Pope Francis’s Disordered Exhortation

From Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exusultate:

101. The other harmful ideological error is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist. Or they relativize it, as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend. Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection...

102. We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue. Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the “grave” bioethical questions …

Emphasis added. The New York Times correctly noted that Francis’s argument here is: 

“consistent with a view articulated by Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin, the archbishop of Chicago who died in 1996, and who called for a ‘consistent ethic of life’ that wove issues of life and social justice into a ‘seamless garment.’”

Before you can have a garment (seamless or otherwise) you have to have cloth. The right to life is not part of the seamless garment—it is the cloth from which the garment is made. To put the right to life on the same level as “the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection” as Francis does, is disordered.

Dr. Peter Kreeft in SF Aug. 20: "What I shall do with atheism is refute it!"

San Francisco's Star of the Sea parish (under the wonderful Fr. Joseph Illo) is hosting Dr. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College, on August 20. Dr. Kreeft's subject will be "Answering Atheism." Dr. Kreeft answers a few questions about the event over at California Catholic Daily.

The good Professor will also speak at St. Apollinaris Church in Napa and at the Religious Education Congress of the Diocese of Santa Rosa.

Visit CalCatholic for full details and registration/tickets.

'Transgender' Man Proves He's a Man, Not A Woman

Our cracked "elite" culture may buy into the delusion that men can turn into women and women can turn into men, but nature always finds a way for the truth to come out.

A recent example of this was the July 19 HLN TV Dr. Drew Show, where Breitbart reporter Ben Shapiro angered Robert Tur, an Inside Edition Reporter who now thinks he's a woman and calls himself Zoey. Then this happened:

"...Tur grabbed Shapiro’s neck and growled, “You cut that out now, or you’ll go home in an ambulance.” Shapiro later alleged that Tur had threatened him after the appearance, “I’ll see you in the parking lot,” and that CNN security had escorted Shapiro to his car after ensuring Tur had left the premises. Tur also tweeted out on Friday that he would like to “curb stomp” Shapiro."

Can anyone imagine a real woman ever behaving in this way? It is totally male. As Shapiro said "...referring to transgender people by their preferred instead of biological sex is 'mainstreaming delusion.'” Mr. Tur's behavior amply demonstrated Shapiro's point, and Mr. Shapiro has quite properly filed a police report against Mr. Tur.

Latest Planned Parenthood Video

The continuing obscenity that is taxpayer-funder abortion and the sale of fetal body parts continues to be exposed by the Center for Medical Progress. Their latest video is below.

On Monday, the Senate voted 53-46 to defund Planned Parenthood. All but two of the votes to defund the loathsome organization were from Republicans; all but two of the votes to continue funding were from Democrats.

The Democrats are the Party of Death and how any person (let alone a Catholic) can continue to vote for them indicates a moral failure on the voters part. I understand it certainly: the Democrats will give you free stuff, maybe even stuff you need, but that is not a sufficient reason.

Archbishop Cordileone: "At the heart of marriage is the spiritual-sexual relationship between husband and wife"

Lovely.

The following is an excerpt from His Excellency's speech given at the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, in Hanceville Alabama, July 8-11, 2014.

You can listen to his full speech here.

Marriage as the Key to the New Evangelization 

The virtue of chastity is absolutely necessary for persevering in any vocation, no matter what your vocation may be, because it is necessary in order to arrive at true love, in which one makes a gift of oneself to the other, and so attains the true happiness that God created us for; this is living the way God designed it to work.

For married couples, this is lived out by the spirituality of responsible parenthood, the complete, unreserved gift of each one to the other, in conformity to God's design for marriage, all the way to the most intimate dimension of the marital relationship. The point of all this, though, is not only for the good of the couple themselves; it goes far beyond that.

How does an individual grow into a person capable of this great of love? The obvious answer, as challenging as it is in the times in which we're living, is chastity. Today's world sees this as a negative, as a deprivation, as a suppression of the sexual appetite. Chastity, though, essentially means living according to the personalistic norm in our relationships.

If you think about it, the formula is quite simple and clear: healthy societies are built on healthy, united families; healthy, united families are based on healthy, happy, harmonious marriages; and at the heart of marriage is the spiritual-sexual relationship between husband and wife. It all really comes down to that. The whole point is the plan of God for our happiness: it is clear that in the plan of God marriage is meant to be a faithful, fruitful, life-long union between a man and a woman.

Hobby Lobby's "Landmark victory for freedom" clarifies sides in Culture War

More positive fallout from the Hobby Lobby ruling are being noticed. Dennis Saffran, writing at City Journal calls it "a landmark victory for freedom" and notes that it may be used to defend "creative professionals" (read: bakers and photographers who do not want to be forced into supporting counterfeit "marriages").

Saffran writes:

"In sum, the immediate impact of Hobby Lobby—providing a religious accommodation to a handful of covered employers who object to a handful of covered contraceptives—will almost certainly be negligible. No hands will 'reach into a woman’s body,' and no one will be denied their free IUDs. Yet the decision may nonetheless prove a landmark victory for freedom, especially if it helps bring an end to other coercive efforts, such as the cases involving the creative professionals. At the least, Hobby Lobby carves out space for objections to modern political orthodoxy, thus infusing real meaning into the progressive mantras of 'tolerance' and 'diversity.'” 

