Blessed July 4th!

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." 

- Thomas Jefferson,  The Declaration of Independence. 

Our Founders paid the heavy price of freedom. See here.

The Dictator Pope bans the unvaccinated faithful from the Vatican

 Francis is denying the unvaccinated access to the Vatican.   See here.  This is the same Francis who previously said that freedom of conscience must "always and everywhere" be respected.  See here.

In any case, for your consideration:

Father Frank Pavone on the stolen election

 Open Letter from Father Frank Pavone:

A Letter to My Fellow American Citizens

December 22, 2020

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are blessed to live in the most exceptional nation on earth, a nation to which more people from around the world are drawn each year than to any other, because of its promise of opportunity and freedom.

One of the key ways we have lived out and protected that freedom is to conduct fair and free elections, by which we the people choose those who will represent us, write and enforce our laws, and judge our disputes. Those who govern us derive their powers to do so from the consent of the governed, and subject to the laws of Almighty God.

Our Founders understood God’s law and the value of human freedom. They also understood human weakness and sinfulness, and foresaw how that sinfulness could threaten our freedom. They therefore built into our system of government and our manner of elections provisions to safeguard us in the event that human error or willful deception would taint our elections or threaten our freedom.

It is not unprecedented that in the conduct of our national elections, we have had to resort to procedures and remedies which are rarely utilized but nonetheless completely legal and constitutional, in order to assure that our elections reflected the will of the voters and the demands of honesty, integrity and fairness. These remedies have been employed in order that public confidence in our electoral system would be maintained.

Today, in the elections of 2020, we face the need to do so once again. Since Election Day, the percentage of our fellow citizens who believe that these elections were tainted by fraud has risen from nearly one third to nearly half.

Americans have become increasingly aware of the more than 50 lawsuits, thousands of affidavits and declarations, testimony presented in various state hearings, published reports and analyses by think tanks and legal centers, videos and photos, public comments and first-hand accounts, and various press reports, all of which suggest that something went seriously wrong in the way our Presidential race was conducted and tabulated, particularly in six disputed states (PA, AZ, GA, WI, MI, NV).

These concerns cross partisan lines, as well they should. If the most powerful nation and greatest system of government in the world cannot conduct free and fair elections, then we and the rest of the world have little hope for the survival of freedom.

The concerns about our election are well documented, and summarized in documents like this report by Peter Navarro and this brief by the State of Texas. Problems include outright voter fraud (e.g. counting ballots multiple times, destruction of ballots, creation of fake ballots, ballots from people who were ineligible to vote because they live elsewhere or have died), mishandling of ballots (e.g. failing to check for signatures, accepting ballots after the legal deadline, backdating ballots, lack of identification, ballots without security envelopes, unauthorized or unsupervised access to ballots), violation of procedures (e.g. throwing out poll watchers, fixing mistakes on ballots in violation of state law, allowing people to vote who were not registered), violations of equal protection (giving certain voters and poll watchers preferential treatment over others), voter machine irregularities (inaccuracies and inexplicable surges of Biden votes), and statistical anomalies (below average rejection rate of absentee ballots, voter turnout exceeding 100%, unusual vote surges and statistically improbably vote totals).

State officials have changed election laws and loosened election security in an unconstitutional manner by bypassing the state legislatures, which are the only bodies empowered by the Constitution to set the manner for choosing electors.

Besides these specific problems, countless Americans wonder why the vote counting in various key states suddenly stopped on election night, when President Trump was leading by hundreds of thousands of votes in four of the disputed states (PA, WI, MI, GA), and then, upon resuming, saw Biden ballots come pouring in to erase that lead. Americans wonder how Biden could have won when he lost in the bellwether counties across the nation, and did worse than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 in the major urban centers except only for the four cities in the key states he had to win: Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta, and Philadelphia.

These and numerous other questions persist, and the refusal of courts to grant relief has not been because they have examined the evidence and provided satisfactory answers to these questions, but rather precisely because the merits of the questions have not been given the examination they deserve.

But the courts are not the final resort here. Both state and federal legislators have authority to make things right in these disputes. State legislators determine how the electors will be chosen in a given state. And the Congress, on January 6th, must meet in joint session to count and make official – or object if necessary – to the votes taken by those electors.

