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.
The Apocalypse describes a "war in the heaven" between Michael and his angels and the Dragon and his. - Apoc. Chapter 12.
In this scene, the Dragon is "cast out" and Michael and his angels "go down" to the earth to continue the battle. In a spiritual sense, this means the Church is cleansed from within and now the battle becomes those outside the Church vs. those inside, at least in the spiritual sense.
We may just have seen a preview of this worldwide battle in the conflict at Notre Dame this past weekend. The liberals inside the Church have cast aside the teaching of the bishops and the pope, that life is sacred from the moment of conception to natural death, that marriage is the lifelong bond between one man and one woman, and embraced a charismatic leader who stands for all the Church opposes.
Those who dared to speak out against the honor bestowed on President Obama were marginalized and even arrested leading to the ironic headline "...Catholics Arrested for Being Catholic at Catholic University."
Vision America President Pastor Rick Scarborough said he was sickened by what he saw when those protesting Obama's speech at Notre Dame were arrested on the campus.
"I wept when I saw my friends arrested and taken to jail," Scarborough disclosed. "They almost broke the arm of a priest who appeared to be in his 80s, by dragging him on the ground."
Is this just a precursor of what we can expect in the near future? Has Satan become so strong as to control the Colleges and Universities inside the Church? Reading the articles at Cardinal Newman Society and IvoryTowerHeretics, one must wonder if the heads of these institutions have gone mad.
Even more disconcerting is the response from the shepherds, from the pope down to the bishops. While 70 American bishops and a few from the Vatican did speak out, there are over 300 bishops in America and most remained silent as did the pope himself. This passivity in the face of evil green-lighted Notre Dame President Father Jenkins and his supporters to do as they please. But this was all foretold long ago. That SATAN IS INSIDE THE CHURCH is obvious and serves as a temporal guidepost as to the exact time we are in.
In chapter 12, Satan is cast out. So up to that time, he is inside and gaining strength until the pope and the college of cardinals finally and decisively act. In the meantime, the faithful, those who truly believe the Gospel of Christ and work in the trenches to serve only Him, will have to suffer. It is necessary for justice. Just as the martyrs were a sign for their time so must the pro-lifers, and the defenders of natural marriage be a sign of Christ for these times.
Those who arrest, beat and otherwise persecute them do so at great peril to their own souls. The new martyrs must not lose heart, must not be discouraged. Their time will come as promised. But they must wait a little longer and persevere. The Apocalypse provides great encouragement for those who suffer with patient endurance.
Note: There aren't words suitable for the disgust and disappointment that this continues year after year. One has to wonder if the movie reviews are written on behalf of the bishops or for their entertainment. If homosexuality is of no moral concern to the bishops, we probably need new bishops to shepherd the Catholic flock. Movie Reviewer for Catholic Bishops' Conference Praises Homosexualist Film - Again Despite movie's scenes of males kissing each other, nudity, and promotion of gay "lifestyle", movie not rated "Morally Offensive"
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman WASHINGTON, D.C., December 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Harry Forbes, the head movie and television reviewer for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has issued a review praising the movie "Milk." (See text of the review at http://www.usccb.org/movies/m/milk.shtml)
The movie, which exalts the first openly homosexual man elected to public office in U.S. history, Harvey Milk, contains scenes of "male kissing and nongraphic encounters, rear male nudity, murder, suicide, and some rough language, crude expressions and profanity" by Forbes' own admission.
Despite such material, and despite the movie's blatant glorification of the homosexual rights agenda, it is not rated "Morally Offensive" (O), but only receives a rating of "L", for "Limited Adult Audience." Furthermore, in his review Forbes in no way objects to or cautions viewers about the content of the film, instead offering nothing but words of praise.
Harvey Milk, a homosexual rights activist who ran a camera shop with his male lover in San Francisco's Castro District, was elected to San Francisco's city council as a supervisor in 1977. He was assassinated shortly thereafter, along with the city's mayor, by another supervisor who was enraged that several supervisors were blocking his reappointment by the mayor. The murders had no apparent relationship with Milk's homosexual proclivities.
Milk soon became a folk hero among the Castro District's growing population of sodomites and a symbol of San Francisco’s successful homosexualist movement. A little over thirty years later, San Francisco is the scene of public nudity and sex acts in the open air during its annual "gay pride" parade, one of the largest such parades in the world.
Forbes, who heads the USCCB's Office for Film and Broadcasting, calls the movie "a solid biographical drama about San Francisco supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk." He also speaks approvingly of the movie's strong emphasis on the Catholic faith of Milk's assassin, Dan White. "Penn is especially fine, and Brolin is scarily intense as the Catholic White. (We're shown a lengthy baptism of White's baby, with Milk ironically the only invited outsider.)," writes Forbes.