Saffran seems to be correct--or at least some people are acting as if he is.

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle reported:

Alarmed by Hobby Lobby, LGBT groups dump job-rights bill

"Several leading gay advocacy groups said Tuesday they are abandoning the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, commonly known as ENDA, following the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision last week."

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are moving to pass a bill that would reverse the Supreme Court's ruling, according to Talking Points Memo:

"Senate Democrats are poised to introduce legislation as early as Tuesday to reverse the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling which exempted for-profit corporations with religious owners from the Obamacare mandate to cover emergency contraceptives in their insurance plans.

The legislation will be sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO). According to a summary reviewed by TPM, it prohibits employers from refusing to provide health services, including contraception, to their employees if required by federal law. It clarifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling against the mandate, and all other federal laws don't permit businesses to opt out of the Obamacare requirement.

The legislation also puts the kibosh on legal challenges by religious nonprofits, like Wheaton College, instead declaring that the accommodation they're provided under the law is sufficient to respect their religious liberties. (It lets them pass the cost on to the insurer or third party administrator if they object.) Houses of worship are exempt from the mandate."

Catholics who support the Democratic Party face an irreconcilable conflict between being Catholic or a member of that party. In my opinion, that's been the case for a long time.

"Growing state absolutism" leaves "no room for the moral authority of the Church"

The great James Kalb nails it, over at Catholic World Report:

"Carrying on the Battle"

To deal with the current situation we must abandon comfort, mediocrity, and the habit of blurring our views on fundamental issues 

"The issues that now put Catholics in opposition to secular public thought are too basic to ignore. The Church accepts God as our reference point, and views freedom to develop our relation to Him and act by reference to it as basic to our good and our dignity. In contrast, secular society has made our own outlook and desires our reference point. Those things make us what we are, or so it is thought, and freedom to follow them is considered the key to a good and dignified life.

That opposition leads to views of morality and justice in which drastically different claims and authorities carry weight. The Church values conscience, and accepts 'this is right'—in general, this expresses the moral nature of a world that after all is God’s creation—as a claim that normally overrides other considerations. Today’s secular world values individual autonomy instead, and prefers the authority of claims such as 'I want this' or 'this is part of my identity as I define it.'

The contradiction is sharpened by conflicts in institutional loyalty. The Church accepts its hierarchy as the authority that defines, protects, and furthers the most fundamental human concerns. Secular society rejects that authority in favor of that of the state, with its courts, constitutional law, experts on human rights, and system of education and social welfare. At one time it was possible to reconcile the two by saying that they dealt with different matters, the Church hierarchy with fundamental spiritual and moral principles and the state with worldly practicalities and standards of conduct generally accepted as a matter of vernacular natural law (otherwise known as common sense).

That view no longer works because of growing state absolutism resulting from the decline of transcendent religion and the sense of a natural moral order. All social institutions, including the family, are now viewed as state creations, so that determining what they should be in light of ultimate values such as equality and personal autonomy is considered a basic function of government. On such an understanding there is no room for the moral authority of the Church...."

Read the whole thing.

SF Politicians try to dissuade Archbishop Cordileone from attending Marriage March

Good luck with that.

A group of San Francisco politicians is trying to convince Archbishop Salvatore Cordleone, the USCCB's point man for the defense of marriage, from attending June 19's March for Marriage in Washington, DC. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about it this morning, and NBC Bay Area News did a segment on it, too, in which reporter Mark Matthews interviewed me.

They cropped my segment radically, which is a pity. They asked what the feeling about same-sex marriage was at Saints Peter and Paul, and I said that “the feeling here is the feeling of the Catholic Church in general: That marriage is only between a man and a woman, anything else is not marriage.” They only aired the last sentence. You can watch the story below.

They did not air the part where Mr. Matthews said he'd spoken to people at "100 Diamond Street" (which is the address of Most Holy Redemeer) who had said that the Holy Father said not to worry about marriage, and "Who am I to judge?" I put that in context for Mr. Matthews, and added that the Holy Father had said same-sex marriage is a tool of the devil, and that Holy Father, the Bishops of the Church, and Archbishop Cordileone are all on the same page.

NBC's lack of objectivity is non-existent: their text version of the story contains a link to the petition that asks the Archbishop not to attend the March. You can learn more about the March for Marriage by visiting www.marriagemarch.org/

UPDATE: His Excellency is promoting the march in New Orleans.

From LifeSiteNews:

Defending marriage tops agenda on first day of US Bishops spring meeting

Much of the opening day of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 2014 Spring General Assembly on Wednesday was devoted to the defense and promotion of marriage.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, led the charge by telling his brother bishops: “We are at a critical point in this country as it comes to defense of marriage in the law.”

Archbishop Cordileone outlined the rave situation for the defense of traditional marriage and resulting threatsto religious freedom. He noted that if the Supreme Court takes up one of the state marriage amendment cases, by next June 2015 we could have a decision.