All of our public officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. And that duty is carried out according to how each of them understands the Constitution. It is not an oath to carry out a court’s understanding of the Constitution.

On January 6th, certain courageous members of the US House and the US Senate will rise to object to the electoral vote as it has been cast in various states that are in dispute. These members hold that if the election results in a given state are so questionable that they cannot be certain they are a valid representation of the will of the voters in that state, then those electoral votes simply cannot be accepted. To object in this case is not only a right but a duty. It is not only logical, but patriotic.

It is up to us, the people these Members of Congress represent, to strengthen them in their resolve, and to communicate to the rest of the Members that we share these concerns and that we also object.

Now is the time to communicate with those who will serve in the 117th Congress, to let them know where we stand, and to urge them to object to the electoral votes in the disputed states. If, as a result of this process, neither presidential candidate receives the requisite 270 electoral votes, then the House of Representatives should choose the President, and the Senate choose the Vice President, as the Constitution provides.

Some of our fellow citizens dismiss all these concerns and say we should “just move on.” But “move on” to what? We are dealing here with a fundamental threat to our freedom, and a weakening of one of freedom’s most crucial safeguards: the confidence of the people in fair and free elections. This is not a fight we put off to some other time. The time to resolve this is now, and to do so with the full measure of courage it requires.

To dismiss the concerns of half the country on a fundamental matter, and to leave as an open question whether this election was stolen, is to “move on” to an unstable republic and an unsteady footing for all future elections. It is to “move on” to the possibility – and for tens of millions, the conviction – that we will have inaugurated an illegitimate President who stole an election. It is to “move on” to a position in which election law – whether by statute or the Constitution itself -- doesn’t matter anymore, and where the consent of the governed is replaced by brute force.

This is as unacceptable today as it was in 1776, and should be met with as much resistance by citizens today as it was by our Founding Fathers at the dawn of our Republic.

Indeed, from those of us who are religious leaders, there should be a battle cry for honesty, integrity and transparency in our election process – a call based not on partisan preferences but on the fact that the Commandments prohibit lying, cheating and stealing.

And from those who are Democrats, and indeed from Joe Biden himself, and from every elected official and candidate, there should be a clear message sent to American voters: I do not want, and refuse to accept or benefit from, a single illegal vote.

Whatever else is needed for national healing and national unity, these are undoubtedly necessary ingredients and starting points.

We have arrived at a pivotal moment in American history. Fortunately, we have a President who is fighting, not simply for himself, and not for some passing glory or power, but for us, the American people, and for the freedom we all enjoy. Let us pray to God that we and our public officials may have the insight and courage to do what is right. Our founders pledged to one another their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. We can do no less.

Sincerely,

Fr. Frank Pavone

National Director, Priests for Life

Francis denigrates soldiers, referring to us as "warmongers."

Francis is now denigrating soldiers as "warmongers."  See here.

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated the Feast of All Souls Day on Thursday commemorating all those who have died in war, reminding humanity not to forget past lessons and warning that the only fruit yielded by conflict is death.

His words of warning and his powerful condemnation of warmongers came during his homily at the Sicily-Rome American War Cemetery some 50 kilometers south of Rome.

_____________________________________


The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2310), explains that, "Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces (the people Francis refers to as "warmongers") are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace." 

The Lord God has commanded us, "You shall not kill." There are nine words in Hebrew for taking a life. The word used in Exodus 20: 13 for "Thou shalt not kill" is ratsach, a strong verb used to indicate an intentional and unjustified act of murder, such as the murder of innocent unborn. It does not refer to killing in war ( unless such killing is directed against civilian non-combatants or prisoners of war).  It is therefore disgusting for Francis to suggest that all soldiers who kill in combat are engaged in "evil," and are "warmongers."

The French preacher Lacordaire once said that the vocation of a soldier is next in dignity to the priesthood, not only because it commissioned him to defend justice on the field of battle and order on the field of peace, but also because it called him to the spirit and intention of sacrifice.

It is the soldier's high calling to the defense of justice and freedom which makes him (or should) so loved.  It was a soldier who first spoke the words recalled by the Church during every Mass at Holy Communion: "Lord, I am not worthy to have Thee come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed." (Mt 8:8).