Forbes has written other reviews praising films that promote and glorify homosexual behavior and attack the Catholic faith, including "Brokeback Mountain," which is about a sodomite relationship between two cowboys, and "The Golden Compass," which is atheistic and vilifies Christianity.
The official website of the USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting (http://www.usccb.org/movies/current.shtml) contains numerous reviews praising movies that portray sexual immorality, nudity, and dirty jokes, and rarely deems such films "Morally Offensive" or cautions viewers about the content.
Despite repeated protests from Catholic laity, the USCCB continues to allow Forbes to write reviews on the organization's behalf.
In a written statement to LifeSiteNews, Human Life International President Fr. Thomas Euteneuer angrily denounced Forbes' latest pro-homosexualist review.
"Moral outrage is the only response to someone like Harry Forbes who consistently trashes Catholic values in his movie reviews and gets away with it," wrote Euteneuer. "We are accustomed to pagans celebrating their values and letting lots of immorality slide with a wink and a nod, but when the official movie reviewer for the US Catholic Bishops Conference does it time and time again with no consequences, we have no credible moral compass with which to evaluate the content of movies any more."
"In his recent review of the homosexual promo flick, Milk, Forbes seems to think that 'male kissing…rear male nudity, murder, suicide, some rough language, crude expressions and profanity' merit something less than total condemnation from our Catholic point of view. Let’s face it: Forbes is simply an icon of the false Catholics in America who are accelerating the degradation of our civilization because they refuse to be 'salt and light' to preserve us from this very same darkness."
Contact Information:
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 3211 4th Street, N.E. Washington DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3000
Cardinal Francis George, President of the USCCB Archdiocese of Chicago 155 East Superior Street Chicago, Illinois, 60611 312-751-5382 Fax: 312-751-5381
USCCB Office for Film and Broadcasting 1011 First Avenue, 13th Floor New York, NY 10022 (212) 644-1880
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: 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.
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.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. [Apoc. 12:4]
It is explained in The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter by Steven Paul that this scene depicts the apostasy of one third of the college of cardinals. They are drawn to the False Prophet by his irresistible force. He has a charism that they are unable to resist and are willing to turn their backs on the Holy Pontiff, The Pope, in order to follow him.
In our own times, we see how easily the faithful are willing to cast aside the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in order to follow their own desires. In the linked article, it says there is a new way of looking at the abortion issue in light of the overall Catholic teaching that allows Catholics to vote for a candidate who is "pro-choice".
This story is false on many levels, not the least of which is that the theory is not new at all. The idea of the "seamless garment" was used by Catholics 30 years ago for the same reason - they wanted to vote pro-abortion because the pro-abortion candidate reflected their ideals more closely.
The second big lie in this article is the idea that the pro-abortion candidate's policies would actually reduce the number of abortions. Can he defy gravity as well? In fact, his policies include support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which rescinds all restrictions on abortion-on-demand including parental notification, late term abortion, born alive act, and interstate restrictions.
The third big lie is that all pro-life Catholics want to is outlaw abortion but won't help young women with prevention of unwanted pregnancies or with prenatal and post natal care. In fact traditional, church-going Catholics have been feeding the poor, placing children for adoption, opening crisis pregnancy centers like Spring House, Visitation House and Birthright for years. While primary political emphasis is placed on voting pro-life, it is wholly consistent with everything the Church teaches that to care for the poor and to work against violence and social justice starts with the right to life.
Catholic teaching and pronouncements from the leadership also condemn the death penalty and war so long as there is a just alternative. No political party perfectly embodies Catholic moral teaching but certainly there is open hostility to the unborn, traditional marriage, abstinence programs, adoption with traditional families, and conscience protection for Catholic physicians and businesses in one party.
Catholics are free to vote for whomever they choose. But to claim that the pro-abortion candidate better fits Catholic moral teaching is just plain false. Since the people making this claim seem sincere, there is a possible reason for this. They have been pulled away from the Church by an irresistible force, a charism so strong they could not do otherwise. They were too weak to overcome it. This charism comes from a fresh, well spoken politician who has learned the power of his trade. Some have even asked if he is the Antichrist himself. That is not likely, but the ease with which he has swept Catholics away from their Church should be a dire warning.
Note: For those who believe the scandal has passed and all is well in the Archdiocese of Boston, read this closely. A Catholic institution is promoting immoral counterfeit arrangements between homosexuals and the Church leaders are hiding and doing nothing.
