"Then all the earth will writhe in convulsions..."

Once again the Pro-Life movement has been betrayed as the Culture of Death advances. The forces behind the Socialist Society will not be deterred. They are determined to destroy the old society in order to build an atheistic society on its ashes. Archbishop Fulton Sheen writes, "Dostoyevsky, who understood atheism better than Nietzsche and who saw it coming in his own beloved land, knew that atheism had to be associated with the destruction of the old society. There was some suggestion that an overplanned or socialistic society had to be the prelude of an atheistic society. As he made one of his characters say: 'If Aloysha had not believed in God, he would have become a socialist.' For the man-god to grow in age and wisdom, two conditions must be fulfilled. The heavens must be emptied, and man must be secularized. Both will be achieved by turning freedom into license. Men will be asked to give up God because His Commandments 'enslave' and because our will often runs counter to His. When finally everyone has his own will and does whatever he pleases, then there will be a chaos due to the conflict of egotisms. It will then be necessary for Big Brother, or the state, to organize this chaos into a closed socialist society and the formulas given by the character, Shigalev, the theorist of the Communism to come: 'Having set out from unlimited freedom, I have ended up with unlimited despotism.' What Dostoyevsky was predicting through his characters, Nietzsche was saying through his philosophy. As he put it: 'I heralded the coming of the tragic era. We must be prepared for a long succession of demolitions, devastations, and upheavals...There will be wars such as the world has never seen. Europe will soon be enveloped in darkness. We shall watch the rising of the black tide.' And in another work, he wrote: 'A catastrophe is at hand. A catastrophe whose name I know*, whose name I shall not tell...Then all the earth will writhe in convulsions.'" (Fulton Sheen, essay entitled "The Death of God").

* John 5: 43.

It could never happen here......right?

As shown here, the National Socialists attempted a transformation of German music by banning Jewish performers and conductors and any music written by Jews or which was felt to be inconsistent with the Nazi worldview. Of course, this could never happen in the United States. We cherish freedom here. Right?

Or do we?

Related reading here and here.

En route to tyranny...

"As the modern-day freedom fighters begin to organize and strategize, the government chooses not to reform, but to entrench and expand its control over the people. The similarity is remarkable, between the rise of the Democratic Socialist Party now in control of Washington and the rise of the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany in the 1930s." - Mr. Henry Lamb, author of "The Rise of Global Governance."

Related reading: The myth of the pro-life Democrat.

Related reading: A secular messiah A secular messiah Part II.

Related reading: Obama poised to create New World Order

Related reading: Sin is a reproach to any people

Update: The change we need or preparation for the Reign of Antichrist? See here.

Deacon Jim Couture of Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg promotes Fr. John Powell S.J. at Holy Mass

During the 9 AM Mass at Saint Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg, Deacon Jim Couture spoke approvingly of Father John Powell's book entitled "He Touched Me." Father John Powell, S.J., is well-known in liberal circles and published more than 30 books on the subject of love. He is also an admitted sexual predator who, as this article explains, abused "at least six adults...in the late 60's and 70's." Father Powell is also well-known as a priest-abuser as this article makes clear.

I remember reading a couple of his books in the 1980's when he was being heavily promoted on PBS. I was immediately struck by the fact that Fr. Powell was a liberal priest with some very strange ideas. For example, in one book he mocks the Salve Regina as being something of an exercise in morbid spirituality since it refers to life as a "vale of tears." The Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Queen) dates from the eleventh century. It is attributed to various authors and was added to the Liturgy of the Hours by Pope St. Pius V in the sixteenth century. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 966).

Why would Deacon Jim Couture want to cite anything from Father Powell's books? With all the Saints and Doctors and Fathers of the Church, he chooses to promote the work of a predator-priest?

Lord Jesus, Maranatha!


Related reading here.

The world wishes to be seduced...

In the last days leading up to Antichrist, there will apear many anti-christs. Indeed, this is the chief sign by which we will know that the hour of the great trial is at hand. During this time, evil will abound more than at any other period in the history of the world. As darkness descends upon the Church, fiction will be preferred to truth. We have arrived at the time when the world wishes to be seduced.

