Quote of the Day

“Don’t waste your time dreaming of being someone else. Don’t try to be someone else. Work and pray at being yourself. Be who you are, where you are. Concentrate on the little everyday problems and pains that beset you. Reserve your best efforts; expend your spiritual energy on what is right before you. This is what God asks of you. Listen closely. This is very important – and very misunderstood – for we all prefer to do what is to our personal liking. Very few of us choose duty first, or the will of God. Don’t cultivate someone else’s garden. Grow where you are planted.”

-St. Francis de Sales

HLI Statement on Death of Kennedy

Human Life International’s Statement on the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy
August 27, 2009


We must, as a matter of precept, pray for the salvation of heretical Catholics like Senator Edward Kennedy, but we do not have to praise him let alone extol him with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event. There was very little about Ted Kennedy’s life that deserves admiration from a spiritual or moral point of view. He was probably the worst example of a Catholic statesman that one can think of. When all is said and done, he has distorted the concept of what it means to be a Catholic in public life more than anyone else in leadership today.

Obviously we don't know the state of Senator Edward Kennedy's soul upon death. We don’t pretend to. We are told by the family that he had the opportunity to confess his sins before a priest, and his priest has said publicly he was “at peace” when he died. For that we are grateful. But it is one thing to confess one’s sins and for these matters to be kept, rightfully, private. It is another thing entirely for one who so consistently and publicly advocated for the destruction of unborn human beings to depart the stage without a public repudiation of these views, a public confession, as it were.

It is up to God to judge Senator Kennedy’s soul. We, as rational persons, must judge his actions, and his actions were not at all in line with one who values and carefully applies Church teaching on weighty matters. Ted Kennedy’s positions on a variety of issues have been a grave scandal for decades, and to honor this “catholic” champion of the culture of death with a Catholic funeral is unjust to those who have actually paid the price of fidelity. We now find out that President Obama will eulogize the Senator at his funeral, an indignity which, following on the heels of the Notre Dame fiasco, leaves faithful Catholics feeling sullied, desecrated and dehumanized by men who seem to look for opportunities to slap the Church in the face and do so with impunity simply because they have positions of power.

It is not enough for Kennedy to have been a “great guy behind the scenes” as we have seen him referred to even by his political opponents. It is also not praiseworthy to put a Catholic rhetorical veneer on his leftist politics that did nothing to advance true justice as the Church sees it or to advance the peace of Christ in this world. Every indication of Senator Kennedy’s career, every public appearance, every sound bite showed an acerbic, divisive and partisan political hack for whom party politics were much more infallible than Church doctrines. Whatever one’s political affiliation, if one is only “Catholic” to the extent that his faith rhymes with his party line, then his Catholicism is a fraud.

As the Scriptures remind us, there is a time for everything under the sun. This, now, is the time for honesty about our Faith and about those who are called to express it in the public forum. If we do not remind ourselves of the necessity of public confession for public sins such as Senator Kennedy was guilty of, then we are negligent in our embrace of the Faith and we are part of the problem. As Pope Benedict has reminded us recently, charity without truth can easily become mere sentimentality, and we must not fall into that error. A Catholic show of charity for the family must not eclipse the truth that is required of all with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Senator Kennedy needs to be sent to the afterlife with a private, family-only funeral and the prayers of the Church for the salvation of his immortal soul. He will not be missed by the unborn who he betrayed time and time again, nor by the rest of us who are laboring to undo the scandalous example of Catholicism that he gave to three generations of Americans.

Obama at Notre Dame

In today's Wall Street Journal opinion column, there is a great article on how Obama scored big at Notre Dame with his involvement with the graduation and commencement exercises.

Seldom does dawn rise on an America where the morning's New York Times displays a more intuitive grasp of a story than the New York Post. The coverage of Barack Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame, however, was such a day. Where the Post headlined an inside spread with "Obama In the Lions' Den," the Times front page was dominated by a color photograph of a beaming president, resplendent in his blue-and-gold Notre Dame academic gown, reaching out to graduates eager to shake his hand or just touch his robe.

It was precisely the message President Obama wanted to send: How bad can he be on abortion if Notre Dame is willing to honor him?

We cannot blame the president for this one. During his campaign for president, Mr. Obama spoke honestly about the aggressive pro-choice agenda he intended to pursue -- as he assured Planned Parenthood, he was "about playing offense," not defense -- and his actions have been consistent with that pledge. If only our nation's premier Catholic university were as forthright in advancing its principles as Mr. Obama has been for his.

In a letter to Notre Dame's Class of 2009, the university's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, stated that the honors for Mr. Obama do not indicate any "ambiguity" about Notre Dame's commitment to Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life. The reality is that it was this ambiguity that the White House was counting on; this ambiguity that was furthered by the adoring reaction to Mr. Obama's visit; and this ambiguity that disheartens those working for an America that respects the dignity of life inside the womb.

We've been here before. In his response to an inquiry from this reporter, Dennis Brown, the university's spokesman, wisely ignored a question asking whether "ambiguity" would be the word to describe a similar decision in 1984 to give Mario Cuomo, then governor of New York, the Notre Dame platform he so famously used to advance his personally-opposed-but argument. Or the decision a few years later to bestow its highest Catholic award on Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, another supporter of legal abortion. It seems that whenever Democratic leaders find themselves in trouble over their party's abortion record, some Notre Dame honor or platform will be forthcoming to provide the needed cover.

Probably Notre Dame is rich enough that it can safely thumb its institutional nose at the 70 or so bishops who publicly challenged the university for flouting their guidelines on such invitations. Nor can we expect much from Notre Dame's trustees. At a time when Americans all across this country have declared themselves "yea" or "nay" on the Obama invite, the reaction of Notre Dame's board is less the roar of the lion than the silence of the lambs.