Catholic Boston College Sponsors Panel Focusing on Homosexual Couples
BOSTON, MA, June 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized Jesuit administered Boston College for sponsoring and hosting Love Across Boundaries, which is being advertised as "a panel conversation with Boston couples who focus on their own interracial, interfaith and same-sex Love Across Boundaries". Featured participants will include Paul McLaughlin, Assistant Dean of Harvard College and his homosexual partner Jason Shumaker, Assistant Director of Financial Aid at MIT.
The event, sponsored by the New Center for Arts and Culture and Boston College's Office of the Provost, will be held this afternoon and this evening at BC's Bapst Library as part of Bloomsday Boston, the annual celebration of James Joyce and his novel Ulysses. Among those reading excerpts from the book will be former Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill III, who is a longstanding supporter of legal abortion.
The Catholic Action League has called the event "another shameless betrayal of Catholic principles by the leadership of Boston College and its parent religious order, the Jesuits".
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: "No reasonable person could be expected to believe that the Catholic Church is serious in its opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage as long as Catholic institutions publicly affirm homosexual relationships and prominently showcase pro-abortion political figures. Boston College, with the complicity of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus, continues to flaunt its infidelity to Catholic moral teaching and callously compromise what is left of its Catholic identity, while the Archdiocese of Boston, through its silence and inaction, functions as its enabler".
"This disgraceful episode is one more example of the systemic collapse of Catholic loyalties in the very leadership of the Church in the United States"LifeSiteNews attempted to contact the Archdiocese of Boston, but they were not immediately available for comment.
Texas Pastor Connected with Prominent Gay Porn Website By Michael BaggotMCKINNEY, TX,
May 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Texas residents are alarmed that Bishop Kevin Farrell has appointed Fr. Arthur Mallinson, a priest associated with a prominent website for actively homosexual priests and religious, pastor of the newly renovated St. Michael's parish in McKinney, Texas.
Fr. Arthur Mallinson's picture has appeared on the St. Sebastian's Angels (SSA) website, a now defunct online network for actively homosexual priests and religious that featured pornographic images, sexually explicit comments, and derogatory remarks about Vatican churchmen, particularly against then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
In 1999, the reform organization Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF) exposed SSA and the fifty-three priests involved in the site. South African Bishop Reginald Cawcutt resigned after his activity on the site was revealed.
Barbara Kralis, concerned ex-parishioner of St. Michael, encouraged readers to take action in a Sunday column for CatholicCitizens.org.
"He is a priest who put his photo on a gay priest's website so that he could make contact with other like-minded priests," Kralis wrote of Fr. Mallinson. "If anyone on this email list has family who are in this diocese of Dallas, who are worried about them being exposed to the machinations of such a perverted priest, please consider writing a letter Dallas Bishop Kevin Farrell and express your concern regarding this priest"
When she spoke with LifeSiteNews.com, Kralis had a series of questions."Why would our bishop promote a priest like this, what good is this going to do the people? Why wouldn't he [Bishop Farrell] read all of the priests' files very carefully? Why would he [Fr. Mallinson] be moved to a big, glorious parish?"
A spokeswoman for Bishop Farrell told LifeSiteNews.com that Fr. Mallinson is not supportive of any of the crude images or words found on the SSA site. She noted that the SSA site was initially "not a site meant to provide an arena to find sexual partners." Instead, it was meant to give participants "prayer and spiritual support to maintain and live a celibate lifestyle."
According to the Bishop's spokeswoman, Fr. Mallinson ceased activity with SSA in 2001 when it became involved in immoral activity. "When it strayed from its original mission, he no longer wanted to be involved. He did not agree or condone comments about the Pope on the website. He ceased participation when pornography went on the website"
Stephen Brady, founder of RCF, told LifeSiteNews.com that his group first exposed SSA's lewd activities in September 1999, more than a year before Fr. Mallinson's departure from the group. "We never caught him sending pornography," Brady said of Fr. Mallinson. Nonetheless, Brady expressed concern that a priest would seek help to live celibacy from a pornographic site recounting male homosexual exploits.
"If he has to run to a website-that speaks volumes for flaws in his diocese."
To politely express concerns: Bishop Kevin Farrell Bishop of Diocese of Dallas PO Box 190507 Dallas, TX 75219 214-528-2240
Note: What a powerful and direct public repudiation of a public official. The archbishop is right , of course, and we should all pray that the governor amends her life and begins to understand how her actions scandalize the entire body of Christ. In the meantime, this statement serves as a wonderful model for other bishops facing the scandal of politicians in their jurisdictions who openly defy Church teaching and scandalize the faithful.
