Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
Note: If true, this is indeed an ominous sign. What "hateful" language has a Roman Catholic Priest ever used against homosexuality? By hateful is the article referring to the teaching of the Holy Roman Catholic Church? And what exactly are these English bishops up to? Have they succumbed to the neo-pagan culture around them or are they so far gone they are referring to themselves? The Church in the U.K. is in worse shape than most elsewhere from recent accounts. It's about time for Rome to step in. We are not a Church of political correcttness. The Bride of Christ speaks the truth at all times. She is not homophobic or in fear of anything. And she will not be bullied by modernist fads like homosexuality.
Be careful not to offend gay worshippers, Catholic priests warned
Roman Catholic priests have been banned from using 'heterosexist' language in their churches in case they offend gay worshippers.
They have been told by their bishops not to assume that every churchgoer is a heterosexual and to reflect this 'in language and conversation'.
'Remember that homophobic jokes and asides can be cruel and hurtful - a careless word can mean another experience of rejection and pain,' say the bishops in a leaflet advising priests and worshippers how to be more welcoming to gay people.
Activists say any moves by the Catholic Church to be more tolerant of homosexuality are undermined by Pope Benedict XVI's opposition to gay marriage
Priests are also encouraged to put up posters advertising 'support services' for homosexuals, a move bound to infuriate many Catholics who believe gay sexual activity to be sinful.
The advice was welcomed by gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell as a 'positive initiative which will bring great comfort to gay Catholics and their families'.
He said: 'Its sympathetic, understanding message is a big improvement on the past homophobia of some Catholic pronouncements on homosexuality.'
However, he said the 'laudable change of tone' was undermined by the 'homophobic content of the Catholic Catechism' and by Pope Benedict XVI's opposition to gay marriage.
The advice was criticised by Lynette Burrows, a Catholic commentator, as 'pitiful'.
She said it was ridiculous that Church leaders appeared to be ' grovelling' to a secular agenda. 'It is things like this that are enfeebling the Church at the moment - the concentration on things that don't matter and missing the things that do,' she said.
'What is pitiful as well as demeaning is that the Church is running after homosexual opinion but nothing is going to make homosexuals like the Catholic Church.
'This is because the Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is a disorder
Note: The "Mountain Burning with Fire" is stirring. Also known as the Religion of Peace and Tolerance.
20,000 Muslims Attack a Church in Cairo
Posted GMT 11-26-2008 9:57:4 One thousand Christians were today trapped inside the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams,Cairo, after more than twenty thousand Muslims attacked them with stones and butane gas cylinders. The Church's priest Father Antonious said that the situation is extremely dangerous.
The Muslim mob that attacked the church blocked both sides of the street and encircled the church building, broke its doors and demolished its entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying "we will demolish the church" and "We sacrifice our blood and souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Islam", while the entrapped Christians chanted "Lord have mercy".
The incident started on the occasion of the inauguration of the Church today, when the Muslims hastily established a Mosque in the early hours of this morning, by taking over the first floor of a newly-built building facing the Church and started praying there.
When the security forces tried to disperse the mob, they went to nearby homes and shops owned by Christians, and were armed with sticks, butane, knives and other sharp objects.
Witnesses said the mob included children from as young as 8-years old to men of over 50-years old, in addition to women.
The Church building was originally a factory that was adapted into its present state, the matter which took over five years to complete and to get the necessary permissions from the authorities to have a Church established.
Human rights organizations and lawyers were refused entry into the besieged Church.
From Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of The Book of Revelation
In 9:13-16, John begins informing the reader that the objective of the second major phase is indeed the whole world. Then, there can be only one reason why the faithful of the religious orders tell unanimously and universally the "sixth angel" to loose the "four angels" bound at the Euphrates: not that the Church is making very slow progress; not that the Church is temporarily making no progress at all, either merely in a particular region or in the entire world; but that the Church is losing ground everywhere, that evil has grown so great as to have become alarmingly advanced, even in the Church, in its highest ranks.
