirst for absolute truth has vanished; it has been swallowed up in worldliness.
In the Liberal universe, of course, truth-which is to say, learning,--is quite compatible with worldliness; but there is more to truth than learning. "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice." No one has rightly sought the truth who has not encountered at the end of this search-whether to accept or reject Him-our Lord, Jesus Christ, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," Truth that stands against the world and is a reproach to all worldliness. The Liberal, who thinks his universe secure against this Truth, is the "rich man" of the parable, overburdened by his worldly interests and ideas, unwilling to give them up for the humility, poverty, and lowliness that are the marks of the genuine seeker after truth.
The Liberal, the worldly man, is the man who has lost his faith; and the loss of perfect faith is the beginning of the end of the order erected upon that faith. Those who seek to preserve the prestige of truth without believing in it offer the most potent weapon to all their enemies; a merely metaphorical faith is suicidal. The radical attacks the Liberal doctrine at every point, and the veil of rhetoric is no protection against the strong thrust of his sharp blade. The Liberal, under this persistent attack, gives way on point after point, forced to admit the truth of the charges against him without being able to counter this negative, critical truth with any positive truth of his own; until, after a long and usually gradual transition, of a sudden he awakens to discover that the Old Order, undefended and seemingly indefensible, has been overthrown, and that a new, more "realistic"--and more brutal-truth has taken the field.
Liberalism is the first stage of the Nihilist dialectic, both because its own faith is empty, and because this emptiness calls into being a yet more Nihilist reaction--a reaction that, ironically, proclaims even more loudly than Liberalism its "love of truth," while carrying mankind one step farther on the path of error. This reaction is the second stage of the Nihilist dialectic: Realism.
The former Eugene Dennis Rose who had become the Russian Orthodox priest and monk Father Seraphim Rose wrote a very interesting work entitled, “Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age” Now there are problems with some of Fr. Rose’s other works (e.g., The Soul After Death), but this work which we are discussing here quite appropriately identifies the four stages of the Nihilist Dialectic as:
Liberalism
Realism
Vitalism
The Nihilism of Destruction
I encourage the reader to left click his mouse cursor on the aforementioned web link to read the entire text of this work which is now provided by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, the Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation and The Augustine Club at Columbia University. In the interest of brevity, I will only quote from the first major section entitled “Liberalism” since that is the disease which today infects our politics and our Church as a raging pathogen of death and destruction, starting with the most innocent and vulnerable in the wombs of their mothers and ending with the suffering and dying of the elderly. There is a reason for this destruction, this nothingness from liberalism, and that reason is that liberalism is but the first stage towards the end Satan would have for all of us: Nothingness which in Latin is “Nihil” – hence the term “Nihilism”.
What follows below, therefore, is highly condensed from Fr. Seraphim’s work, but it gives the reader the essential clue that Liberalism always and everywhere leads to Nothingness.
The Liberal still speaks, at least on formal occasions, of "eternal verities," of "faith," of "human dignity," of man's "high calling" or his "unquenchable spirit," even of "Christian civilization"; but it is quite clear that these words no longer mean what they once meant. No Liberal takes them with entire seriousness; they are in fact metaphors, ornaments of language that are meant to evoke an emotional, not an intellectual, response--a response largely conditioned by long usage, with the attendant memory of a time when such words actually had a positive and serious meaning.
No one today who prides himself on his "sophistication"--that is to say, very few in academic institutions, in government, in science, in humanist intellectual circles, no one who wishes or professes to be abreast of the "times"--does or can fully believe in absolute truth, or more particularly in Christian Truth.
The modern mentality cannot tolerate such a God. He is both too intimate--too "personal," even too "human"--and too absolute, too uncompromising in His demands of us; and He makes Himself known only to humble faith--a fact bound to alienate the proud modern intelligence. A "new god" is clearly required by modern man, a god more closely fashioned after the pattern of such central modern concerns as science and business; it has, in fact, been an important intention of modern thought to provide such a god.
Whether "deist," "idealist," pantheist," or "immanentist," all the modern gods are the same mental construct, fabricated by souls dead from the loss of faith in the true God.
The atheist arguments against such a god are as irrefutable as they are irrelevant; for such a god is, in fact, the same as no god at all. Uninterested in man, powerless to act in the world (except to inspire a worldly "optimism"), he is a god considerably weaker than the men who invented him. On such a foundation, needless to say, nothing secure can be built; and it is with good reason that Liberals, while usually professing belief in this deity, actually build their world-view upon the more obvious, though hardly more stable, foundation of Man. Nihilist atheism is the explicit formulation of what was already, not merely implicit, but actually present in a confused form, in Liberalism.
The ethical implications of belief in such a god are precisely the same as those of atheism; this inner agreement, however, is again disguised outwardly behind a cloud of metaphor. In the Christian order all activity in this life is viewed and judged in the light of the life of the future world, the life beyond death which will have no end. The unbeliever can have no idea of what this life means to the believing Christian; for most people today the future life has, like God, become a mere idea, and it therefore costs as little pain and effort to deny as to affirm it. For the believing Christian, the future life is joy inconceivable, joy surpassing the joy he knows in this life through communion with God in prayer, in the Liturgy, in the Sacrament; because then God will be all in all and there will be no falling away from this joy, which will indeed be infinitely enhanced. The true believer has the consolation of a foretaste of eternal life. The believer in the modern god, having no such foretaste and hence no notion of Christian joy, cannot believe in the future life in the same way; indeed, if he were honest with himself, he would have to admit that he cannot believe in it at all.
In either case, in that of the Liberal "Christian" or the even more Liberal humanist, the inability to believe in eternal life is rooted in the same fact: they believe only in this world, they have neither experience nor knowledge of, nor faith in the other world, and most of all, they believe in a "god" who is not powerful enough to raise men from the dead.
Behind their rhetoric, the sophisticated Protestant and the humanist are quite aware that there is no room for Heaven, nor for eternity, in their universe; their thoroughly Liberal sensibility, again, looks not to a transcendent, but to an immanent source for its ethical doctrine, and their agile intelligence is even capable of turning this faute de mieux into a positive apology. It is-in this view-both "realism" and "courage" to live without hope of eternal joy nor fear of eternal pain; to one endowed with the Liberal view of things, it is not necessary to believe in Heaven or Hell to lead a "good life" in this world. Such is the total blindness of the Liberal mentality to the meaning of death.
The Liberal lives in a fool's paradise which must collapse before the truth of things. If death is, as the Liberal and Nihilist both believe, the extinction of the individual, then this world and everything in it-love, goodness, sanctity, everything-are as nothing, nothing man may do is of any ultimate consequence and the full horror of life is hidden from man only by the strength of their will to deceive themselves; and "all things are lawful," no otherworldly hope or fear restrains men from monstrous experiments and suicidal dreams. Nietzsche's words are the truth-and prophecy-of the new world that results from this view:
Of all that which was formerly held to be true, not one word is to be credited. Everything which was formerly disdained as unholy, forbidden, contemptible, and fatal--all these flowers now bloom on the most charming paths of truth.
Now a government is secure insofar as it has God for its foundation and His Will for its guide; but this, surely, is not a description of Liberal government. It is, in the Liberal view, the people who rule, and not God; God Himself is a "constitutional monarch" Whose authority has been totally delegated to the people, and Whose function is entirely ceremonial. The Liberal believes in God with the same rhetorical fervor with which he believes in Heaven. The government erected upon such a faith is very little different, in principle, from a government erected upon total disbelief, and whatever its present residue of stability, it is clearly pointed in the direction of Anarchy.
A government must rule by the Grace of God or by the will of the people, it must believe in authority or in the Revolution; on these issues compromise is possible only in semblance, and only for a time. The Revolution, like the disbelief which has always accompanied it, cannot be stopped halfway; it is a force that, once awakened, will not rest until it ends in a totalitarian Kingdom of this world. The history of the last two centuries has proved nothing if not this. To appease the Revolution and offer it concessions, as Liberals have always done, thereby showing that they have no truth with which to oppose it, is perhaps to postpone, but not to prevent, the attainment of its end. And to oppose the radical Revolution with a Revolution of one's own, whether it be "conservative," " non-violent," or "spiritual," is not merely to reveal ignorance of the full scope and nature of the Revolution of our time, but to concede as well the first principle of that Revolution: that the old truth is no longer true, and a new truth must take its place.
This fact, which is understandably irritating to well-meaning critics of Liberalism, has only one plausible explanation. The Liberal is undisturbed even by fundamental deficiencies and contradictions in his own philosophy because his primary interest is elsewhere. If he is not concerned to found the political and social order upon Divine Truth, if he is indifferent to the reality of Heaven and Hell, if he conceives of God as a mere idea of a vague impersonal power, it is because he is more immediately interested in worldly ends, and because everything else is vague or abstract to him. The Liberal may be interested in culture, in learning, in business, or merely in comfort; but in every one of his pursuits the dimension of the absolute is simply absent. He is unable, or unwilling, to think in terms of ends, of ultimate things. The thirst for absolute truth has vanished; it has been swallowed up in worldliness.
In the Liberal universe, of course, truth-which is to say, learning,--is quite compatible with worldliness; but there is more to truth than learning. "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice." No one has rightly sought the truth who has not encountered at the end of this search-whether to accept or reject Him-our Lord, Jesus Christ, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," Truth that stands against the world and is a reproach to all worldliness. The Liberal, who thinks his universe secure against this Truth, is the "rich man" of the parable, overburdened by his worldly interests and ideas, unwilling to give them up for the humility, poverty, and lowliness that are the marks of the genuine seeker after truth.