“A negative decision by the Supreme Court would undoubtedly have a profound impact on the nation,” he said. The archbishop ended by promoting the March for Marriage in Washington, DC on June 19.

Pope Francis: The Devil Wants to Destroy the Family

All on the same page...

In our last post, Bishop Paul Loverde quoted Pope Francis on the defense of marriage and the family. And here is what the Holy Father said on June 1 to 52,000 Catholics in Rome, from Vatican Insider:

Francis at Rome’s Olympic Stadium: “The devil wants to destroy the family”

"'Married couples are sinners just like everyone else, but they want to continue with love, in all its fecundity. They continue in the faith, bearing children.' This was Francis’ response to the words pronounced by a young bride who greeted Francis on behalf of all families. 'Let us pray to the Lord and ask him to protect the family in the crisis with which the devil wants to destroy it,' the Pope said. 'Families are the domestic church where Jesus grows in the love of a married couple, in the lives of their children. This is why the devil attacks the family so much,' Francis explained. The devil doesn’t want it and tries to destroy it. The devil tries to make love disappear from there.'”

The family is the image of the Blessed Trinity. We've all heard that at many homilies. That's why the devil hates it so much. He can't do anything about the Trinity, so he tries to destroy it's image, the family. And Pope Francis has been very clear from the beginning on the demonic nature of counterfeit, same-sex "marriage." Remember what he said in 2010, when same-sex "marriage" was being debated in Argentina:

"In the coming weeks, the Argentine people will face a situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family…At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts.”

Cardinal Bergoglio continued: “Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a ‘move’ of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

People don't like to hear that, it hurts, but it is true, despite those who have attempted to spin his "who am I to judge" statement. Let's also remember that in 2009, a year before then-Cardinal Bergoglio's statement our own good Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (then-Bishop of Oakland) said:

"'The ultimate attack of the Evil One is the attack on marriage,' he said. 'If you take marriage apart, everything comes unraveled. It's been frayed at the edges, and now moving more and more toward the center. But you take marriage out, it all comes unraveled. It all comes tumbling down. And again, the evangelicals, they understand that. They understand this is an attack of the Evil One at the core institution.'"

Pope Francis, Archbishop Cordileone, Bishop Loverde, Archbishop Chaput, Bishop Paprocki...they're all on the same page.

Bishop Loverde of Arlington on Marriage and the Defense of the Family

Our Catholic Bishops (including the Bishop of Rome, our Holy Father Pope Francis) are united in defense of marriage and the family, God bless them! Here is a May 28 column by Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, VA:

Stand for Marriage, Stand for Faith

"Eight years ago, the will of the people of Virginia was expressed clearly and decisively as citizens cast their ballots to safeguard in the state constitution the age-old definition of marriage as between one woman and one man. At that time, along with Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, I wrote to you about 'the unique and vital role the institution of marriage has in society' and how the result of the referendum would have 'profound significance for the future of the family, the most fundamental social structure of our society.' We noted that marriage 'had a design and purpose long before any nation, religion, or law was established,' and that 'the proper role of both church and state is one of stewardship, to preserve our Creator's great gift of marriage from one generation to the next.' Now, these words are all the more true as the challenge seems ever greater.

In the time since the vote here in Virginia, when only Massachusetts, under pressure by state court order, had redefined its marriage law, seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized marriage between individuals of the same sex. It is true, we have seen public opinion shift to some degree under the relentless advocacy of those who would change marriage from its basic meaning and purpose. This is all the more reason for us to make the case for marriage and its importance to children, society, and, yes, God’s plan for us.

St. John Paul II spoke of the transcendent role of marriage this way:

'In a marriage, a man and a woman pledge themselves to one another in an unbreakable alliance of total mutual self-giving. A total union of love.

Love that is not a passing emotion or temporary infatuation, but a responsible and free decision to bind oneself completely, 'in good times and in bad,' to one's partner. It is the gift of oneself to the other.
The love of husband and wife in God's plan leads beyond itself, and new life is generated, a family is born. The family is a community of love and life, a home in which children are guided to maturity.'

And Pope Francis affirms this basic teaching:

'Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensable contribution of marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple,' (“Evangelii Gaudium,” n. 66).

These words truly convey the Lord’s plan for those called to marriage. It is the ideal, yes, and one we pray that all who enter into this union may achieve. Of course, there are failings sadly visible all around us — adultery and high rates of divorce, broken and suffering families — but that does not change the intrinsic worth of marriage and family willed by the Lord and proclaimed by the Church. Further, we know that traditional marriage bolsters society and is best for children. The social science is clear that children do best when raised by a mother and father in a stable marriage.

I know that some of you have resigned yourselves to the redefinition of marriage, or perhaps are not convinced that defending the true definition of marriage is essential to the well-being of society, but I urge you, by example and prudent and thoughtful words, to stand for marriage at this critical time in our history. This is a fight worth having, and the time is now! As I wrote to you when we voted on marriage here in Virginia, 'Preserving and promoting marriage is an integral component of our shared civic responsibility.'

