As it was in the Days of Noah...

Many believe the Man of Sin is already among us. Even Vatican officials believe that "certain forces" are out to destroy the Catholic Church because the Church alone stands in the way of a demonic World Order. Even within the Church, there are those who are working to scatter.

Bishop George Michael Wittman was given the following prophecy: "Woe is me! Sad days are at hand for the Holy Church of Jesus Christ. The Passion of Jesus will be renewed in the most dolorous manner in the Church and in her Supreme Head. In all parts of the world there will be wars and revolutions, and much blood will be spilled. Distress, disasters, and poverty will everywhere be great, since pestilential maladies, scarcity, and other misfortunes will follow one another. Violent hands will be laid on the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church; bishops and priests will be persecuted, and schisms will be provoked, and confusion reign amid all classes. Times will come, so pre-eminently bad, that it will seem as if the enemies of Christ and of His Holy Church, which He founded with His blood, were about to triumph over her. But the priesthood will remain firm and resolute, and good people will adhere faithfully to that body. A general separation will be made. The wheat shall be winnowed, and the floor swept. Secret societies will work great ruin, and exercise a marvellous monetary power, and through that many will be blinded, and infected with most horrible errors; however, all this shall avail naught. Christ says, He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who gathereth not with Me, scattereth. Scandals will be but too rife, and woe to those by whom they come! Although the tempest will be terrible, and will turn many in their passage, nevertheless they cannot shake the rock whereon Christ has founded His Church: 'Portae inferi non prevalebunt.'.. The faithful sheep will gather together, and in unions of prayer will offer potent resistance to the enemies of the Catholic Church. Yes, yes, the flock will become small..."

And so it has become small.  As it was in the says of Noah, says Our Lord, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Those days were days of violence, sexual immorality and demonism. Noah, a righteous man, and his family, were deemed "crazy" for building an ark on dry land.

So too faithful Christians today are deemed crazy for entering the New Ark, the safe refuge of the Immaculata, in preparation for the coming deluge.  Not one of water, but of fire.

So broad an interpretation of liberty that all manner of perversion will be justified

From Mass Resistance:

Primer: Ten things you need to know about the US Supreme Court “gay marriage” case being heard April 28, 2015

On April 28 the US Supreme Court case will hear oral arguments for the case that will essentially decide whether “gay marriage” is a previously unknown “fundamental right” enshrined in the US Constitution, similar to the Court’s 1973 abortion ruling.

The US Supreme Court building will be ground zero for the latest assault on the nation's culture.

What was once a fringe, unthinkable idea is now on the verge of being imposed on the entire nation.
What is happening? Here are ten things to know about this case:

1. How we got to this point
The popular sentiment against “gay marriage” in the United States has been overwhelmingly one-sided at the ballot box. Since 1998, 30 states have passed constitutional amendments banning it. Some of these amendments were passed by huge margins (as high as 80%). This appeared to everyone to be an insurmountable obstacle to the “gay marriage” movement.
After losing in state after state, the homosexual movement realized that it could never overturn these amendments legitimately. In very blue states, using massive amounts of money, they were able to successfully lobby legislatures and sway elections. But the amendments across the country were a problem.
So they decided to focus on perfecting the strategy that worked in Massachusetts in 2003: using the courts and hand-picked activist judges, along with very shrewd manipulation of the legal process and well-funded legal teams and political strategists. They crafted a plan to get the state amendments declared unconstitutional.
This strategy took advantage of the LGBT lobby’s well-funded propaganda push over the last few decades in law schools, law firms, and judicial chambers, as well as a fresh new generation of radical federal judges appointed by Barack Obama.
Starting with California in 2009, where a homosexual judge overturned the Proposition 8 vote, they soon picked up momentum. Across the country, the various cases began sailing through the state and federal courts largely unimpeded. It was quite frightening for all of us to watch.
Other factors helped keep it going. The almost universal unwillingness of the legal teams on the pro-family side to aggressively confront the other side’s arguments gave them a free pass on what could have been difficult issues to overcome. And a number of pro-gay “marriage” Democrat (and RINO Republican) Governors and Attorneys-General simply refused to properly defend the cases and/or appeal them after losing.
Using both state and federal courts, the LGBT lobby has now gotten activist courts to “overturn” 26 of the 30 state constitutional amendments. (Some of these cases are still being appealed.)
But on November 6, 2014, their string of successes hit a snag, as the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Ohio constitutional amendment. However, since this disagreed with the other Federal District Court rulings, it bumped the case up to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear it and make a broad decision.