The Liberal, the worldly man, is the man who has lost his faith; and the loss of perfect faith is the beginning of the end of the order erected upon that faith. Those who seek to preserve the prestige of truth without believing in it offer the most potent weapon to all their enemies; a merely metaphorical faith is suicidal. The radical attacks the Liberal doctrine at every point, and the veil of rhetoric is no protection against the strong thrust of his sharp blade. The Liberal, under this persistent attack, gives way on point after point, forced to admit the truth of the charges against him without being able to counter this negative, critical truth with any positive truth of his own; until, after a long and usually gradual transition, of a sudden he awakens to discover that the Old Order, undefended and seemingly indefensible, has been overthrown, and that a new, more "realistic"--and more brutal-truth has taken the field.
Liberalism is the first stage of the Nihilist dialectic, both because its own faith is empty, and because this emptiness calls into being a yet more Nihilist reaction--a reaction that, ironically, proclaims even more loudly than Liberalism its "love of truth," while carrying mankind one step farther on the path of error. This reaction is the second stage of the Nihilist dialectic: Realism.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Human Life International's Statement on Kennedy
Folks,
Below is Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy.
We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.
Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one's sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were.
It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power.
It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a "great guy behind the scenes" as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy's career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one's political affiliation, if one is only "Catholic" to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud.
As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans.
Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International
Below is Human Life International's Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy.
We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy's life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.
Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don't pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was "at peace" when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one's sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were.
It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy's soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy's positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this "catholic" champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power.
It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a "great guy behind the scenes" as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy's career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one's political affiliation, if one is only "Catholic" to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud.
As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans.
Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International
Communion at Kennedy's Funeral
Folks,
The American Papist blogsite makes a good point: what will be the greater scandal at Ted Kennedy's Catholic funeral? A pro-abortionist President giving the eulogy, or reception of Holy Communion by so-called Catholic politicians in defiance the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church on abortion, embryonic stem cell research, homosexual marriage, euthanasia, etc.?
Will the following so-called Catholic pro-abortion politicians attend, and if attending, will they be granted Holy Communion?
Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Patrick Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr., etc.
Some people will say, "Don't judge!" I am not judging. Rather, I am observing. These politicians all publicly call themselves Catholic. They all publicly support infanticide of the unborn. They have all been told what the Church teaches. And they continue to defy Church authority, ignoring 1st Corinthians 11:27-30:
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, 13 and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.
So now what scandal will they create, and will Boston's Cardinal O'Malley allow it? I do NOT envy his position - we need to pray for him because he is the Lord's Anointed. However he decides the matter, he will earn the wrath (rightfully or not) of both left and right.
The American Papist blogsite makes a good point: what will be the greater scandal at Ted Kennedy's Catholic funeral? A pro-abortionist President giving the eulogy, or reception of Holy Communion by so-called Catholic politicians in defiance the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church on abortion, embryonic stem cell research, homosexual marriage, euthanasia, etc.?
Will the following so-called Catholic pro-abortion politicians attend, and if attending, will they be granted Holy Communion?
Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Patrick Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr., etc.
Some people will say, "Don't judge!" I am not judging. Rather, I am observing. These politicians all publicly call themselves Catholic. They all publicly support infanticide of the unborn. They have all been told what the Church teaches. And they continue to defy Church authority, ignoring 1st Corinthians 11:27-30:
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, 13 and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.
So now what scandal will they create, and will Boston's Cardinal O'Malley allow it? I do NOT envy his position - we need to pray for him because he is the Lord's Anointed. However he decides the matter, he will earn the wrath (rightfully or not) of both left and right.
Senator Kennedy
Folks,
Deacon Keith A. Fournier at Catholic Online has written an article worthy of the reader's attention:
R.I.P. Senator Kennedy: Let us Honor the Dead by Protecting the Living
I am sure that Senator Kennedy will have his share of accusers to meet in the next life, starting with Mary Jo Kopechne (who drowned in his car at Chappaquiddick), and including all the unborn babies who lost their lives since 1972 because of the Senator's legislation.
But we must temper ourselves and remember that we too shall have our own accusers, and it will be only by God's grace that any of us make it past the Pearly Gates. As Romans 3:10 states:
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.
Let us continue to pray for the repose of the soul of Senator Kennedy, and for the consolation of his family, but most importantly of all, let us pray that all those unborn babies whose lives are threatened by the legacy of Senator Kennedy's health care legislation may yet be protected and cherished.
Deacon Keith A. Fournier at Catholic Online has written an article worthy of the reader's attention:
R.I.P. Senator Kennedy: Let us Honor the Dead by Protecting the Living
I am sure that Senator Kennedy will have his share of accusers to meet in the next life, starting with Mary Jo Kopechne (who drowned in his car at Chappaquiddick), and including all the unborn babies who lost their lives since 1972 because of the Senator's legislation.
But we must temper ourselves and remember that we too shall have our own accusers, and it will be only by God's grace that any of us make it past the Pearly Gates. As Romans 3:10 states:
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.
Let us continue to pray for the repose of the soul of Senator Kennedy, and for the consolation of his family, but most importantly of all, let us pray that all those unborn babies whose lives are threatened by the legacy of Senator Kennedy's health care legislation may yet be protected and cherished.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Quote of the Day
Folks,
Today's Quote of the Day comes from Protestant Theologian Douglas Wilson:
"There are two tenets of atheism. One, there is no God. Two, I hate him."
The reader should bear in mind that I do not necessarily agree with Mr. Wilson's brand of Reformed Theology or his political philosophy, but by goodness, he certainly has the tenets of atheism correctly identified!
Today's Quote of the Day comes from Protestant Theologian Douglas Wilson:
"There are two tenets of atheism. One, there is no God. Two, I hate him."
The reader should bear in mind that I do not necessarily agree with Mr. Wilson's brand of Reformed Theology or his political philosophy, but by goodness, he certainly has the tenets of atheism correctly identified!
What's Wrong with Liberal Catholics
Folks,
I find the term “Liberal Catholics” to be most oxymoronic, for indeed, one cannot possibly be truly Liberal and truly Catholic. Nevertheless, I shall borrow the phrase for the analysis below.
Liberal Catholics maintain that there is a perception that Respect Life activists are fanatical, and that Respect Life personnel are alone responsible for changing this perception. The fact of the matter is that there is a fanatical culture of death, which has invaded our country, our society and our Church. We have lost our zeal for the Gospel, and apathy has allowed the enemy (Satan) to gain and grow his toehold in the Church. The root problem is that zeal for the Lord is no longer preached from our pulpits and taught in our Catholic schools. In an effort to offend no one, we have become pleasing to everyone, even to the culture of death. Revelation 3:16 comes to mind, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Let us therefore remember and be like what Psalm 69:9 says, “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.”
Liberal Catholics make equivalent abortion and capital punishment. The fact of the matter is that in Romans 13:1-7 God gave the State the authority to execute criminals guilty of capital crimes. Furthermore, Liberal Catholics do nothing to differentiate between the execution of a guilty rapist or murderer, and the forced eviction of a helpless, innocent baby from his first home. Yes, the Church does oppose the death penalty and rightly so; but unlike abortion, the death penalty is NOT an intrinsic evil. Leading the Faithful to believe that the death penalty and abortion are equivalent as Liberal Catholics do misleads the Faithful into thinking that a vote for a pro-abortionist, anti-death penalty politician is no more wrong than a vote for an anti-abortionist, pro-death penalty politician. It is disinformation like this that has so terribly misled the Faithful over the past 50 years.
Liberal Catholics often state (correctly) that people in third world countries uninformed of the Gospel are not necessarily doomed to hell when they are ignorant, and that God cannot possibly be so uncompassionate. However, Liberal Catholics do nothing to make clear the Great Commission of Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20: – to go out to all the nations and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor do Liberal Catholics balance their perspective with St. Paul’s sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (see Acts 17). Indeed, Acts 17:30 states quite clearly, “God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent”.
Liberal Catholics often cite how St. Francis met with an Islamic sultan in the 1200s and did not stand in condemnation of him, but rather showed kindness and peace, all of which is quite commendable. Liberal Catholics however failed to tell what happened 300 years later when the Islamic fascists continued their invasion of Europe, almost reached Vienna and were turned back only by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Battle of Lepanto in October 7, 1571. We have a Feast Day because of this - the Feast Day of the Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. Liberal Catholics lead their listeners to believe that somehow there is equivalency between Islam and Christianity when in fact there isn’t. Indeed, the Koran is replete with exhortations to either submit Christians and Jews to dhimminitude or slay them. It legitimizes a Muslim faithful lying to a person of “The Book”, an Islamic euphemism for Christians and Jews. Today we are in a three-way struggle between Islam, atheist humanism and Christendom, just as there was a three-way struggle between Islam, the Protestant heresies and the Church in the 1500s. The Church still stands and will yet stand – as Jesus said, the gates of hell shall not prevail. BUT the impression that Liberal Catholics give of Islam is one of equivalency and appeasement. It is a FALSE religion and Allah is NOT God.
Liberal Catholics speak in support of the unbroken quilt theory, which erroneously places on equal footing abortion, death penalty, war, giving alms, etc. While Liberal Catholics can be forced by logic and reason to acknowledge that there is a hierarchy of things, their hearts remain with the flawed unbroken quilt theory. Liberal Catholics fail to recognize and acknowledge that there are some things, which are intrinsically evil (e.g., abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia) and other things that are not (e.g., just war, death penalty, etc.). This misleads the Faithful into thinking that because certain politicians parade themselves as peace and justice people, one can legitimately vote for these same politicians and be a good Catholic. However, the fact is that so long as such politicians support abortion or homosexual marriage, nothing could be further from the truth. Liberal Catholics fail to either admit or explain this distinction. As a result, we have politicians such as Joe Biden, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Patrick Kennedy, Ted Kennedy (now deceased), Dennis Kucinich, Patrick Leahy and many, many more (all Catholic) who promise to serve social justice and the common good while maintaining the legality and permissibility of the infanticide of the unborn, experimentation on human embryos and sodomy as a perfectly acceptable style of life equivalent to heterosexual marriage.