It is now the time referred to by Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, "For then shall Satan be loosed, and by means of that Antichrist shall work with all power in a lying though a wonderful manner...they shall be such signs and wonders as shall seduce those who shall deserve to be seduced, 'because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.' Neither did the apostle scruple to go on to say, 'For this cause God shall send upon them the working of error that they should believe a lie.' For God shall send, because God shall permit the devil to do these things, the permission being by His own just judgment, though the doing of them is in pursuance of the devil's unrighteous and malignant purpose, 'that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.' Therefore, being judged, they shall be seduced, and, being seduced, they shall be judged. But, being judged, they shall be seduced by those secretly just and justly secret judgments of God, with which He has never ceased to judge since the first sin of the rational creatures; and, being seduced, they shall be judged in that last and manifest judgment administered by Jesus Christ, who was Himself most unjustly judged and shall most justly judge." (City of God, Modern Library edition, p. 740).

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."

Samuel Adams

Related reading here.

Christianophobia in Fitchburg (and beyond)...

Recently, the Sentinel & Enterprise published a letter to the editor which I wrote in response to comments made by Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr to the effect that pro-life views have "no place" at City Council meetings. Several hateful comments have been left in response to my letter to the editor. One individual wrote:

"You Jesus freaks are outright stupid. This debate has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with whether or not an organization (with state funding) should be allowed to operate in our city. An organization mind you, that will provide free birth control and contraceptives to your $LUT daughters and your horny sons, and keep kids still in high school from having kids that the taxpayers have to pay to support. Planned Parenthood is a great organization who has positively served thousands of cities in the country for years. Go hide behind your crucifix just don't complain when your 14 year old daughter gets knocked up by some PR kid behind Market Basket and expects a handout from uncle sam. Begone hypocrites.

Kevin Starr is right. His comments ensure that both he and the city council stay on issue and dont get swayed by talks of the second coming of jesus and how god wouldn't want the state handing out condoms to kids who are just gonna **** with or without them. That's the truth, deal with it." (See here).

This debate has nothing to do with religion asserts this unhappy individual as he labels opponents of Planned Parenthood "Jesus freaks" while exhorting them to "go hide behind your crucifix."

Hatred for the crucifix is growing as intolerance and discrimination against Christians continues to widen. In Bad Soden, Germany, crosses were removed from hospital walls and thrown into trash bags [much as aborted babies are thrown into trash bags] as patients watched.

Fanaticism, as proven by the items listed above, stems from the will to power and not religion.
The French philosopher Jacques Maritain addresses this fact in his work entitled "On the Use of Philosophy," which is actually a compilation of three essays.

His second essay is entitled "truth and human fellowship." He writes:


"'O liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!' Madame Roland said, mounting the scaffold. O Truth, it may be said, how often blind violence and oppression have been let loose in thy name in history! 'Zeal for truth,' as Father Victor White puts it, 'has too often been a cloak for the most evil and revolting of human passions.' As a result, some people think that in order to set human existence free from these evil passions, and make men live in peace and pleasant quiet, the best way is to get rid of any zeal for truth or attachment to truth. Thus it is that after the violence and cruelty of wars of religion, a period of skepticism usually occurs, as at the time of Montaigne and Charron. Here we have only the swing of the pendulum moving from one extreme to the other. Skepticism, moreover, may happen to hold those who are not skeptical to be barbarous, childish, or subhuman, and it may happen to treat them as badly as the zealot treats the unbeliever. Then skepticism proves to be as intolerant as fanaticism - it becomes the fanaticism of doubt. This is a sign that skepticism is not the answer. The answer is humility, together with faith in truth...

The problem of truth and human fellowship is important for democratic societies; it seems to me to be particularly important for this country [United States], where men and women coming from a great diversity of national stocks and religious or philosophical creeds have to live together. If each one of them endeavored to impose his own convictions and the truth in which he believes on all his co-citizens, would not living together become impossible? That is obviously right. Well, it is easy, too easy, to go a step further, and to ask: if each one sticks to his own convictions, will not each one endeavor to impose his own convictions on all others? So that, as a result, living together will become impossible if any citizen whatever sticks to his own convictions and believes in a given truth? Thus it is not unusual to meet people who think that not to believe in any truth, or not to adhere firmly to any assertion as unshakeably true in itself, is a primary condition required of democratic citizens in order to be tolerant of one another. May I say that these people are in fact the most intolerant people, for if perchance they were to believe in something as unshakeably true, they would feel compelled, by the same stroke, to impose by force and coercion their own belief on their co-citizens...