Governor's Veto Prompts Pastoral Action
On the day of my return (Monday, April 21) from the exhilarating experience of participating in Pope Benedict's pastoral visit to the United States, I learned that Governor Kathleen Sebelius had vetoed the Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act (HS SB 389), which had been passed by significant majorities in both chambers of the Kansas Legislature. Last week, an attempt to override the governor's veto failed in the Senate by two votes.Governor Sebelius in her veto message claimed: "For years, the people of Kansas have asked their elected officials to move beyond legislative debates on issues like abortion." From her veto message, I received the impression the governor considered it a waste of the Legislature’s time to pass a statute that attempts to protect some women by making certain they have the opportunity to be well-informed: 1) about the development of their unborn child; and 2) about abortion alternatives available to them. Evidently, the governor does not approve of legislators devoting energy to protecting children and women by making it possible to enforce existing Kansas laws regulating late-term abortions.
The governor's veto message demonstrated a lack of respect to the members of the Kansas General Assembly who had carefully crafted and resoundingly passed the Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act, as well as to the many Kansans who find it more than an embarrassment, in no small part due to several previous vetoes by Governor Sebelius of earlier legislative efforts to regulate abortion clinics, that Kansas has become infamous for being the late-term abortion center for the Midwest.
What makes the governor's rhetoric and actions even more troubling has been her acceptance of campaign contributions from Wichita's Dr. George Tiller, perhaps the most notorious late-term abortionist in the nation. In addition to Dr. Tiller's direct donations to her campaign, the governor has benefited from the Political Action Committees funded by Dr. Tiller to support pro-abortion candidates in Kansas.
In her veto message, the governor took credit for lower abortion rates in Kansas, citing her support for "adoption incentives, extended health services for pregnant women, providing sex education and offering a variety of support services for families." Indeed, the governor and her administration should be commended for supporting adoption incentives and health services for pregnant women.
However, the governor overreaches by assuming credit for declining abortion rates in Kansas. Actually, lower abortion rates are part of a national trend. Our neighboring state of Missouri has actually had a steeper and longer decline in its abortion rate.
Governor Sebelius' inclusion of public school sex education programs as a factor in the abortion rate decline is absurd. Actually, valueless sex education programs in public schools have been around for years, coinciding with increased sexual activity among adolescents, as well as increases in teen pregnancy and abortion. On the other hand, the governor does not acknowledge the significant impact of mass media education programs, such as those sponsored by the Vitae Caring Foundation, or the remarkable practical assistance provided by Crisis Pregnancy Centers which are funded through the generosity of pro-life Kansans.
What makes the governor's actions and advocacy for legalized abortion, throughout her public career, even more painful for me is that she is Catholic. Sadly, Governor Sebelius is not unique in being a Catholic politician supporting legalized abortion.
Since becoming archbishop, I have met with Governor Sebelius several times over many months to discuss with her the grave spiritual and moral consequences of her public actions by which she has cooperated in the procurement of abortions performed in Kansas. My concern has been, as a pastor, both for the spiritual well-being of the governor but also for those who have been misled (scandalized) by her very public support for legalized abortion.
It has been my hope that through this dialogue the governor would come to understand her obligation: 1) to take the difficult political step, but necessary moral step, of repudiating her past actions in support of legalized abortion; and 2) in the future would use her exceptional leadership abilities to develop public policies extending the maximum legal protection possible to the unborn children of Kansas. Having made every effort to inform and to persuade Governor Sebelius and after consultation with Bishop Ron Gilmore (Dodge City), Bishop Paul Coakley (Salina) and Bishop Michael Jackels (Wichita), I wrote the governor last August requesting that she refrain from presenting herself for reception of the Eucharist until she had acknowledged the error of her past positions, made a worthy sacramental confession and taken the necessary steps for amendment of her life which would include a public repudiation of her previous efforts and actions in support of laws and policies sanctioning abortion.
Recently, it came to my attention that the governor had received holy Communion at one of our parishes. I have written to her again, asking her to respect my previous request and not require from me any additional pastoral actions.
The governor has spoken to me on more than one occasion about her obligation to uphold state and federal laws and court decisions. I have asked her to show a similar sense of obligation to honor divine law and the laws, teaching and legitimate authority within the church.
I have not made lightly this request of Governor Sebelius, but only after much prayer and reflection. The spiritually lethal message, communicated by our governor, as well as many other high profile Catholics in public life, has been in effect: "The church's teaching on abortion is optional!" I reissue my request of the faithful of the archdiocese to pray for Governor Sebelius. I hope that my request of the governor, not to present herself for holy Communion, will provoke her to reconsider the serious spiritual and moral consequences of her past and present actions. At the same time, I pray this pastoral action on my part will help alert other Catholics to the moral gravity of participating in and/or cooperating with the performance of abortions.