Pro-lifers are used to this. They know their stand makes them unglamorous. They find themselves a stumbling block to Democratic progressives -- and unwelcome at the Republican country club. And they are especially desperate for the support of institutions willing to engage in the clear, thoughtful and unembarrassed way that even Mr. Obama says we should.

With its billions in endowment and its prestigious name, Notre Dame ought to be in the lead here. But when asked for examples illuminating the university's unambiguous support for unborn life, Mr. Brown could provide only four: help for pregnant students who want to carry their babies to term, student volunteer work for pregnant women at local shelters, prayer mentions at campus Masses, and lectures such as a seminar on life issues.

These are all well and good, but they also highlight the poverty of Notre Dame's institutional witness. At Notre Dame today, there is no pro-life organization -- in size, in funding, in prestige -- that compares with the many centers, institutes and so forth dedicated to other important issues ranging from peace and justice to protecting the environment. Perhaps this explains why a number of pro-life professors tell me they must not be quoted by name, lest they face career retaliation.

The one institute that does put the culture of life at the heart of its work, moreover -- the Center for Ethics and Culture -- doesn't even merit a link under the "Faith and Service" section on the university's Web site. The point is this: When Notre Dame doesn't dress for the game, the field is left to those like Randall Terry who create a spectacle and declare their contempt for civil and respectful witness.

In the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, there is a wonderful photograph of Father Ted Hesburgh -- then Notre Dame president -- linking hands with Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1964 civil-rights rally at Chicago's Soldier Field. Today, nearly four decades and 50 million abortions after Roe v. Wade, there is no photograph of similar prominence of any Notre Dame president taking a lead at any of the annual marches for life.

Father Jenkins is right: That's not ambiguity. That's a statement.

How true it is.

Happy Easter, He is Risen, Alleluia!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

EWTN has a great commentary on the life and history of Patrick of Ireland. Read it here.

Lent Begins

"Remember man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."
~Gen 3:19

Thought for the Day

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog."

-G.K. Chesterton,

Christians, Elections, and the Pro-Life Ploy

by G.C. Dilsaver


Leaders in the Catholic and other conservative pro-life churches are almost making it mandatory this presidential election that the faithful vote for McCain or, more to the point, vote against the pro-abortion Obama. But is this single-issue pro-life exhortation really in harmony with authentic Christian tradition? Are these leaders really showing that they are of the mettle of their predecessors, from the Apostles to St. Thomas Beckett to Cardinal Mindszenty? Or instead are these Christian leaders more aligned with those predecessors who all too often compromised the faith and kowtowed to political power, the world, the flesh, and the devil? This essay advances that it is the latter.

The Pro-Life Ploy

Indeed, the pro-life ploy is perfectly demonic: in holding out the illusionary possibility of destroying an evil an even greater evil is fed. But what can be more evil than killing babies? It is that which is the cause of this killing and myriad other evils. Indeed, as atrocious as abortion is, it is nonetheless a symptom. Our nation is not vicious because it allows abortion, rather it allows abortion because the nation is vicious.

It is good that church leaders are finally showing some spine in regards to politics and the crime of abortion, but this is neither remarkable nor prophetic. In doing so they are merely reacting to the most gruesome and sensational symptom of a systemic evil. But tragically the election of another Republican will not take care of the symptom; at the very best (don’t hold your breath) it will remand it back to the states. Abortion will remain, legal or illegal. However, it is certain that voting for either the Republican or Democratic candidate will strengthen the systemic evil that is the current Republican-Democratic political axis, and the powers that manipulate that government. Also be certain that the last thing the national government wants to do is remand anything back to the states, much less to the community, church, or family. Indeed, Roe v. Wade is the rotten fruit of the Federal government’s usurpation of state’s rights.

The systemic evil that must be primarily combated is the rise of the most omnipotent State in history, both on the domestic and international level. Under this State, and abided by mind-boggling advances in technology, totalitarianism has the potential of reaching an apex of power and control undreamed of by past despots. The future is ominous indeed, for already this State contravenes its own constitution. Already this State ignores international law in its kidnapping and torture of suspects. Already this State justifies its attack of other countries under the immoral concept of pre-emptivity. Already this State has free license to spy on its citizens. Already this State claims the right to intrude itself into the family, even to the extent of confiscating children. Already this State imprisons 1 in every 100 of its citizens, a quarter of the world’s entire prison population. In short, already this State is fascist, viewing itself as omnipotent and beholding to nothing.

While ultimately this unprecedented totalitarian State is an international-united-states, domestically it is the United States of America and is represented by the Republican-Democratic political axis. These political parties are but two sides of the same ticket; a tag team that take turns every four or eight years beating up on the hapless American populace who nonetheless continue to cheer them on with "USA, USA" thinking these parties are actually wrestling each other. Yes, the Democrats and Republicans are two sides to the same ticket: and that ticket is a one-way ticket to fascism. It is the ticket to the attempted destruction of any remnant of authentic Christianity and a ticket to the reign of an antichrist, if not the antichrist. Supporting this regime, this Republican-Democratic axis of evil, is not pro-life; it is pro-death, both physically and spiritually. It will not end abortion, but quite the contrary, it will metastasize the culture of death, killing the bodies of its opponents and the souls of its proponents.