2. How the 14th Amendment is used to push the radical agenda in the courts
In all these cases (as in countless other “progressive” legal challenges over the years) the radicals have used twisted interpretations of the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment to advance their agenda through the courts.
The Fourteenth Amendment says:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The “due process” and the “equal protection” clauses are the hammers used to smash the existing laws and constitutional amendments. Along with that, the LGBT lawyers start with the assumption (which our side could easily refute, but doesn't) that “sexual orientation” constitutes a class of citizen (based on an immutable characteristic, etc).
Regarding the “equal protection” argument: They argue that “gays” are not allowed to marry the ones they love, but heterosexuals are. They say that “gays” are thus “demeaned,” made “second class citizens,” and kept “unequal” – and this causes them terrible harm.
They further argue that not recognizing “gay marriages” from other states is a violation of due process because of the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause.

Of course, this is all legal nonsense. The answer to their “equal protection” argument is simple: Under the law, every person can only marry someone of the opposite sex. The marriage laws apply to every person equally. No legal expert we’ve consulted has disagreed with us on that reasoning. And everyone gets the same “due process” under it. Unfortunately, to our knowledge these points are rarely used to buttress our side’s argument.
Furthermore, the “full faith and credit” clause was never meant to be used to alter the meaning of the word marriage (i.e., plural marriages, incestuous marriages, marriages to young children), but only the application to a marriage case (or a divorce, etc.,) where the meaning of the word marriage was commonly agreed upon. It’s pretty simple – unless you’re an activist judge.

3. What this case is specifically meant to decide
The case is officially named Obergefell v. Hodges, which is a consolidation of four “gay marriage” cases previously brought before the Sixth Circuit.
According to the court documents, this case addresses only two specific questions:
1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?
2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?
On April 28, a total of 90 minutes is allotted for oral argument on question #1, and a total of 60 minutes is allotted for oral argument on question #2. As discussed above, in any normal circumstance this would be a no-brainer.
Not surprisingly, there have been dozens of amicus briefs filed for this case. (You can read them here.) Most of those filed by our side discuss the importance of marriage in society, the historical roots of marriage, how imposing “gay marriage” would divide the country, children needing a father and a mother, etc. None that we’ve seen actually addresses the two questions regarding the Fourteenth Amendment which this case is about. We can only surmise that people are assuming that the Justices are not actually focusing on strict constitutional law but on these unrelated issues.

4. The lawyers arguing this case on April 28
The competition to represent the pro-family side was definitely not as intense as for the “gay marriage side.”
Arguing for the pro-family side:  Eric E. Murphy is the current Ohio State Solicitor, who won the appeal before the Sixth Circuit after losing in District Court. John J. Bursch was Michigan State Solicitor from 2011-2013 and has argued eight times before the US Supreme Court. According to news reports, Bursch’s current firm, Warner Norcross & Judd, supports “gay marriage” and has refused to be involved in this case to help him, so he is working independently.
Both attorneys have a good reputation for competence.
Eric E. Murphy, State Solicitor
Office of the Attorney General        
30 East Broad Street, 17th Fl.          
Columbus, OH  43215-3428
(614) 466-8980
eric.murphy@ohioattorneygeneral.gov

John J. Bursch
Michigan Dept of Attorney General  
P.O. Box 30212        
Lansing, MI  48909  
(517) 373-1124
BurschJ@michigan.gov

Arguing for the homosexual “marriage” side:  Alphonse A. Gerhardstein is a prominent civil rights attorney from Cincinnati. Mary Bonauto is the celebrity lesbian attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, who won the original Goodridge “gay marriage” case in Massachusetts in 2003. We at MassResistance know Bonauto well. She argued the lawsuit against us (unsuccessfully) in the infamous “Fistgate” case, and we have debated her on television.
We don’t know much about Gerhardstein. In our opinion, Bonauto is not particularly impressive.
Alphonse A. Gerhardstein
Gerhardstein & Branch Co. LPA
432 Walnut St., Suite 400
Cincinnati, OH  45202          
(513) 621-0779        
agerhardstein@gbfirm.com

Mary L. Bonauto
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders      
30 Winter Street, Suite 800  
Boston, MA  02108
(617) 426-1350        
mbonauto@glad.org

(Contact information is from Supreme Court filings.)