The only remedy they have found to get rid of their abiding tendency to fanaticism is to cut themselves off from truth. That is a suicidal method. It is a suicidal conception of democracy: not only would a democratic society which lived on universal skepticism condemn itself to death by starvation; but it would also enter a process of self-annihilation, from the very fact that no democratic society can live without a common practical belief in those truths which are freedom, justice, law, and the other tenets of democracy; and that any belief in these things as objectively and unshakeably true, as well as in any other kind of truth, would be brought to naught by the preassumed law of universal skepticism....

It is, no doubt, easy to observe that in the history of mankind nothing goes to show that, from primitive times on, religious feeling or religious ideas have been particularly successful in pacifying men; religious differences seem rather to have fed and sharpened their conflicts. On the one hand truth always makes trouble, and those who bear witness to it are always persecuted: 'Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth; I came not to send peace, but the sword.' (Matthew 10:34). On the other hand - and this is the point we must face - those who know or claim to know truth happen sometimes to persecute others. I do not deny the fact; I say that this fact, like all other facts, needs to be understood. It only means that, given the weakness of our nature, the impact of of the highest and most sacred things upon the coarseness of the human heart is liable to make these things, by accident, a prey to its passions, as long as it has not been purified by genuine love. It is nonsense to regard fanaticism as a fruit of religion. Fanaticism is a natural tendency rooted in our basic egotism and will to power. It seizes upon any noble feeling to live on it. The only remedy for religious fanaticism is the Gospel light and the progress of religious consciousness in faith itself and in that fraternal love which is the fruit of the human soul's union with God. For then man realizes the sacred transcendence of truth and of God. The more he grasps truth, through science, philosophy, or faith, the more he feels what immensity remains to be grasped within this very truth. The more he knows God, either by reason or by faith, the more he understands that our concepts attain (through analogy) but do not circumscribe Him, and that His thoughts are not like our thoughts: for 'who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath become His counselor.' (Isaias 40:13). The more strong and deep faith becomes, the more man kneels down, not before his own alleged ignorance of truth, but before the inscrutable mystery of divine truth, and before the hidden ways in which God goes to meet those who search Him....

To sum up, the real problem has to do with the human subject, endowed as he is with his rights in relation to his fellow men, and afflicted as he is by the vicious inclinations which derive from his will to power. On the one hand, the error of the absolutists who would like to impose truth by coercion comes from the fact that they shift their right feelings about the object from the object to the subject; and they think that just as error has no rights of its own and should be banished from the mind (through the means of the mind), so man when he is in error has no rights of his own and should be banished from human fellowship (through the means of human power).

On the other hand, the error of the theorists who make relativism, ignorance, and doubt a necessary condition for mutual tolerance comes from the fact that they shift their right feelings about the human subject - who must be respected even if he is in error - from the subject to the object; and thus they deprive man and the human intellect of the very act - adherence to the truth - in which consists man's dignity and reason for living." (Jacques Maritain, On the Use of Philosophy: Three Essays, pp. 16, 17, 21-23).

The repudiation of the sovereignty of God and the denial of the primacy of the spiritual...

"..right is based, not upon men’s opinions, but upon Nature. This fact will immediately be plain if you once get a clear conception of man’s fellowship and union with his fellow-men. For no single thing is so like another, so exactly its counterpart, as all of us are to one another…And so, however we may define man, a single definition will apply to all." [ Cicero, Laws I x 28-30]


