The end of Roe v. Wade

 

Great news.  As reported here.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in the draft which was circulated inside the court before someone leaked it to the news outlet. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.”

Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of my life, 

And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters. 

I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion, 

Yet I rejoice that you have conquered death 

by the Resurrection of Your Son. 

I am ready to do my part in ending abortion. 

Today I commit myself 

Never to be silent, 

Never to be passive, 

Never to be forgetful of the unborn. 

I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement, 

And never to stop defending life 

Until all my brothers and sisters are protected, 

And our nation once again becomes 

A nation with liberty and justice 

Not just for some, but for all, 

Through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Persecution? What persecution?

In a recent post dealing with the coming persecution [which has actually already begun but which will become increasingly violent], I noted the gradual process by which secular humanists and other anti-Christian types weed out Christian thought and eventually ban it altogether, often criminalizing the Gospel.  I am now under attack [along with such prominent Catholics as Cardinal Raymond Burke and Dr. Jeff Mirus] for having the audacity to warn of the coming persecution against the Church by the Homosexual Hate Movement.

In a post which may be found here, I am accused of engaging in "Catholic persecution fantasies."  This after the writer asserts that my Blog post and additional articles are "deranged" and "loony."  Referring to my post, the writer asserts:

"The blogpost gets more and more deranged after this, so I will spare most of the details. Amongst other things, he urges us to read another loony article of his called The Homosexual Hate Movement: Another form of totalitarianism, which offers further insight into his demented religious mindset. What is most worrying, though, is how Melanson finds so much encouragement for his political and religious obsessions from the leaders of the Catholic Church. His post was prompted in the first place by news of Cardinal Burke's ludicrous claim that American Catholics are on the brink of a great persecution. He is also able to cite Pope John Paul II writing that 'Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person'. Or in other words, democracy is only 'authentic' and legitimate if the government conforms to Catholic teaching."

The writer concludes his confused piece by asserting that, "There is no totalitarian Homosexual Hate Movement...sorry to disappoint you Mr. Melanson, but nobody wants to persecute you.  Get over it."  The homosexual movement has nothing to do with hate?  Tell that to the Catholics, Protestants and Mormons who came under both verbal and physical attack in California after the Prop 8 controversy.  See here.  Nobody wants to persecute me?  That must be why I have received numerous threats and hate mail, not to mention hateful comments at this Blog directed against my person.  Nobody wants to persecute me [and other Christians and people of good will who are morally opposed to the radical homosexual agenda]?  Is that why a homosexual activist called The Mothertown News in Massachusetts to tell them he objected to an article I wrote for that publication - explaining the Church's authentic teaching regarding homosexuality which includes respect for the homosexual person - and that he was going to kill me with his high-powered rifle?

Persecution?  What persecution?  It was the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, a man whose thought so greatly influenced my own, who said that, "Fanaticism is essentially opinion; opinion pushed to paroxysm; with everything that the notion of opinion may imply of blinded ignorance as to its own nature...whatever ends the fanatic is aiming at or thinks he is aiming at, even if he wishes to gather men together, he can only in fact separate them; but as his own interests cannot lie in effecting this separation, his is led...to wish to wipe his opponents out. And when he is thinking of these opponents, he takes care to form the most degrading images of them possible - they are 'lubricious vipers' or 'hyenas and jackals with typewriters' - and the ones that reduce them to most grossly material terms. In fact, he no longer thinks of these opponents except as material obstacles to be overturned or smashed down. Having abandoned the behaviour of a thinking being, he has lost even the feeblest notion of what a thinking being, outside himself, could be. It is understandable therefore that he should make very effort to deny in advance the rights and qualifications of those whom he wishes to eliminate; and that he should regard all means to this end as fair. We are back here again at the techniques of degradation...fanaticism is, of its very nature, incompatible with any regard for truth; and as truth itself is not really seperable from our regard for it, we need not hesitate to say that the fanatic is the enemy of truth..." (Man Against Mass Society, pp. 149-150).