5. Anticipated problems with our side’s arguments
The other side’s arguments rarely bother dealing with the strict constitutional meaning of the text in question. They are almost exclusively based on the assumption that “sexual orientation” constitutes a legitimate legal “class” of people who are “born that way,” and as such have innate rights as a “class.” The concept of a “class” of people is foreign to the text of the Constitution. But it has nevertheless been accepted by courts for decades and undoubtedly by a number of the Supreme Court Justices.
That concept must be vigorously confronted and debunked. Unfortunately, our lawyers have been afraid to do that. Instead they concede to it and attempt to make a persuasive argument within those absurd boundaries — i.e., every child needs a mother and father, marriage is an institution for procreation, etc. This strategy almost always fails.
Why does our side avoid a strong argument? The answer falls into two categories:
1. Fear of being accused of “animus.” Our lawyers have internalized the idea that any perception of “animus towards gays” in their arguments will alienate the Justices. After all, gays are a “class” of people. This forces out any discussion of anything that debunks that, such as the horrible medical consequences associated with homosexual behavior: diseases, addictions, mental health problems, domestic violence, lower life expectancy, etc. Or any suggestion that is an immoral, unnatural perversion. Or the proven damage to children raised in same-sex households.
2. Pandering to “rational basis.” There is an extra-constitutional concept that judges have the authority to overturn a law if it doesn’t appear rational to them. Whether or not it was “rational” to a legislature or to the people makes no difference. Thus, the LGBT lawyers simply state that it’s “not rational” to exclude the class of “gays” from marrying whomever they want. It’s been one the basis for overturning constitutional marriage amendments. Our lawyers fear being judged “irrational” if they bring up the uncomfortable aspects of homosexuality, so they stick to the “comfortable” arguments.
It’s about time to quit doing what doesn’t work. Our fear, unfortunately, is that the lawyers on our side have been working closely with pro-family establishment lawyers in Washington DC (and we all know who they are) who are anything but aggressive or confrontational on these issues.

6. When the Court will issue a decision
The Court will issue its ruling before its current term ends in late June – i.e., within two months.

7. Why Justices Ginsburg and Kagan must legally recuse themselves from this case
Federal law 28 U.S. Code § 455 states:
Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
In the past year Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan have performed same-sex “weddings.”  Ginsburg told people that the acceptance of same-sex “marriage” reflects “the genius of our Constitution.”
Kagan’s aggressive advocacy for LGBT “rights” goes back to her years as Dean of Harvard Law School (2003-2009), and is thoroughly documented in our MassResistance report.
Ginsburg and Kagan are unquestionably biased on this issue and by law must disqualify themselves from this case. Failure to do would call into question the legitimacy of the (feared) ruling on this case, at the very least. Furthermore, a near-universal interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s “due process” clause (above) includes the right of impartial court proceedings. Having biased judges violates that.
Motion for Recusal. We have been informed that Attorney Andy Schlafly (son of Phyllis Schlafly) has drafted a Motion for Recusal, under section 28 USC 144, which will be filed by one of the state Attorneys-Generals in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan or Kentucky who have standing in the case.  According to Mr. Schlafly, “This will be the first time in the history of our country that a Motion for Recusal will have been filed against U.S. Supreme Court Justices because the above codes are for Federal District Judges, yet the principle of recusal can be expanded to all federal judges including Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