Finally, I would encourage you to participate in the March for Marriage 2014 in Washington, D.C., being held this year on June 19th. The unchanging reality of marriage is being tested right now, perhaps to the point of no return, and our diocesan participation is very necessary. To learn more, go to marriagemarch.org."

Mark Steyn: The Popes versus the "Empire of Lies"

On Saturday, in preparation for the canonization of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, Mark Steyn published this excerpt from his book Mark Steyn's Passing Parade. The "empire of lies," as Mr. Steyn indicates was not only the Soviet Union, but any totalitarian regime, such as the totalitarian liberalism that now dominates the West.

Truth and Consequences

"How many divisions has the Pope?" sneered Stalin of Pius XII. Uncle Joe's successors lived long enough to find out. John Paul II's divisions were the Poles who filled the streets to cheer him on his return as pontiff to his homeland in the summer of 1979, and the brave men who founded the Solidarity union 18 months later, and began the chain of events that within a decade swept the Communists from power in Central and Eastern Europe and finally Mother Russia itself. One day we will know the precise combination of Bulgarian Secret Service, East German Stasi and Soviet KGB that lay behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the Holy Father. But you can see why they'd be willing to do it. By then the sclerotic Warsaw Pact understood just how many divisions this Pope had.

Twenty-six years ago, one young physics student summed up the hopes he and his compatriots had invested in that Papal visit in this simple declaration: "What I want to do is to live without being a liar." The Soviet Union and its vassals were an empire of lies, and, while you can mitigate (as many Poles and Russians did) the gulf between the official version and grim reality with bleak jokes, living an epic lie day in day out is corrosive of human dignity. That Polish physics student had identified instinctively what would be the great over-arching theme of John Paul II's papacy: to quote the title of his later encyclical, Veritatis Splendor – the splendor of truth.

Too many western politicians of a generation ago – Schmidt, Mitterand, Trudeau – failed to see what John Paul saw so clearly. It requires tremendous will to cling to the splendor of truth when the default mode of the era is to blur and evade.

And in that respect, across a turbulent half-century, there's more continuity between John Paul II and John XXIII than you might expect, and, indeed, with the intervening papacy of Paul VI. Shortly after John XXIII's death, Pope Paul's Humanae Vitae predicted that artificial birth control would lead to "conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality," the objectification of women, and governments "imposing upon their peoples" state-approved methods of contraception. You might conceivably claim that the collective damage they have done does not outweigh the individual benefits they have brought to many, but you can't argue that Pope Paul's summation wasn't right on the money - or that either his "liberal" predecessor or his "conservative" successor (after John Paul I's interlude) would have disagreed with him. It fell to John Paul II to defend veritatis splendor not only, politically, in the eastern bloc, but, culturally, in the western world, where it proved a tougher sell:

As The New York Times reported upon his death:

Among liberal Catholics, he was criticized for his strong opposition to abortion, homosexuality and contraception…

Shocking: a Pope who's opposed to abortion, homosexuality and contraception; what's the world coming to? The Guardian's assertion that Karol Wojtyla was "a doctrinaire, authoritarian pontiff" at least suggests the inflexible authoritarian derived his inflexibility from some ancient operating manual – he was doctrinaire about his doctrine, dogmatic about his dogma – unlike the Times and The Washington Post, which came close to implying that John Paul II had taken against abortion and gay marriage off the top of his head, principally to irk "liberal Catholics". But, either way, the assumption is always that there's some middle ground a less "doctrinaire" pope might have staked out: he might have supported abortion in the first trimester, say, or reciprocal partner benefits for gays in committed relationships.

The root of the Pope's thinking – that there are eternal truths no-one can change even if he wanted to – is completely incomprehensible to the progressivist mindset. There are no absolute truths, everything's in play, and by "consensus" all we're really arguing is the rate of concession to the inevitable: abortion's here to stay, gay marriage will be here any day now – it's all gonna happen anyway, man, so why be the last squaresville daddy-o on the block?

When Governor Jim McGreevey announced he was stepping down, he told the people of New Jersey: "My truth is that I am a gay American." That's a very contemporary formulation: "my" truth. To John Paul II, there was only "the" truth. To the moral relativists, everyone's entitled to his own – or, as the Governor continued, "one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world." Among liberal "Catholics" in Manhattan and Boston, the pontiff may be a reactionary misogynist homophobe condom-banner but, beyond those stunted horizons, he was a man fully engaged with the modern world and shrewder at reconciling it with the splendor of the eternal truth than most politicians. Western liberals claim the Pope's condom hang-ups have had tragic consequences in Aids-riddled Africa. The Dark Continent gets darker every year: millions are dying, male life expectancy is collapsing, and such civil infrastructure as there is seems likely to follow. But the most effective weapon against the disease has not been the Aids lobby's 20-year promotion of condom culture in Africa but Uganda's campaign to change behaviour and to emphasise abstinence and fidelity – ie, the Pope's position. You don't have to be a Catholic or a "homophobe" to think that the spread of Aids is telling us something basic – that nature is not sympathetic to sexual promiscuity. If it weren't Aids, it would be something else, as it has been for most of human history. What should be the Christian response? To accept that we're merely the captives of our appetites, like a dog in heat? Or to ask us to rise to the rank God gave us – "a little lower than the angels" but above "the beasts of the field"? In The Gospel Of Life, the Pope wrote:

Sexuality too is depersonalized and exploited: …it increasingly becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts. Thus the original import of human sexuality is distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative, inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially separated…

Had the Pope signed on to condom distribution in Africa, he would have done nothing to reduce the spread of Aids, but he would have done a lot to advance the further artificial separation of sex, in Africa and beyond. Indeed, if you look at The New York Times' list of complaints against the Pope they all boil down to what he called sex as self-assertion.