Lifesite News is reporting that Planned Parenthood once acknowledged (in an October 1952 pamphlet), that abortion "...kills the life of a baby after it has begun" and that "it is dangerous" to a woman's "life and health." But Mayor Lisa Wong and certain members of the Fitchburg City Council appear determined to welcome Planned Parenthood and its anti-life agenda into the city.
It was the first Bishop of Worcester, John J. Wright, in an address to the Worcester Ministers' Association given on January 15, 1952, who said, "The undermining of God's standard in community affairs has been further hastened by the denial or neglect of the primacy of the spiritual, with a consequent debasing of human personality and degradation of human society. Ours is a technical civilization, a know-how rather than a know-why civilization, and therefore one in which material and mechanical values tend to dominate thought and action. Excessive emphasis on know-how and impatience with know-why have produced the cult of the body, the predominance of the material, the worship of the gadget, an indifference to the spiritual and a repudiation of the moral...In the practical order, from the repudiation of the sovereignty of God and the denial of the primacy of the spiritual, comes the refusal, born, as it were, out of the blend of the two, to acknowledge the necessary relation which must exist between all human positive law worthy of the name and the moral law that God has writ in nature, that He causes to echo in the healthy conscience and that He has clarified through Revelation....

Before the appeal to conscience can recover its ancient power to change men, to renew the very face of the earth, there must be universal all-out witness to the sovereignty of God, the spiritual responsibility of man and the all-inclusive application of His law....Against the idea of God's Law there are a host of rival norms of conduct which plague our generation. Expressions such as my life is my own affair or I may do as I please or who cares? or in politics, anything goes or all's fair in love and war - all betray a gross misunderstanding of the moral order of those interlinking relations among men and nations of which God's standard is the only correct measure. All human rights and duties have their source in God's law*; otherwise they are meaningless.."

* Exodus 20:13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"...And his tail was dragging along the third part of the stars of heaven and he dashed them to the earth.."

"'And a great sign appeared in heaven,' wrote St. John in the twelfth chapter of his Apocalypse. 'A woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet, having on her head a crown of twelve stars...and I heard a voice in heaven saying: Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of God and the power of His Christ.....And another sign was seen in the heaven, and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his head seven diadems. And his tail was dragging along the third part of the stars of heaven and he dashed them to the earth.'

Most Scripture scholars agree that the sign of the Woman in heaven has a double symbolism, referring to Mary and to the Church. The sign of the red dragon and the beast, who comes up from the abyss to wage war against the camp of the saints, refers to Satan and the Antichrist. Earlier in chapter nine, St. John depicts the confusion and division, through heresy and schism, that these two agents of evil will bring upon the Church and the whole world in the last days.

Once again it is profitable to apply St. John's vision of falling stars, but this time with special application to the relationship between Mary and her priests. In her many apparitions Mary constantly requests prayers, reparation and compensation for the sins of priests. As the most valiant of all women, indeed, of all saints, she wants to bestow on all who have been ordained into the holy priesthood of her Son a high degree of her own heroic faith, fidelity and zeal. For she knows how necessary these virtues are for priests if they are to dedicate their lives wholeheartedly to attaining the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Mary knows, too, that priests are the special target of Satan's malice who would destroy her Son's Church through the corruption of His priests. St. John, using striking dramatic metaphors, reveals the destructive tactics of Satan and the Antichrist.

'And I saw a star which had fallen from heaven to the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit, and there went up from the pit a smoke like that of a furnace; and the sun was darkened and the air, by reason of the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke locusts went forth upon the earth and they were told...to harm only such men as have not the seal of God upon their forehead.'

Now in prophetic symbolism falling stars almost always refer to tepid, weak or apostate bishops and priests who are harbingers of grief and disaster to the whole world. The key to the shaft of the abyss is an emblem of their apostasy. Such traitorous religious leaders and teachers ally themselves with the rebellious angels. Instead of using the keys of the kingdom of God, which they have received from the Church through their priesthood and the mission of teaching the Gospel so as to suppress and defeat the satanic forces incarnate in wicked men while advancing the holiness of the faithful, they rather abuse their powers to foster and propagate error and evil. They opt to open the abyss and let loose upon the earth the plagues of darkness and wickedness.