Liberal Catholics exhort their audiences on peace and justice. The fact of the matter is that there can be no peace, no justice without holiness and righteousness before the Lord God. As Matthew 6:38 states, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Furthermore, the tone and manner of Liberal Catholics on peace and justice issues are quite Marxist. This is unacceptable. There is an explicit suggestion that we must work towards equitable distribution of wealth without defining what equitable means or who does the distribution and whether or not that organization (e.g., the US government) can be trusted with doing an equitable distribution. There was a complete lack of respect for private ownership, that is, of what one earns by the sweat of one’s brow, and of individual responsibility and accountability. If the communal life worked so well, then in Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira would not have been tempted to lie about withholding the proceedings of their property sale from the Church.
Liberal Catholics decry nuclear weapons and war to the exclusion of more pressing peace and justice issues (such as saving the lives of the unborn). While none of us ever wants to see weapons of mass destruction used, there is such a thing as just war (which St. Augustine explains at length), and nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent. They prevented the USSR from assuming world domination prior to 1990. Today they remain a capable deterrent against Communist China, Iran and North Korea. Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore discussed this in his speech before the 2009 Deterrence Symposium sponsored by the U.S. Strategic Command. The title of his speech is Nuclear Weapons and Moral Questions: The Path to Zero. The solution is NOT unilateral disarmament because the enemies of the United States (the atheist communists and the Islamic fascists) will never give up their arms (nuclear and otherwise) until Jesus Christ returns to Earth. I am amazed at how some people who have never been around nuclear weapons can feel justified in having opinions about something they know nothing about. By the way, on my old submarine, I got to sleep right next to a Subroc nuclear missile in the Torpedo Room (the bunk rooms were too crowded during initial sea trials), and yes, if the Russians had ever attacked the U.S. and I got ordered "to push the button" (extremely unlikely since I was a reactor operator, not a torpedo man), then I would have pushed the button without a second thought.
Liberal Catholics had better start recognizing what 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Peace and social justice are contingent on righteousness and holiness before the Lord God of Hosts.
I find the term “Liberal Catholics” to be most oxymoronic, for indeed, one cannot possibly be truly Liberal and truly Catholic. Nevertheless, I shall borrow the phrase for the analysis below.
Liberal Catholics maintain that there is a perception that Respect Life activists are fanatical, and that Respect Life personnel are alone responsible for changing this perception. The fact of the matter is that there is a fanatical culture of death, which has invaded our country, our society and our Church. We have lost our zeal for the Gospel, and apathy has allowed the enemy (Satan) to gain and grow his toehold in the Church. The root problem is that zeal for the Lord is no longer preached from our pulpits and taught in our Catholic schools. In an effort to offend no one, we have become pleasing to everyone, even to the culture of death. Revelation 3:16 comes to mind, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Let us therefore remember and be like what Psalm 69:9 says, “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.”
Liberal Catholics make equivalent abortion and capital punishment. The fact of the matter is that in Romans 13:1-7 God gave the State the authority to execute criminals guilty of capital crimes. Furthermore, Liberal Catholics do nothing to differentiate between the execution of a guilty rapist or murderer, and the forced eviction of a helpless, innocent baby from his first home. Yes, the Church does oppose the death penalty and rightly so; but unlike abortion, the death penalty is NOT an intrinsic evil. Leading the Faithful to believe that the death penalty and abortion are equivalent as Liberal Catholics do misleads the Faithful into thinking that a vote for a pro-abortionist, anti-death penalty politician is no more wrong than a vote for an anti-abortionist, pro-death penalty politician. It is disinformation like this that has so terribly misled the Faithful over the past 50 years.
Liberal Catholics often state (correctly) that people in third world countries uninformed of the Gospel are not necessarily doomed to hell when they are ignorant, and that God cannot possibly be so uncompassionate. However, Liberal Catholics do nothing to make clear the Great Commission of Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20: – to go out to all the nations and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor do Liberal Catholics balance their perspective with St. Paul’s sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (see Acts 17). Indeed, Acts 17:30 states quite clearly, “God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent”.
Liberal Catholics often cite how St. Francis met with an Islamic sultan in the 1200s and did not stand in condemnation of him, but rather showed kindness and peace, all of which is quite commendable. Liberal Catholics however failed to tell what happened 300 years later when the Islamic fascists continued their invasion of Europe, almost reached Vienna and were turned back only by the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Battle of Lepanto in October 7, 1571. We have a Feast Day because of this - the Feast Day of the Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. Liberal Catholics lead their listeners to believe that somehow there is equivalency between Islam and Christianity when in fact there isn’t. Indeed, the Koran is replete with exhortations to either submit Christians and Jews to dhimminitude or slay them. It legitimizes a Muslim faithful lying to a person of “The Book”, an Islamic euphemism for Christians and Jews. Today we are in a three-way struggle between Islam, atheist humanism and Christendom, just as there was a three-way struggle between Islam, the Protestant heresies and the Church in the 1500s. The Church still stands and will yet stand – as Jesus said, the gates of hell shall not prevail. BUT the impression that Liberal Catholics give of Islam is one of equivalency and appeasement. It is a FALSE religion and Allah is NOT God.
Liberal Catholics speak in support of the unbroken quilt theory, which erroneously places on equal footing abortion, death penalty, war, giving alms, etc. While Liberal Catholics can be forced by logic and reason to acknowledge that there is a hierarchy of things, their hearts remain with the flawed unbroken quilt theory. Liberal Catholics fail to recognize and acknowledge that there are some things, which are intrinsically evil (e.g., abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia) and other things that are not (e.g., just war, death penalty, etc.). This misleads the Faithful into thinking that because certain politicians parade themselves as peace and justice people, one can legitimately vote for these same politicians and be a good Catholic. However, the fact is that so long as such politicians support abortion or homosexual marriage, nothing could be further from the truth. Liberal Catholics fail to either admit or explain this distinction. As a result, we have politicians such as Joe Biden, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Patrick Kennedy, Ted Kennedy (now deceased), Dennis Kucinich, Patrick Leahy and many, many more (all Catholic) who promise to serve social justice and the common good while maintaining the legality and permissibility of the infanticide of the unborn, experimentation on human embryos and sodomy as a perfectly acceptable style of life equivalent to heterosexual marriage.
Liberal Catholics exhort their audiences on peace and justice. The fact of the matter is that there can be no peace, no justice without holiness and righteousness before the Lord God. As Matthew 6:38 states, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Furthermore, the tone and manner of Liberal Catholics on peace and justice issues are quite Marxist. This is unacceptable. There is an explicit suggestion that we must work towards equitable distribution of wealth without defining what equitable means or who does the distribution and whether or not that organization (e.g., the US government) can be trusted with doing an equitable distribution. There was a complete lack of respect for private ownership, that is, of what one earns by the sweat of one’s brow, and of individual responsibility and accountability. If the communal life worked so well, then in Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira would not have been tempted to lie about withholding the proceedings of their property sale from the Church.
Liberal Catholics decry nuclear weapons and war to the exclusion of more pressing peace and justice issues (such as saving the lives of the unborn). While none of us ever wants to see weapons of mass destruction used, there is such a thing as just war (which St. Augustine explains at length), and nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent. They prevented the USSR from assuming world domination prior to 1990. Today they remain a capable deterrent against Communist China, Iran and North Korea. Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore discussed this in his speech before the 2009 Deterrence Symposium sponsored by the U.S. Strategic Command. The title of his speech is Nuclear Weapons and Moral Questions: The Path to Zero. The solution is NOT unilateral disarmament because the enemies of the United States (the atheist communists and the Islamic fascists) will never give up their arms (nuclear and otherwise) until Jesus Christ returns to Earth. I am amazed at how some people who have never been around nuclear weapons can feel justified in having opinions about something they know nothing about. By the way, on my old submarine, I got to sleep right next to a Subroc nuclear missile in the Torpedo Room (the bunk rooms were too crowded during initial sea trials), and yes, if the Russians had ever attacked the U.S. and I got ordered "to push the button" (extremely unlikely since I was a reactor operator, not a torpedo man), then I would have pushed the button without a second thought.
Liberal Catholics had better start recognizing what 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Peace and social justice are contingent on righteousness and holiness before the Lord God of Hosts.
A Prayer for the Conversion of President Obama
Folks,
At our Marian Cenacle on Monday nights we have begun praying the following petition for the conversion of President Barack Hussein Obama to a culture of life. The prayer is reprinted at the Catholics Against Obamacare blogsite, and that's what brought it to my attention this morning.
O, St. Paul the Apostle, great convert, preacher of truth and Doctor of the Gentiles, intercede for us to God, who chose you.
You are a vessel of election, O St. Paul the Apostle, preacher of truth to the whole world.
O God, You have instructed many nations through the preaching of the blessed apostle Paul.
Let the power of St. Paul's intercession bring about the conversion of President Barack Obama to the fullness of Your grace. Help the president to recognize the personhood of all human beings - born and preborn. Help us who venerate St. Paul's memory this day to continually seek Help the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we work to spread Your truth.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur Nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.
Avē Marīa, grātia plēna, Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sancta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
nunc et in hōrā mortis nostrae.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio,
et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum
Amen
At our Marian Cenacle on Monday nights we have begun praying the following petition for the conversion of President Barack Hussein Obama to a culture of life. The prayer is reprinted at the Catholics Against Obamacare blogsite, and that's what brought it to my attention this morning.
O, St. Paul the Apostle, great convert, preacher of truth and Doctor of the Gentiles, intercede for us to God, who chose you.
You are a vessel of election, O St. Paul the Apostle, preacher of truth to the whole world.
O God, You have instructed many nations through the preaching of the blessed apostle Paul.
Let the power of St. Paul's intercession bring about the conversion of President Barack Obama to the fullness of Your grace. Help the president to recognize the personhood of all human beings - born and preborn. Help us who venerate St. Paul's memory this day to continually seek Help the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we work to spread Your truth.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur Nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.