8. Bill filed in Congress to remove the Court’s jurisdiction on marriage
It is possible for Congress to restrict the Federal Courts from hearing certain types of cases.
Article III, Section 2 of the US Constitution gives Congress the ability to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and federal courts:
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
In the case of marriage, this probably should have been done at least a decade ago.
However, this past week, some action was started. In both houses of Congress, bills were filed to block the federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, from hearing or deciding cases involving the definition of marriage.
In the US House, Rep. Steve King, (R-Iowa) filed bill, H.R. 1968, titled Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act of 2015. (See text of bill here.) As Rep. King describes on his website, “This bill strips federal courts of jurisdiction to hear cases related to marriage. The effect of the bill would prevent federal courts from hearing marriage cases, leaving the issue to the States where it properly belongs.” Read a news report here.
In the US Senate, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) filed bill S. 1080, It is titled The Protect Marriage from the Courts Act. (See text of bill here.)
Will the RINO Republican leadership in the US House and Senate go along with it? We will see. And then Obama must sign it …

9. The latest in the Court’s long history of illegitimate usurpation of power
The problem of the federal courts acting as unelected rulers — contrary to the intent of the Constitution — is not new. In 1861, in his first Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln condemned the Supreme Court’s power grab then:
If the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
Over the last several decades it’s only gotten further out-of-control.
In 2005, the Hoover Institution published a paper by Lino Graglia, a law professor at the University of Texas, titled “Constitutional Law without the Constitution: The Supreme Court’s Remaking of America” that described it very well. An excerpt from that article:
The central fact of contemporary constitutional law, however, is that it has very little to do with the Constitution. Nearly all the Supreme Court’s rulings of unconstitutionality have little or no basis in, and are sometimes in direct violation of, the Constitution. Their actual basis is nothing more than the policy preferences of a majority of the Court’s nine justices. The power to assert that the Constitution prohibits any policy choice of which they disapprove has enabled the justices to make themselves the final lawmakers on any public policy issue that they choose to remove from the ordinary political process and to assign for decision to themselves. Over the past half-century the justices have chosen to make themselves the final lawmakers on most basic issues of domestic social policy in American society. These include issues literally of life and death, as in the Court’s decisions on contraception, abortion, capital punishment, and assisted suicide; issues of public order, as in its decisions on criminal procedure, public demonstrations, and vagrancy control; and issues of public morality, as in its decisions on pornography and homosexuality. These are the issues that determine the basic values, nature, and quality of a society. In essence, the Court now performs in the American system of government a role similar to that performed by the Grand Council of Ayatollahs in the Iranian system: voting takes place and representatives of the people are elected as lawmakers, but the decisions they reach on basic issues of social policy are permitted to prevail only so long as they are not disallowed by the system’s highest authority.
That’s what we’ve been up against: Nine justices appointed for life who have made themselves the unelected legislators over us all.

10. Immense pressure from the homosexual movement
It’s difficult to describe the enormous amounts of money and sophisticated planning, political maneuvering, and pressure tactics that the homosexual lobby has used in this nationwide march through the federal courts. Millions of dollars have flowed to them from major US corporations and wealthy donors.  Adding to that is the flood of major media support (including even FOX News!) that the LGBT movement enjoys. Needless to say, it’s unbelievably one-sided.
On the other hand, most wealthy conservative donors have made their peace with the LGBT movement and have abandoned their support at a time when it’s needed most. And virtually no corporations donate money to the pro-family side of this issue.
The LGBT movement has used its resources and power very aggressively. In just the last several weeks, hundreds of corporations and high-profile politicians, including Republicans, have publicly told the Supreme Court that they want “gay marriage” imposed on America by the judiciary. Virtually the nation’s entire legal community now refuses to even engage cases involving challenges to “gay marriage” — an unpresented turn of events.
Will this push a majority of the Supreme Court Justices over the top? In any other time in history, this case would have been laughed out of any courtroom. So anything is possible.
What do we do next?
By any objective measure, this whole case is a mockery of actual Constitutional law. Yet, the odds are that Ginsburg and Kagan will not disqualify themselves and enough of the rest of the judges will rule to force this insanity on all of America — and which among other things will surely lead to the further persecution of people of faith.
Should the worst happen, we’ll certainly have it rubbed in our faces as quickly as possible. As happened in Massachusetts in 2003, the first thing we will see will be adolescent screams of joy and jumping in the streets by the homosexual radicals, celebrated spectacularly in the mainstream media.
But what about our side? We have to fight back, that’s for sure.
What does that mean? There has been a lot of talk about pro-family “civil disobedience” and “taking to the streets.” But let’s be honest. When the Left threatens civil disobedience the local police schedule double shifts (often to protect them). But when we do it, nobody really pays attention. To most conservatives civil disobedience is not mowing your lawn for three weeks or posting strong articles on FaceBook – not exactly rioting.
And the legal system will surely come down even harder on anyone disobeying the new rulings, as well as state and local non-discrimination ordinances...