Thoughtful atheists ought to be able to recognize that, whatever one's tastes in these areas, the Pope is on to something – that abortion et al, in separating the "two meanings" of sex and leaving us free to indulge in one while ignoring the other, have severed us almost entirely and possibly irreparably from traditional impulses, like societal survival. Given what Aids has done to African mortality rates and what abortion has done to European demographics, John Paul II's eternal truths look a lot more rational than those of the hyperrationalists at The New York Times. John Paul II championed the "splendor of truth" not because he was rigid and inflexible, but because he understood the alternative was a dead end in every sense. To Karol Wojtyla, truth was not just splendid but immutable: he proved his point in the struggle against Communism; one day the west will recognize that he got it right closer to home, too.

Lovely and Powerful: Judge Tom Parker's Abortion Opinion a Restoral of Sanity

Following the absurd "reasoning" of Roe v. Wade (noted even by its supporters), wholesale self-delusion has been  required to support the position that a woman has a "right" to kill a child. Because the majority of the media and academia support this position, however, they have not been backward in supplying it. So it is almost astonishing to read an opinion so clear, so logical, so sensible, so compelling, as that offered by Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker on Good Friday.

From LifeSiteNews:

Unborn child has ‘inalienable’ right to life ‘at all stages of development’: Alabama Supreme Court

Children in the womb should have the same legal standing as other children, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled Friday.

The decision upheld the prior conviction of Sarah Janie Hicks for “the chemical endangerment of her child,” when she exposed her unborn baby to cocaine. The boy, referred to as “JD,” was born testing positive for cocaine.

The 8-1 decision reaffirmed the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling in a similar case last year that the word “child” includes “unborn child”...

According to Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the majority decision, “It is impossible for an unborn child to be a separate and distinct person at a particular point in time in one respect and not to be a separate and distinct person at the same point in time but in another respect. Because an unborn child has an inalienable right to life from its earliest stages of development, it is entitled not only to a life free from the harmful effects of chemicals at all stages of development but also to life itself at all stages of development. Treating an unborn child as a separate and distinct person in only select respects defies logic and our deepest sense of morality...

'Courts do not have the luxury of hiding behind ipse dixit assertions,' which means that courts cannot rule simply to uphold the legal status quo but must, in this case, 'allow the law of non-contradiction' to come into play, in order to 'recognize a child's inalienable right to life at all stages of development.'

Until this is the case, the judge added, 'our grief is not for the Constitution alone; we also grieve for the millions of children who have not been afforded equal value, love, and protection since Roe.'

'In contrast to the reasoning of Roe and Casey, Alabama’s reliance upon objective principles has led this court to consistently recognize the inalienable right to life inherently possessed by every human being and to dispel the shroud of doubt cast by the United States Supreme Court’s violation of the law of non-contradiction,' said Parker."

Wesley Smith, a man we admire, covered the decision in National Review. He opened his article with the sentence:

"This will not impact the abortion issue because of federal preemption."

We disagree. It may not impact the issue legally, at least immediately, but laws change, and, not ignoring the millions killed through abortion, one of the most important consequences of Roe v. Wade has been the requisite denial of reality that followed. That is healed through truth compellingly articulated, something Judge Parker has done.Roe v. Wade will be overturned; Judge Parker has taken a significant step in that direction.

More Wisdom from Fr. James Schall: On Multiculturalism

What a great teacher he is! This essay was published at The Catholic Thing. Excerpts:

"The modern notion that all cultures and nations can and should live together in harmony requires either: a) a general agreement about the basis of virtue and truth, or b) the elimination of any difference between good and evil, truth and falsity. “Multiculturalism,” itself a construction of the mind, is what happens when the latter alternative is accepted, not as “true,” but as “workable” or “practical.”

Cultures, however, are not philosophically or morally neutral. Within each is found a certain configuration of good and evil habits, laws, and customs. In earlier ages, though massive migrations and invasions occurred, it was difficult to pass from one country to another. Each culture or nation worked out the norms of how it was to live...

The only kind of multiculturalism that is possible is one that recognizes a transcendent order. A multiculturalism that denies it ends up by establishing and enforcing a world order in which only what is objectively true is disallowed. The “fear” is precisely that truth does exist. The refusal to look for such truth recalls the scene in the Gorgias of Plato where the politician refuses to listen to argument, lest he be forced to admit its logic."

Pope Francis on an Ethical Approach to Economics

In the first Apostolic Exhortation of his Pontificate, “Evangelii Gaudium” (Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis writes about a just economy. His thoughts included this:

“54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about great­er justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. ..” Emphases added.