The urgent case in point shows an example of this culture of death. One would think U.S. pro-lifers would care about the Iraqi unborn just as much as they care about other unborn babies. A baby in-utero is neither Christian nor Moslem, neither American nor Iraqi. In Iraq how many unborn have died along with the millions of civilians that have been killed or maimed by the USA’s destruction of infrastructure, aerial bombing, and depleted uranium bombs. These depleted uranium bombs also have the added "military" advantage of causing spontaneous abortions and birth defects. However, I’ve yet to hear one single denouncement of this from the "traditional Catholic" pulpits I frequent, and only extremely rarely from the "Christian pro-lifers" I encounter. Indeed, the pro-life movement’s new found darling, Mrs. Palin, is silent on the Iraqi special needs children debilitated by our special bombs. Of course, Bomb-Bomb-Iran McCain couldn't care less. He is the same fellow who bombed innocent civilians in North Vietnam when Nixon decided to stop risking our own soldier’s lives and concentrate our military efforts on terrorist blanket bombing of North Vietnam population centers. Anyone that supports a candidate that gleefully looks forward to the bombing of innocent civilians (born or unborn, Christian or Moslem) in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and the devil knows where, is not pro-life, and surely not a good Christian!

The Two Party Axis of Evil

"Vote pro-life." If only the battle between good and evil was so simple. But it’s not, for evil is deceptive and insidious. When one becomes myopic and single-issue oriented one is easily hoodwinked, for one’s field of vision is already curtailed. Indeed, he usually becomes blinded to his own personal issues, especially those that require real courage to confront.

Christian pro-life leaders are right, for aside from all the other issues, right or wrong Obama advocates, his abortion stance makes it a very simple and closed case: a Catholic or other pro-life Christian cannot vote for him or his running mate, the apostate Catholic Biden. So it is a no-brainer that one can’t vote for Obama, but it takes only a bit more brains (maybe a bit-of-brains should be a poll requirement) or a smidgen of true Christian spirit to see that one can’t vote for McCain either. An orthodox Christian must hold that voting for any overtly pro-abortion candidate is intrinsically evil. But so is voting for a totalitarian warmonger like McCain, though it seems that only wise or authentic or uncompromising Christians realize this.

The Christian single-issue advocates are in effect, if not always in intent, minimalists and compromisers. What they are urging is what a functional conscience with but the slightest sense of natural law and moral rectitude would urge. These single-issue Christians fail to see the bigger picture, the essence of the evil itself, because they compartmentalize their faith. It is safer than living that faith out in its totality and it is safely political and issue-oriented rather than dangerously militant and prophetic. Being pro-life becomes militant and prophetic, it becomes heroic and a personal encounter with Christ Crucified, most especially for those who endure a pregnancy that is somehow tragic. But for most of us being pro-life remains an issue, even the banner issue of our conservative politics and our Christian faith.

But Christianity can’t be reduced down to issues or politics. It isn’t liberation theology nor neo-conservatism nor dispensationalism, all of which fall under the category of a semi- or anti-Christianity. Not only is Christianity not merely political, it is not merely moral. You can’t reduce the faith down to a moral code much less one moral position, no matter how serious that position is. To do so does irreparable damage to that faith and, as such, best assures the defeat of the moral position one advocates.

Christianity is much more than politics or morals: it is a fully integral, all pervasive, all transcendent though eminently practical worldview. Both parties on the vast majority of issues, on their all-pervasive worldviews, are incompatible with, indeed hostile to, the Christian worldview. Thus there are many other issues that disallow a Christian from voting for either Obama even if he were pro-life or McCain even though he claims to be pro-life. True, one could be more easily deceived and not know that a vote for McCain is a vote for that which is antithetical to Christianity; but isn’t such deception in keeping with the insidious tactics of the demonic?

Means and Ends

In traditional Christian morality a good end never justifies an evil means, and even if it did an evil means never procures a good end that lasts. A strikingly relevant case in point was the Fascist government in Italy. Mussolini’s state banned abortion, birth control, and homosexuality activity. As a Catholic I hold these things as intrinsically evil and their curtailment good. However, supporters of Italian fascism, even those who supported it primarily for the advancement of these moral issues, are responsible for facilitating a cataclysmic evil. This evil culminated in Catholics sheepishly submitting to national conscription and participation in an unjust and horrifying war. In addition, it led to the subsequent weakening of Catholic culture, morals, and faith in Italy and to the final eradication of European Christendom. The result now being a de-Christianized Italy that fully accepts those very moral issues some sought to address by compromising with the fascist regime. If even a fraction of the effort and sacrifice that was squandered by Italian and other Catholics in World War II had instead been brought to missionary efforts the world would be looking at the rebirth of Christendom rather than its demise.

Moral decadence always comes in the wake of war. Indeed among Catholic countries, erstwhile totalitarian Italy and Spain have the lowest birthrates in the world due to rejection of the Church’s moral teachings on sexuality and marriage. Compare this to the erstwhile victims of totalitarianism, Ireland and France, which still have the highest birthrates. The lesson being, you can’t compromise with a totalitarian regime even for a single issue, for that issue, along with a host of others, will only be gravely exacerbated in the long run.

Catholic weren’t so taken in by the blatantly pagan Nazi movement and the Catholic regions of Germany remained the last bastion of opposition to it. Indeed, Catholics biggest weakness in regards to Nazism was tolerating it because it wasn’t as blatantly atheistic as Communism. Today Catholics and other pro-life Christians are asked by their clergy to tolerate McCain and the Republicans to avoid Obama and the Democrats. This tactic is akin to supporting Communism to destroy Nazism. However in this case the chances of eradicating the evil of abortion are zilch. Just as there was little difference between the Communists and the Nazis there is even littler difference between the American Axis of the Republicans and Democrats. They are both socialist and totalitarian. Indeed, it is a hoax being played on the American people to make them believe there is a difference. Unfortunately for a people raised on TV and other fantasies this hoax is easily perpetrated.

