More government lies...

Tucker on the government lies following the FBI raid on Trump's home here.

"Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ....Therefore, putting away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of another." (Ephesians 4: 15, 25).

When communicating with others, we all have certain responsibilities.  For example, we all have a responsibility to submit ourselves to truth when communicating.  Dr. Germain Grisez explains that, “As creatures, human persons are utterly dependent on God.  Their freedom and action presuppose realities whose meaning and value cannot be changed.  Therefore, human fulfillment requires knowing and conforming to the truth, and especially to the truth about what is good.  But since genuine community is cooperation in seeking common fulfillment, it depends on submission to truth. Consequently, since all parties to communication should be open to genuine community, they should submit themselves to truth.  The alternative is pursuing what they want regardless of truth, caring about no common good beyond themselves, and so, while using means of communication, failing to promote genuine community.”

The Eighth Commandment does not say, "You shall not bear false witness unless you have a really good reason."  Rather, the Commandment calls on us to be honest because, as God's children, we are called to imitate our Father who can neither deceive nor be deceived (Job 12: 16).  The Lord hates lying lips (Proverbs 12: 22); He hates a lying tongue (Proverbs 6: 17); He destroys those who speak falsehood (Psalm 5: 6).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that, "The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others.  This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth.  Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant." (2464).  And again: "Christ's disciples have "put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."274 By "putting away falsehood," they are to "put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander." (2475)

How serious is a lie when it is made under oath?

"False witness and perjury. When it is made publicly, a statement contrary to the truth takes on a particular gravity. In court it becomes false witness. When it is under oath, it is perjury. Acts such as these contribute to condemnation of the innocent, exoneration of the guilty, or the increased punishment of the accused. They gravely compromise the exercise of justice and the fairness of judicial decisions." (2476). 

In 2477 the Catechism explains that:  "Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty....of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them."

Calumny is a lie told about someone, accusing him of something of which he is not guilty.  It is a sin against charity and justice.  It is more or less serious depending on the importance of the object of the slanderous lie and also on the evils caused to the victim."

The lying media, propaganda servant of the Deep State (read the Democratic Party), isn't interested in respecting the demands of truth.  Those who serve the Father of Lies imitate his example with their lies,  with their calumnies. 

Bishop Mitchell Rozanski: Partisan politics over the demands of truth

Pope Benedict XVI has said that while, "everyone has the right to leave home to seek better conditions of life in another country...At the same time, states have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person."

Pope Benedict XVI also said that immigrants have the duty to integrate into their host countries and respect their laws and national identities.

The challenge, as the Holy Father noted, is to "combine the welcome due to every human being, especially when in need, with a reckoning of what is necessary for both the local inhabitants and the new arrivals to live a dignified and peaceful life”.  See here.

As I said in a previous post, following the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, during which the US embassy in Tehran was stormed and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days, President Jimmy Carter (a Democrat) severed diplomatic relations with and imposed sanctions on Iran. He also banned Iranians from entering the country.

Liberal hypocrites like Boston Mayor Marty Walsh conveniently ignore this fact as they attack Donald Trump for doing the same thing.  Such is partisan politics.

Bishop Mitchell Rozanski of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Diocese had a letter read in all parishes throughout the diocese expressing his disagreement with President Donald Trump's Executive Order.  He also published a Facebook post expressing his disagreement.  See here.

I left a few comments politely disagreeing with His Excellency which were promptly deleted.  This from the "welcoming" Bishop whose Secretary told me - last year - that if I didn't like certain comments from my parish priest I should look for another parish.  See here.

Bishop Rozanski obviously isn't interested in dialogue.  He's a partisan. He's not so much concerned with the demands of truth as he is with advancing an agenda.

Pray for him.

Parish priest where I attended Mass tonight: Yes many, even in the Church, are promoting sodomite "marriage," but every family is dysfunctional

Matthew Pearson, writing for Church Militant, notes how "A Polish priest working at the Congregration for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has admitted his homosexuality and issued a manifesto demanding changes to Church teaching.

The priest, Msgr. Krzysztof Charamsa, is a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University and has been on the Vatican's International Theological Commission since 2009.

In a video released yesterday by the Polish LGBT activist group Artykuł osiemnasty, Msgr. Charamsa declares his homosexuality and admits to having a boyfriend.

Also released along with the video was a 10-point manifesto of demands.