Today too many fallen stars - rebellious bishops, priests, theologians, philosophers, nuns and Catholic intellectuals - are abusing their sacerdotal powers and intellectual gifts to seduce, enslave and precipitate into hell vast numbers of wayward sheep. Out of the darkness of the pit they have loosed the forces of error, evil and scandal. The smoke streaming from the pit darkens the sun of Christ's truth and obliterates the splendour of His holiness; it infects the air with decadent, immoral odors. Everything is cast into confusion; gloom infests the world of religion and reason; grace, the life-giving oxygen of the soul and body, is strangled out of the supernatural organisms of the children of God. Moreover, the darkening sun and sky betoken the eclipse of the Teaching Authority of the Church, the lowering of men's respect and love for her, their loss of reverence for her Master and the demeaning of both Christ and His Church to the level of being mere natural, defective organs of society lusting after domination over men's souls and bodies through the accumulation of material riches and political power.." (Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, S.J., The Antichrist: Has he lauched his final campaign against the Savior?", pp. 260-261).

More than ever today, we need to pray for Christ's priests. This is not a time to engage in anti-clericalism. Faithful priests need our support. They need our prayers. We are now facing the final confrontation between two camps: the one belonging to Our Lord Jesus and His Mother and the other to Satan and the Antichrist.

Pray and offer reparation. Offer your Holy Mass and your Holy Rosary every day not only for your own spiritual needs but for priests.

Related reading here.

Greater Fitchburg for Life

There is a new Pro-Life Blog covering the ongoing moral crisis which has descended upon the city of Fitchburg. The Blog is called Greater Fitchburg for Life and may be found here. These good people who are fighting for life "feel a need to proclaim it and bear witness to it in all its marvelous newness since it is one with Jesus himself who makes all things new and conquers the 'oldness' which comes from sin and leads to death." (Evangelium Vitae, No. 80, citing St. Irenaeus and St. Aquinas).

This is an ongoing spiritual battle. It would be a grave error to believe that this battle may be won by human action alone (as important as such action is). It will only be won through prayer and fasting. This because some demons are only driven out in this manner.

Won't you offer your prayers - and especially at Holy Mass and while praying the Holy Rosary - for the success of the Pro-Life movement in Fitchburg. Together with the help of God's grace, Fitchburg can (and will) be made new.

Read this and reflect upon the fact that Mayor Lisa Wong wants Planned Parenthood in Fitchburg.

The Sentinel & Enterprise is to be commended....to a point.

"The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions." - Socrates, Phaedo 85.


In an editorial entitled "Councilor Starr, Old Glory's a symbol of freedom of speech," (Friday, March 12th edition of the newspaper, the Sentinel & Enterprise rightly chides Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr for inappropriately lashing out at pro-life advocates saying, "We couldn't disagree more with Starr's comments. First of all, one of the most important things the American flag stands for is freedom of speech. That means when people, including his constituents, take the time to show up at City Hall to speak out about an issue, they have the absolute right, and we believe responsibility, to tell city councilors how they feel. We think it's exactly the kind of discussion that should be taking place at City Hall and frankly are puzzled with Starr's comments about the issue...as a city councilor, we believe Starr has a responsibility to listen to his constituents' concerns, as long as they are presented in a civil way, even when he disagrees with them."

But then the newspaper drops the ball toward the end of this editorial when it says, "We don't believe that Starr owes anyone an apology, because we believe firmly that Starr, like the pro-life advocates he criticized and like Hughes [Rev. Thomas Hughes, Pastor of New Creation Community Church in Fitchburg], has the solemn right to say what's on his mind."

This misses the point entirely. Mr. Starr doesn't owe anyone an apology for exercising his free speech rights. He owes an apology to the community because, as an elected governmental official, he expressed a desire to restrict expression because of its message or content.

There is a paramount principle in American jurisprudence that "above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Police Dep't of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92,95, 33 L. Ed. 2d 212, 92 S. Ct. 2286 (1972); see also Consolidated Edison Co. v.Public Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 530, 537, 65 L. Ed. 2d 319, 100 S. Ct. 2326(1980). And that: "For the State to enforce a content-based exclusion it must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end." Perry Educational Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators'Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 74 L. Ed. 2d 794, 103 S. Ct. 948 (1983). Cannon v. Cityand County of Denver, 998 F.2d at 871-72

Just as Mr. Starr's constituents have a responsibility to present their views to him [and other government officials] "in a civil way," so too Mr. Starr owes his constituents the courtesy of remaining civil while not attempting to restrict expression because he doesn't happen to like the message.