Avē Marīa, grātia plēna, Dominus tēcum.
Benedicta tū in mulieribus,
et benedictus frūctus ventris tuī, Iēsus.
Sancta Marīa, Māter Deī,
ōrā prō nōbīs peccātōribus,
nunc et in hōrā mortis nostrae.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spritui Sancto.
Sicut erat in principio,
et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum
Amen
Pope Benedict XVI's Message on Atheism and the Environment
Folks,
We are very fortunate to have Pope Benedict XVI as our Holy Father in the Seat of St. Peter. he correctly and courageously points out how the new atheist humanism, while apparently glorifying nature as some sort of goddess Gaia, is actually and instrinsically destructive of the environment over which God gave Adam and Eve stewardship. In professing to care about nature, atheism cares only about its own egotistical aims. This is quite similar to the liberal who professes to care about social justice and the common good, all the while supporting infanticide of the unborn and euthanasia of the elderly and terminally ill. The similarity, however, is not coincidental. There is a strong linkage between atheist humanism and liberalism. But that isn't the point of this blog entry. Rather, let us read what our Holy Father says. First, the text of his Wednesday audience may be found here:
General Audience Wednesday, August 26, 2009
In this speech Pope Benedict XVI points out the following:
Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where His existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the "final authority," and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.
Our Holy Father goes on to explain this in paragraphs 48 through 52 of his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. In essence, one cannot possibly be an atheist or agnostic humanist AND be environmentally conscious, for to truly be environmentally conscious means that we must recognize God as the Creator Immortal and ourselves as stewards of the gifts He has so freely given us. It is this concept that is lost on the liberal, the humanist, the agnostic, the atheist.
48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.
Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”[115]. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”[116], but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense. This having been said, it is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself. Our nature, constituted not only by matter but also by spirit, and as such, endowed with transcendent meaning and aspirations, is also normative for culture. Human beings interpret and shape the natural environment through culture, which in turn is given direction by the responsible use of freedom, in accordance with the dictates of the moral law. Consequently, projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice, while taking into account a variety of contexts: ecological, juridical, economic, political and cultural[117].
49. Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today need to give due consideration to the energy problem. The fact that some States, power groups and companies hoard non-renewable energy resources represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries. Those countries lack the economic means either to gain access to existing sources of non-renewable energy or to finance research into new alternatives. The stockpiling of natural resources, which in many cases are found in the poor countries themselves, gives rise to exploitation and frequent conflicts between and within nations. These conflicts are often fought on the soil of those same countries, with a heavy toll of death, destruction and further decay. The international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries in the process, in order to plan together for the future.
On this front too, there is a pressing moral need for renewed solidarity, especially in relationships between developing countries and those that are highly industrialized[118]. The technologically advanced societies can and must lower their domestic energy consumption, either through an evolution in manufacturing methods or through greater ecological sensitivity among their citizens. It should be added that at present it is possible to achieve improved energy efficiency while at the same time encouraging research into alternative forms of energy. What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them. The fate of those countries cannot be left in the hands of whoever is first to claim the spoils, or whoever is able to prevail over the rest. Here we are dealing with major issues; if they are to be faced adequately, then everyone must responsibly recognize the impact they will have on future generations, particularly on the many young people in the poorer nations, who “ask to assume their active part in the construction of a better world”[119].
50. This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future generations depleted of its resources. Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world's population. On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature itself — God's gift to his children — and through hard work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it. This means being committed to making joint decisions “after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”[120]. Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet[121]. One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of “efficiency” is not value-free.
51. The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa. This invites contemporary society to a serious review of its life-style, which, in many parts of the world, is prone to hedonism and consumerism, regardless of their harmful consequences[122]. What is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption of new life-styles “in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments”[123]. Every violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment, just as environmental deterioration in turn upsets relations in society. Nature, especially in our time, is so integrated into the dynamics of society and culture that by now it hardly constitutes an independent variable. Desertification and the decline in productivity in some agricultural areas are also the result of impoverishment and underdevelopment among their inhabitants. When incentives are offered for their economic and cultural development, nature itself is protected.
Moreover, how many natural resources are squandered by wars! Peace in and among peoples would also provide greater protection for nature. The hoarding of resources, especially water, can generate serious conflicts among the peoples involved. Peaceful agreement about the use of resources can protect nature and, at the same time, the well-being of the societies concerned.
The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when “human ecology”[124] is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits. Just as human virtues are interrelated, such that the weakening of one places others at risk, so the ecological system is based on respect for a plan that affects both the health of society and its good relationship with nature.
In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.
52. Truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift. Their ultimate source is not, and cannot be, mankind, but only God, who is himself Truth and Love. This principle is extremely important for society and for development, since neither can be a purely human product; the vocation to development on the part of individuals and peoples is not based simply on human choice, but is an intrinsic part of a plan that is prior to us and constitutes for all of us a duty to be freely accepted. That which is prior to us and constitutes us — subsistent Love and Truth — shows us what goodness is, and in what our true happiness consists. It shows us the road to true development.
We are very fortunate to have Pope Benedict XVI as our Holy Father in the Seat of St. Peter. he correctly and courageously points out how the new atheist humanism, while apparently glorifying nature as some sort of goddess Gaia, is actually and instrinsically destructive of the environment over which God gave Adam and Eve stewardship. In professing to care about nature, atheism cares only about its own egotistical aims. This is quite similar to the liberal who professes to care about social justice and the common good, all the while supporting infanticide of the unborn and euthanasia of the elderly and terminally ill. The similarity, however, is not coincidental. There is a strong linkage between atheist humanism and liberalism. But that isn't the point of this blog entry. Rather, let us read what our Holy Father says. First, the text of his Wednesday audience may be found here:
General Audience Wednesday, August 26, 2009
In this speech Pope Benedict XVI points out the following:
Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where His existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the "final authority," and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.
Our Holy Father goes on to explain this in paragraphs 48 through 52 of his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. In essence, one cannot possibly be an atheist or agnostic humanist AND be environmentally conscious, for to truly be environmentally conscious means that we must recognize God as the Creator Immortal and ourselves as stewards of the gifts He has so freely given us. It is this concept that is lost on the liberal, the humanist, the agnostic, the atheist.
48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.
Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”[115]. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”[116], but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense. This having been said, it is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself. Our nature, constituted not only by matter but also by spirit, and as such, endowed with transcendent meaning and aspirations, is also normative for culture. Human beings interpret and shape the natural environment through culture, which in turn is given direction by the responsible use of freedom, in accordance with the dictates of the moral law. Consequently, projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice, while taking into account a variety of contexts: ecological, juridical, economic, political and cultural[117].
49. Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today need to give due consideration to the energy problem. The fact that some States, power groups and companies hoard non-renewable energy resources represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries. Those countries lack the economic means either to gain access to existing sources of non-renewable energy or to finance research into new alternatives. The stockpiling of natural resources, which in many cases are found in the poor countries themselves, gives rise to exploitation and frequent conflicts between and within nations. These conflicts are often fought on the soil of those same countries, with a heavy toll of death, destruction and further decay. The international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries in the process, in order to plan together for the future.
On this front too, there is a pressing moral need for renewed solidarity, especially in relationships between developing countries and those that are highly industrialized[118]. The technologically advanced societies can and must lower their domestic energy consumption, either through an evolution in manufacturing methods or through greater ecological sensitivity among their citizens. It should be added that at present it is possible to achieve improved energy efficiency while at the same time encouraging research into alternative forms of energy. What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them. The fate of those countries cannot be left in the hands of whoever is first to claim the spoils, or whoever is able to prevail over the rest. Here we are dealing with major issues; if they are to be faced adequately, then everyone must responsibly recognize the impact they will have on future generations, particularly on the many young people in the poorer nations, who “ask to assume their active part in the construction of a better world”[119].
50. This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future generations depleted of its resources. Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world's population. On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature itself — God's gift to his children — and through hard work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it. This means being committed to making joint decisions “after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”[120]. Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet[121]. One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of “efficiency” is not value-free.
51. The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa. This invites contemporary society to a serious review of its life-style, which, in many parts of the world, is prone to hedonism and consumerism, regardless of their harmful consequences[122]. What is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption of new life-styles “in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments”[123]. Every violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment, just as environmental deterioration in turn upsets relations in society. Nature, especially in our time, is so integrated into the dynamics of society and culture that by now it hardly constitutes an independent variable. Desertification and the decline in productivity in some agricultural areas are also the result of impoverishment and underdevelopment among their inhabitants. When incentives are offered for their economic and cultural development, nature itself is protected.
Moreover, how many natural resources are squandered by wars! Peace in and among peoples would also provide greater protection for nature. The hoarding of resources, especially water, can generate serious conflicts among the peoples involved. Peaceful agreement about the use of resources can protect nature and, at the same time, the well-being of the societies concerned.
The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when “human ecology”[124] is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits. Just as human virtues are interrelated, such that the weakening of one places others at risk, so the ecological system is based on respect for a plan that affects both the health of society and its good relationship with nature.
In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.
52. Truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift. Their ultimate source is not, and cannot be, mankind, but only God, who is himself Truth and Love. This principle is extremely important for society and for development, since neither can be a purely human product; the vocation to development on the part of individuals and peoples is not based simply on human choice, but is an intrinsic part of a plan that is prior to us and constitutes for all of us a duty to be freely accepted. That which is prior to us and constitutes us — subsistent Love and Truth — shows us what goodness is, and in what our true happiness consists. It shows us the road to true development.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Bishop D'Arcy on Notre Dame
Folks,
Below is the complete article by Bishop D'Arcy on the Notre Dame scandal. No University can honor an anti-christ while calling itself Catholic. It's really that simple.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11840&s=1
The Church and the University
A pastoral reflection on the controversy at Notre Dame
John M. D'Arcy AUGUST 31, 2009
A s summer plays itself out on the beautiful campus by the lake where the young Holy Cross priest, Edward Sorin, C.S.C., pitched his camp 177 years ago and began his great adventure, we must clarify the situation that so sundered the church last spring: What it is all about and what it is not about.