The Breviary, which priests pray daily, praises Judas Machabeus, who refused to surrender to superior enemy forces and died saying: "Far be it from us to do such a thing as to flee from them.  If our time has come, let us die bravely for our brethren, and leave no cause to question our honor." (1 Macc 9: 10).

One soldier who served his country selflessly for twenty years was Camille "Joe" Melanson, my father, a non-commissioned officer who served in two wars - the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.  See here: http://www.leominsterhigh.com/lhs-military00.htm

Our family has a long tradition of military service.  I served with military intelligence and was marked for death by the NPA in the Philippines.  My uncle Arthur was lost over the Pacific during World War II.  His body was never recovered.

Warmongers?  Those who have served this country (and other countries) in the defense of freedom deserve better than to be denigrated in such a fashion.

Francis owes us an apology.  He has benefited from our sacrifices.  And this is what he thinks of us?

Vatican: Hammer and Sickle Crucifix represents dialogue and a commitment to freedom and progress

Gateway Pundit is reporting that the Vatican is now asserting that the hammer and sickle crucifix given to Pope Francis represents dialogue and a commitment to freedom and progress.

In his Encyclical Letter on Atheistic Communism Divini Redemptoris nos 4-12, Pope Pius XI had this to say:

"This Apostolic See, above all, has not refrained from raising its voice, for it knows that its proper and social mission is to defend truth, justice and all those eternal values which Communism ignores or attacks. Ever since the days when groups of "intellectuals" were formed in an arrogant attempt to free civilization from the bonds of morality and religion, Our Predecessors overtly and explicitly drew the attention of the world to the consequences of the dechristianization of human society. With reference to Communism, Our Venerable Predecessor, Pius IX, of holy memory, as early as 1846 pronounced a solemn condemnation, which he confirmed in the words of the Syllabus directed against "that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself."[1] Later on, another of Our predecessors, the immortal Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, defined Communism as "the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin."[2] With clear intuition he pointed out that the atheistic movements existing among the masses of the Machine Age had their origin in that school of philosophy which for centuries had sought to divorce science from the life of the Faith and of the Church.

During Our Pontificate We too have frequently and with urgent insistence denounced the current trend to atheism which is alarmingly on the increase. In 1924 when Our relief-mission returned from the Soviet Union We condemned Communism in a special Allocution[3] which We addressed to the whole world. In our Encyclicals Miserentissimus Redemptor,[4] Quadragesimo Anno,[5] Caritate Christi,[6] Acerba Animi,[7] Dilectissima Nobis,[8] We raised a solemn protest against the persecutions unleashed in Russia, in Mexico and now in Spain. Our two Allocutions of last year, the first on the occasion of the opening of the International Catholic Press Exposition, and the second during Our audience to the Spanish refugees, along with Our message of last Christmas, have evoked a world-wide echo which is not yet spent. In fact, the most persistent enemies of the Church, who from Moscow are directing the struggle against Christian civilization, themselves bear witness, by their unceasing attacks in word and act, that even to this hour the Papacy has continued faithfully to protect the sanctuary of the Christian religion, and that it has called public attention to the perils of Communism more frequently and more effectively than any other public authority on earth.

To Our great satisfaction, Venerable Brethren, you have, by means of individual and even joint pastoral Letters, accurately transmitted and explained to the Faithful these admonitions. Yet despite Our frequent and paternal warning the peril only grows greater from day to day because of the pressure exerted by clever agitators. Therefore We believe it to be Our duty to raise Our voice once more, in a still more solemn missive, in accord with the tradition of this Apostolic See, the Teacher of Truth, and in accord with the desire of the whole Catholic world, which makes the appearance of such a document but natural. We trust that the echo of Our voice will reach every mind free from prejudice and every heart sincerely desirous of the good of mankind. We wish this the more because Our words are now receiving sorry confirmation from the spectacle of the bitter fruits of subversive ideas, which We foresaw and foretold, and which are in fact multiplying fearfully in the countries already stricken, or threatening every other country of the world.

Hence We wish to expose once more in a brief synthesis the principles of atheistic Communism as they are manifested chiefly in bolshevism. We wish also to indicate its method of action and to contrast with its false principles the clear doctrine of the Church, in order to inculcate anew and with greater insistence the means by which the Christian civilization, the true civitas humana, can be saved from the satanic scourge, and not merely saved, but better developed for the well-being of human society.