1. Disposal of homophobia and anti-gay discrimination

We demand that the Catholic Church divest itself of activities, the mentality and language of homophobia, hate speech, humiliation and depreciating, marginalization, stigmatization and rejection of LGBT people. We demand the cessation of the Church of discrimination and soft persecution of these people so within it as well as beyond its borders.
2. Condemnation of punishment for homosexuality

We demand that the Church unequivocally speak out against punishment for sexual orientation and against the death penalty or imprisonment, against any acts of cruelty against any discrimination against people based on sexual orientation, as well as against attempts to undergo "reorganizational therapies" of persons belonging to sexual minorities.

3. Cessation of the Church's interference in guaranteeing human rights by democratic states

We demand that the Church revise its past behavior to states and nations which, through the democratic development of civilizations, seek to guarantee human rights, including the right of persons belonging to sexual minoritiesto love and to civil marriage. Civilized countries should respect their autonomy for the sake of the common good of all, not just Catholics.

4. Canceling incompetent and prejudicial documents

We demand the Pope revise the Catechism and repeal all the cruel documents that are incompetent to deal with the issue of homosexual persons, who are the object both of the Church's compassion and stigmatization — in particular, the documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the heir to the Holy Inquisition. Unacceptable documents include:

a) the declaration Persona Humana from 1975, discussing among other things the "pathological constitution" of homosexual persons, which by their nature supposedly "have difficulty adjusting socially" and carry an "disorder" that "without the necessary and significant adjustment" is considered a "depravity";

b) Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons of 1986, which calls for "compassion" for homosexuals, who "suffer" from same-sex attraction, and which accepts the existence of "fair discrimination" against homosexuals and rejects only "unjust discrimination" against them;

c) the outrageous Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons in 1992;

d) Considerations Regarding Proposals to Legalize Unions Between Homosexual Persons from 2003, according to which homosexuality is "devoid of any genuine affective maturity," and homosexual relationships are devoid of any "human and ordered form of sexual relations";

e) the Catechism of the Church Catholic, sections 2357–2359, teaches that not only same-sex acts but also homosexual orientation are "objectively disordered." It also emphasizes that by nature, homosexuals have no emotional complementarity with other human persons they love. And it adds that for most of us orientation is a difficult experience requiring compassion toward our neighbor, but not without avoiding just discrimination. How does the Church know what is our suffering and difficulty? Well, it is not sexual orientation, but homophobia from the Church. Learning via the Catechism is offensive, apart from the fact that the very definition of homosexuality is deficient, if not quite false. The analysis of the situation of homosexual persons is also deficient.

5. Immediate cancellation of discriminatory instructions about denying the priesthood to homosexual persons

We demand that the Pope immediately abolish regrettable instructions about refusing the ordination of homosexuals, endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

6. Initiate a serious interdisciplinary scientific reflection over the morality of human sexuality

We demand that the Church initiate a serious and objective scientific reflection on sexual morality, taking note of the development — which so far the Church has only viewed ideologically — of science and reproductive health services, medical, psychological, psychiatric, biological, sociological, anthropological, Gender studies, etc.

7. Revision of the interpretation of biblical texts on homosexuality

We demand that the Church treat seriously the question of its own interpretation of the Bible, freeing itself of fundamentalism, noting verses that talk about homosexual people, never condemning them, and contextualizing biblical texts that address homogenital acts.

8. Adoption of ecumenical dialogue with our Lutheran and Anglican brothers about homosexuality

We demand that the Church take seriously ecumenical dialogue on the issue of homosexuality with Christians, Protestants and Anglicans who, in an open and transparent process of maturation, have developed their own beliefs on this subject, which may help the Catholic Church understand the reality of it.

9. The need to ask for forgiveness toward homosexuals

We demand that the Church stop persecution and crimes against homosexuals and to cease committing similar acts from now on.

10. Respect for and belief in homosexuals and change in the distorted position of the Church on what a homosexual Christian life should look like

We demand that the Church finally open itself up to believing in homosexuals, who are baptized persons belonging to sexual minorities who still do not have the right to dispose themselves in total love and resignation to a healthy sex life, which expresses their nature in accordance with their sexual orientation."

Now, given the first reading and the Gospel for Sunday, October 4th, I was hoping that the priest who celebrated Holy Mass which I attended (a Vigil Mass) would speak on the Church's teaching regarding what constitutes authentic marriage.