It is not about President Obama. He will do some good things as president and other things with which, as Catholics, we will strongly disagree. It is ever so among presidents, and most political leaders.
It is not about Democrats versus Republicans, nor was it a replay of the recent general election.
It is not about whether it is appropriate for the president of the United States to speak at Notre Dame or any great Catholic university on the pressing issues of the day. This is what universities do. No bishop should try to prevent that.
The response, so intense and widespread, is not about what this journal called “sectarian Catholicism.” Rather, the response of the faithful derives directly from the Gospel. In Matthew’s words, “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify your heavenly Father” (5:13).
Public Witness
Does a Catholic university have the responsibility to give witness to the Catholic faith and to the consequences of that faith by its actions and decisions—especially by a decision to confer its highest honor? If not, what is the meaning of a life of faith? And how can a Catholic institution expect its students to live by faith in the difficult decisions that will confront them in a culture often opposed to the Gospel?
Pope Benedict XVI, himself a former university professor, made his position clear when he spoke to Catholic educators in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2008:
Teachers and administrators, whether in universities or schools, have the duty and privilege to ensure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice. This requires that public witness to the way of Christ, as found in the Gospel and upheld by the Church’s magisterium, shapes all aspects of an institution’s life, both inside and outside the classroom.
In its decision to give its highest honor to a president who has repeatedly opposed even the smallest legal protection of the child in the womb, did Notre Dame surrender the responsibility that Pope Benedict believes Catholic universities have to give public witness to the truths revealed by God and taught by the church?
Another serious question of witness and moral responsibility before the Notre Dame administration concerns its sponsorship over several years of a sad and immoral play, offensive to the dignity of women, which many call pornographic, and which an increasing number of Catholic universities have cancelled, “The Vagina Monologues,” by Eve Ensler.
Although he spoke eloquently about the importance of dialogue with the president of the United States, the president of Notre Dame chose not to dialogue with his bishop on these two matters, both pastoral and both with serious ramifications for the care of souls, which is the core responsibility of the local bishop. Both decisions were shared with me after they were made and, in the case of the honorary degree, after President Obama had accepted. For the past 24 years, it has been my privilege to serve as the bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. During this time, I have never interfered in the internal governance of Notre Dame or any other institution of higher learning within the diocese. However, as the teacher and shepherd in this diocese, it is my responsibility to encourage all institutions, including our beloved University of Notre Dame, to give public witness to the fullness of Catholic faith. The diocesan bishop must ask whether a Catholic institution compromises its obligation to give public witness by placing prestige over truth. The bishop must be concerned that Catholic institutions do not succumb to the secular culture, making decisions that appear to many, including ordinary Catholics, as a surrender to a culture opposed to the truth about life and love.
The Local Bishop
The failure to dialogue with the bishop brings a second series of questions. What is the relationship of the Catholic university to the local bishop? No relationship? Someone who occasionally offers Mass on campus? Someone who sits on the platform at graduation? Or is the bishop the teacher in the diocese, responsible for souls, including the souls of students—in this case, the students at Notre Dame? Does the responsibility of the bishop to teach, to govern and to sanctify end at the gate of the university? In the spirit of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which places the primary responsibility on the institution, I am proposing these questions for the university.
Prof. John Cavadini has addressed the questions about the relationship of the university and the bishop in an especially insightful manner. He is chair of the theology department and an expert on the early church, with a special interest in St. Augustine. His remarks were a response to Father Jenkins’s rationale for presenting the play mentioned above.
The statement of our President [Father Jenkins] barely mentions the Church. It is as though the mere mention of a relationship with the Church has become so alien to our ways of thinking and so offensive to our quest for a disembodied “excellence” that it has become impolite to mention it at all. There is no Catholic identity apart from the affiliation with the Church. And again, I do not mean an imaginary Church we sometimes might wish existed, but the concrete, visible communion of “hierarchic and charismatic gifts,” “at once holy and always in need of purification,” in which “each bishop represents his own church and all of [the bishops] together with the Pope represent the whole Church...” (Lumen Gentium, Nos. 4, 8, 23).
The ancient Gnostic heresy developed an elitist intellectual tradition which eschewed connection to the “fleshly” church of the bishop and devalued or spiritualized the sacraments. Are we in danger of developing a gnosticized version of the “Catholic intellectual tradition,” one which floats free of any norming connection and so free of any concrete claim to Catholic identity?
The full letter can be found on the Web site of the Notre Dame student newspaper, The Observer: www.ndsmcobserver.com.
It has been a great privilege and a source of joy to be associated with Notre Dame in the past 24 years as bishop. In so many ways, it is a splendid place. Part of this is because of the exemplary young men and women who come there from throughout the country. It is also because of its great spiritual traditions. The lines of young people preparing to receive the sacrament of reconciliation at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the Masses in the residence halls, the prayerful liturgy at the basilica and the service of so many young people before and after graduation in Catholic education and catechetics, and in service to the poor in this country and overseas, is a credit to the university and a source of great hope. The theology department has grown in academic excellence over the years, strengthened by the successful recruiting of professors outstanding in scholarship, in their knowledge of the tradition and in their own living of the Catholic faith. This growth is well known to Pope Benedict XVI. It is notable that a vast majority has been willing to seek and accept the mandatum from the local bishop.
Developments on Campus
Yet the questions about the relationship of the university as a whole to the church still stand, and what happened on campus leading up to and during the graduation is significant for the present debate about Catholic higher education. I released a statement on Good Friday, asking the Catholic people and others of good will not to attend demonstrations by those who had come avowedly to “create a circus.” I referred to appropriate and acceptable responses within the Notre Dame community led by students. Titled “ND Response,” and drawing a significant number of professors, these responses were marked by prayer and church teaching, and they were orderly.
This journal and others in the media, Catholic and secular, reporting from afar, failed to make a distinction between the extremists on the one hand, and students and those who joined them in the last 48 hours before graduation. This latter group responded with prayer and substantive disagreement. They cooperated with university authorities.
In this time of crisis at the university, these students and professors, with the instinct of faith, turned to the bishop for guidance, encouragement and prayer. This had nothing to do with John Michael D’Arcy. It was related to their understanding of the episcopal office—a place you should be able to count on for the truth, as Irenaeus contended in the second century when he encountered the Gnostics.
I attended the Baccalaureate Mass the day before graduation, for the 25th time, speaking after holy Communion, as I always do. Then I led an evening rosary at the Grotto with students, adults and a number of professors. We then went to a chapel on campus. It was packed for a whole night of prayer and eucharistic adoration.
It was my intention not to be on campus during graduation day. I had so informed Father Jenkins and the student leadership, with whom I was in touch nearly every day. This is the kind of deference and respect I have shown to the Notre Dame administration, to three Notre Dame presidents, over the years. I found it an increasingly sad time, and I was convinced that there were no winners, but I was wrong.
As graduation drew near, I knew I should be with the students. It was only right that the bishop be with them, for they were on the side of truth, and their demonstration was disciplined, rooted in prayer and substantive. I told the pro-life rally, several thousand people on a lovely May day, that they were the true heroes. Despite the personal costs to themselves and their families, they chose to give public witness to the Catholic faith contrary to the example of a powerful, international university, against which they were respectfully but firmly in disagreement. Among those in attendance were many who work daily at crisis pregnancy centers on behalf of life.
The Silent Board
In the midst of the crisis at Notre Dame, the board of trustees came to campus in April for their long-scheduled spring meeting. They said nothing. When the meeting was completed, they made no statement and gave no advice. In an age when transparency is urged as a way of life on and off campus, they chose not to enter the conversation going on all around them and shaking the university to its roots. We learned nothing about their discussions.
I firmly believe that the board of trustees must take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer. They also must understand the seriousness of the present moment. This requires spiritual and intellectual formation on the part of the men and women of industry, business and technology who make up the majority of the board. Financial generosity is no longer sufficient for membership on the boards of great universities, if indeed it ever was. The responsibility of university boards is great, and decisions must not be made by a few. Like bishops, they are asked to leave politics and ambition at the door, and make serious decisions before God. In the case of Notre Dame, they owe it to the Congregation of Holy Cross, which has turned this magnificent place over to a predominately lay board; they owe it to the students who have not yet come; they owe it to the intrepid missionary priest, Edward Sorin, C.S.C., and the Holy Cross religious who built this magnificent place out of the wilderness. They owe it to Mary, the Mother of God, who has always been honored here. Let us pray that they will take this responsibility with greater seriousness and in a truly Catholic spirit.
Critical Questions
As bishops, we must be teachers and pastors. In that spirit, I would respectfully put these questions to the Catholic universities in the diocese I serve and to other Catholic universities.
Do you consider it a responsibility in your public statements, in your life as a university and in your actions, including your public awards, to give witness to the Catholic faith in all its fullness?
What is your relationship to the church and, specifically, to the local bishop and his pastoral authority as defined by the Second Vatican Council?
Finally, a more fundamental question: Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae? The first comes from a frantic time, with finances as the driving force. Its understanding of freedom is defensive, absolutist and narrow. It never mentions Christ and barely mentions the truth. The second text, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, speaks constantly of truth and the pursuit of truth. It speaks of freedom in the broader, Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, as linked to the common good, to the rights of others and always subject to truth. Unlike Land O’Lakes, it is communal, reflective of the developments since Vatican II, and it speaks with a language enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
On these three questions, I respectfully submit, rests the future of Catholic higher education in this country and so much else.
For more on President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame see America's archive on the controversy.
Most Rev. John M. D’Arcy is the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., in which the University of Notre Dame is located.