It is suspicious timing to say the least that Bob Novak comes out with a column claiming that prominent US Cardinals Wuerl and Egan invited pro-choice politicians to Holy Mass and at the same time Cardinal Egan is saying he "warned Rudy Giuliani" not to receive communion. Either Novak is in error or Egan is employing that well-honed skill that the Bishops have perfected - damage control.
Either way, it is a fact that while the Church hierarchy has clearly enunciated that canon law prohibits a public and persistent sinner from Communion, the U.S. Bishops have waffled in their enforcement and once again this year have deferred a definitive statement on the matter until "after the election" as they did four years ago. In doing so, they bring scandal on the faithful, especially those who have toiled for the unborn for a generation, often against powerful interests in government and industry.
The sin of the bishops reminds me of the sin of David who for lust for a woman exposed his own general in battle. The pro-life warriors like Judy Brown of American Life League, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests For Life, and Fr. Enteneuer of Human Life International, while tirelessly working for the unborn are continually undercut by bishops who are more interested in cozying up to political power and enjoying the trappings of their office than speaking the truth.
The two Cardinals mentioned have questionable pasts themselves as Egan has been linked to the shuttling of sex abusive priests while a bishop in Connecticut and Wuerl likewise while in Pennsylvania was known as "gay-friendly". That such morally weak pastors are less likely to confront the sin of abortion committed by the powerful is no surprise. That the Pope can't seem to persuade them otherwise is the puzzling paradox of our time.
Note: You can expect a slew of articles like this one during the pope's visit timed to dampen any enthusiasm for Catholicism his visit might spur. With that said, the data was collected by the US Bishops and does reflect a lax attitude towards the core teachings of the Church, especially the sacraments.
Study Finds American Catholics Embrace Their Faith, But Not Mass Sunday , April 13, 2008
NEW YORK - American Catholics said in a new survey they were pleased with the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, ahead of his first visit to the U.S. since he was elected. The study also found intense interest in faith among some young people.
Yet, few parishioners overall said they go to confession, and most believed they could be good Roman Catholics without going to Mass.
The poll, released Sunday, was commissioned by the nation's bishops and conducted in February by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, head of the bishops' communications committee, was encouraged by the openness to faith in the survey but said it highlighted the need for better religious instruction.
"The challenge for church leaders," he said, "is to help them see what Catholicism really means." Strengthening Catholic identity and observance are central themes of Benedict's papacy, and topics he is expected to address when he travels to Washington and New York starting Tuesday.
In the survey, eight of 10 Catholics said they were somewhat or very satisfied with his leadership. Nearly half a million people sought tickets to his public events in both cities.
The poll found that Catholics born before 1960 — among the most faithful parishioners — and those born since the 1980s have similar outlooks.
For Catholics who attend Mass at least once a month, an overwhelming majority of the young and older generation believe Christ is present in the Eucharist.
Even more, the younger, regular Mass-goers surpass their elders in observing Lent, with nearly all saying they abstain from meat on Fridays and receive ashes on Ash Wednesday. The young people are also more likely to consider devotion to saints very important to their faith.
However, the study found that only 36 percent of the younger Catholics attend Mass at least once a month, compared with 64 percent of the older generation.
Sixty-eight percent of all Catholics surveyed said they agreed that they believed they could be in good standing with the church without going to weekly Mass.
The poll, "Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice Among U.S. Catholics," found that nearly one-third of the nation's 64 million Catholics attend Mass in any given week. That figure has remained the same in the last five years, according to the report.
Thirty percent of the respondents said they go to confession less than once a year and 45 percent said they never go.
Regarding the church's social justice teaching, two-thirds of Catholics said helping those in need is a moral duty for Catholics.
The survey also measured satisfaction with the American church hierarchy. Seventy-two percent of Catholics said they were somewhat or very satisfied with the bishops' leadership, a 14-point jump since 2004, when the clergy sex abuse crisis was still roiling the church.
Note: It seems more and more that the US Bishops have become totally untethered from Rome and central Catholic teachings. In this instance, this bishop is even opposed to the statements of his own conference when it comes to honoring those who publicly oppose Church teaching. "In defiance of our fundamental principles"
Archbishop George Niederauer to pay tribute to "philanthropist" backer of Planned Parenthood and embryonic stem cell research
San Francisco's Archbishop George Niederauer tomorrow night will honor a "philanthropist" who, in recent years, has opposed parental notification for underage girls before they have an abortion and supported public funding for embryonic stem cell research. Niederauer will present George M. Marcus with Catholic Charities CYO's Loaves and Fishes Award at a dinner and "gala" to be held at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.