The readings:

Reading 1 GN 2:18-24

The LORD God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him."
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them would be its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle,
all the birds of the air, and all wild animals;
but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep,
he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
"This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called 'woman, '
for out of 'her man’ this one has been taken."
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

And the Gospel
MK 10:2-16

The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,
"Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?"
They were testing him.
He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?"
They replied,
"Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her."
But Jesus told them,
"Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate."
In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this.
He said to them,
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery."

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,
but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children come to me;
do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these.
Amen, I say to you,
whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it."
Then he embraced them and blessed them,
placing his hands on them."

Rather than addressing the growing darkness and the rampant confusion of our sad time, the priest who celebrated Mass said that everyone suffers from dysfunction and EVERY FAMILY IS DYSFUNCTIONAL.

Then he offered a prayer for family healing.

It would seem that some of us suffer more than others from dysfunction.

But do you see what this troubled priest was implying? - That no one can really speak out against the sin which cries to Heaven for vengeance because we are all sinners and EVERY FAMILY  has its problems.

It is this sort of sick "logic," usually advanced by people living the homosexual "lifestyle" or who have a friend or family member who does, which is used as a device to try to guilt others from opposing the sodomite agenda.

This priest, incardinated in the Diocese of Springfield, failed to deliver a homily based upon the Gospel because he is a coward.  Rather than using his homily to dispel darkness, this priest provided aid and comfort to those who would distort the Church's authentic teaching on marriage and failed his parishioners in the process.

Some are more dysfunctional than others

The New America: Moloch State which demands obedience

J. Matt Barber, writing about the emerging totalitarian state in what used to be the American Republic, writes:

While actions speak louder than words, words often predict future actions. Secular progressives' words and actions rarely align. This is because the pseudo-utopian, wholly dystopian perch from which they view the world is so detached from reality that, from a cultural and public policy standpoint, they must disguise their intended actions in flowery and euphemistic language, or face near universal rejection.

When they don't like the terms, liberals redefine the terms to mean something they do not, never have and never can mean. Consider, for instance, the once meaningful words "marriage" and "equality."

Other "progressive" doublespeak includes words like "invest" (meaning socialist redistribution of wealth), "tolerance" (meaning embrace immorality or face total ruin), "diversity" (meaning Christians and conservatives need not apply), "hate" (meaning truth) or "The Affordable Care Act" (meaning unaffordable, unsustainable and utterly inferior socialized medicine).

Even so, it's during those rare moments of candor that our cultural Marxist friends' rhetoric actually aligns with their intended actions. In other words, every so often, and usually by accident, they tell the truth.

Take this recent declaration by President Obama at Georgetown University. He was discussing his contempt for conservative new media in general and Fox News in particular:

"[W]e're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues," he said.

How Kim Jong-un of him. In sum: Goal 1) Control thought by, Goal 2) Controlling the media.

This is an idea older than – and as well preserved as – Vladimir Lenin himself. How Dear Leader intends to reconcile his scheme to "change how the media reports on these issues" with the First Amendment's Free Press Clause, namely, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press," is abundantly clear.

He doesn't.

Our emperor-in-chief will force feed his once-free subjects yet another unconstitutional executive decree – a Net Neutrality sandwich with a side of Fairness Doctrine.

Or take would-be President Hillary Clinton's comments last month on the "rite" of abortion vs. the right of religious freedom.

Reports LifeNews:

"The comment has Hillary Clinton essentially saying that Christians must be forced to change their religious views to accommodate abortions.

"'Far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. All the laws we've passed don't count for much if they're not enforced,' Clinton said, using the euphemism for abortion.

"'Rights have to exist in practice – not just on paper,' Clinton argued. 'Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.'"

That's a lot of "have tos." See the pattern here? Whether it's Obama saying government will "have to change how the media reports," or Hillary saying "deep-seated religious beliefs have to be changed," such despotic demands should spike the neck hair of every freedom-loving American.

And then there are those left-wing extremists whose designs on despotism require that Christians "must be made" to obey. Homosexual practitioner and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni is one such extremist. In his April 3 column titled, "Bigotry: The Bible and the Lessons of Indiana," Bruni quotes homosexual militant Mitchell Gold, a prominent anti-Christian activist: "Gold told me that church leaders must be made 'to take homosexuality off the sin list,'" he writes. "His commandment is worthy – and warranted," he adds.