The faithful of the religious orders will not meet and vote on the matter, obviously; rather, they will desire in their hearts and think in their minds, that God should begin the painful process of removing the many evils on earth and in "heaven," the Church. Even the faithful among the laity will sincerely pray: "...thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When the salt is no longer preserving, when corruption is consuming so many, then, it will be time.
God knows all, and He has marked the exact hour and day and month and year for the "four angels" bound at the Euphrates to be loosed upon mankind. No one is more exact than God is. No one. Watch the religious orders: they will be the signal. Already their ranks are thin. So amazed at the number of "cavalry" was John, that he did not put the connective "kai" after it, but only a comma. To make it clear to the reader that the number is to be understood as literal [but approximate, of course], John added: "I heard the number of them."
In John's day, the population of the entire Roman Empire was about 125 million; and one out of every ten could be trained and maintained in the military. The 200 Million Horsemen, therefore, according to the ancient ratio, which has changed little in modern times, suggest a population of TWO BILLION.
John, by human sagacity alone, would have known that the vision was about an event very far in the future. Those who confine the Apocalypse to the Roman Empire are quite in egregious error.
Note: So few are willing to speak the truth as this man. He may well get his chance to die for his Lord the way things are going. Sadly, if the bishops simply had put their words into action a long time ago and taught the true faith and enforced their own canons, there would be no abortion in America.
Bishop Hermann explains his willingness to die to end abortion
"Behind Planned Parenthood, behind the abortion issue, is the evil one..."
St. Louis, Nov 25, 2008 / 04:16 am (CNA).- At the recent fall assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Robert J. Hermann, the administrator for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, declared that for any bishop it would be a "privilege to die tomorrow to bring about an end to abortion." He has further explained that Catholics' response to abortion in our country should be proportionate to the scale of the tragedy.
At the bishops' meeting in Baltimore, Bishop Hermann had said:
"We have lost 50 times as many children in the last 35 years as we have lost soldiers in all the wars since the Revolution. "I think any bishop here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow to bring about an end to abortion." "If we are willing to die tomorrow, then we should be willing to, until the end of our lives, to take all kinds of criticism for opposing this horrible infanticide."
Speaking with the archdiocesan newspaper the St. Louis Review, the bishop commented:
"I think that the way abortion has been presented over the past 35 years so often is that this is something that's horrible, and we need to stop it. But it seems to me that people do not realize that it is 50 million children that we have killed. We have campaigned to save the baby whales, and yet we vote in pro-abortion politicians -- which doesn't make any sense whatsoever."
Bishop Hermann also described how bishops can look to the example of soldiers.
"If American youth are willing to go to war and lay their life down to defend our freedoms, then every bishop should be willing to give up his life, if it meant putting an end to abortion. And if we're willing to do that, then we should be totally fearless of promoting this cause without being concerned about political correctness, without trying to build coalitions with pro-choice people," the bishop said in an apparent reference to those Catholics who have recently begun to give up the fight to outlaw abortion.
He proposed an "awareness- raising campaign" to help people realize "the destruction that we've brought about" and "the atrocities that we're committing."
"There should be 50 more million Americans in our midst, and anyone under 35 can look around and say, 'Where are they?' And, 'I'm very lucky to be alive.'"
Bishop Hermann reported that after he made his comments one or two bishops started clapping, but the meeting then moved on to other business. Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, along with other bishops, personally thanked him afterwards.
He reported that about 95 percent of the popular responses to his remarks have been positive, with some people consulting him about how they ought to deal with past voting habits. Bishop Hermann said many people have been conditioned to act as if God does not exist.
"I have great empathy and great compassion for people who are influenced by society and are taken in by the big lie that God does not exist. My job is to raise their awareness to, yes He does (exist), and it does make a difference what you believe. It makes a big difference in what you do. "We also have to be aware that our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and the powers and the spirits of this world of darkness, as Paul tells us in Ephesians."
"Therefore, behind Planned Parenthood, behind the abortion issue, is the evil one," Bishop Hermann stated. "I often see human beings caught up in this as victims of the evil one who need my prayers and who need my compassion and who need my love. We don't only want to save our children from destruction; we also want to save our adult brothers and sisters from eternal destruction."