_____________________

My commentary:

When moral liberty is detached from the Natural Law and the Eternal Divine Law, it soon degenerates into license. It was Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Letter Libertas Humana, who reminded us that:

"Liberty, the highest of natural endowments, being the portion only of intellectual or rational natures, confers on man this dignity - that he is 'in the hand of his counsel' and has power over his actions. But the manner in which such dignity is exercised is of the greatest moment, inasmuch as on the use that is made of liberty the highest good and the greatest evil alike depend. Man, indeed, is free to obey his reason, to seek moral good, and to strive unswervingly after his last end. Yet he is free also to turn aside to all other things; and, in pursuing the empty substance of good, to disturb rightful order and to fall headlong into the destruction which he has voluntarily chosen...Therefore, the nature of human liberty, however it be considered, whether in individuals or in society, whether in those who command or in those who obey, supposes the necessity of obedience to some supreme and eternal law, which is no other than the authority of God, commanding good and forbidding evil. And, so far from this most just authority of God over men diminishing, or even destroying their liberty, it protects and perfects it, for the real perfection of all creatures is found in the prosecution and attainment of their respective ends, but the supreme end to which human liberty must aspire is God."

In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court allows so broad an interpretation of liberty, that virtually all state laws proscribing evils such as adultery, bigamy, incest, prostitution, sadomasochism, bestiality and pedophilia are now at risk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas#Broader_implications

An act is immoral if it violates Natural Law or Divine Law. The Supreme Court has imposed a perverse notion of "liberty" which favors unnatural vice over virtue. In Lawrence v Texas, the Court violated its responsibility to uphold a most fundamental principle of the Natural Law. Namely, to do good and avoid evil. As a consequence, homosexuality - and other sexual abnormalities which undermine the family and therefore the common good - will now be constitutionally protected expressions of "liberty."

This is a real moral tragedy and one which will soon lead to intense persecution of Christians (and other people of good will) who oppose violations of both the Natural Law and the Divine Law (see:http://dtf-jayg.blogspot.com/2007/02/whos-persecuting-whom.html ).

When the European Parliament passed a special resolution encouraging the nations of Europe to approve homosexual "marriage," Pope John Paul II responded in protest:

"What is not morally acceptable, however, is the legalization of homosexual acts. To show understanding towards the person who sins, towards the person who is not in the process of freeing himself from this tendency, does not at all mean to diminish the demands of the moral norm (cf. Veritatis Splendor, No. 95)....

But we must say that what was intended with the European Parliament's resolution was the legitimization of a moral disorder. Parliament improperly conferred an institutional value to a conduct that is deviant and not in accordance with God's plan...

Forgetting the words of Christ 'The truth shall set you free' (John 8:32), an attempt was made to show the people of our continent a moral evil, a deviance, a certain slavery, as a form of liberation, falsifying the very essence of the family." (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/angelus/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_ang_19940220_it.html ).

As the persecution of Christians intensifies, and as our society collapses in on itself under the weight of institutionalized deviance, the words of the prophet Isaiah will echo in our hearts and minds:


"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light,
and light for darkness....
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!"
Isaiah 5:2-21

Kasper the-not-so-friendly ghost attempts to justify Pope Francis' condemnation of the Curia

Religion News Service is reporting that: "Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of Pope Francis’ closest advisers, has sought to downplay the pontiff’s scathing critique of the Curia earlier this week.

Kasper, who previously led the Vatican body responsible for promoting Christian unity, said the pope was asking the Curia, or Vatican administration, to examine their conscience in a bid to promote spiritual renewal.

The German cardinal, joined by Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, said Francis was asking the Curia to set an example.

'The fundamental thing is he wants spiritual reform of the Curia,' Kasper told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Wednesday (Dec. 24).

Certainly also reform of the structures is important and he is working on that. But the basis of the problem is spiritual.”  See here.