Below is the complete article by Bishop D'Arcy on the Notre Dame scandal. No University can honor an anti-christ while calling itself Catholic. It's really that simple.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11840&s=1
The Church and the University
A pastoral reflection on the controversy at Notre Dame
John M. D'Arcy AUGUST 31, 2009
A s summer plays itself out on the beautiful campus by the lake where the young Holy Cross priest, Edward Sorin, C.S.C., pitched his camp 177 years ago and began his great adventure, we must clarify the situation that so sundered the church last spring: What it is all about and what it is not about.
It is not about President Obama. He will do some good things as president and other things with which, as Catholics, we will strongly disagree. It is ever so among presidents, and most political leaders.
It is not about Democrats versus Republicans, nor was it a replay of the recent general election.
It is not about whether it is appropriate for the president of the United States to speak at Notre Dame or any great Catholic university on the pressing issues of the day. This is what universities do. No bishop should try to prevent that.
The response, so intense and widespread, is not about what this journal called “sectarian Catholicism.” Rather, the response of the faithful derives directly from the Gospel. In Matthew’s words, “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify your heavenly Father” (5:13).
Public Witness
Does a Catholic university have the responsibility to give witness to the Catholic faith and to the consequences of that faith by its actions and decisions—especially by a decision to confer its highest honor? If not, what is the meaning of a life of faith? And how can a Catholic institution expect its students to live by faith in the difficult decisions that will confront them in a culture often opposed to the Gospel?
Pope Benedict XVI, himself a former university professor, made his position clear when he spoke to Catholic educators in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2008:
Teachers and administrators, whether in universities or schools, have the duty and privilege to ensure that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice. This requires that public witness to the way of Christ, as found in the Gospel and upheld by the Church’s magisterium, shapes all aspects of an institution’s life, both inside and outside the classroom.
In its decision to give its highest honor to a president who has repeatedly opposed even the smallest legal protection of the child in the womb, did Notre Dame surrender the responsibility that Pope Benedict believes Catholic universities have to give public witness to the truths revealed by God and taught by the church?
Another serious question of witness and moral responsibility before the Notre Dame administration concerns its sponsorship over several years of a sad and immoral play, offensive to the dignity of women, which many call pornographic, and which an increasing number of Catholic universities have cancelled, “The Vagina Monologues,” by Eve Ensler.
Although he spoke eloquently about the importance of dialogue with the president of the United States, the president of Notre Dame chose not to dialogue with his bishop on these two matters, both pastoral and both with serious ramifications for the care of souls, which is the core responsibility of the local bishop. Both decisions were shared with me after they were made and, in the case of the honorary degree, after President Obama had accepted. For the past 24 years, it has been my privilege to serve as the bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. During this time, I have never interfered in the internal governance of Notre Dame or any other institution of higher learning within the diocese. However, as the teacher and shepherd in this diocese, it is my responsibility to encourage all institutions, including our beloved University of Notre Dame, to give public witness to the fullness of Catholic faith. The diocesan bishop must ask whether a Catholic institution compromises its obligation to give public witness by placing prestige over truth. The bishop must be concerned that Catholic institutions do not succumb to the secular culture, making decisions that appear to many, including ordinary Catholics, as a surrender to a culture opposed to the truth about life and love.
The Local Bishop
The failure to dialogue with the bishop brings a second series of questions. What is the relationship of the Catholic university to the local bishop? No relationship? Someone who occasionally offers Mass on campus? Someone who sits on the platform at graduation? Or is the bishop the teacher in the diocese, responsible for souls, including the souls of students—in this case, the students at Notre Dame? Does the responsibility of the bishop to teach, to govern and to sanctify end at the gate of the university? In the spirit of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which places the primary responsibility on the institution, I am proposing these questions for the university.
Prof. John Cavadini has addressed the questions about the relationship of the university and the bishop in an especially insightful manner. He is chair of the theology department and an expert on the early church, with a special interest in St. Augustine. His remarks were a response to Father Jenkins’s rationale for presenting the play mentioned above.
The statement of our President [Father Jenkins] barely mentions the Church. It is as though the mere mention of a relationship with the Church has become so alien to our ways of thinking and so offensive to our quest for a disembodied “excellence” that it has become impolite to mention it at all. There is no Catholic identity apart from the affiliation with the Church. And again, I do not mean an imaginary Church we sometimes might wish existed, but the concrete, visible communion of “hierarchic and charismatic gifts,” “at once holy and always in need of purification,” in which “each bishop represents his own church and all of [the bishops] together with the Pope represent the whole Church...” (Lumen Gentium, Nos. 4, 8, 23).
The ancient Gnostic heresy developed an elitist intellectual tradition which eschewed connection to the “fleshly” church of the bishop and devalued or spiritualized the sacraments. Are we in danger of developing a gnosticized version of the “Catholic intellectual tradition,” one which floats free of any norming connection and so free of any concrete claim to Catholic identity?
The full letter can be found on the Web site of the Notre Dame student newspaper, The Observer: www.ndsmcobserver.com.
It has been a great privilege and a source of joy to be associated with Notre Dame in the past 24 years as bishop. In so many ways, it is a splendid place. Part of this is because of the exemplary young men and women who come there from throughout the country. It is also because of its great spiritual traditions. The lines of young people preparing to receive the sacrament of reconciliation at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the Masses in the residence halls, the prayerful liturgy at the basilica and the service of so many young people before and after graduation in Catholic education and catechetics, and in service to the poor in this country and overseas, is a credit to the university and a source of great hope. The theology department has grown in academic excellence over the years, strengthened by the successful recruiting of professors outstanding in scholarship, in their knowledge of the tradition and in their own living of the Catholic faith. This growth is well known to Pope Benedict XVI. It is notable that a vast majority has been willing to seek and accept the mandatum from the local bishop.
Developments on Campus
Yet the questions about the relationship of the university as a whole to the church still stand, and what happened on campus leading up to and during the graduation is significant for the present debate about Catholic higher education. I released a statement on Good Friday, asking the Catholic people and others of good will not to attend demonstrations by those who had come avowedly to “create a circus.” I referred to appropriate and acceptable responses within the Notre Dame community led by students. Titled “ND Response,” and drawing a significant number of professors, these responses were marked by prayer and church teaching, and they were orderly.
This journal and others in the media, Catholic and secular, reporting from afar, failed to make a distinction between the extremists on the one hand, and students and those who joined them in the last 48 hours before graduation. This latter group responded with prayer and substantive disagreement. They cooperated with university authorities.
In this time of crisis at the university, these students and professors, with the instinct of faith, turned to the bishop for guidance, encouragement and prayer. This had nothing to do with John Michael D’Arcy. It was related to their understanding of the episcopal office—a place you should be able to count on for the truth, as Irenaeus contended in the second century when he encountered the Gnostics.
I attended the Baccalaureate Mass the day before graduation, for the 25th time, speaking after holy Communion, as I always do. Then I led an evening rosary at the Grotto with students, adults and a number of professors. We then went to a chapel on campus. It was packed for a whole night of prayer and eucharistic adoration.
It was my intention not to be on campus during graduation day. I had so informed Father Jenkins and the student leadership, with whom I was in touch nearly every day. This is the kind of deference and respect I have shown to the Notre Dame administration, to three Notre Dame presidents, over the years. I found it an increasingly sad time, and I was convinced that there were no winners, but I was wrong.
As graduation drew near, I knew I should be with the students. It was only right that the bishop be with them, for they were on the side of truth, and their demonstration was disciplined, rooted in prayer and substantive. I told the pro-life rally, several thousand people on a lovely May day, that they were the true heroes. Despite the personal costs to themselves and their families, they chose to give public witness to the Catholic faith contrary to the example of a powerful, international university, against which they were respectfully but firmly in disagreement. Among those in attendance were many who work daily at crisis pregnancy centers on behalf of life.
The Silent Board
In the midst of the crisis at Notre Dame, the board of trustees came to campus in April for their long-scheduled spring meeting. They said nothing. When the meeting was completed, they made no statement and gave no advice. In an age when transparency is urged as a way of life on and off campus, they chose not to enter the conversation going on all around them and shaking the university to its roots. We learned nothing about their discussions.
I firmly believe that the board of trustees must take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer. They also must understand the seriousness of the present moment. This requires spiritual and intellectual formation on the part of the men and women of industry, business and technology who make up the majority of the board. Financial generosity is no longer sufficient for membership on the boards of great universities, if indeed it ever was. The responsibility of university boards is great, and decisions must not be made by a few. Like bishops, they are asked to leave politics and ambition at the door, and make serious decisions before God. In the case of Notre Dame, they owe it to the Congregation of Holy Cross, which has turned this magnificent place over to a predominately lay board; they owe it to the students who have not yet come; they owe it to the intrepid missionary priest, Edward Sorin, C.S.C., and the Holy Cross religious who built this magnificent place out of the wilderness. They owe it to Mary, the Mother of God, who has always been honored here. Let us pray that they will take this responsibility with greater seriousness and in a truly Catholic spirit.
Critical Questions
As bishops, we must be teachers and pastors. In that spirit, I would respectfully put these questions to the Catholic universities in the diocese I serve and to other Catholic universities.
Do you consider it a responsibility in your public statements, in your life as a university and in your actions, including your public awards, to give witness to the Catholic faith in all its fullness?
What is your relationship to the church and, specifically, to the local bishop and his pastoral authority as defined by the Second Vatican Council?
Finally, a more fundamental question: Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae? The first comes from a frantic time, with finances as the driving force. Its understanding of freedom is defensive, absolutist and narrow. It never mentions Christ and barely mentions the truth. The second text, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, speaks constantly of truth and the pursuit of truth. It speaks of freedom in the broader, Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, as linked to the common good, to the rights of others and always subject to truth. Unlike Land O’Lakes, it is communal, reflective of the developments since Vatican II, and it speaks with a language enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
On these three questions, I respectfully submit, rests the future of Catholic higher education in this country and so much else.
For more on President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame see America's archive on the controversy.
Most Rev. John M. D’Arcy is the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., in which the University of Notre Dame is located.