The Communism of today, more emphatically than similar movements in the past, conceals in itself a false messianic idea. A pseudo-ideal of justice, of equality and fraternity in labor impregnates all its doctrine and activity with a deceptive mysticism, which communicates a zealous and contagious enthusiasm to the multitudes entrapped by delusive promises. This is especially true in an age like ours, when unusual misery has resulted from the unequal distribution of the goods of this world. This pseudo-ideal is even boastfully advanced as if it were responsible for a certain economic progress. As a matter of fact, when such progress is at all real, its true causes are quite different, as for instance the intensification of industrialism in countries which were formerly almost without it, the exploitation of immense natural resources, and the use of the most brutal methods to insure the achievement of gigantic projects with a minimum of expense.

The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.

Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .

Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.

What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word. the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a humanity without God."

Atheistic Humanism murdered some 250 million people in the 20th century. See here.

The hammer and sickle can never represent dialogue and a "commitment to freedom and progress." The hammer and sickle represent the misguided attempts to construct a society without God, a project which always ends up with men enslaving men and murdered corpses.

Any attempt to build a "Utopia" without the living God produces the termite colony.

Opponents of religious freedom are driven by satanic rage

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown, in an article written for OneNewsNow, note that, "The opponents of religious freedom aren't stopping at trying to redefine marriage. In the words of one attorney, recent events indicate they also want to 'ruin every aspect' of the lives of those who stand for natural marriage."

I've been warning for years that the same radical homosexual activists who continually cry for more "tolerance" are anything but tolerant. This is a spiritual war. The homosexual movement is not a civil rights movement. It is an attempt at moral revolution. An attempt to change people's view of homosexuality.

Writing in the Chicago Free Press, even homosexual activist Paul Varnell admitted this. He wrote, "The fundamental controverted issue about homosexuality is not discrimination, hate crimes or domestic partnerships, but the morality of homosexuality. Even if gays obtain non-discrimination laws, hate crimes law and domestic partnership benefits, those can do little to counter the underlying moral condemnation which will continue to fester beneath the law and generate hostility, fuel hate crimes, support conversion therapies, encourage gay youth suicide and inhibit the full social acceptance that is our goal. On the other hand, if we convince people that homosexuality is fully moral, then all their inclination to discriminate, engage in gay-bashing or oppose gay marriage disappears. Gay youths and adults could readily accept themselves. So the gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality." (Paul Varnell, "Defending Our Morality," Chicago Free Press, Aug 16, 2000, http://indegayforum.org/authors/varnell/varnell37.html).

In a previous post, I mentioned how Professor James Hitchcock, in his excellent work entitled "Catholicism and Modernity" (New York: Seabury Press, 1979, p. 86), explains the role of the media in this entire process:"The media's alleged commitment to 'pluralism' is at base a kind of hoax. The banner of pluralism is raised in order to win toleration for new ideas as yet unacceptable to the majority. Once toleration has been achieved, public opinion is systematically manipulated first to enforce a status of equality between the old and the new, then to assert the superiority of the new over the old. A final stage is often the total discrediting, even sometimes the banning, of what had previously been orthodox."

We have entered that final stage. Christianity will now be criminalized because of evil forces without the Church and cowardly Christians within her who cannot even muster enough fortitude to stand with Jesus in defense of His truth.

Blessed are they who are not ashamed of the Lord Jesus.  What does that suggest about those who are?

Recommended meditation: Rev 3:16.

Charlotte Catholic High School: Advancing a false freedom which is a diabolical parody

There can be little doubt how far the Church in the United States has fallen.  As this article explains, "A North Carolina Roman Catholic school is holding a meeting today to address the concerns of parents and students who say they are outraged about remarks a visiting nun made criticizing homosexuality, divorce, and sex outside of marriage during a recent speech.

Dominican Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, who often speaks to high school and college-age students on matters of sexuality, gave an hour-long presentation to students at Charlotte Catholic High School on March 21 called “Masculinity and Femininity: Difference and Gift.”  School officials told the Catholic News Herald she spent about half her allotted time discussing homosexuality, blaming its rising influence in part on fatherless homes created by divorce and extramarital sex.