Letter to the Editor: Sentinel & Enterprise

To the Editor:

Ward 4 Councilor Kevin Starr, speaking at a recent City Council meeting about pro-lifers who oppose a Planned Parenthood proposal to open an office in the city, said that he “will not tolerate those morals being pushed on me and these members of the Council” and added that people should “keep their personal beliefs to themselves.” Apparently Mr. Starr doesn’t believe that he should keep his personal beliefs to himself.

Mr. Starr has a distorted notion of tolerance. Tolerance is the willingness to accept actions which we believe are inappropriate or even wrong because it would be worse to take action against them. In other words, tolerance is community oriented. But to tolerate crimes such as rape and murder (and abortion is murder) would be wrong since tolerating them would do greater harm to the community, to the common good, than correcting them would.

I submit that Mr. Starr is not really advocating “tolerance” but relativism, which is profoundly anti-community. Why is relativism anti-community? Because if there are no standards of morality to which we should adhere, tolerance is no better than intolerance. It was C.S. Lewis who reminded us that, “…if truth is objective, if we live in a world we did not create and cannot change merely by thinking, if the world is not really a dream of our own, then the most destructive belief we could possibly believe would be the denial of this primary fact. It would be like closing your eyes while driving, or blissfully ignoring the doctor’s warnings.” (“The Poison of Subjectivism,” in Christian Reflections).

Not long after the City Council meeting, Mr. Starr maintained that some of the pro-life advocates are “narrow-minded.” This was obviously intended as an insult. But Mr. Starr may have inadvertently paid the highest tribute to these pro-lifers. After all, reality is terribly narrow. It was the Christ who warned us to, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7: 13, 14).

Perhaps Mr. Starr is too “broad-minded”?

Related reading here.

Massachusetts: On the verge of totalitarianism

In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II warned us that, "....totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.." (No. 44).

Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr: "No place" for pro-life views

As reported in the Sentinel & Enterprise, Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr, speaking of pro-life Christians who oppose Planned Parenthood opening an office in the city and who wish to express their views to local government, has said that he "will not tolerate those morals" and that "there's no place for those discussions to take place in here" [City Council meetings]. See here.

The United States Supreme Court, in its Opinion in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District (June 7, 1993), said that, 'The principle that has emerged from our cases is that the First Amendment forbids the government to regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others." And yet, Fitchburg City government appears to be doing just that as Catholic blogger JayG reports here.

Related reading: Mayor Wong wants Planned Parenthood in the city.

Related reading: Mayor Wong and recycling.

Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes that the laity are co-responsible for the Church

In other words, the laity are not "second-class" citizens within the Church.


"Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth. This duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ. Their activity in ecclesial communities is so necessary that, for the most part, the apostolate of the pastors cannot be fully effective without it." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 900).

In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People), Pope John Paul II reminded us that, "The voice of the Lord clearly resounds in the depths of each of Christ's followers who, through faith and the sacraments of Christian initiation is made like to Jesus Christ, is incorporated as a living member in the Church and has an active part in her mission of salvation." (No. 3).

Sadly, there are all too many clerics who haven't really embraced this authentic teaching of the Magisterium. For such clerics, the laity are second-class citizens who are tolerated but not really embraced fully as collaborators in the life and mission of the Church. This is most unfortunate. It was Pope Pius XII who said that, "The Faithful, more precisely the lay faithful, find themselves on the front lines of the Church's life; for them the Church is the animating principle for human society. Therefore, they in particular, ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the head of all, and of the Bishops in communion with him. These are the Church..." (Pius XII, Discourse to the New Cardinals, February 20, 1946: AAS 38 (1946), 149).

The truth of lay participation in the priesthood of Christ follows logically from the doctrine of the Mystical Body. Everyone who is incorporated into the Mystical Body participates in the dignities, honors, and offices of the Mystical Head (Jesus). "Because Christ is our head," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "that which was conferred upon him, was also in him conferred upon us" (Summa Theologica, III, q. 58, a.4, ad 1). Or, as Pope John Paul II put it: "Referring to the baptized as 'new born babes', the apostle Peter writes: 'Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ ... you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light' (1 Pt 2:4-5, 9).