I think that is correct, and well in line with what previous Popes have said, especially with the qualification "inevitably" properly understood. But what do we do about it? The Holy Father, quite rightly, does not offer specifics. Four sections later he writes

“58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determi­nation and an eye to the future, while not ignor­ing, of course, the specifics of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of econom­ics and finance to an ethical approach which fa­vours human beings.”

Certainly. But the practical question of how we get to this “ethical approach” remains. The Holy Father is “urging…political leaders… to face this challenge.” That the state should guard the interests of the people is correct. But how do you do that without unfettering the government? Who guards the guardians? Let’s remember the Holy Fathers warning against having “a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic (read: political) power.” It’s the oldest conundrum in political philosophy: Who fetters the fetterers?

The scandal of “capitalism” is that, economically, it seems to work. An economic system that encourages men to look after number one, has managed, in spite of itself, to produce a surplus of goods. That these goods are not always distributed justly is another question—and it is the one that concerns the Holy Father--but the surplus is created. One problem, for a Christian, is that an economic system that encourages men to look after number one is quite likely to encourage behaviors that can prevent people from going to Heaven. And the related conundrum for the Church is: an economic system that is quite likely to prevent at least some people from going to Heaven also seems to be the best available means for enacting the “preferential option for the poor”—if by that is meant moving the poor out of material poverty. Before you can give to the poor, you need to have something to give. Despite what the Holy Father wrote, the argument that a “capitalist” economy produces more and better goods than a “socialist” economy seems to me to be empirically verifiable. “Capitalism” although with the enormous glaring flaw just described, seems to work, economically, while “Socialism,” beautifully moral in principle, does not. There is also no evidence that socialism, theoretically moral though it may be, produces more morally upright people. To believe so, to paraphrase the Holy Father, would require “a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic (read: political) power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic (read: political) system.” The crimes of socialist regimes when in power: the U.S.S.R., China, the Third Reich, Cambodia are to well known to need repeating.

Towards the beginning of his essay on Charles Dickens, George Orwell writes “…Nadezhda Krupskaya, in her little book on Lenin, relates that towards the end of his life Lenin went to see a dramatized version of The Cricket on the Hearth, and found Dickens's 'middle-class sentimentality' so intolerable that he walked out in the middle of a scene.” A little further on, Orwell gives a hint as to why a man like Lenin would find Dickens intolerable “The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he would put in their places…There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it WERE overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as 'human nature'. It would be difficult to point anywhere in his books to a passage suggesting that the economic system is wrong AS A SYSTEM. Nowhere, for instance, does he make any attack on private enterprise or private property… His whole 'message' is one that at first glance looks like an enormous platitude: If men would behave decently the world would be decent.” Emphases in the original.

Pages later, after describing the horrors of industrial age England, Orwell writes that there is always a new tyrant waiting to take over from the old tyrant, and comes to the conclusion “The central problem–how to prevent power from being abused–remains unsolved. Dickens, who had not the vision to see that private property is an obstructive nuisance, had the vision to see that. 'If men would behave decently the world would be decent' is not such a platitude as it sounds.’” Emphasis added.

So we’re back to where we started, where Plato started where Juvenal started: How do we get men to behave decently without exchanging one set of fetters for another, fetters more permanent because claiming justification and the right to use force from the will of the people. There is not a systemic solution to this, not a capitalist solution, not a socialist solution, because it is a problem at the level of the person. Engaging that problem, the problem of you and me, is exactly the job of the Church.

The Roots of the Obamacare Debacle

So many social problems are rooted in our culture's current unwillingness to accept truth exists outside of human thoughts and desires.On April 1, 2011 we posted about a then-recent column by Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami (now in the running to be the next President of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops). His Excellency observed:

"In our nation's culture wars, the two sides are fighting about the understanding of man and his relationship to truth and reality. One side — and today, "gay marriage" is its poster child — holds that anyone can essentially create his or her own reality. This side holds for a radical autonomy by which truth is determined not by the nature of things, but by one's own individual will. The other side holds men and women are not self-creators, but creatures. Truth is not constructed, but received and thus must reflect the reality of things. Or, as the Book of Genesis says: "Male and female, He (God) created them." (Genesis 1:27)."

The Archbishop's observation is being understood by more and more people. Over the last few days the Obamacare debacle has brought it home, as these three recent columns show. In the column Barack Obama's Narrative Illusions, Andrew Klavan describes a previous column he wrote, but which various editors declined:

"It was based on Obama’s answer to the usual campaign question: “Why do you want to be president?” His answer, which I can no longer find to quote verbatim, had to do with how inspiring it would be to black children to see him sworn in on Inauguration Day.

That, I wrote at the time, is not a reason to be president. It’s a reason to play the president, as an actor plays a role. In this long-ago unpublished op-ed, I used my novelistic x-ray vision to look into the then-candidate’s soul and point out that this was not a man who actually wanted to do — or was even capable of doing — the work of a chief executive. He just thought it would be an all around Good Thing if he could live out his fantasy of being in that part.