This year's honorees - which include Levi Strauss & Co. and "football great" Ronnie Lott - have "through their genuine concern for and effective action in improving the lives of those in need in our community and beyond... epitomize[d] the spirit of the faith traditions of charity and generosity," said Niederauer, according to Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper.
Marcus, the founder and chairman of the real estate investment firm, Marcus & Millchap Co., will receive the "outstanding philanthropic works honor... " In supporting International Orthodox Christian Charities, Avenidas, and the John Burton Foundation for Children without Homes, Marcus has shown his "concern for enhancing the overall lives of local children and the elderly," said a CCCYO press release.
Did Marcus' "concern" for children, include an Oct. 6, 2005 gift of $25,000 to "No on Proposition 73 Campaign for Teen Safety"? Proposition 73, which received support from the California Conference of Catholic Bishops, would have required that parents of an underage girl be notified before she has an abortion. Proposition 85 was a similar notification measure, which Marcus opposed by giving the "No on 85" campaign $25,000 on Sept. 26, 2006. Less than two weeks later, Marcus gave the same organization another $75,000.
Marcus supported another ballot measure opposed by California's Catholic bishops. On Aug. 16, 2004, he gave $50,000 to the "Yes on 71" campaign - which pushed a ballot measure authorizing $3.5 billion for embryonic stem cell research.
Marcus' other gifts include $3,600 given in 2007 to "Mark Leno for Senate" (Leno has sponsored bills in the state legislature to legalize homosexual marriage) and, in 2006, $2,500 to Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte, the political action arm of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte.
Information about Marcus' contributions comes from the "Campaign Finance" page of the California Secretary of State's web site.
In the days preceding this Friday's Loaves and Fishes Awards Dinner and Gala, the San Francisco chancery office received much of the above information about Marcus. Archbishop Niederauer was urged to demand another honoree or refuse to attend the dinner.
In 2004, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement, saying "the Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco One Peter Yorke Way San Francisco, CA 94109 (415) 614 5500 E-mail: info@sfarchdiocese.org PLEASE BE POLITE AND RESPECTFUL IN YOUR COMMUNICATIONS!
Note: I couldn't even bring myself to post the real title in my post. The words "erotic" and "Jesus" do not belong in the same article. that a Cardinal can't find anything wrong with this situation speaks volumes about how far gone Europe and the highest reaches of the Church have become. It absolutely disgusts me that supposed Catholic officials can't see how wrong this is. There are many non-Catholics and atheists who would respect our faith more than these people including the Cardinal. This is a sign of grave apostasy and if something isn't done soon, bloody persecution is sure to follow. While the world recoils in horror over the film made by a non-Muslim depicting Islam as having violent tendencies, our own Bishop defends this blasphemy as being artistic expression!
Erotic Jesus sparks art debate in Austria Mon Apr 7, 2008 3:21am EDT By Sylvia Westall
VIENNA (Reuters) - They knew it would be risky to exhibit a homoerotic version of Christ's Last Supper, but curators at museum of Vienna's Roman Catholic Cathedral weren't ready for a barrage of angry messages and calls to be shut down.
The source of the dispute, which Austrian media has dubbed Vienna's version of the Mohammad caricature row, is a retrospective honoring Austria's cherished artist Alfred Hrdlicka, who turned 80 earlier this year.
But not everyone has been wishing Hrdlicka a Happy Birthday. And the Cathedral Museum's director and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna, have both come under fire from some museum visitors and Catholic websites.
The Church hastily removed the main picture, "a homosexual orgy" of the Apostles as Hrdlicka describes it.
But the protest has continued, much to the surprise of the small Cathedral Museum which is nestled down a narrow street in Vienna's historic Gothic quarter.
The museum's director defends both Hrdlicka's work and his decision to host the artist's controversial versions of biblical imagery in a museum tied to the Catholic Church.
Click on the post link to read the rest if you have the stomach for it.
Note: This is yet another departure of the US Bishops from the Vatican. This group, for whom the practice of accommodation and pragmatism is an art form, are well described in the Letter to Laodicea in the Apocalypse and in the book "Apocalypse - Letter by Letter," by Steven Paul.
For Rome it is Very Clear - Pro-Abortion Politicians 'Must' be Denied Communion By John-Henry Westen and Hilary White
ROME, March 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Some Catholic Bishops in North America seem to be on a different page from the Vatican when it comes to reception of Communion for Catholic politicians who support abortion. Since the controversy came to a head in the 2004 US federal election, most Catholic bishops in the US have either remained silent on the issue, or have made softer statements than the authoritative word from Rome: a word that has been re-affirmed many times and continues to be reasserted regularly.