Senator Ted Kennedy - Requiescat in Pace
Folks,
As many of you have learned by now, Senator Kennedy has passed away:
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy dies at age 77
One day each of us will follow him to stand before our Creator and God. Therefore, pray for the repose of his soul and for the consolation of his family whatever your political preferences may be.
Requiescat in Pace.
As many of you have learned by now, Senator Kennedy has passed away:
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy dies at age 77
One day each of us will follow him to stand before our Creator and God. Therefore, pray for the repose of his soul and for the consolation of his family whatever your political preferences may be.
Requiescat in Pace.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A Brief Review of Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism
Folks,
The Cranky Conservative blogsite has an excellent review - however brief - of Ayn Rand's seminal work, Atlas Shrugged, and the Objectivist philosophy to which it gave rise:
A (brief) review of Atlas Shrugged (Updated x2)
The following three paragraphs describe what's wrong with Objectivism:
The atheism is only a small part of the issue with objectivism. Galt (and thus Rand’s) objection to the concept of original sin is naive, but even absent this aspect of objectivism, it remains a dehumanizing and abhorrent moral philosophy. Rand detests totalitarianism, it is true, but other writers have written better and less repugnant works in defense of capitalism and against totalitarianism. If libertarians and conservatives wish to seek out inspirational works on the topic, they are better off with the likes of George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Sowell, Wilhelm Roepke, F.A. Hayek and countless others.
The fundamental problem is that Rand is as naive about human nature as the socialist utopians. After all, a utopian is a utopian, whether they are Marxian or Randian utopians. Therefore the rejection of the concept of original sin is something of a problem because it blinds Rand to the idea that human beings cannot simply shut off their passionate desires. If totalitarians are blind to the reality that human nature cannot be perfected, Rand is blind to the fact that the altruistic tendencies of humans cannot similarly be wiped out. Believe it or not, we are social beings (Aristotle and Aquinas being right), and it is simply unrealistic - and Rand is supposed to be about reason and realism - to expect humans to simply ignore these aspects of their personality.
It is as if Rand desired to turn Rousseau on his head. I expected her to write at some point that the “man who feels is a depraved animal.” Where Rousseau and his followers glorified the passions, the Randians put reason above all else. Neither seems to understand that humans are reasonable and passionate animals, and to deny either aspect of their natures is to reject human nature altogether.
Humans are NOT unemotional, completely logical beings from the planet Vulcan. As the essay correctly points out, we are inherently capable of both reason and passion, and altruism is a virtue that ensures the long-term survival of the species. I have often wondered if Ayn Rand's failure to understand this might have been because she was never a mother?
P.S., Other than that, I love Objectivism. ;-)
The Cranky Conservative blogsite has an excellent review - however brief - of Ayn Rand's seminal work, Atlas Shrugged, and the Objectivist philosophy to which it gave rise:
A (brief) review of Atlas Shrugged (Updated x2)
The following three paragraphs describe what's wrong with Objectivism:
The atheism is only a small part of the issue with objectivism. Galt (and thus Rand’s) objection to the concept of original sin is naive, but even absent this aspect of objectivism, it remains a dehumanizing and abhorrent moral philosophy. Rand detests totalitarianism, it is true, but other writers have written better and less repugnant works in defense of capitalism and against totalitarianism. If libertarians and conservatives wish to seek out inspirational works on the topic, they are better off with the likes of George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Sowell, Wilhelm Roepke, F.A. Hayek and countless others.
The fundamental problem is that Rand is as naive about human nature as the socialist utopians. After all, a utopian is a utopian, whether they are Marxian or Randian utopians. Therefore the rejection of the concept of original sin is something of a problem because it blinds Rand to the idea that human beings cannot simply shut off their passionate desires. If totalitarians are blind to the reality that human nature cannot be perfected, Rand is blind to the fact that the altruistic tendencies of humans cannot similarly be wiped out. Believe it or not, we are social beings (Aristotle and Aquinas being right), and it is simply unrealistic - and Rand is supposed to be about reason and realism - to expect humans to simply ignore these aspects of their personality.
It is as if Rand desired to turn Rousseau on his head. I expected her to write at some point that the “man who feels is a depraved animal.” Where Rousseau and his followers glorified the passions, the Randians put reason above all else. Neither seems to understand that humans are reasonable and passionate animals, and to deny either aspect of their natures is to reject human nature altogether.
Humans are NOT unemotional, completely logical beings from the planet Vulcan. As the essay correctly points out, we are inherently capable of both reason and passion, and altruism is a virtue that ensures the long-term survival of the species. I have often wondered if Ayn Rand's failure to understand this might have been because she was never a mother?
P.S., Other than that, I love Objectivism. ;-)
Obama's Checklist for the End of Your Life
Folks,
Obama's checklist for how you should determine whether or not your life is worth living is now being given to veterans. It's on page 21 at this web link:
http://www.rihlp.org/pubs/Your_life_your_choices.pdf
More information is available here:
Who Needs Death Panels? Just Use Government's VA Checklist.
Maximillen Robespierre, Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler would all be proud of their spiritual offspring, Barack Hussein Obama.
Obama's checklist for how you should determine whether or not your life is worth living is now being given to veterans. It's on page 21 at this web link:
http://www.rihlp.org/pubs/Your_life_your_choices.pdf
More information is available here:
Who Needs Death Panels? Just Use Government's VA Checklist.
Maximillen Robespierre, Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler would all be proud of their spiritual offspring, Barack Hussein Obama.
Why Do I Distrust Liberals with “the Button”?
Why do I distrust liberals with the button that can initiate nuclear Armageddon. The answer is actually very simple: because liberals do NOT care about the lives of the most innocent, most helpless members of society. They call:
(1) The forced eviction of an unborn baby from his first home “the right to choose”.
(2) Fatal experimentation on unborn babies “embryonic stem cell research”.
(3) Denial of medical care to the terminally ill or brain dead “death with dignity”.
(4) Forced suicide of the elderly or the incapacitated wounded “compassion”.
They are one and all without honor, without a sense of either justice or virtue, and without a shred of human decency.
Now when a person like Sarah Palin comes along, giving birth and caring for with maternal love a baby having Down’s Syndrome, I see what a real heroine is like. I see the kind of person whom I want to run this great Republic. And when I see the liberal left – the culture of death – rising up in vilification, ridicule and condemnation of her, I begin to see that my choice in supporting her is wise, correct and right.
I am sick of making excuse for the conservative right. We all realize that the initiation of force in Iraq was wrong and President Bush’s decision to preemptively invade a bad one. BUT President Bush believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. His motives were honorable, however bad his decision has proven to be. President Bush opposed abortion and embryonic stem cell research. President Bush would have also opposed suicide counseling for senior citizens or the terminally ill. And President Bush felt the death of every soldier in the field of combat personally. More than once he wept with soldiers and parents alike. Not one tear, however, has issued forth from the eyes of Obamolech.
It’s time for people to see evil as it is. As Benjamin Netanyahu told the US Congress after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, we must have clarity of vision or else we are doomed. We in this 21st century are in a three-way struggle between atheist humanism, Islamic fascism and Christendom just as we were in a three way struggle in the 1500s between the Protestant heresies, the Islamic Ottoman invasion into Europe and the Holy Catholic Church. Thanks be to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Islamic invasion was turned back at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and the spread of heresy countered with the Council of Trent. Jesus Christ won the battle then and He will win now.
The question is this, however: how many more babies and elderly and terminally ill will we allow Obamolech and the liberals to sacrifice to their god Satan before it stops?
I do NOT trust Obama or any liberal with his finger on the button. I never have and I never will.
(1) The forced eviction of an unborn baby from his first home “the right to choose”.
(2) Fatal experimentation on unborn babies “embryonic stem cell research”.
(3) Denial of medical care to the terminally ill or brain dead “death with dignity”.
(4) Forced suicide of the elderly or the incapacitated wounded “compassion”.
They are one and all without honor, without a sense of either justice or virtue, and without a shred of human decency.
Now when a person like Sarah Palin comes along, giving birth and caring for with maternal love a baby having Down’s Syndrome, I see what a real heroine is like. I see the kind of person whom I want to run this great Republic. And when I see the liberal left – the culture of death – rising up in vilification, ridicule and condemnation of her, I begin to see that my choice in supporting her is wise, correct and right.
I am sick of making excuse for the conservative right. We all realize that the initiation of force in Iraq was wrong and President Bush’s decision to preemptively invade a bad one. BUT President Bush believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. His motives were honorable, however bad his decision has proven to be. President Bush opposed abortion and embryonic stem cell research. President Bush would have also opposed suicide counseling for senior citizens or the terminally ill. And President Bush felt the death of every soldier in the field of combat personally. More than once he wept with soldiers and parents alike. Not one tear, however, has issued forth from the eyes of Obamolech.
It’s time for people to see evil as it is. As Benjamin Netanyahu told the US Congress after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, we must have clarity of vision or else we are doomed. We in this 21st century are in a three-way struggle between atheist humanism, Islamic fascism and Christendom just as we were in a three way struggle in the 1500s between the Protestant heresies, the Islamic Ottoman invasion into Europe and the Holy Catholic Church. Thanks be to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Islamic invasion was turned back at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and the spread of heresy countered with the Council of Trent. Jesus Christ won the battle then and He will win now.
The question is this, however: how many more babies and elderly and terminally ill will we allow Obamolech and the liberals to sacrifice to their god Satan before it stops?
I do NOT trust Obama or any liberal with his finger on the button. I never have and I never will.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Changes to the Roman Missal
Folks,
Changes to the Roman Missal may be found here:
Examples of Changes
Information about the new edition of the Roman Missal may be found here:
Third Edition of the Roman Missal
The intent of these changes is to more closely adhere to the original Latin. Having studied Latin for four years some number of decades ago, I still retain some ability in the language, however inadequate. The current English Roman Missal is rather liberal in some of its translation of the Missale Romanum in Lingua Latina. The new one now coming out promises to be better.