Cardinal Kasper wants us to believe that the hate-filled pre-Christmas rant leveled at the Curia by Pope Francis was merely an exercise in constructive criticism with an eye toward encouraging self-examination which will lead to spiritual renewal.

But the techniques of degradation will never stir others to authentic reform. What is constructive criticism and how does it differ from condemnation?

Dr. Montague Brown, professor of philosophy at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, explains the difference between the two nicely: “Criticism is the honest appraisal of the value of ideas or actions…Pursued in the right spirit, it is a positive undertaking whose purpose is to gain an accurate understanding for the sake of growing in wisdom and virtue….Condemnation goes beyond evaluation of an idea or action to a declaration of the worthlessness of a human being. It is never fair and is a wholly negative judgment, referring only to weaknesses. Because condemnation is unreasonable, it serves no purpose in our quest for wisdom and virtue.” (The One-Minute Philosopher, pp. 28,29).

Can it honestly be said that the pope's referring to his brothers in the Episcopate as "sick," "spiritually and mentally hardened," "enslaved to idols," "boastful and arrogant," "cowardly," "indifferent," "gloomy," and "sterile," not to mention a litany of other charges, in a public forum, is merely an exercise in fraternal constructive criticism?

Related reading here

Atheists should follow their conscience Holy Father?....Not so fast!

Back in 2011, before giving the traditional Christmas blessing to the City of Rome and the world ("urbi et orbi"), Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the Child of Bethlehem as Savior.  His Holiness said (in part): "He was sent by God the Father to save us above all from the evil deeply rooted in man and in history: the evil of separation from God, the prideful presumption of being self-sufficient, of trying to compete with God and to take his place, to decide what is good and evil, to be the master of life and death.."

The Holy Father said that human beings cannot save themselves from this sin, "unless we rely on God's help, unless we cry out to him: 'Veni ad salvandum nos! -- Come to save us!'"

He affirmed, though, that "the very fact that we cry to heaven in this way already sets us aright; it makes us true to ourselves: We are in fact those who cried out to God and were saved."

The Bishop of Rome spoke of God as the physician, while we are the infirm. And to realize this, he said, "is the first step towards salvation, towards emerging from the maze in which we have been locked by our pride. To lift our eyes to heaven, to stretch out our hands and call for help is our means of escape, provided that there is Someone who hears us and can come to our assistance."

"Jesus Christ is the proof that God has heard our cry," the Pope declared. "And not only this! God's love for us is so strong that he cannot remain aloof; he comes out of himself to enter into our midst and to share fully in our human condition. The answer to our cry which God gave in Jesus infinitely transcends our expectations, achieving a solidarity which cannot be human alone, but divine. Only the God who is love, and the love which is God, could choose to save us in this way, which is certainly the lengthiest way, yet the way which respects the truth about him and about us: the way of reconciliation, dialogue and cooperation." (See here).

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."

This deification of subjectivity is something Pope Francis appears to have advanced.  He has said that, "Sin, even for those who have no faith, is when one goes against their conscience,” he added. “To listen and to obey to (one’s conscience) means to decide oneself in relation to what’s perceived as good and evil. And this decision is fundamental to determining the good or evil of our actions."  See here.

It's not that simple Holy Father.


There is a difference in meaning between a certain and a correct conscience. The term "correct" describes the objective truth of the person's judgment, that in fact his conscience represents the real state of things. The term "certain" describes the subjective state of the person judging, how firmly he holds to his assent and how thoroughly he has excluded fear of the opposite. The kind of certitude which is meant here is a subjective certitude, which may easily exist along with objective error. It follows then that we have two possibilities here:

1. A certain and correct conscience.

2. A certain but erroneous conscience.


Now, a certain and correct conscience offers no difficulty and our obligation is therefore clear. A certain and correct conscience is merely the moral law promulgated to the individual and applied to to his own individual act. But the moral law must always be obeyed. Consequently, a certain and correct conscience must be obeyed. And what degree of certitude is required? It is sufficient that the individual's conscience be prudentially certain. Prudential certitude is not absolute but relative. As such, it excludes all prudent fear that the opposite may be true, but does not rule out imprudent fears which are based upon bare possibilities. The reasons are convincing enough to satisfy a normally prudent man in an important matter and this results in that individual feeling safe in practice while there is a theoretical chance of his being incorrect. In such a case, the individual has taken every reasonable precaution but he cannot guarantee against rare contingencies and "freaks of nature."