It is now apparent to any honest observer that Obama is a rank incompetent too arrogant and foolish to alter his political philosophy even after reality has proven it false. As his record at the time of his original candidacy should have warned us, he has no business in the Oval Office. He simply isn’t up for the job.

And what is extra tragicomical about Obama’s spectacular failure is that so many of the journalists who cover him are ALSO content to have him play rather than be the president — just as they themselves are content to play at heroically helping the poor and minorities even as their left-wing policies make the poor even poorer and the marginalized more marginalized still.

The reason for this is that both Obama and many of our journalists were trained in the post-modern academy where they were taught that there is no such thing as moral truth but only culturally inculcated narratives. In such a world, the moral narrative that can be drummed into the head of the populace is the truth that wins. Convincing people that a good has been achieved is the same as achieving it."

In his column, Mr. Klavan points to a recent column by Roger Simon which addresses the same point. Mr. Simon's column is called God, Lies, and Obama. He writes, in part:

"Americans are far from strangers to presidential lying. Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon excelled at it. Both, however, were liars of what we could call self-defense....

Barack Obama is another matter. His lies are not mainly for self-defense (although Benghazi has elements of that). They are lies of ideological volition. He lies to get his way. And he does it so well, with so much seeming earnestness — as in his umpteen (and continuing!) pronouncements that no one would lose their health insurance or personal physician from Obamacare, when, it’s now clear, he knew all the while this was utterly false — that his behavior appears almost sociopathic.

In other words, to Obama these are not really lies, because he has no values, religious or otherwise, that make them so. This is more than just the prototypical Marxist ends justifying the means...
He never had a moral basis for honesty. Lying, from the Choom Gang through Reverend Wright and beyond, was his lifestyle. And he had the consolation that he was lying for a better good. No one ever told him otherwise. If that goes on for long enough, you lose contact with truth. It becomes almost a non-existent phenomenon, an irrelevancy."

And Daniel Greenfield, writing about the Obamacare catastrophe in the column Government is Magic:

"Our modernity is style rather than substance. It's Obama grinning. It's the right font. It's the right joke. It's that sense that X knows what he's doing because he presents it the right way. There's nothing particularly modern about that… 

Healthcare.gov, like ObamaCare, was going to work because it was 'good'. Its goodness was by some measure other than result. It was morally good. It was progressive. And so the deity of liberal causes, perhaps Karl Marx or Progressia, the Goddess of Soup and Economic Dysfunction, would see to it that it would work…"

May our culture wake up before it is too late. May the Church continue to be a beacon to those looking for truth!

The Religious Roots of "Progressive" Politicians

I'm happy to see that the work of my favorite philosopher, Eric Voegelin, is starting to make some inroads into popular culture. Yesterday, James Taranto, who writes the "Best of the Web" column for the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece called "Out of Mani, One" exploring the Manichean roots of "Progressive" politics, and their particular expression in Barack Obama. Mr. Taranto's very brief column was then linked to by the mighty Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

Taranto does not mention Professor Voegelin, but links to the column that provoked his column, a piece by David Solway, called "The Ideology of the Left: Gnostics of Our Time," which specifically cites Voegelin's work. Taranto writes:

"Gnosticism is a utopian philosophy. Its essential premises are that the world, not man, is fallen and the route to salvation lies in knowledge (gnosis in Greek), not faith. As poet David Solway explains in a PJMedia.com essay: 'The world and all its customs, beliefs, norms, usages, and statutes was disavowed as a vast and perverse deception. The imperative was to restore a prior or potential, but shattered, harmony by whatever means necessary and thus to recreate the Creation.'

Solway argues that the psychology of contemporary left 'is intrinsically a Gnostic one':

'All of the Left's diverse manifestations, from radical communism to the more complaisant forms of soft-focus socialism, are actuated by the mystical lure of a harmonious society posited as the end-goal of History--a society in which the elements of conflict have been banished and sufficient wherewithal is assured for all its members. The Hegelian assumption--partially adopted by Marx--of the "end" toward which the forces of History are tending is the secular version of the Gnostic reverie of the benign blueprint that was somehow botched. The Leftist dream of ultimate "ends" mirrors the Gnostic illusion of first beginnings, of a pre-existent purpose. For this psychology, only the Ideal is Real, and the Real is recognized as something that is opposed to the actual, to what is presently the case.'

This makes sense of the disconnect between Obama's largely uplifting 2008 campaign and his unrelentingly vicious 2012 one. Then, he presented himself as 'the Ideal,' the bringer of 'hope and change' whose promise was 'fundamentally transforming the United States of America.'"

It does make sense. "Progressives" are gnostics who derive their motivation from opposition. The opposition is, obviously, to the existing reality. Obama's promise of  "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" is a Gnostic project.

Those concerned about the "separation of church and state" should be especially concerned about "Progressives" and Barack Obama. You can only separate two things if you have two things. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. His church is a definable body with definable doctrines. His church can be easily distinguished from the state. The same cannot be said of President Obama.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Another Hopeful Sign: The Pledge to America

It's a good document, getting down to principles. Excerpts from the preamble:

"In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent...."