P.S., Personally, I think we should go back to teaching Latin and New Testament Greek in schools everywhere and then return to the old way of doing things, but sadly, some call this sentiment too reactionary. I truly don't understand what the problem is. If Koine Greek was good enough for the Apostle Paul and Vulgate Latin for St. Jerome, then what's my problem?
I know, I know - I'm baaaddd, very bad! ;-)
Changes to the Roman Missal may be found here:
Examples of Changes
Information about the new edition of the Roman Missal may be found here:
Third Edition of the Roman Missal
The intent of these changes is to more closely adhere to the original Latin. Having studied Latin for four years some number of decades ago, I still retain some ability in the language, however inadequate. The current English Roman Missal is rather liberal in some of its translation of the Missale Romanum in Lingua Latina. The new one now coming out promises to be better.
P.S., Personally, I think we should go back to teaching Latin and New Testament Greek in schools everywhere and then return to the old way of doing things, but sadly, some call this sentiment too reactionary. I truly don't understand what the problem is. If Koine Greek was good enough for the Apostle Paul and Vulgate Latin for St. Jerome, then what's my problem?
I know, I know - I'm baaaddd, very bad! ;-)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Today's Liturgy of the Hours Readings
Folks,
Today's readings from the Liturgy of the Hours are so appropos. The Scripture selection was from Zephaniah 1:1 though 2:3, the meditation reading from Gaudium et Spes. Zephaniah 1:17 through 2:3 struck me particularly:
I will hem men in till they walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD; And their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their brains like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to save them on the day of the LORD'S wrath, When in the fire of his jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For he shall make an end, yes, a sudden end, of all who live on the earth. Gather, gather yourselves together, O nation without shame! Before you are driven away, like chaff that passes on; Before there comes upon you the blazing anger of the LORD: Before there comes upon you the day of the LORD'S anger. Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth, who have observed his law; Seek justice, seek humility; perhaps you may be sheltered on the day of the LORD'S anger.
And if as the Prophet exhorts we seek justice and humility, then the promise of section 39 in Gaudium et Spes will be fulfilled:
We do not know the time for the consummation of the earth and of humanity, nor do we know how all things will be transformed. As deformed by sin, the shape of this world will pass away; but we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart. Then, with death overcome, the sons of God will be raised up in Christ, and what was sown in weakness and corruption will be invested with incorruptibility. Enduring with charity and its fruits, all that creation which God made on man's account will be unchained from the bondage of vanity.
Therefore, while we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose himself, the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age.
Hence, while earthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ's kingdom, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the Kingdom of God.
For after we have obeyed the Lord, and in His Spirit nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished and transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father: "a kingdom eternal and universal, a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace." On this earth that Kingdom is already present in mystery. When the Lord returns it will be brought into full flower.
Today's readings from the Liturgy of the Hours are so appropos. The Scripture selection was from Zephaniah 1:1 though 2:3, the meditation reading from Gaudium et Spes. Zephaniah 1:17 through 2:3 struck me particularly:
I will hem men in till they walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD; And their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their brains like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to save them on the day of the LORD'S wrath, When in the fire of his jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For he shall make an end, yes, a sudden end, of all who live on the earth. Gather, gather yourselves together, O nation without shame! Before you are driven away, like chaff that passes on; Before there comes upon you the blazing anger of the LORD: Before there comes upon you the day of the LORD'S anger. Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth, who have observed his law; Seek justice, seek humility; perhaps you may be sheltered on the day of the LORD'S anger.
And if as the Prophet exhorts we seek justice and humility, then the promise of section 39 in Gaudium et Spes will be fulfilled:
We do not know the time for the consummation of the earth and of humanity, nor do we know how all things will be transformed. As deformed by sin, the shape of this world will pass away; but we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart. Then, with death overcome, the sons of God will be raised up in Christ, and what was sown in weakness and corruption will be invested with incorruptibility. Enduring with charity and its fruits, all that creation which God made on man's account will be unchained from the bondage of vanity.
Therefore, while we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose himself, the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age.
Hence, while earthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ's kingdom, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the Kingdom of God.
For after we have obeyed the Lord, and in His Spirit nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished and transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father: "a kingdom eternal and universal, a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace." On this earth that Kingdom is already present in mystery. When the Lord returns it will be brought into full flower.
Another Timely Plato Quote
Folks,
Here is another timely quote from the Greek Philosopher Plato:
The greatest penalty of evildoing - namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.
He who occupies the Oval Office has grown and is growing in the likeness of Maximillen Robespierre.
Here is another timely quote from the Greek Philosopher Plato:
The greatest penalty of evildoing - namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.
He who occupies the Oval Office has grown and is growing in the likeness of Maximillen Robespierre.
God's Partners in Life and Death
Folks,
The Wall Street Journal Online (a reputable publication) has an article entitled, "Obama & God LLP". In it Barack Hussein Obama is quoted as having said to a group of Rabbis when trying to convince them to support Obamacare:
We are God's partners in matters of life and death.
We are seeing the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Daniel 11:36 says:
The king shall do as he pleases, exalting himself and making himself greater than any god; he shall utter dreadful blasphemies against the God of gods. He shall prosper only till divine wrath is ready, for what is determined must take place.
Soon Matthew 24:15-16 will be fulfilled:
When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains...
But the Spirit of Jesus Christ will defeat the spirit of Maximillen Robespierre, as Revelation 19:20 states:
The beast was caught and with it the false prophet who had performed in its sight the signs by which he led astray those who had accepted the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped its image. The two were thrown alive into the fiery pool burning with sulfur.
Omnis Laus et Gloria Nostro Domino Iesui Christo!
The Wall Street Journal Online (a reputable publication) has an article entitled, "Obama & God LLP". In it Barack Hussein Obama is quoted as having said to a group of Rabbis when trying to convince them to support Obamacare:
We are God's partners in matters of life and death.
We are seeing the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Daniel 11:36 says:
The king shall do as he pleases, exalting himself and making himself greater than any god; he shall utter dreadful blasphemies against the God of gods. He shall prosper only till divine wrath is ready, for what is determined must take place.
Soon Matthew 24:15-16 will be fulfilled:
When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains...
But the Spirit of Jesus Christ will defeat the spirit of Maximillen Robespierre, as Revelation 19:20 states:
The beast was caught and with it the false prophet who had performed in its sight the signs by which he led astray those who had accepted the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped its image. The two were thrown alive into the fiery pool burning with sulfur.
Omnis Laus et Gloria Nostro Domino Iesui Christo!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Our Clergy
Folks,
In two previous posts I have dealt with the subject of criticizing the Lord's Anointed in a public forum:
The Lord's Anointed
The Lord's Anointed - Again
Sadly, an unnamed incident such as this has generated much consternation at a church that I know about (and just to confuse the reader, I go to Catholic, CEC and Pentecostal churches from time to time, so the applicable church is irrelevant). Indeed, details do NOT matter. Furthermore, whether I agree or disagree with criticism itself or the object of that criticism does not matter. What matters is this: it is simply wrong (i.e., unethical, immoral and sinful) to lay one's hands on the Lord's Anointed.
Yes, there have been clergymen with whom some of us have disagreed from time to time, but (as has been previously pointed out) using Facebook, or Google blogsite or a Yahoo message board forum to vilify, ridicule and otherwise condemn a priest by name or pseudonym is always and everywhere wrong. Furthermore, it does NOT matter if that clergyman is a Catholic priest, a Charismatic Episcopal priest or a Pentecostal minister. That person is still the Lord's Anointed.
We need to remember the example of Caiaphas the High Priest. In John 11:49-53, he advised the Sandhedrin that it was better for one man to die (i.e., Jesus) than the whole nation, and Sacred Scripture states that he said this not on his own but because he was High Priest that year. Yes, Caiaphas was an enemy of Jesus, but even so, as High Priest he still prophesied as the Spirit gave him the ability.
The point in all this is that maybe a priest or minister IS in the wrong; he is still God's Anointed and it still isn't up to us (the laity) to publicly drag his failings out behind his back. It is absolutely deplorable that someone has done this at any church, and it is at least an equivalent scandal to the accusation itself, and utterly shameful.
In two previous posts I have dealt with the subject of criticizing the Lord's Anointed in a public forum:
The Lord's Anointed
The Lord's Anointed - Again
Sadly, an unnamed incident such as this has generated much consternation at a church that I know about (and just to confuse the reader, I go to Catholic, CEC and Pentecostal churches from time to time, so the applicable church is irrelevant). Indeed, details do NOT matter. Furthermore, whether I agree or disagree with criticism itself or the object of that criticism does not matter. What matters is this: it is simply wrong (i.e., unethical, immoral and sinful) to lay one's hands on the Lord's Anointed.
Yes, there have been clergymen with whom some of us have disagreed from time to time, but (as has been previously pointed out) using Facebook, or Google blogsite or a Yahoo message board forum to vilify, ridicule and otherwise condemn a priest by name or pseudonym is always and everywhere wrong. Furthermore, it does NOT matter if that clergyman is a Catholic priest, a Charismatic Episcopal priest or a Pentecostal minister. That person is still the Lord's Anointed.
We need to remember the example of Caiaphas the High Priest. In John 11:49-53, he advised the Sandhedrin that it was better for one man to die (i.e., Jesus) than the whole nation, and Sacred Scripture states that he said this not on his own but because he was High Priest that year. Yes, Caiaphas was an enemy of Jesus, but even so, as High Priest he still prophesied as the Spirit gave him the ability.
The point in all this is that maybe a priest or minister IS in the wrong; he is still God's Anointed and it still isn't up to us (the laity) to publicly drag his failings out behind his back. It is absolutely deplorable that someone has done this at any church, and it is at least an equivalent scandal to the accusation itself, and utterly shameful.
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