Of course, if homosexual behavior, something denounced as both "vile affections" and "an abomination" throughout both the Old and New Testaments, is no longer sexual sin, then there can be no sexual sin whatsoever. To coerce, through the power of the police state, faithful Christians to abandon the millennia-old biblical sexual ethic and embrace the sin of Sodom would likewise require that Christians sign-off on fornication, adultery, incest and bestiality. Such is the unnatural nature of government-mandated moral relativism.

"But this isn't free speech, it's hate speech!" come the mournful cries of the ill-informed and the ill-prepared, desperately afraid to debate the issues on the merits. "Hate speech is excluded from protection," opines CNN anchor Chris Cuomo in a recent tweet on the topic. "But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment," replies UCLA law professor Eugene Volohk in a Washington Post op-ed. "Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas."

Of course this matters not to those to whom the First Amendment is meaningless.

Indeed, one man's "hate speech" is another man's truth, and as I've often said, truth is hate to those who hate truth.

And boy do they hate it.

And so they mean to muzzle it.

The time of which many of us have long warned is no longer on the horizon. The left's full-on assault against freedom, most especially religious freedom, is at hand. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, it's at once the secular left and orthodox Muslims who lead the charge. These strange bedfellows share a common enemy. He is Truth in the person of Jesus Christ. In order to silence Him, they must silence His faithful followers.

Which brings us to this modern age of American lawlessness. We're fast moving from a soft tyranny to hard tyranny, and "progressive" leaders like those mentioned above are, chillingly enough, emboldened to the degree that they will openly call for it.

Like our brothers and sisters around the world, American Christians must prepare for suffering.

But, like them, we mustn't despair.

For there are different kinds of suffering.

Suffering through cancer, for instance, can, and often does, lead to death. Without Christ, who is mankind's only hope, such suffering is hopeless indeed.

Yet when a young mother suffers through child birth, and while she may experience the same level of pain as the cancer sufferer, her crying out elicits an entirely different response, and her pain serves an entirely different purpose. While one type of suffering leads to death, the other leads to life. While one attends sorrow, the other attends joy.

Similarly, there is a kind of suffering, suffering in sin, which leads to spiritual death, and a kind suffering, suffering in grace, which leads to spiritual life. Anti-Christian persecution, be it efforts to force Christians into disobedience to God, attempts to silence them outright or, worse, the torture, enslavement and even execution of Christ followers – now widespread in both Muslim and Marxist nations across the globe – signifies "the beginning of birth pains" (see Matthew 24:8).

And birth pains lead to new life.

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.

Lesbian demands that her children's Catholic school remove Catechism quote on homosexuality

Ann Michelle Tesluk, a lesbian whose children attend a Catholic school, is demanding that the school, which is located in Peterborough, Ontario, remove a Catechism quote from a pamphlet because it refers to the homosexual inclination as "objectively disordered."  See here.

I wrote a series of posts after the Archdiocese of Boston announced a new policy which says that Catholic schools can partner with homosexual parents.  I reminded His Eminence Sean Cardinal O'Malley that, in its Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis), No. 3, the Vatican II Fathers explained that parents "must be recognized as the primary and principal educators" of their children and that, "This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered."

And I added, "But parents who are living in a same-sex relationship cannot create that 'family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man' in which 'the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered.' The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its document entitled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, has said that adoption of children by homosexuals 'would actually mean doing violence to these children,' and that their situation of dependence would place them 'in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.' (No. 7).

And then I wrote:  "Can Catholic schools partner with homosexual or lesbian parents? In a word, no. Archbishop Charles Chaput has already addressed this fact in a statement issued earlier this year. The Catholic school must strive to ensure that the environment in which a child lives as he or she is being formed as a human being corresponds to the end of Catholic education. And what is that end? Vatican II teaches clearly that, "A Christian education...has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced to the knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. Jn 4:23) especially in liturgical action, and be conformed in their personal lives according to the new man created in justice and holiness of truth (Eph 4:22-24); also that they develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ (cf. Eph 4:13).."

How important is it that a Catholic school strive to ensure that a child's environment corresponds to the end of a Catholic education? Pope Pius XI provides us with an answer, "In order to obtain perfect education, it is of the utmost importance to see that all those conditions which surround the child during the period of his formation, in other words that the combination of circumstances which we call environment, correspond exactly to the end proposed." (Encyclical Letter Divini Illius Magistri, No. 70).

Pope Pius XI continues, "The first natural and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because so ordained by the Creator Himself. Accordingly that education, as a rule, will be more effective and lasting which is received in a well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family; and more efficacious in proportion to the clear and constant good example set, first by parents, and then by other members of the household." (No. 71). The full Encyclical may be found here.