Which is why Catholics faithful to the Church, faithful to the Lord Jesus, must be painted as "loony" and "deranged."  We must be made to be seen as being somehow "dangerous."  We must be demonized and eventually criminalized.  And then we can be disposed of in the gulag or in front of a firing squad.

Persecution?  What persecution?

Related reading here and most importantly here.

Daniel Avila is out. But what about Father John Unni and those who have promoted the idea of "Gay Pride"?

As most of you probably know by now, Daniel Avila, policy adviser for marriage and family to the U.S. Bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage since June 20, has offered his immediate resignation because of an opinion piece which he wrote and which was published in the October 28th edition of The Pilot, Boston's archdiocesan newspaper.

In his opinion piece, Mr. Avila linked same-sex attraction with the Devil.  Specifically, he wrote, "the ultimate responsibility [for same-sex attraction], on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one." See here. Now, Mr. Avila should have known better.  After all, we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that homosexuality's "psychological genesis remains largely unexplained." (CCC, 2357).

But even more disturbing is the lack of concern within the Boston Archdiocese - and beyond - in the very real spiritual consequences which may indeed result from homosexual acts and behavior.  We read in Father Jeffrey Steffon's excellent book "Satanism: Is It Real?": "How does a person become open for demonic oppression?  Fr. Richard McAlear and Mrs. Betty Brennan, experts in demonic oppression, indicate four ways it can happen: First, a demonic spirit can attach itself to a person through a wound or trauma.  Fr. McAlear calls this a ministering spirit.  Secondly, a spirit can attach itself to a person through a repeated sinful action or sinful tendencies.  This is a cardinal spirit.  Oneway to remember some cardinal spirits is to remember the capital sins - that is, lust, pride, gluttony, sloth, envy, covetousness, and anger.  These sins are against the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.  These virtues are the hinges of other virtues.  Just as other virtues are in some way tied to the four cardinal virtues, so some spirits are tied to, or hinge upon, the cardinal spirits." (Satanism: Is It Real?, p. 169).

An evil spirit can attach itself to a person through a repeated sinful action or sinful tendencies.  Let's reflect on those words very carefully.  Does this not include homosexual acts?  Of course it does.  In fact, Saint Peter Damian, Doctor of the Church, describing the homosexual vice in his Book of Gomorrah, tells us that: "Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices...It defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything.  And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth...The miserable flesh burns with the heat of lust; the cold mind trembles with the rancor of suspicion; and in the heart of the miserable man chaos boils like Tartarus [Hell]...In fact, after this most poisonous serpent once sinks its fangs into the unhappy soul, sense is snatched away, memory is borne off, the sharpness of the mind is obscured.  It becomes unmindful of God and even forgetful of itself.  This plague undermines the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, destroys the bond of charity; it takes away justice, subverts fortitude, banishes temperance, blunts the keenness of prudence.  And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out." (St. Peter Damian, Book of Gomorrah, Pierre J. Payer, trans., Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 63-64).

But when Father John Unni of the Boston Archdiocese urged his homosexual parishioners to "shed the burden of shame" while his parish prepared to celebrate "Gay Pride," the Boston Archdiocese defended the priest and stood by his actions.  Those Catholics faithful to the Magisterium who were in opposition to the "Gay Pride" Mass [and I was one of them], were accused of "bigotry, hate and injustice."

Mr. Avila offered a retraction to his opinion piece and immediately resigned from his position.  But no action was ever taken against Father John Unni.  Why is this?  Terence Donilon, spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, told the Catholic News Service that Mr. Avila's column "..should not have been published in the pilot."  Agreed.  And Father John Unni should not have been advancing "Gay Pride" at his parish.  And the "Rainbow Ministry" at his parish should not have been linking to a Blog which ridicules the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality.  And Father Unni should not have had guest speakers at his parish who promote same-sex "marriage."

If you agree that Daniel Avila had to step down, then you must also agree that some sort of action should have been taken against Father Unni.

There should not be such a double standard in the Boston Archdiocese.  If anything, we should expect MORE from our priests in accordance with the Scriptural text in Luke Chapter 12 verse 48.