Most recently, Francis Cardinal Arinze, speaking at a Catholic family conference in Ohio last November, referred to a letter on the subject sent by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who said that such politicians "must" be "refused" Communion.
Video footage, posted recently by the conference organisers and made available on YouTube, shows Cardinal Arinze, the head of Vatican office of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, replying to the question of pro-abortion politicians and the inaction of their bishops. He said "You may have heard about the letter which the present Holy Father, as prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, sent to American bishops on that issue, so the matter is very clear."
He told those in attendance that the question is not one of Church teaching, but of the immutable divine law of God. "It isn't just that they [the politicians in question] have gone against church teaching, but they have gone against divine law; thou shalt not kill."
But since the insistence of Rome has failed to induce positive action from most bishops in the North American hierarchy and abroad, reporters continue to ask the same questions.
Romans in the know, however, repeat that the Pope's letter on the matter has solved the issue. LifeSiteNews.com spoke last month about the issue with Msgr. Andrew R. Baker a professor at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome, one of Rome's major historic institutions.
Professor Baker told LifeSiteNews.com, "Certainly you'd have to apply that famous canon of 915 that says one who persists in manifest grave sin should not be admitted to Holy Communion."
"And I think the possibility of looking at the moral principles outlined in the letter attributed to Cardinal Ratzinger that came a number of years ago - those are good moral principles to apply that canon 915."
Professor Baker's opinion is a repetition of that given in Ohio by Cardinal Arinze, who told conferees that he agrees action ought to be taken against bishops who refuse to enforce Canon 915.
Arinze elicited much laughter and applause when he made the analogy, "To the person who says, 'Personally I'm against abortion, but if people what to do it, I'll leave them free', you could say, 'You are a member of the senate or the congress, personally I'm not in favour of shooting the whole lot of you, but if somebody else wants to shoot all of you in the Senate, or all of you in Congress, it's just pro-choice for that person, but personally, I'm not in favour.'
"That is what he is saying. He's saying he's personally not in favour of killing these millions of children in the womb, but if others want to do it, that's pro-choice. That's what he is saying. "And then you ask, what does the Holy See do? Why doesn't the Pope send 12 Swiss Guards to arrest them all?"
Arinze said that he is regularly asked if a person who votes for abortion can receive Holy Communion. He replies, "Do you really need a cardinal from the Vatican to answer that?
"Get the children for first Communion and say to them, 'Somebody votes for the killing of unborn babies, and says, I voted for that, I will vote for that every time.' And these babies are killed not one or two, but in millions, and that person says, 'I'm a practising Catholic', should that person receive Communion next Sunday? The children will answer that at the drop of a hat. You don't need a cardinal to answer that."
Came across this video and hoped it was an Anglican but unfortunately this is a Roman Catholic Priest. I may be a bit old fashioned but I was led to believe that my own presence at a protestant "church" was considered scandalous and to be discouraged. So I don't go even when the wedding there is a close relative.
This is ecumenism run amok, an extreme example of the false teaching directly resulting from the "reforms' of Vatican II that distorted the meaning of brotherly love to include realtivism. The priest calls Rev. Wright a "prophet". Really, I thought we were taught that the line of prpohets ended with John the Baptist. Since Christ is the revelation of God, there is no need for more prophecy.
I think you have to read and reflect on the posting I made before about the Sixth Trumpet and the first of the three woes to appreciate how many have been deceived and who is doing the deceiving.
Does this Priest have a Bishop? I'd like to hear from the Archbishop of Chicago concerning this man. What seminary produces this?
Note: Strange times we're in when the lay people of a country rebut the dissenting views of their own bishops' conference. With clear hindsight and heavy consciences, the Canadian people are waking up to the damage done by their bishops' divergence from Vatican teaching on human sexuality. Will the bishops heed their call?
Canadian Catholics Ask Bishops to Retract Winnipeg Statement - Recomit to Humanae Vitae By John-Henry Westen
OTTAWA, March 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the 40th anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI's July 25, 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae approaches, a group of Catholics is challenging Canada's Catholic bishops to revisit their official position on the document as it pertains to contraception. The encyclical, which wrote of the Church's prohibition on contraception, predicting accurately that it would lead to treatment of women as objects of use, was at the time rejected by many within the Catholic Church.