Sister Laurel is a member of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, often called the Nashville Dominicans, which is an order known for its fidelity to the Magisterium.
Although the Catholic Church has always held both homosexual behavior and sex outside of marriage to be gravely sinful, students and parents at the Catholic school reacted to her remarks with shock and anger, launching both an online petition and a letter-writing campaign calling the sister’s words “offensive and unnecessarily derogatory.”

“We the students of Charlotte Catholic High School would like to issue a formal complaint regarding Sr. Jane Dominic’s speech given on on [sic] Friday, March 21^st,” the petition begins. “We found some of ideas [sic] expressed to be both offensive and unnecessarily derogatory. We are incensed that you knew the content of this speech and allowed these ideas to be expressed in a school that should be preaching a message of love and acceptance.”

“As rational people, we know that most homosexual people lead healthy, normal and productive lives like their heterosexual counterparts,” the students wrote.  “We resent the fact that a school wide assembly became a stage to blast the issue of homosexuality after Pope Francis said in an interview this past fall that ‘we can not [sic] insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptives [sic] methods.  We are angry that someone decided they knew better than our Holy Father and invited a speaker who addressed the issue of homosexuality to our school to speak twice in the course of one school year.”

Students weren’t the only ones outraged by the sister’s remarks.  Parents have supplemented the students’ petition with an e-mail campaign targeting the Diocese of Charlotte, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Vatican with complaints about Sr. Jane’s speech.

“In my home, there was outrage, embarrassment, sadness, disbelief, and further reason for my 16-year-old to move as far away from her religion as possible and as soon as she can,” wrote divorcee Shelley Earnhardt, according to the Charlotte Observer.

These students and parents are merely displaying their ignorance.  As Cardinal George Pell of Australia correctly noted,  "Some secularists seem to like one way streets..Their intolerance of Christianity seeks to drive it out not only from the public square, but even from the provision of education, health care and welfare services to the wider community. Tolerance has come to mean different things for different groups." His Eminence has also said that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights correctly articulates the proper relationship between the individual, the family and the association and the state.

This was precisely the point I was making in my response to the persecution of Father Alphonse de Valk at the hands of the Canadian Human Rights Commission which may be found here.

This dictatorship of relativism seeks to impose its immoral agenda on Christians in the name of "tolerance." But this "tolerance" is a sham. It is simply an attempt to make an idol out of a false conception of freedom. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI  explained that, "..what clearly stands behind the modern era's radical demand for freedom is the promise: You will be like God...The implicit goal of all modern freedom movements is, in the end, to be like a god, dependent on nothing and nobody, with one's own freedom not restricted by anyone else's...The primeval error of such a radically developed desire for freedom lies in the idea of a divinity that is conceived as being purely egotistical. The god thus conceived of is, not God, but an idol, indeed, the image of what the Christian tradition would call the devil, the anti-god, because therein lies the radical opposite of the true God: the true God is, of his own nature, being-for (Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit). Yet man is in the image of God precisely because the being-for , from, and with constitute the basic anthropological shape. Whenever people try to free themselves from this, they are moving, not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell. It has thus become fairly clear that freedom is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality - to truth. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy others is not freedom but a diabolical parody. The freedom of man is a shared freedom, freedom in a coexistence of other freedoms, which are mutually limiting and thus mutually supportive: freedom must be measured according to what I am, what we are - otherwise it abolishes itself."

In the name of "tolerance," the New World Order seeks to impose its rebellion from truth on all. It will not tolerate any dissent, any disagreement. Coercion is an acceptable tool in a dictatorship. Soon, the New Order will use violence to achieve its goals and not just coercion and propaganda. In the end, every dictatorship must rely on violence in its vain attempt to hold onto power.

The students and parents at Charlotte Catholic High School reacting violently against Sister Jane Dominic Laurel have succumbed to moral relativism and radical homosexual agitprop.  One has to wonder how they can honestly consider themselves to be Catholic.


Related reading:  The media ignore the homosexual dimension of the problem of child sexual abuse

"...democracies...which seem at times to have lost the ability to make decisions aimed at the common good."