There is a Unifying Issue

We have abortion because of the break-up of the family and the ensuing moral decadence, not because of Roe v. Wade. Why do we have the breakup of the family? It is because the family has been supplanted by the State (and the corporation). In actuality families have absolutely no rights in the United States, indeed, children can be taken from the home on mere suspicions. Yet it is the family that is ever the last bastion against tyranny.

Christians must realize that the evil of abortion, like all moral evils, will only be eradicated when the populace converts from its neo-paganism. This is the job of the Church, not the current government, which itself is neo-pagan in its self-worship. Indeed, there is an indisputable correlation between the waxing of the State and vice and the waning of the family and virtue. As the State becomes more totalitarian its citizens become more vicious and as the citizens become more vicious the State becomes more totalitarian. Thus to end abortion we must defeat the totalitarian State and increase personal virtue. The most effective way of increasing personal virtue is to restore the sacrosanct status of the family. A strengthened family plus a weakened State equals a moral virtuous populace equals less abortion.

Note well that patriotism is not nationalism. Patriotism is a virtue, nationalism is a vice. Love of one’s soil, one’s family, one’s clan, one’s (in some way) homogeneous community is the essence of patriotism. But nationalism, and more so today than ever, undermines all of that. The central principle of traditional Christian social thought is subsidiarity. Subsidiarity holds that all social and governing functions should be implemented at the most local level possible. Thus the locus of authority should be the family, then the neighborhood, and then the community; as opposed to the State. It’s Dad’s responsibility and competency to police Junior not Officer Storm Trooper’s. In other words, the Christian principle of subsidiarity upholds regional rights, community rights, and family rights! It holds that the State (and even the police!) exists to serve the citizen and the family.

This cause of family, of community, and region – of subsidiarity – against the totalitarian State is the closest Christians have to a single issue. More exactly it is the unifying issue because all else flows both in morals and politics from this. Thus Christians should be fighting tooth and nail against the omnipotent national government, which means they should be in militant opposition to either major party, to either Obama or McCain, which are puppets of the State.

The Good Means to the Lasting Ends

The end of abortion is not a quick fix. It has taken 500 years for Christendom to be unraveled completely and it may take another 500 years, if God so wills it, for a new Christendom to fully arise. This rebirth entails a moral and spiritual dynamics, not a political and judicial one. For a Christian the most evil element of abortion is the mortal sin of the perpetrators – not the death of the infant, as sorrowful as that is. It is the spiritual death of this country and the choking out of authentic Christianity that is the essential evil we must confront. It wouldn't matter if all abortions were outlawed tomorrow, abortion would still remain and the evil that emanates from a decadent populace and an omnipotent state would continue to increase.

Fight abortion not by feeding the State leviathan so it can gobble up the saved unborn 18 years later in a draft or sooner in some other form of indentured servitude or indoctrination or incarceration; but rather by strengthening the autonomy of the family, the community, and the natural and sociological regions of this country. Fight abortion by reestablishing the sacrosanct status of the home, which is itself the womb of community and Christianity. Fight it by being uncowed by the police state. Fight it by rejecting legal positivism, the ideology that holds that just because the state declares something to be legal or illegal it is. Fight it by studying truth, especially the ancient truth of our Western Christian civilization. Fight it by becoming virtuous and holy. Fight it by heroically preaching the Gospel in lifestyle and words. Fight it by the prophetic witness even if it includes "civil disobedience." Fight it by being open to life and valuing of all human life even when those lives are deemed to be "enemies" or "non-persons" by the state. Fight it by establishing families united in sacrosanct indissolubility. Fight abortion by fighting the ungodly regime in Washington that rapaciously seeks to supplant both faith and family.

Conclusion

Dear Christians, refuse to offer a pinch of incense by refusing to punch the ballot for either official Republican-Democratic Axis candidates. Refuse to offer tribute to the gods of American socialism, totalitarianism, and imperialism and their incarnation in the president. Resist participation in this sham election. The USA is the most powerful and hence the most dangerous nation in the history of the world. Its potential for evil is absolutely unprecedented. If there is not a reversion to the constitution then totalitarianism is inevitable. If this reversion does not occur the only hope for our country will be in those willing to give their lives as witnesses to Christ against the antichrist of the State. Whoever occupies the Whitened Sepulcher House this January is a tool of the powers and principalities of this world and of the devil. And all who facilitate the legitimacy of this sham election are, at best, the devil’s dupes, at worst his minions.


G.C. Dilsaver is a clinical psychologist and director of Imago Dei Clinic in Harrisburg, PA. Dr. Dilsaver works with therapants both face-to-face and telephonically from throughout the country who are seeking an efficacious alternative to psychotropic medication and mainstream psychotherapy.

Quote of the Day

“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
-St. Augustine

What Does the Pope Know About World Affairs?

Taken from The New Oxford Review, November, 2005


In The American Conservative (Aug. 29), Daniel McCarthy has an article titled "Bush vs. Benedict." Says he: "And like John Paul II, the new pope [Benedict XVI] is a man of peace whose vision for the world does not include wars of the sort lately waged against Iraq. The priority Benedict places on peace was apparent even in his choice of name." McCarthy quotes Benedict: "I chose to call myself Benedict XVI ideally as a link to the venerated pontiff Benedict XV, who guided the Church through the turbulent times of the First World War. He was a true and courageous prophet of peace who struggled strenuously and bravely, first to avoid the drama of war and then to limit its terrible consequences. In his footsteps I place my ministry...."

McCarthy continues: "The new pope would be a sure ally for the Right in the Culture War. But where hot wars are concerned, many of Ratzinger's most ardent admirers -- Catholic neoconservatives especially -- find themselves diametrically at odds with the pope."

McCarthy mentions the usual suspects: Michael Novak, George Weigel, Richard John Neuhaus. For them, when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, says McCarthy, "it is Bush sí, Benedict no."