The bishop expressed concern about President-elect Barack Obama's support for Planned Parenthood, which he claimed targets blacks with abortion information and facilities in their neighborhoods.
Turning to possible problems under a pro-abortion rights Obama presidency, he called the proposed Freedom of Choice Act "dangerous" because "it would be undermining all the efforts for the past 35 years of trying to limit the destructive effects of abortion." He also noted the possibility Obama could appoint two more Supreme Court justices, which he claimed could secure the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision "for many, many years."
Responding to a common criticism that bishops and priests place such importance on abortion, he noted that other rights and political issues "mean nothing if the fundamental right to life is not guaranteed."
"When someone is denied life, then all the other rights don't mean anything. That's the reason the Church places such a high priority on that. "For an individual to have a proportionate reason to vote for a candidate who supports abortion would be very hard to come by. The only way I could see that happening is if we had one candidate who supports abortion and another one who may mandate abortion... as they do in China."
Bishop Hermann closed his interview with the St. Louis Review by encouraging Catholics to study Church documents such as Pope John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae and Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, "so they can clearly understand the nature of man and woman and the sacredness of God's calling for man and woman."
"The more they study that and begin to live those teachings, the more they're going to come into freedom to promote the Gospel of Life," he concluded.
Note: While there is truth in what the Cardinal says, asking the laity to lead seems a reversal of responsibility in the hierarchical Church. But he means lead in daily worldly affairs, not ecclesial ones. The problem is that the grossly inadequate and ineffective teaching of the faithful for the past 40 years has left a laity that is illiterate in what the Church stands for. A serious reform of the type St. Francis initiated, or more starkly St. Vincent Ferrer warned of is needed.
Vatican Cardinal: "A New World Order is Gaining Ground"
By John-Henry Westen
ROME, November 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking at the opening of the 23rd plenary assembly for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the president of the Council, Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, warned, "The idea of creating a 'new man' completely detached from the Judeo-Christian tradition, a new 'world order,' a new 'global ethic,' is gaining ground."
According to the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the cardinal denounced the "dictatorship of relativism," rampant in Western societies, in which there is a growing "anti-Christian attitude" that makes "attacks on Christians, and particular on Catholics, pass off as politically correct."
Speaking of Christians today he said, "Our true problem is not being a minority, but rather having voluntarily become marginal, irrelevant, because of our lack of courage, so that we will be left alone, because of our mediocrity." "For Christians," Cardinal Rylko added, "the moment has arrived to free themselves from a false inferiority complex ... to be valiant witnesses of Christ."
This is, he said, the "hour of the laity," to take on their "responsibility in the diverse fields of public life, from politics to the promotion of life and family, from work to the economy, from education to the formation of youth."
He warned, however, that such faithfulness would come at a personal cost. "Whoever wants to live and act according to the Gospel of Christ has to pay a price, even in the highly liberal societies of the West," he said.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they should feed her a thousand two hundred sixty days. 7 And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: 8 And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. 9 And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. [Apoc. 12:6-9]
According to Steven Paul in his book, The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, the above passage from Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation describes a conflict in the Church between those on the side of Christ and those who have apostatized and follow the False Prophet, and by extension Satan, the dragon.
While Michael and his angels may well be real angels, the term "angel" is used throughout the Apocalypse to indicate bishops. This passage tells of a battle inside the Church that results in those bishops who follow Satan finally being cast out "unto the earth". That is to say they no longer have the grace of being members in the visible organization.
In today's news, linked above, the Vatican has warned that passage of the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, removing all laws protecting the unborn, is a direct attack on the Church, an act of war. As is often the case in today's Church, such pronouncements are made by high Vatican officials, bishops, and usually contradicted, modified or ignored by many other bishops. The lines for the battle inside the Church are being drawn.
If FOCA is passed, what will the response of the US bishops be? They have made their warning but what is their history of backing up warnings in the past? In each of the last several election cycles, the prospect of excommunication for pro-abortion Catholic politicians has come up and in each cycle, prominent Catholic politicians have continued to receive communion even from prominent bishops. Now, a pro-abortion Catholic is Vice President and another is HHS Secretary. What will the hierarchy do? It depends on what time we're in in regard to the Apocalypse.