In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus annus, No. 47, Pope John Paul II reminded us that: "Following the collapse of Communist totalitarianism and of many other totalitarian and 'national security' regimes, today we are witnessing a predominance, not without signs of opposition, of the democratic ideal, together with lively attention to and concern for human rights. But for this very reason it is necessary for peoples in the process of reforming their systems to give democracy an authentic and solid foundation through the explicit recognition of those rights. Among the most important of these rights, mention must be made of the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother's womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child's personality; the right to develop one's intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth's material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one's dependents; and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one's sexuality. In a certain sense, the source and synthesis of these rights is religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one's faith and in conformity with one's transcendent dignity as a person.

Even in countries with democratic forms of government, these rights are not always fully respected. Here we are referring not only to the scandal of abortion, but also to different aspects of a crisis within democracies themselves, which seem at times to have lost the ability to make decisions aimed at the common good. Certain demands which arise within society are sometimes not examined in accordance with criteria of justice and morality, but rather on the basis of the electoral or financial power of the groups promoting them. With time, such distortions of political conduct create distrust and apathy, with a subsequent decline in the political participation and civic spirit of the general population, which feels abused and disillusioned. As a result, there is a growing inability to situate particular interests within the framework of a coherent vision of the common good. The latter is not simply the sum total of particular interests; rather it involves an assessment and integration of those interests on the basis of a balanced hierarchy of values; ultimately, it demands a correct understanding of the dignity and the rights of the person."

Men have succeeded in using the courts to attain legal approval for many types of immoral conduct, including abortion and homosexuality, without any consideration for the common good. And this is precisely why America is deteriorating, it has succumbed to a moral cancer which will ruin it from within. In the words of English correspondent Ian Brodie: "The keys to this personality change [from God-fearing nation to pagan society] are a number of Supreme Court decisions which virtually outlaw censorship and decree that obscenity is not illegal...It is a curious irony that the Supreme Court, dedicated to preserving the freedom which is the foundation of American life, has confused it with license. In doing so it has given its seal of approval to the sick society which will undermine the United States from within." (Sir Arnold Lunn and Garth Lean, Christian Counter-Attack, London: Blandford Press, 1969, pp. 50-51).

Or as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn so eloquently warned: "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young peoples' right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil." ("A World Split Apart," Commencement Address at Harvard University, June 8, 1978, reprinted in National Review, July 7, 1978).

Where is all of this leading? Initially to a thinly disguised and then an eventually open totalitarianism. When man becomes God, as Gabriel Marcel noted, society becomes a termite colony and collapses from within. Enter the Man of Sin and the concentration camp. - for this is where atheistic humanism will lead us. To absolute despotism.

Related reading: The first Bishop of Worcester and the common good.

The Church proposes but the world imposes...

"Ladele brought her employer to court after she claimed she was bullied and treated as a 'pariah' by her fellow employees because of her adherence to Christian beliefs on homosexuality. Ladele would not perform such ceremonies and instead arranged for other colleagues to handle them. Nonetheless, the Council accused her of gross misconduct and refused to consider her for promotion, eventually threatening to fire her if she did not conduct a homosexual union herself." (From the Lifesite News article, click on title of this post to go to article).

In his Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio (The Mission of the Redeemer), Pope John Paul II said that, "The Church proposes; she imposes nothing." (No. 39). Such was the teaching of Vatican II: "The Church strictly forbids forcing anyone to embrace the faith, or alluring or enticing people by worrisome wiles. By the same token, she also strongly insists on this right, that no one be frightened away from the faith by unjust vexations on the part of others." (Ad Gentes, No. 13). And Dignitatis Humanae, No. 10 teaches that: "It is one of the major tenets of Catholic doctrine that man's response to God in faith must be free: no one therefore is to be forced to embrace the Christian faith against his own will. This doctrine is contained in the word of God and it was constantly proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church. The act of faith is of its very nature a free act. Man, redeemed by Christ the Savior and through Christ Jesus called to be God's adopted son, cannot give his adherence to God revealing Himself unless, under the drawing of the Father, he offers to God the reasonable and free submission of faith. It is therefore completely in accord with the nature of faith that in matters religious every manner of coercion on the part of men should be excluded. In consequence, the principle of religious freedom makes no small contribution to the creation of an environment in which men can without hindrance be invited to the Christian faith, embrace it of their own free will, and profess it effectively in their whole manner of life."