McCarthy quotes then-Cardinal Ratzinger: "The pope [John Paul II] expressed his thought with great clarity [on the invasion of Iraq], not only as his individual thought but as the thought of a man who is knowledgeable in the highest functions of the Catholic Church.... The Holy Father's judgment is also convincing from a rational point of view: There was not sufficient reason to unleash a war in Iraq."

McCarthy says: "There is no mistaking the gravity of their [the two popes] views. If, as both men believed, the attack on Iraq in 2003 was unjust, support for the war becomes unconscionable. Novak, Neuhaus and Weigel have spent much of their careers battling relativism, arguing forcefully that there is moral truth at the core of even the most contentious and divisive issues. There is a moral truth...at the heart of the Iraq War. The war in Iraq is a matter of moral right and wrong. Catholic neoconservatives say it was right; Benedict says it was wrong."

According to McCarthy, conservative Catholics face a problem: "Their president, the Republican Party, and the leading Catholic intellectuals who identify themselves as conservatives all support a policy that the pope opposes. Yet the antiwar movement seems at a glance to consist of people whose values are unalterably opposed to a Catholic's -- a motley collection of secular leftists, many of them supporters of abortion and homosexual marriage."

Thank goodness, McCarthy points out that there is "a conservative alternative...which agrees with the pope on hot wars and the culture wars alike. This brand of antiwar Catholicism is to be found in periodicals like The Wanderer, a 138-year-old newspaper based in Minnesota, and the considerably younger New Oxford Review."

McCarthy is right on the money when he says: "The price paid by antiwar Catholic conservatives...has been ostracism from the respectable Right." Happily, the neocons can't ostracize Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict from the respectable Right. What they do instead is ignore or minimize the two popes' opposition to the Iraq War.

McCarthy reminds us of recent history: "Even the late Brent Bozell, a founding father of postwar conservatism...found himself marginalized after he and the Catholic magazine he founded, Triumph, began to grow critical of the Vietnam War. [You will notice that Bozell still graces our masthead.] The conservative movement that has built itself a big tent in so many other respects still counts dissent in the foreign-policy arena as an excommunicable offense." Of course Bozell was right about the Vietnam War; nonetheless, his excommunication lasts even into death.

In First Things (Dec. 2001), the Editors, the primary one being Fr. Neuhaus, had a raging editorial called "In a Time of War" in response to 9/11. The editorial begins: "This is war." Neuhaus continues, "we are engaged in a war that can be defined in many ways, but is also and inescapably a war of religion." Neuhaus says America "is an overwhelmingly Christian nation rooted, albeit sometimes tenuously, in the Judeo-Christian moral tradition." Neuhaus affirms that America is God's "almost chosen nation" (First Things, Oct. 2002, p. 92). What fantasy! What hubris! Where in Scripture or Tradition does it say that? This is just a vagabond American Protestant tradition (although Protestants claim not to believe in any tradition). The New Testament says, "You [Christians] are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people..." (1 Pet. 2:9). It comes close to blasphemy to call America God's "almost chosen nation."

Neuhaus (Dec. 2001) says America is "'one nation under God' -- meaning that we are under both His protection and His judgment." Given that Neuhaus says this is a "war of religion" against Islam, that America is "an overwhelmingly Christian nation," and that America is God's "almost chosen nation," it's obvious that Neuhaus means America is under God's "protection"; the bit about being under "His judgment" is just a throwaway line.

Fr. Neuhaus supported the invasion of Iraq, a country that did not threaten us and had nothing to do with 9/11. Before the war started, the Catholic Church pronounced the war unjust, a war of aggression. We wonder if Neuhaus would be willing to consider that America has come under God's judgment.

After 9/11 and before 2003, America was united. Now our country is bitterly divided. (As we write, Bush's approval rating for handling the war is down to 32 percent.) Before 2003, America's military was considered invincible. Now America can't even defeat a ragtag bunch of "insurgents" -- call them what you will, terrorists, freedom fighters, whatever. Sooner or later America is going to bug out of Iraq without defeating the insurgents, and it will be clear to the entire globe that, contrary to President Bush, the Mission Was Not Accomplished. What humiliation!

And then there are all the U.S. soldiers killed and wounded (never mind the Iraqi soldiers and civilians). What noble cause did our soldiers die or suffer for? Did they die and suffer to overthrow Saddam, a brutal dictator? He used to be America's ally, and America gave Saddam weapons which he used on his own people. There are so many brutal dictators in the world -- why him, why not others? Moreover, the U.S. has a long history of siding with and propping up brutal dictators. The reason for the war on Iraq was to get rid of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. But Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. So the overthrowing of Saddam was just a flimsy excuse.

Let's be honest -- and, yes, we realize that many conservative Catholics don't want to know the unvarnished truth: It turns out that our soldiers died and suffered to set up a training ground for Islamic terrorists in Iraq. Bush has it backwards: The U.S. is creating many more terrorists in Iraq than it is eradicating. As Paul Weyrich said in Human Events (Nov. 8, 2004), al-Qaeda is "benefiting from the Arab and Islamic backlash against our occupation of an Islamic country." Bush's experiment in international social engineering is a disaster.

And adding insult to injury (and we write before the Oct. 15 referendum on the Iraqi Constitution), it looks like our soldiers will be establishing an Islamic Republic in Iraq, if the Constitution is approved. If not, who knows what will happen?

And speaking of God's judgment: There is Hurricane Katrina, but we don't want to get into that.