All the New Testament writings on the end times agree, before the cumulative battle between good and evil, the apostasy must come first. In the past election cycle a higher percentage of Catholics voted for the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual candidate than the population at large. This is a reflection on the efficacy of the teaching of the catechism by the current crop of US bishops, many of whom will be swept up in the war and "fall to earth" which means lose their spiritual position in the Church.
Rather than scold a good parish priest for his standing up for life, you should examine your own conscience and ask yourself if you've done enough to stop the slaughter of the unborn or if you've become the typical pragmatic administrator caught up in his own position and privilege. He said nothing wrong, only what the Vatican itself has stated. It's only the cowards in the U.S. hierarchy that fail time and again to put teeth into their lofty pronouncements. You could have showed some guts and stood up for this man but you chose to sell out. Sad...
In Christ,
Steve
P.S. I invite you to view this video and refelct on how strongly this evil needs to be opposed:
After the event of the 200 million horsemen and just preceding the second woe we have this verse in the Book of Revelation:
"And they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their fornications nor of their thefts." Apoc. 9:21
Pharmakeia is a Greek word found in the New Testament that means medication, pharmacy, magic, sorcery and witchcraft. The verse seems to point to an increase of the use of drugs (as well as astrology and witchcraft perhaps) in the time leading up to the second woe.
Fornications can mean sexual licentiousness but can also refer to apostasy from the true faith. When the Bible speaks of adultery and fornication it often refers to a communal act of falling away from God's law.
In the article above, Mexico City, one of the largest Roman Catholic cities in the world, even in world history, has decided to give pharmaceuticals, Viagra, to older men to "make them feel better". In schools throughout the western world, the percentage of children on psychological medications is exploding. Pills are prescribed for depression, fat reduction, sexual deficiencies, and every real or imagined malady one can come up with. And of course there is "the pill" for preventing procreation, one of the greatest insults to one's Creator that man could devise.
As for murder, the slaughter of the unborn across the globe is unprecedented in human history. Not only does man not repent of this murderous plague, they exalt it as a right and as health care and force it even upon the faithful. The recent election of Barack Obama is a case in point as a key part of his platform is the abolition of any restriction on abortion on demand and the sexualization of public school children.
Lastly, it says men did not repent of their thefts. What is the greatest theft in history if not the recent transfer of trillions of dollars of retirees and working people's savings and investments to international bankers? Is there any repentance for the mismanagement of loans that led to this thievery? By all appearances, the announcement of the financial "crisis" was timed to elect Obama to the presidency, once his platform of ending the Iraq war fell flat due to recent successes in reducing the violence there undercut him.
All this evidence has to lead one to the conclusion that the time mentioned in the Apocalypse verse above has come. We are about to be plunged into the greatest crisis of faith in human history and how it comes out has already been written.
Note: This statement is unusual for this group of pragmatists and compromisers. They bypassed their usual bureaucratic process for producing a statement and all signed onto it. It is the closest to speaking 'in one voice" that I've seen. Let's see if they ever add some bark to their bite...
US Bishops Issue Stark Warning to Obama over Abortion
By John-Henry Westen BALTIMORE, November 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a stark warning to President-Elect Barack Obama, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), today warned the Obama administration, on behalf of all the US bishops, that "aggressive pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion."
The statement, which was "written at the request and direction of all the Bishops," was released today at the end of the annual fall assembly of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
While the message begins on a conciliatory note, the vast majority is directed at the issue of the rights of the unborn. "The bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States welcome this moment of historic transition and look forward to working with President-elect Obama and the members of the new Congress for the common good of all," begins the statement. From there, however, it notes that the 1973 Roe v Wade decision was "bad law" and that the Freedom of Choice Act which Obama has promised to sign is even "more radical."
Cardinal George writes that "the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve," if the administration's policies increase abortions.