A new aspect to the grace and dignity coming from Baptism is here introduced: the lay faithful participate, for their part, in the threefold mission of Christ as Priest, Prophet and King. This aspect has never been forgotten in the living tradition of the Church, as exemplified in the explanation which St. Augustine offers for Psalm 26: 'David was anointed king. In those days only a king and a priest were anointed. These two persons prefigured the one and only priest and king who was to come, Christ (the name "Christ" means "anointed"). Not only has our head been anointed but we, his body, have also been anointed ... therefore anointing comes to all Christians, even though in Old Testament times it belonged only to two persons. Clearly we are the Body of Christ because we are all "anointed" and in him are "christs", that is, "anointed ones", as well as Christ himself, "The Anointed One". In a certain way, then, it thus happens that with head and body the whole Christ is formed..'

In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, at the beginning of my pastoral ministry, my aim was to emphasize forcefully the priestly, prophetic and kingly dignity of the entire People of God..." (Christifideles Laici, No. 14).


Related reading here.

There are demons at work there...

"The cruise company had prepared a special treat for that evening. As dusk settled over the Nile, the Gants and the other guests were escorted by uniformed guides down the long Avenue of the Sphinxes that connects Karnak and the temple of the old gods. There they were, those gods, scores of them: ram-headed, floodlit, and magnificent, crouching stark against a background of palms and a sky the color of cobalt. Costumed light bearers had been stationed at intervals, each holding aloft a flambeau. It was kitsch but it was breathtaking. It was calculated to set the mood for the remainder of the evening.

Aperitifs were served in the colonnaded temple. Thereupon the guests entered the magnificent open-air dining area and were seated at tables laid with white and gold linen. Candlelight bathed the scene, and the floodlit, ancient columns formed a stunning backdrop on three sides. The air was laden with rich spices and the aromas of the East. Waiters in traditional costume glided from one table to another, serving a four-course dinner as music emanated from a classical quartet.

'This is the life, eh?' someone said. 'Sure beats an all-you-can-eat shrimp supper down at Al's Seafood Diner.' His friends chuckled. The food was excellent, the company convivial. The wines, too, were fine and copious.

Halfway through the meal, however, just as the musicians had ended one piece and were about to embark on another, the tranquil atmosphere of the evening was shattered. A terrifying scream rent the air, sending a chill through the assembled diners.

'It was like a wounded animal, not human at all,' Malachi recalls, 'and it frightened the life out of everybody, because everybody stopped eating at once. You could've heard a pin drop, as they say.' All eyes were fixed on a solitary man at one of the tables. He seemed oblivious to what he had just done and sat staring into the middle distance, at something it appeared only he could see. Moments later he got to his feet, letting the chair fall back with a clatter. Malachi recognized him; he had spoken with him earlier - the usual friendly chitchat. His name was Walter Ehrlich and he seemed an amiable sort. He had been to Egypt on a previous occasion, he said, many years before. His wife had been with him then but she had died in 1978. This year he had come alone.

Perhaps that brief conversation had endeared Malachi to Ehrlich, because he now appeared to single him out. Slowly but deliberately, he approached the Gants' table, a glass of wine in his hand. The other guests could only stare; some were frightened, others uneasy. Their hosts seemed unsure of what to do.

'Where did you say you were from?' Ehrlich asked, fixing Malachi with a look of mild aggression.

'Ireland.'

'Catholic, right?' He emptied his wine glass and replenished it at once from a decanter. In a loud voice he said: 'All you Irish are Catholics, that right?'

Somebody tut-tutted. Mr Ehrlich was introducing a very sour note into what should have been a perfect evening.

He pointed directly at Malachi and lowered his face to meet the Irishman's eyes. For a fleeting moment, Malachi could not believe what he was seeing. Even now, years later, his voice quavers as he recalls the incident.

'God Almighty, I'll never forget that face,' he says. 'Blenny saw it too and she was very upset.'