We would assume that the Lord hates unjust wars. "'Vengeance is Mine...,' says the Lord" (Rom. 12:19). Has the Lord's vengeance come upon America, and so quickly? Of course we don't know the mind of the Lord, so this is speculation. But we do know that "Righteousness exalts a nation..." (Prov. 14:34), and we are reminded of what Mary said in her Magnificat, "He [the Lord] has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.... and the rich he has sent away empty."

Neuhaus (Dec. 2001) says war is a "great horror." Neuhaus quotes the words of General Sherman: "It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell." The operative words are of course "War is hell." How often have we heard that "War is hell," which is supposed to justify any and all atrocities. But we would rather turn your attention to the other part: "It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation." Indeed, President Bush has never fired a shot or heard the shrieks of the wounded. It is Bush who cries aloud for more blood in an unwinnable war.

Neuhaus (Dec. 2001) asks: "Why do they [the Muslims] hate us so? One after another, they [most Americans] answered that they hate us because 'America is free, rich, powerful, and good.' There is something in that, but for the most part it is smug self-delusion. They hate us because they believe that the West, now indisputably led by America, has marginalized, exploited, and oppressed them for centuries. They hate us for the cultural decadence that we export and that many of them hate themselves for enjoying. They hate us because we have troops on their sacred soil, and they hate us because we support what they view as the alien State of Israel on their land." Truer words were never spoken. Yet Neuhaus denounces those who go on "endlessly about...how we must address the root causes of resentment...." Neuhaus has laid out the root causes of the resentment. So obviously Neuhaus doesn't want reconciliation, understanding, doesn't want peace; he wants war.

As for the state of Israel, which is in large part what the war on Iraq is all about, Neuhaus (First Things, April 2002, p. 7), quotes Victor Davis Hanson favorably as saying: "Should the United States withdraw from active participation in the Middle East and let the contestants settle their differences on the battlefield, Israel, not the Arab world, would win." Still, many would disagree with Neuhaus, especially the worrywarts in Tel Aviv and Neuhaus's fellow neocons in Washington. Neuhaus even disagrees with himself (which he frequently does), for Neuhaus is a Zionist sympathizer and has deep ties with neocon Zionists in the U.S., which is his right. Neuhaus writes on the day of 9/11 (First Things, Nov. 2001, p. 65): "The first commentary I heard was from a woman coming out of the church: 'That's what we get for unconditionally supporting Israel.'... Watching television during the day, the question was several times asked, 'Why do they hate us so much?' And the answer given in one word was 'Israel.' The further question implied was, Is our support for Israel worth this? What justice requires us to do in order to punish the perpetrators [the 9/11 terrorists] and ward off even greater evil, is done for Israel, of course...." (Neuhaus also says, "it is done, much more comprehensively, for the civilization that Christians, Jews, and everyone else will now come to see more clearly as it is seen by others: the Christian West." Hello! The Christian West is long gone. Christian nations do not allow abortion, pornography, open homosexuality, prostitution, astronomical divorce rates, etc. This appeal to "the Christian West" is a red herring, purely vaporous.)

Neuhaus says (First Things, May 2002, p. 70): "The Cold War is over. Today, almost nobody tries to argue that, for the U.S., the tie with Israel is more of an asset than a burden. Most Americans are prepared to bear that burden, and one must hope that will continue to be the case."

And Neuhaus says (First Things, Dec. 2002, p. 79): "Today the claim is made that Israel is America's best friend in the Middle East, but most Americans are likely inclined to the not unreasonable view that, were it not for Israel, America would not have so many enemies in that part of the world. As the believability of the past reasons for support fade or disappear [the Holocaust, the Cold War], fresh attention must be paid to the deepest and most abiding reason, namely, that Israel is a Jewish state, and 'Jewish' is understood as a religious category. However inarticulate they may be about it, American Christians intuit that there is a divinely ordered entanglement between Christians and Jews that is not there with any other people. Certainly not with the Muslims, for the obvious reason that Christians can understand their doctrines, history, and hopes without reference to Islam, while Christianity makes no sense, Christianity would not be, without Judaism." So Israel is a Jewish state, Jewish is a religious category, and therefore there is a "divinely ordered" relationship between Christians and the Jews of today. How he makes the jump from the Israelites of the Old Testament to the necessity of supporting present-day Israelis ("divinely ordered") is anyone's guess. Moreover, Jews in Israel -- as in America -- are overwhelmingly secular.

We don't know if Neuhaus has a dual allegiance to Israel, but we know he does not have a dual allegiance to the Holy See. (For the record: The NOR does have a dual allegiance to the Holy See.)

It isn't hard to intuit from what Neuhaus says that America invaded Iraq largely for the sake of Israel.

When Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, paid a visit to General Giap of Vietnam after the War, McNamara wanted to know: How did you beat us? The answer: "You invaded our country." That's why America is losing in Iraq. The war on Iraq was bogus from the beginning, just as Pope John Paul said. It reminds us of the childhood jingle, "Cheaters never prosper."

Stalin once asked, "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?" Well, he found out in 1989. We can just hear President Bush ask, "The Pope! What does he know about world affairs?" Well, the Pope knows plenty. And Bush will find out much sooner than Stalin did.

Cool Picture of the Day

Hat Tip: Shouts in the Piazza

Merry Christmas!

Quote of the Day

"It would appear that on the level of individual nations and of international relations the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs."

-Pope John Paul II
Centisimus Anus
May 1, 1991

An Open Letter to the Catholic Community in Behalf of Ron Paul

This is one of the best articles I've read articulating Ron Paul's positions concerning matters that directly pertain to the Catholic faith. The author, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is a prominent U.S. and Catholic historian. You can view the original article here.

In the tradition of Walter Block’s Open Letter to the Jewish Community in Behalf of Ron Paul and Laurence Vance’s Open Letter to the Protestant Community in Behalf of Ron Paul, I’d like to say a few words to my fellow Catholics.