Same-sex parents are not equipped to provide that "well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family" necessary for the effective reception of Christian education. Not to mention the conditions required for the normal development of the child. See here for example.

In one post from January of 2011, I addressed Cardinal O'Malley writing, "Our Lord Jesus spoke in the sixth chapter of Matthew, verse 24: 'No one can serve two masters; for he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.' Now, mammon can represent either money or any other created thing which stands in the way of a total commitment to the Lord Jesus....My question: By allowing children of homosexual households into Catholic schools, are you not thereby inviting violence and disorder? After all, how can these children be expected to serve two masters? Will they not come to hate the one and love the other? Will they not be devoted to one while despising the other? Either these children will come to fully embrace Catholic teaching and thereby be set in opposition to their parents illicit sexual behavior, or [and this is the far more likely scenario given that children tend to love their parents or guardians], they will come to despise the Church while condoning intrinsically disordered behavior which have they grown accustom to being exposed to."

No man can serve two masters.  He will hate the one and love the other.  He will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  Violence and disorder have been introduced into those Catholic schools and school districts which believe they can partner with homosexual parents.  Just as I warned.

But then, my patron Saint - for whom I was named - said it best under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit some 2,000 years ago: "Do not be yoked with those who are different, with unbelievers.  For what partnership do rightousness and lawlessness have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness.  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?" (2 Corinthians 6: 14, 15).

God's Holy Word assures us that rightousness cannot partner with lawlessness.  And homosexual parents who are not committed toward living chaste lives or who reject the teaching of the Lord Jesus through His Church are not committed to righteousness but rather lawlessness.

When conscience is so broken that we no longer see what we should see...

There is a famous hymn written by Martin Luther which begins, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.." For all too many people today (including sadly, many Catholics) the conscience has become a "mighty fortress" built so as to shelter one from the exacting demands of truth. In the words of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "In the Psalms we meet from time to time the prayer that God should free man from his hidden sins. The Psalmist sees as his greatest danger the fact that he no longer recognizes them as sins and thus falls into them in apparently good conscience. Not being able to have a guilty conscience is a sickness...And thus one cannot aprove the maxim that everyone may always do what his conscience allows him to do: In that case the person without a conscience would be permitted to do anything. In truth it is his fault that his conscience is so broken that he no longer sees what he as a man should see. In other words, included in the concept of conscience is an obligation, namely, the obligation to care for it, to form it and educate it. Conscience has a right to respect and obedience in the measure in which the person himself respects it and gives it the care which its dignity deserves. The right of conscience is the obligation of the formation of conscience. Just as we try to develop our use of language and we try to rule our use of rules, so must we also seek the true measure of conscience so that finally the inner word of conscience can arrive at its validity.

For us this means that the Church's magisterium bears the responsibility for correct formation. It makes an appeal, one can say, to the inner vibrations its word causes in the process of the maturing of conscience. It is thus an oversimplification to put a statement of the magisterium in opposition to conscience. In such a case I must ask myself much more. What is it in me that contradicts this word of the magisterium? Is it perhaps only my comfort? My obstinacy? Or is it an estrangement through some way of life that allows me something which the magisterium forbids and that appears to me to be better motivated or more suitable simply because society considers it reasonable? It is only in the context of this kind of struggle that the conscience can be trained, and the magisterium has the right to expect that the conscience will be open to it in a manner befitting the seriousness of the matter. If I believe that the Church has its origins in the Lord, then the teaching office in the Church has a right to expect that it, as it authentically develops, will be accepted as a priority factor in the formation of conscience." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Keynote Address of the Fourth Bishops' Workshop of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, on "Moral Theology Today: Certitudes and Doubts," February 1984).

In the same address, Cardinal Ratzinger explains that, "Conscience is understood by many as a sort of deification of subjectivity, a rock of bronze on which even the magisterium is shattered....Conscience appears finally as subjectivity raised to the ultimate standard."

A broken conscience, an ill-formed conscience, becomes a mighty fortress which shuts the truth out. Have we built an interior castle, as did St. Teresa of Avila, which remains open to the demands of truth and the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Or has our conscience become a mighty fortress built to prevent our encounter with truth?