In moral matters, a complete mathematical certitude is not to be expected. This because when there is question of action, of something to be done in the here and now, but which also involves future consequences (some of which are dependent upon the wills of other individuals), the absolute possibility of error cannot be entirely excluded. However, it can be so reduced that no prudent man, one who is free of neurotic whimsies, would be deterred from acting through fear of it. Therefore, prudential certitude, since it excludes all reasonable fear of error, is much more than high probability, which fails to exclude such reasonable fear.

What happens when an individual is in possession of an erroneous conscience? That depends. If the error is vincible, it must be corrected. In such a case, the person knows that he may be wrong, is able to correct the possible error, and is obliged to do so before acting. A vincibly erroneous conscience cannot be a certain conscience. This is easily demonstrated. For example, an individual may have a merely probable opinion which he neglects to verify, (through laziness or fear of discovering that he is in fact in error), although he is able to do so. Or perhaps he may have judged certainly and yet erroneously at one point, but now begins to doubt whether or not his judgment was in fact correct. For as long as this individual did not realize his error, his conscience was invincibly erroneous; the error becomes vincible at the precise moment that the individual is no longer subjectively certain and has begun to doubt. Anyone who has read Dr. Scott Hahn's personal conversion story will recall that, when he realized the truth of Catholic teaching and that the Catholic Church was in fact the Church founded by Christ, he knew he had a responsibility to enter that Church. I would also refer readers to Lumen Gentium, No. 14 which deals with this subject.

If an error is invincible, there appears to be a dilemma. On the one hand, it doesn't seem right that a person should be obliged to follow an erroneous judgment; on the other, the individual is not aware of being in error and has no means of correcting it. But this dilemma is solved by recalling that conscience is a subjective guide to conduct, that invincible error and ignorance are unavoidable, that any wrong which occurs is not done voluntarily and therefore may not be charged to the agent. An individual acting with an invincibly erroneous conscience may in fact do something that is objectively wrong. However, since he does not recognize it as such it is not subjectively wrong. Such a person is thereby free of guilt by the invincible ignorance which is bound up in his error.

Conclusion: The will depends on the intellect to present the good to it. The will-act is good so long as it tends to the good presented by the intellect. It is bad or deficient if it tends to what the intellect judges evil. Invincible error in the intellect does not change the goodness or badness of the will-act, in which morality essentially consists. If an individual is firmly convinced that his or her action is right, that person is obeying the moral law to the degree that he or she can. If that same individual is firmly convinced that his or her action is wrong, that person is disobeying the moral law in intention, even though the act may not be objectively wrong.

I would recommend a thorough read of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say with regard to forming a correct conscience.

A broken conscience, an ill-formed conscience, can become 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?

 

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

The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers..."

In his book entitled Communism and the Conscience of the West, Fulton John Sheen warned that, "The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himsel as "I am Who am," and the Devil as "I am who am not."


Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first "red." Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as "the Prince of this world," whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect--and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. . . .

. . . The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion--one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God's.

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. . . .

. . . But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism. (Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West [Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948], pp. 24-25).

A false prophet, a Pope who is controlled by Satan, will prepare the world for the appearance of the Man of Sin.  Saint Francis (from whom the current pope took his name) prophesied shortly before his death that, "At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death...Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it...for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer." (Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, Washburne, p. 248).

In his classic work entitled "The Book of Destiny," Father Herman Bernard Kramer, a priest-mystic, prophesied that, "The 'sign' [in the book of Revelation] in heaven is that of a woman with child crying out in her travail and anguish of delivery.  In that travail, she gives birth to some definite 'person' who is to rule the Church with a rod of iron (Apoc 12: 5).  It then points to a conflict waged within the Church to elect one who was to 'rule all nations' in the manner clearly stated.  In accord with the text this is unmistakably a papal election, for only Christ and His Vicar have the divine right to rule all nations..." (p. 480).

The course has been set.  The signs of the times constitute a warning to the remnant Church.