Never in my life have I felt as strongly about a presidential candidate – or about any politician, for that matter – as I do about Dr. Ron Paul, Republican congressman from Texas. I’ve gone from being someone so disgusted with politics that I can’t bear to read about it to being a political junkie, avidly following the activities and successes of this great man.

As an American historian, I am not aware of any congressman in American history whose voting record is so stellar, and so consistently in accord with the Constitution.

Beyond that, Ron Paul is not a panderer. He’ll speak to an interest group and tell them to their faces that he has opposed and will continue to oppose funding their pet projects. Lobbyists know they’re wasting their money if they try to wine and dine him. He recently spoke before the national convention of an organization aimed at protecting the interests of a particular ethnic group, and began by saying: "Somebody asked me whether I had a special speech for your group, and I said, no, it’s the same speech I give everywhere."

Already by 1981, Ron Paul had earned the highest rating ever given by the National Taxpayers Union, received the highest rating from the Council for a Competitive Economy, and won the Liberty Award from the American Economic Council for being "America’s outstanding defender of economic and personal freedom."

Dr. Paul, who entered Congress in 1976 and returned to his medical practice in 1984, picked up where he left off when he returned to Congress in the 1996 election. I do not expect to see his like again.

He is also a good and decent man, who really is what he appears to be when you hear him speak. As a physician at an inner-city hospital, Ron Paul provided medical care to anyone who needed it, regardless of ability to pay. He never accepted money from Medicare or Medicaid, preferring to provide free care instead. That’s what people in a free society are supposed to do: be responsible for themselves, and then lend their assistance to those who are vulnerable and alone.

Ron Paul is a candidate who doesn’t insult his listeners’ intelligence, who answers the questions he is asked, and who doesn’t simply say whatever his audience wants to hear. And unlike other major names in the race, Ron Paul doesn’t have to run away from his record, which reveals an unswerving commitment to peace, freedom, and prosperity that is second to none in all of American history.

Although I would have supported Ron Paul back before I converted to Catholicism, I think Catholics will like what they see when they examine his record. Over at Defend Life, Ron Paul comes out decisively on top in a study of the candidates’ positions on the issues according to the guidelines recently established by the United States bishops. (If anything, I think this study understates Paul’s compatibility with Catholic teaching.)

On education and home schooling, Ron Paul is the clear winner. Fred Thompson, John McCain, and Duncan Hunter all voted for the execrable No Child Left Behind Act, and Governors Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have both come out in favor of it. Ron Paul – as did the Republican Party itself not so long ago – opposes any federal role in education, which is the responsibility of parents and local communities.

In other words, Ron Paul believes in a little something called subsidiarity, which happens to be a central principle of Catholic social thought. Subsidiarity holds that all social functions should be carried out by the most local unit possible, as opposed to the dehumanizing alternative whereby distant bureaucratic structures are routinely and unthinkingly entrusted with more and more responsibilities for human well-being.

On home schooling, Ron Paul has proposed legislation giving tax credits worth thousands of dollars to reimburse the educational expenses of home-schooling parents, as well as those of parents who send their children to other kinds of schools. What presidential candidate speaks like this?

Parental control of child rearing, especially education, is one of the bulwarks of liberty. No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family. By moving to restore the primacy of parents to education, the Family Education Freedom Act will not only improve America’s education, it will restore a parent’s right to choose how best to educate one’s own child, a fundamental freedom that has been eroded by the increase in federal education expenditures and the corresponding decrease in the ability of parents to provide for their children’s education out of their own pockets.

When it comes to abortion, Ron Paul – an obstetrician/gynecologist who has delivered over 4,000 babies – has been a consistent opponent of Roe v. Wade, which he rightly considers unconstitutional. But he has no interest in the failed strategy of the past 35 years whereby we sit and wait for a remedy in the form of good Supreme Court justices. His HR 300 would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over abortion, as per Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. That would overturn Roe by a simple congressional majority.

Then we could see who is sincere on the issue, and who is just exploiting it for votes. Few in either party really want to see the abortion status quo overturned, since it means they can’t scare their supporters into sending them as much money anymore.

Upon the Pope’s death in 2005, Ron Paul paid tribute to John Paul’s consistent defense of life. On another occasion, he offered an additional tribute, of the sort few politicians would utter:

To the secularists, this was John Paul II’s unforgivable sin – he placed service to God above service to the state. Most politicians view the state, not God, as the supreme ruler on earth. They simply cannot abide a theology that does not comport with their vision of unlimited state power. This is precisely why both conservatives and liberals savaged John Paul II when his theological pronouncements did not fit their goals. But perhaps their goals simply were not godly.

Speaking of John Paul II, it is important to remember that that pope was a strong opponent of the U.S. government’s attack on Iraq, sending his personal representative, Cardinal Pio Laghi, to Washington shortly before the commencement of hostilities in order to insist to the president that such a war would be unjust. The Pope’s first comments after the war broke out were these: "When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society."

Before his election as Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was asked if a U.S. government attack on Iraq would be just. "Certainly not," came the reply. He predicted that "the damage would be greater than the values one wishes to save."

After the war ended, Ratzinger said: "It was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction…. It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world." "There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq," he elsewhere observed. "To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war.’"

Hundreds of thousands lost their lives in this obviously avoidable war, a war that was based on falsehoods that we would have laughed at if they’d been uttered by Leonid Brezhnev. But since they came from the White House we cheer as for a football team, and duck the appalling material and moral consequences. A country that (by regional standards) once had an excellent health care system, opportunities for women, liberal gun and alcohol laws, and – yes – lots of immigrants, was turned into a disease-ridden basket case, filled with dead, wounded, and malnourished children, for no good reason.