The Worcester Diocesan Commission for Women: Replacing Faith with Opinion in the Pursuit of a Self-Made Church

In his book "Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today," then Cardinal Ratzinger and now Pope Benedict XVI, writing about futile reform and the "naive arrogance of the self-appointed enlightener who is convinced that previous generations did not get it right, or else were too fearful and unilluminated," explains the thinking of such deluded souls: "It thus appears [for these adolescent Catholics] as the most normal thing in the world to make up for lost time, which means first establishing once and for all this basic patrimony of structures of freedom [elaborated by the Enlightenment].  We must move - it is maintained - from the paternalistic Church to the community Church; no one must any longer remain a passive receiver of the gift of Christian existence.  Rather, all should be active agents of it.  The Church must no longer be fitted over us from above like a ready-made garment; no, we 'make' the Church ourselves, and do so in constantly new ways.  It thus finally becomes 'our' Church, for which we are actively responsible.  The Church arises out of discussion, compromise and resolution.  Debate brings out what can still be asked of people today, what can still be considered by common consent as faith or as ethical norms.  New short formulas of faith are composed...

But questions immediately arise concerning this work of reform, which in place of all hierarchical tutelage will at long last introduce democratic self-determination into the Church.  Who actually has the right to make decisions?  What is the basis of the decision-making process?  In a political democracy the answer to this question is the system of representation: individuals elect their representative, who makes decisions on their behalf.  This commission has a time limit, its mainlines of policy are clearly defined by the party system, and it embraces only those spheres of political action that are assigned to representative bodies by the constitution.

Questions remain even in regard to representation: the minority must submit to the majority, and this minority can be quite large.  Furthermore, there is no infallible guarantee that my elected representative actually does act and speak as I wish.  Once again, the victorious majority, seen from close up, can in no case consider itself entirely as the active subject of political events but must accept the decisions of others, at least in order not to jeopardize the system as a whole.

But there is a general question that is more relevant to our problem.  Everything that men can make can also be undone again by others.  Everything that has its origin in human likes can be disliked by others.  Everything that one majority decides upon can can be revoked by another majority.  A church based on human resolutions becomes a merely human church.  It is reduced to the level of the makeable, of the obvious, of opinion.  Opinion replaces faith.  And in fact, in the self-made formulas of faith with which I am acquainted, the meaning of the words 'I believe' never signifies anything beyond 'we opine.'  Ultimately, the self-made church savors of the 'self,' which always has a bitter taste to the other self and just as soon reveals its petty insignificance.  A self-made church is reduced to the empirical domain and thus, precisely as a dream, comes to nothing." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, pp. 136, 138-140).

These points are not understood by the Worcester [Massachusetts] Diocesan Commission for Women.  This commission continues to associate itself with well-known dissidents who promote women's ordination, homosexuality and lesbianism, and New Age spirituality.  As I noted in a previous post, the commission has invited Elizabeth Dreyer to be a guest speaker at its 2011 "Gather Us In" Conference.  Ms. Dreyer has publically demanded the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood.

The commission has also touted Sister Jon Julie Sullivan [in photo].  See here.  Sister Sullivan was part of a group of several hundred dissidents who protested outside of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Good Friday back in 2002.  Sister Eileen Brady, a Sister of Mercy who was among the dissidents protesting that day, was quoted by The Boston Globe as having said, "There needs to be significant change [in the Church]. When the Church says you can't even dicuss the ordination of women, that's unjust.  And we stand for justice."  And Sister Sullivan was quoted as having said, "There aren't even words to tell you how many changes we need."  See here.

But is it the Church which must change?  Or something else?  As I've said so many times over the years, the very same intellectually and spiritually cramped adolescents who demand change in the Church fail to recognize that it is not the Church which needs to change but rather themselves.  Saint Paul exhorts us: "Put off the old man who is corrupted according to the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:22-24).


Some people seem incapable of grasping this truth.  And they are poorer for it.

Related reading here.