The full statement follows:
STATEMENT of the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops "
If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labor; if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil." (Psalm 127, vs. 1)
The Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States welcome this moment of historic transition and look forward to working with President-elect Obama and the members of the new Congress for the common good of all. Because of the Church's history and the scope of her ministries in this country, we want to continue our work for economic justice and opportunity for all; our efforts to reform laws around immigration and the situation of the undocumented; our provision of better education and adequate health care for all, especially for women and children; our desire to safeguard religious freedom and foster peace at home and abroad. The Church is intent on doing good and will continue to cooperate gladly with the government and all others working for these goods.
The fundamental good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents. A good state protects the lives of all. Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This was bad law. The danger the Bishops see at this moment is that a bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself.
In the last Congress, a Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) was introduced that would, if brought forward in the same form today, outlaw any "interference" in providing abortion at will. It would deprive the American people in all fifty states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars. It would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government and others of good will to reduce the number of abortions in our country.
Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be deregulated. The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions would be abrogated.
FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human life. FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church should be intent on opposing evil.
On this issue, the legal protection of the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will. They are also pastors who have listened to women whose lives have been diminished because they believed they had no choice but to abort a baby. Abortion is a medical procedure that kills, and the psychological and spiritual consequences are written in the sorrow and depression of many women and men. The bishops are single-minded because they are, first of all, single-hearted.
The recent election was principally decided out of concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security for families, here and around the world. If the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve. Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and the common good, which is assured only when the life of every human being is legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.
This statement is written at the request and direction of all the Bishops, who also want to thank all those in politics who work with good will to protect the lives of the most vulnerable among us. Those in public life do so, sometimes, at the cost of great sacrifice to themselves and their families; and we are grateful. We express again our great desire to work with all those who cherish the common good of our nation. The common good is not the sum total of individual desires and interests; it is achieved in the working out of a common life based upon good reason and good will for all.
Our prayers accompany President-elect Obama and his family and those who are cooperating with him to assure a smooth transition in government. Many issues demand immediate attention on the part of our elected "watchman." (Psalm 127) May God bless him and our country.
**Warning** If you watch the video linked to the title of this entry, you will be shocked. it contains graphic images of what goes on hundreds of times across this country. It also shows what a majority of Americans voted to expand in this last election.
You Missed the Warning
It was reported shortly after the election in the U.S. that the biggest issue that caused voters to vote the way they did was economic issues. Though some economic issues deal with feeding and sheltering a family, the trend in the western world is towards a rampant consumerism devoid of family, morals or spirituality. The materialism that has gripped modern man means that even the so-called poor have cell phones, x-Box and a laptop computer hooked to an Internet service. In the rush to acquire goods, no one better stand in the way, especially the children. They have been sacrificed to the altar of greed. There is even a movement to tax families over a certain size.
God has warned us but most missed the warning. I wrote about it before. The tallest building in the western world was the World Trade Center. Anyone approaching New York City by air, water or road saw it long before the rest of the skyline was visible. It was a monument to money. It's very name announced its purpose. Man marveled at it. Yet objectively speaking it was a ghastly thing. Two rectangles sticking far above the rest of the surrounding area.
In the Christian era, prior to current modernism, zoning laws forbid any structure to surpass the church in height. But that was long ago set aside as money needed an even larger temple. Symbols to it are everywhere from the large insurance company buildings to the giant calf outside the New York Stock Exchange. Money has become man's god and nothing will stand in the way as he seeks to acquire more.
In the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, the twin towers came crashing down at the hands of a hand full of thugs with box cutters. On top of the pile was a cross fashioned from broken beams, a fitting grave marker for the greed the building represented. It was a sign that God is in control. People streamed into churches to pray about what had happened. But few got the message.
Both presidential candidates promised to help people increase their wealth. Neither spoke about the spiritual well-being of the citizens or what was good for the soul. Neither spoke loudly about the daily holocaust of the unborn, the ripping to shreds of tiny babies in their first homes, their mothers own wombs.
One promised to remove what few impediments there are to abortion on demand through all phases of pregnancy. After all he pronounced, "no one should be punished with a baby." And you elected him. Maybe you didn't vote for him but by your actions, you look the other way while this massacre continues. I feel I didn't do enough. No one could until this is ended.