That’s just wrong, and it isn’t "liberal" to say so.

Likewise, Ratzinger/Benedict is not a "liberal" for opposing the war. He is a moral conservative, but a man whose conservatism is more mature than the sloganeering jingoism of so much of what passes for conservatism in today’s America. Ron Paul is an equally sober and serious statesman, and for that reason was one of very few Republicans with the courage and the foresight to oppose this economic and moral fiasco from the very start.

It is especially satisfying to learn that in the second quarter of 2007, Ron Paul received more donations from active duty and retired military personnel than any other Republican candidate. By the third quarter, he was receiving more than any other presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican. Want to support the troops? Then support Ron Paul.

My main argument to you, though, is not a specifically Catholic one. It’s one that should resonate with anybody who values honesty, integrity, and decency. Ron Paul is a good man who believes in justice and the Constitution, and who cannot be bought. His ten terms in Congress have proven that again and again.

And that is why the media fears him. Unlike the rest of them, Ron Paul is unowned.

Now every establishment hack out there wants you to vote for one of the business-as-usual candidates. Are you really so happy with the establishment that its endorsement or cajoling means anything to you? If anything, it should make us all the more interested in Ron Paul – the one candidate the establishment fears, since they know their game is up if he should win.

Far from being in the unhappy position of a candidate whose children won’t even speak to him, Ron Paul is fortunate to have family members all over the campaign trail on his behalf. He has been married to the same woman for 50 years, and has been blessed with five children and eighteen grandchildren. There are some family values.

Just think: for once, you don’t have to choose the lesser among evils. You can finally vote for someone. You can not only be happy, but actually honored, to cast your vote for Ron Paul.

But don’t just vote for him. Find out about him, and get out there and spread the word.

Thomas Woods Archives

Excommunication Clarification

From Zenit.org.

ROME, MAY 9, 2007 - The Vatican clarified that Benedict XVI has not excommunicated Mexican politicians who supported the legalization of abortion in the country's capital -- rather, they have excluded themselves from Communion.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said this today in a statement he issued in wake of comments made by the Pope aboard his flight from Rome to São Paulo.

Reporters asked Benedict XVI if the Church had excommunicated the politicians of Mexico City who had voted to legalize abortion in the first trimester.

The Holy Father said that the excommunication for those promoting abortion is "nothing new, it's normal, it wasn't arbitrary. It is what is foreseen by the Church's doctrine."

The Pontiff also underlined that Christian politicians need to be consistent with their beliefs, and confirmed that the Church announces the Gospel of Life.

"The death of an innocent, of a newly born baby is inconceivable," the Pope added. "It is not something arbitrary and the Church expresses value for life and for the individual character of life from the moment of conception."

Father Lombardi, who was with Benedict XVI on the plane, clarified that neither the Pope nor the Mexican bishops had declared those politicians excommunicated.

The press office director explained that the Church teaches that the promotion of abortion is not compatible with the reception of Communion.

The journalists then asked the spokesman: "So, are they excommunicated"?

"No," Father Lombardi responded. "They excluded themselves from Communion."

Automatic Excommunication?

The internet is abuzz with talk about the Pope's statement regarding excommunication and abortion. (Read more here, here, and here.) The reports do seem a little preemptive and almost shot from the hip. Cannon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters lays out the difference between Excommunication and Denial of the Eucharist on his blog. Be careful of anything the MSM reports when it comes to the Roman Catholic Church, or Christianity period!

Happy Easter-He Is Risen!

The Love Killer

From John Mallon.

Hannitization Update

Fr. Thomas Euteneuer has a new column out with all the latest on the Sean Hannity debacle. Heart, Mind & Strength has an excellent post about recent correspondence with Fr. Jonathan Morris and some of his responses. There has been an outpouring of support for Fr. Euteneuer from faithful Catholics everywhere. A few of their letters are listed on the HLI website.

I received an email last night from a fellow blogger that Fr. Euteneuer will be on EWTN Open Line with Barbara McGuigan today, Tuesday, March 20, at 2:00 PM CDT. It should be an interesting discussion. I really think this whole issue is either going to bring people into the fullness of the Faith or they will decide to go their merry ways.

Previous Post

A Catholic "Non-Negotiable"

Take this Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Rudy Giuliani et. al.

Pope Benedict XVI issued a new document Tuesday saying that Catholic politicians have a "non-negotiable" duty to oppose practices like abortion and euthanasia. The pontiff also reaffirmed the Catholic Church's position that political leaders who endorse these anti-life practices should voluntarily refuse communion.

The 140-page booklet that was the result of meetings that took place in the Vatican in 2005 on important church doctrine.

In the "Apostolic Exhortation" the Pope said all Catholics have a duty to uphold the church's pro-life teachings but that the responsibility was "especially incumbent" on those in positions of power.

He said elected officials should foster a "respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death."

"Consequently, Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce laws inspired by values grounded in human nature," he said.

"These values are not negotiable," he said in the new document.

The pope also said that local bishops in the United States have a responsibility to encourage local politicians to uphold pro-life values.

"Bishops are bound to reaffirm constantly these values as part of their responsibility to the flock entrusted to them," he wrote in the document.

The bishops are also charged with the task of monitoring whether elected officials in their local churches shouldn't be receiving communion because of a violation of the church's pro-life teachings.
"There is an objective connection here with the Eucharist. Bishops are bound to reaffirm constantly these values as part of their responsibility to the flock entrusted to them," the pope said.

According to an AP news report, reporters asked Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola if the new document instructed bishops to not give communion to pro-abortion politicians. The cardinal didn't answer and said the document "doesn't say what it doesn't want to say."