The face before him was no longer that of Walter Ehrlich. The features had transmogrified into something thoroughly freakish, a mask of utter malevolence. The lips were pulled back in a terrible grimace. And the eyes - they were no longer the eyes of a human but hooded, like those of a cold-blooded creature predating mankind.

'Let's go, Malachi,' Blenny urged.

He felt her hand on his wrist. She was trembling. But he was already recoiling from that awful face. He felt that he could not get far enough away from it.

Walter Ehrlich was not through with him just yet, though. As quickly as the dreadful, reptilian aspect had taken hold of his features, so did it seem to leave. The face returned to normal. Walter straightened and stepped back from the table.

'F*** you!' he roared. He looked fiercely about him, and Malachi will never forget the shocked expressions of the other diners. 'F*** you all! We f*** you all, and to hell with the lot of you. There's no God here. Your God is dead!'

To everyone's astonishment, the troubled guest emitted a loud squeal, ran in the direction of the pillars to one side of the temple, and vanished into the darkness beyond. All present - dinner guests, organizers, waiters, musicians - were appalled.

'Alcohol,' muttered the Egyptian maitre d', shaking his head, his Islamic sensibilities repelled by the display. 'To drink so much, not good.'

'I don't think so,' said a white-haired man, turning to Malachi. 'No, I don't think it's alcohol. There are demons at work there.'

'You're joking,' said Malachi.

'No joke'....When a man starts using that kind of language - and referring to himself in the plural - it's pretty clear that there are demons at work.'" (The Dark Sacrament: True Stories of Modern-Day Demon Possession and Exorcism, pp. 198-200).

Apostasy is spreading everywhere...

"The great trial has come for the Church, so violated by the evil spirits, so divided in its unity, so darkened in its holiness. See how error has flooded throughout it, error which leads to the loss of the true faith. Apostasy is spreading everywhere...how many are those pastors who grope about in the mist, become speechless out of fear or compromise, and who no longer defend their flocks from the many rapacious wolves!...The faithful are being drawn in by the enticements of a world which has become pagan, or by the countless sects which are spreading more and more.

The hour its great trial has above all come for the Church, because it will be shaken by the lack of faith, obscured by apostasy, wounded by betrayal, abandoned by its children, divided by schisms, possessed and dominated by Freemasonry, turned into fertile soil from which will spring up the wicked tree of the man of iniquity, the Antichrist, who will bring his kingdom into its interior." (Our Lady to Father Stefano Gobbi, January 1, 1993, Rubbio (Vicenza, Italy).

The House of God will be deserted....

"After the birth of Antichrist and shortly before the rise of the Great Monarch, the false doctrines were to multiply and spread to such an extent that even Catholics would doubt many of the articles of faith, resulting in their perversion, this to apply not only to the laity but even to many priests and some of the hierarchy. The zeal of these latter will be greatly affected by this lack of faith. There will be dissensions among the clergy. Many will be proud, selfish, unjust, covetous, and even forgetful of vows made at ordination regarding chastity. Many will even offer Mass and confer the Sacraments sacrilegiously. When the zeal of the clergy fails they will see the faithful leaving the churches and turning to the world. The House of God will be deserted, singing of hymns will cease, and the observance of festivals abandoned. The relics of saints will be considered powerless and any contributions the laity will make to the Church will be made grudgingly. In many religious houses humility and poverty will be forgotten, pride and desire for worldly luxuries will characterize the inmates instead of the spirit of simplicity which is the mark of a true religious. Because of these defections Catholics will be severely punished, for only by chastisements can God bring back to the minds of His people, a realization of their dependence upon Him. As a consequence, widespread persecution of priests and people will come upon the Church in order that faith and love of God may be revived, for as surely as night follows day, so will civilization crumble and the world become steeped in the darkness of ignorance, hatred, misery and vice when God, who is the Light of the World, will no longer rule in the hearts of His people....In these days fiction will be preferred to truth because the people of the world will wish to be seduced....The prophets say also that evil and falsehood will increase as the world grows weaker with age.." (Rev. R. Gerald Culleton).

Brave New World....

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

George Orwell (Eric Blair), 1984.


Related reading here and here.