But God is surely in control and the chastisement He is placing upon us all will be severe. We'll all have to answer for the images in the video that is linked above.
Michael O'Brien Newsletter Regarding Barack Obama and the Question of the Anti-Christ
All Saints Day, 1 November 2008
Dear Friends, From just north of the border, we Canadians, like other people throughout the world, are observing and praying for the coming federal election in the United States of America. I would prefer to keep private my counsel about political choices, because it is not my country. However, I am receiving letters from American subscribers and visitors to my studio website asking me some rather surprising questions about Barack Obama, related to one of my novels.
During the past year I have read a number of his pronouncements, and saw the smoke and mirrors beneath the rhetoric, but couldn't understand why everyone south of the border (the other south of the border, the 49th parallel) was getting so excited about him, both pro and con. Then a few weeks ago a German friend called me immediately after Obama's speech in Berlin, to say that the presidential candidate had mesmerized the crowds, and that a commentator on German television had said: "We have just heard the next President of the United States...and the future President of the World." My friend felt that Obama bore an uncanny resemblance to the fictional character of the President in my novel Father Elijah. I have received several other letters saying the same thing and asking what I thought about it.
From my own reading of Obama's declarations and stated positions, I knew he was an ultra-liberal, a social revolutionary with visionary pretensions. But the Antichrist? No, not possible, I thought. I felt that he was too shallow a man to be the Son of Perdition, the Man of Sin, the Beast of the Book of Revelation. And I still think so. Obama is a crowd-pleaser with just the right ethos of idealistic crusader. That the crusade and the banners under which it marches are evil does not automatically prove that he is the Antichrist.
But now that I have seen the video of the Berlin speech I think there is more here than meets the eye. He is indeed a powerful manipulator of crowds, even as he appears ever so humble and wholesomely charming. I doubt that he is the long-prophesied ruler of the world, but I also believe that he is a carrier of a deadly moral virus, indeed a kind of anti-apostle spreading concepts and agendas that are not only anti-Christ but anti-human as well. In this sense he is of the spirit of Antichrist (perhaps without knowing it), and probably is one of several key figures in the world who (knowingly or unknowingly) will be instrumental in ushering in the time of great trial for the Church under its last and worst persecution, amidst the numerous other tribulations prophesied in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and letters of St Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.
Of course the mystique that has grown up around him is endlessly reinforced by the liberal media, which presents him to us as a high-minded humanist, a kind of secular messiah (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 675). Yet when all the rhetoric is boiled down to its substance, the man is advocating unlimited state-sanctioned murder, and compounds it by indulging in habitual falsehood. He is well accustomed to playing loose with the truth whenever it is expedient for him to do so; or else he is the victim of the largest memory lapses in recorded history; or perhaps he is just not careful about how he expresses things——a blurring or selectivity regarding facts for the purpose of aggrandizing his public image. There is a controversy currently raging in the (admittedly unreliable) forum of the internet, prompted by an African-American talk show host in Los Angeles who listed 39 significant details that Barack Obama claimed were facts about himself, but on further investigation were proved to be simply untrue. There has been some wild-fire debunking of the debunking, and then more counter-debunking, but it remains obvious that forthrightness and clarity are not major concerns in the Obama camp.
What are we to make of a man who has appeared out of semi-obscurity and become, nearly overnight, so very much an idol of the popular imagination? That he intends to become the most effective advocate of murder of the unborn ever seen in America should give us pause. Murder and lies are as old as the lands east of Eden, of course, but when they are charmingly packaged, proposed as reasonable and just policies (with a smile, a resonant voice, and an appealing flash of the eyes), one begins to wonder just what is afoot in the modern age. It brings to mind a passage from the first Act of Shakespeare's Hamlet:
"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain..."
The line is from a scene where prince Hamlet has just encountered the ghost of his father, who informs his son that he was poisoned by his own brother Claudius (the "smiling, damned villain"), who after murdering him, seized the king's crown and his queen.