Suggested reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church Nos. 1783-1785.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: A Straw in the Wind

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is angry at the Holy Father and the Catholic Church. Why? Because the Holy Father continues to preach truth while confirming his brethren (Luke 22:32) and the Church founded by Jesus Christ does not feel free to change the law of God. Writing for Newsweek just prior to President Obama's meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, Ms. Townsend wrote:


"Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama meet for the first time, an affair much anticipated and in some circles frowned upon by American Catholics in the wake of Obama's controversial Notre Dame commencement speech in May. Conservatives in the church denounced Obama's appearance as a nod by the premier Catholic university to a conciliatory politics that heralds the start of a slippery moral slope.

In truth, though, Obama's pragmatic approach to divisive policy (his notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints) and his social-justice agenda reflect the views of American Catholic laity much more closely than those vocal bishops and pro-life activists. When Obama meets the pope tomorrow, they'll politely disagree about reproductive freedoms and homosexuality, but Catholics back home won't care, because they know Obama's on their side. In fact, Obama's agenda is closer to their views than even the pope's.

It's fitting that Obama's visit comes just days after the publication of "Charity in Truth," a Vatican encyclical that declares unions, regulation of capitalism's excesses, and environmentalism to be ethical imperatives. The document gives moral credence to Obama's message and to progressive politics writ large.

Even more intriguing is the pope's support for political activism, which he refers to in the encyclical as "the institutional path … of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbor directly." As a member of a family that preached that politics is an honorable profession, I see that he is opening the church to roles that for too long have been neglected. Here Obama (the community organizer from Chicago) could teach the pope a lot about politics—and what a Catholic approach to politics could entail. They agree, too, on poverty and Middle East peace. So far so good on papal-presidential concordance.

But there they part ways. Politics requires the ability to listen to different points of view, to step into others' shoes. Obama might call it empathy. While the pope preaches love, listening to the other has been a particular stumbling block for the Catholic hierarchy (as it is for many in power). The hierarchy ignores women's equality and gays' cry for justice because to heed them would require that it admit error and acknowledge that the self-satisfied edifice constructed around sex and gender has been grievously wrong. Before he became John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla had a telling all-or-nothing formulation: "If it should be decided that contraception is not an evil in itself then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit is on the side of the Protestant Churches."

That attitude has resulted in some heinous decisions. Most famously, in the lead up to the encyclical "Humanae Vitae" in 1968, an advisory body of theologians and laity empaneled by the pope advised that the church should reverse its position on birth control and concede that the issue should be a question for morality and for science. But authority—not truth, not love—prevailed: Pope Paul VI, listening to the advice of Wojtyla, disagreed with the majority of these advisers, who had voted 69 to 10 for change, fretting that to change this position would weaken his authority.

In the same vein, American bishops in the 1970s struggled to produce a paper that would address the concerns of women. After nine years of effort, they gave up. Why? According to Bishop P. Francis Murphy, bishops see themselves as "teachers, not learners: truth can not emerge through consultation." Pope Benedict, having lived in the safety and security of the Vatican for much of his professional life, is part of this culture that silences dissent. (His last job was as the enforcer of doctrine.) "

And so, because the Church founded by Christ to teach men and to bring them to salvation refuses to justify sinful contraception, homosexuality and lesbianism and will not ordain women - it cannot do so and remain faithful to Christ - Ms. Townsend would accuse Christ's Mystical Body of lacking "empathy."

In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, No. 46, Pope John Paul II writes, "Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and skeptical relativism are the philosophy and basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends."

Ms. Townsend cares little (if at all) for truth. And especially religious truth. This is tragic. For as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us authoritatively: "Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it: 'It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons...are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth." (2467).

Ms. Townsend, filled with rage because Pope Paul VI upheld the Church's constant and clear teaching regarding contraception in his Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae and because the current Pontiff also refuses to abandon the law of God, has no sense of history. If she did, she would know that all of the Christian churches held contraception to be gravely sinful prior to the Church of England's Lambeth Conference of 1930.

The Catholic Church doesn't roll dice or draw straws to determine what she believes. The Holy Father is not a politician, even if his office requires great political skill. He doesn't wet his finger to see which way the wind is blowing. The only "wind" he heeds is the wind of the Holy Spirit Who brings truth.

The Church is not, and never will be, a democracy Ms. Townsend. But this shouldn't trouble you for too long. Like the relativistic culture in which you live and move and have your being, your convictions will no doubt change. Like a straw being blown about by the wind, you have no roots. Your morally bankrupt culture has no roots. Which is why it is dying.

Meditation: John 15: 1-10