We've been talking about the consent of the governed here for years, specifically where courts impose counterfeit "marriage" on the people.

"An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down longstanding laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people."

That would be Judge Walker, etc. The Pledge goes on to assert:

We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.

We'd rather they used "natural" instead of "traditional" for marriage--still, the meaning is intact.
On abortion, in the body of the pledge:

"Permanently Prohibit Taxpayer Funding of Abortion

We will establish a government-wide prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion and subsidies for insurance coverage that includes abortion. This prohibition would go further and enact into law what is known as the Hyde Amendment as well as ban other instances of federal subsidies for abortion services. We will also enact into law conscience protections for health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and hospitals."

UPDATE: The very smart pro-lifer Yuval Levin is impressed.

"Salafism: Understanding a Strain of Radical Islam" Part Three

This week's "Reclaiming the Culture" features the third and final part of Dolores Meehan's interview with Brian Fairchild of the Intrepid Group, LLC on Salafi Islam. Obviously a very timely issue.

In part one, Mr. Fairchild described his background and experiences in Arabia, and began to describe what Salafism is.

In part two, he expanded on Salafism, and on the inadequate conceptual and instrumental response of our government.

In part three, Mr. Fairchild shows how Salfism is being inculcated into American society.

Listen here:

http://www.reclaimingtheculture.org/fairchild3.html

Mr. Fairchild is the co-founder of Intrepid Group, LLC. Since 9/11, Mr. Fairchild and his partner have trained over 10,000 US counterterrorism officials on the subject of Islamist terrorism, including officials from CIA, FBI, military special operations, and state and local law enforcement. The picture above shows Mr. Fairchild with Crown Prince Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qasimi of the Emirate of Ras al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.

Podcasts can be downloaded, too.

Other Reclaiming the Culture shows:

Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone, Bishop of the Diocese of Oakland: "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call to Christian Conscience"

Father Robert A. Sirico, President, The Acton Institute "The Principle of Subsidiarity and the Service of the Poor"

Dr. Janet Smith, the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, "The Right to Privacy."

Dr. Maria Fedoryka, Ave Maria University, "The Gift of Woman"

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Lee Harris on "Restoring Honor"

Timothy Dalrymple wrote the other day that "Glenn Beck gets it." I don't know anything about Mr. Beck, except that he has a radio or TV show, but as we wrote on the day of the rally "300,000 Americans who take honor seriously is a very good sign."

Here are some nice observations on the meaning of last week's Restoring Honor rally, by Lee Harris.

"To many hostile observers, the event was simply the latest installment in the ongoing antics of the Tea Party. But the keynote of the occasion, 'Restoring Honor,' along with its celebration of 'traditional American values,' suggests a decided movement, if not away from, then at least beyond the Tea Party. Far from being directed exclusively at Tea Partiers, Beck’s rally addressed those millions of ordinary Americans who are deeply resentful at what they perceive as a massive and well-coordinated attack on traditions they hold sacred.

The Tea Party began as an antitax and anti-big government movement. Many of the most prominent Tea Party spokesmen showed little interest in the vexing cultural issues that have increasingly divided Americans for several decades—indeed, most seemed quite happy to distance themselves from such hot button topics as abortion, immigration, and gay marriage. Out of the gamut of 'traditional American values,' the Tea Party focused almost exclusively on our Founding Fathers’ preference for limited government. Scant attention was paid to the emotionally charged themes celebrated in the Beck rally—the sacred causes of national honor, patriotism, God. To the Tea Party, the only sacred cause was liberty, including the liberty to ignore or even to flout traditions venerated by other people in their society....

The Beck rally bore abundant witness to the profound degree of alienation that American traditionalists feel when they look at the mass culture that surrounds them, and which they see as intent on mocking everything they hold to be sacred. Sure, they might want lower taxes and smaller government, too; but they also want to return to an era in which their own traditional values were reflected in the TV shows they watched, the movies they went to, the education that their kids received in the public schools paid for by their tax dollars. They do not want to see what they cherish most in the world held up to ridicule, especially when the ridicule is presented in attractively packaged forms that are designed especially to appeal to their own kids. They resent what they perceive as the indoctrination and brainwashing of the next generation. They feel that their own deeply held 'traditional American values' are under attack—and they are right."

Nice: Deacon Keith on "Restoring Honor" Rally

"The crowd easily exceeded 500,000 people. The event stage was set up at the base of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. However, the massive crowd stretched along the Lincoln Memorial, on both sides of the reflective pond stretching all the way to the Washington Monument....

The address given by Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, secured this heroic and inspiring woman's place in American history. This is the 47th anniversary of her uncle, the late, great Christian minister and human rights hero, Dr Martin Luther Kings' famous "I Have a Dream" Speech. He would have been proud of his niece. She is an heir of his legacy and certainly has his extraordinary gift for prophetic rhetoric which can rouse the heart of a Nation.

This was a masterful and inspired speech, given on the day when the Nation honors one of our greatest Americans. Dr Alveda King candidly and honestly declared that 'our material gains seem to be going the way of our moral losses....'"

Full article here:

http://www.catholiconline.com/national/national_story.php?id=38033