But while the Church respects freedom of conscience and shuns any form of coercion, our Holy Father reminds us that, "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.
We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth."

This dictatorship of relativism seeks to impose its immoral agenda on Christians in the name of "tolerance." But this "tolerance" is a sham. It is simply an attempt to make an idol out of a false conception of freedom. Again, our Holy Father explains that, "..what clearly stands behind the modern era's radical demand for freedom is the promise: You will be like God...The implicit goal of all modern freedom movements is, in the end, to be like a god, dependent on nothing and nobody, with one's own freedom not restricted by anyone else's...The primeval error of such a radically developed desire for freedom lies in the idea of a divinity that is conceived as being purely egotistical. The god thus conceived of is, not God, but an idol, indeed, the image of what the Christian tradition would call the devil, the anti-god, because therein lies the radical opposite of the true God: the true God is, of his own nature, being-for (Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit). Yet man is in the image of God precisely because the being-for , from, and with constitute the basic anthropological shape. Whenever people try to free themselves from this, they are moving, not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell. It has thus become fairly clear that freedom is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality - to truth*. Freedom to destroy oneself or to destroy others is not freedom but a diabolical parody. The freedom of man is a shared freedom, freedom in a coexistence of other freedoms, which are mutually limiting and thus mutually supportive: freedom must be measured according to what I am, what we are - otherwise it abolishes itself."

In the name of "tolerance," the New World Order seeks to impose its rebellion from truth on all. It will not tolerate any dissent, any disagreement. Coercion is an acceptable tool in a dictatorship. Soon, the New Order will use violence to achieve its goals and not just coercion and propaganda. In the end, every dictatorship must rely on violence in its vain attempt to hold onto power.

* Previous Blog post here.

Related reading: Pope Benedict XVI on saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior: read here.

Obama: The change we need or more of the same radical subjectivism?

In his work of critical importance entitled Man Against Mass Society, the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel explains that, "..a materialistic conception of the universe is radically incompatible with the idea of a free man: more precisely, that, in a society ruled by materialistic principles, freedom is transmuted into its opposite, or becomes merely the most treacherous and deceptive of empty slogans." (pp. 20-21). In other words, freedom becomes license. Freedom becomes slavery to sin.

Which is exactly where we find ourselves today. A radical subjectivism has taken hold of American culture and jurisprudence. And the consequences have proven disastrous. The U.S. Supreme Court, crippled by this radical subjectivism, has consistently repudiated challenges to its infamous Roe v. Wade decision. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."

But Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, No. 20, warned of the dangers to the weak and vulnerable which arise from such a philosophy: "To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others."

Senator Obama and his supporters do claim a right to abortion and do recognize that right in law. And they know full well that this election is critical to their radical agenda which is committed to a perverse notion of "liberty." An idea of "freedom" which insists upon "absolute power over others and against others." In a statement released on the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Senator Barack Obama said that, "With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a women's fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade. The next president may be asked to nominate that Supreme Court justice. That is what is at stake in this election." (Full statement here).

What is really at stake is the soul of this nation. Gaudium et Spes, No. 51 of the Second Vatican Council teaches clearly that, "..God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore, from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care, while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes."

Will we honor the ministry which the Lord of life has conferred upon us? Will we defend human life? Will we safeguard the weak and the vulnerable? Or will we opt for a radical subjectivism which first denies the sanctity of human life in the womb and eventually culminates in the denial of the sanctity of human life through all its stages*?

As we make our choice this election, let's remember the warning of Fr. Vincent Miceli: "When man becomes God, history testifies that then millions of men become imprisoned slaves, terrified automatons and murdered corpses. Society, in the words of Gabriel Marcel, becomes a ‘termite colony.’" (The Gods of Atheism, p. 463).

* "..the Nazi extermination programme began with the elderly, the sick, the mentally ill...Rabbi Cooper said that the killing of the disabled was a kind of training ground for the Nazi regime to 'fine-tune' its 'technology of death.'" (Read full text here).

* The parents of Terri Schiavo suffered as she was murdered by court-ordered starvation. Read here.

Related reading here.