Barack Obama is an image-maker, creating his own myth as he goes along. This would be a sad defect in any human being, but it takes on ominous proportions in a person who may become, after November 4th, one of the most powerful figures in the world. How is it possible that such a tragic turn of events may come about, if indeed a majority of Americans choose to believe the smile and the myth? Why is it that so many people have come to believe that a mirage is reality, even destiny? Do pro-Obama voters hanker for a world figure who would heal old divisions between races and religions, thus heralding a new age for mankind? During this time of near intolerable tensions, does he appear to be the one who can reconcile Islam and Christianity, Africa and America, occident and orient, black and white, rich and poor? Do they see his racial origins as a symbolic victory over the history of racial oppression? Do they see in him the good-hearted "under-dog", the gutsy street fighter who agitates for the rights of the "little guy," whose meteoric rise to a position of maximum influence represents themselves enthroned at last in the high seat of power? Is this why they ignore his every grave fault and hungrily consume his vague idealist platitudes as if these were a kind of new gospel for the third millennium? Our hero. Our visionary. Our Great Friend and spokesman in the forum of the world?
Clearly, contemporary man needs heroes. But why not choose a genuine one, why not look a little deeper and work a little harder to find a man of courage and principle, and if it helps in the historical healing process, why not a very different kind of black man, say a person like Alan Keyes, a scholar, former ambassador, experienced in different levels of government, and (it might be added) an African-American married to a woman from India. Moreover, he is a devout Catholic who believes in moral absolutes and has amply proved that he will stand firm to defend them regardless of the cost to his own career. He knows that kings and presidents cannot usurp the natural law, the moral order of the universe, without bringing down judgment upon their nations. But it need not be Keyes. It might be any number of other men and women of clear thought and clear principle. Surely there are "Ten Just Men" still out there somewhere in America. So why Obama? And why does he rise and rise as his mouth smiles and smiles, exuding sincerity as he speaks lies and death?
And why, most horribly, most shamefully, are so many Christians of malformed or unformed conscience supporting him? Is it because they have never been clearly instructed in the truth, never understood the foundation upon which the moral cosmos is built? Is morality for them merely another system of abstract "values" in a crowded playing field of such systems, from which one may pick and choose? In the case of Catholics, for example, have they been blinded by a diet of theological nuances and deadly little loopholes offered to them by the committees of national episcopal conferences — committees that have absolutely no authority over Catholics, yet which are widely revered as a kind of alternative Magisterium? Have they been deadened by a habitual dismissing or dissembling of the solid teaching given to them by the universal Church under Peter? Have they grown accustomed to listening to opinion shapers who tell them that certain excellent apostolic Bishops in America who teach the truth without compromise are merely hidebound reactionaries, moralistic extremists, contemporary manifestations of those old boogymen who still haunt the American psyche — the Chillingworths and Dimmesdales and the judges in The Scarlet Letter? And so it goes, this over-reaction to Puritanism played out over centuries, an over-reaction that breeds tragedies a thousand times worse than Salem's. Lies compounding on lies, and it all floats on an ocean of spilled innocent blood. And who can gaze at that ocean (or be splashed by it) without coming to a radical choice: One either turns away into a deeper state of denial, or one turns heart and mind toward the splendor of Truth, and changes one's life accordingly.
Is this why many of our Catholic people have become impulse-driven impressionists? Of course, the blindness is not due to the failure of pastors alone. The Ministry of Disinformation (by which I mean most modern media) has played a major role. There is also the erosion of truth in the education systems, combined with the gradual confusion and weakening of conscience through our addiction to the "soma" drugs supplied by the entertainment industry. Other factors may be the war in Iraq, or Republican economics, or the Bush administration, or the structure of Capitalism itself, or any number of prudential questions in the sociopolitical order, all of which are presently tangled nests of moral dilemma. But why do they not see that these questions are secondary to the fundamental issue of life itself? Why would they replace one reigning oligarchy with another kind of oligarchy — moreover, one that would kill vast numbers of its own citizens?
"I call on heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live...." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
May God bless and guide you, in Jesus our Saviour, with prayers and fasting,