In 1990 the Philippine Bishops issued an apology to the nation's Catholics for having failed to encourage their flock to adhere to Humanae Vitae. They wrote: "Afflicted with doubts about alternatives to contraceptive technology, we abandoned you to your confused and lonely consciences with a lame excuse: 'follow what your conscience tells you.' How little we realized that it was our consciences that needed to be formed first."
The Rosarium of the Blessed Virgin Mary has collected approximately 1000 signatures on a petition to formally ask the Canadian Catholic Bishops to retract the pastoral document written nearly 40 years ago on September 27, 1968 - the Winnipeg Statement.
The letter accompanying the petition challenges the bishops to reflect on their own role in the complete moral and social collapse that has befallen Canada. It states in part: "Once contraceptive sex was accepted in principle, it led the way to all of the other sexual abominations our country is currently experiencing, not the least of which is same-sex 'marriage' - which, at its core, is merely contraception in its final form. Contraception blurred the distinction between men and women by robbing women of their femininity and subverting their fertility. The psychological effects of this over 40 years came to fruition with the normalization of same-sex unions. A sterilized woman is, in one fundamental respect, another man."
The letter adds: "We can no longer sit idly by as a Church and pretend that our actions - or lack of them - in word or in deed have not contributed to this situation. For forty years we have walked the desert of this culture of death because for forty years, we have refused to submit to the entire truth of Humanae Vitae. As faithful Catholics, therefore, we are humbly asking the bishops of Canada to reflect on how their teaching (or lack thereof) regarding contraception these past 40 years has contributed to Canada's social and moral collapse. In particular, we are once again drawing your attention to the Winnipeg Statement, one of the most destructive documents ever to be released on the subject of contraception."
The controversial document in question, commonly referred to as the Winnipeg Statement, has been long considered a dissent against Rome's absolute prohibition on contraceptive acts. The most controversial section of the document states: "Counsellors may meet others who, accepting the teaching of the Holy Father, find that because of particular circumstances they are involved in what seems to them a clear conflict of duties, e.g., the reconciling of conjugal love and responsible parenthood with the education of children already born or with the health of the mother. In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience."
John Pacheco, a director of The Rosarium and a Catholic political and social activist, remarked that the time has come for the Bishops to reconsider the Winnipeg Statement.
"We are approaching the 40 year anniversary of the legalization of both contraception and abortion in Canada in 2009," Pacheco told LifeSiteNews.com. "We can no longer fool ourselves into thinking that contraception has not played an enormous role in the break down of the family unit these past forty years. It's not a coincidence that once contraception was legalized with abortion in May 1969, the precipitous fall of the family followed thereafter. It's time for all Catholics to reflect on how the Church was right and the Culture was wrong. For lay Catholics, that means tossing the condoms and the pills and for the Canadian bishops it means repenting of a treacherous document."
In addition to calling for the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement, the group is asking the Bishops to strongly re-affirm Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical prohibiting abortion and contraception, on the 40th anniversary of its publication on July 27. It is also encouraging the bishops to become more involved in active opposition to abortion.
"We will never defeat abortion in Canada until the question of contraception is addressed. And contraception in Canada will never be addressed sufficiently until the bishops acknowledge the great harm that the Winnipeg Statement has caused. It's time for all of us to repent and move on. Canada needs a new beginning. That starts with the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement", Pacheco said.
My note: I kept reading this article to find the explanation, the rationale for the Bishops taking a stand against a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the Catholic teaching that life (personhood in the law) begins at conception. It never came. Instead I found Judy Brown's condemnation of the Bishops' position. Have we reached the time that we can now trust the voice of an activist over that of the supposed shepherds of the Church? I have read and re-read the Bible and not once did I find anything from the mouth of Christ or his servants the prophets to indicate that political pragmatism was a value. These Bishops, the same ones who shuttled child abusers around and then exempted themselves from the corrective measures, will be easy prey for The False Prophet when he comes. They await him with anticipation no doubt. Montana Catholic Bishops Will Not Support Constitutional Amendment Defining Personhood
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
BILLINGS, March 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a statement issued last week, Montana bishops Michael W. Warfel and George Leo Thomas said the Montana Catholic Conference will not endorse Constitutional Initiative 100 (the Montana Personhood Amendment) that would establish conception as the beginning of life by placing a personhood amendment on the state's 2008 ballot.
Moe Wosepka, executive director of the Montana Catholic Conference said that although "the bishops agonized over this decision for several months, and did not take this decision lightly," they determined that even if voters approved it, the ballot initiative would be ineffectual. The bishops' official statement said they were "disallowing support for CI-100 in our parishes and church sponsored organizations, be it through endorsement, financial support, signature gathering, or distribution of promotional materials," though individuals were free to give their support to the initiative.
Note: Sounds like the Bishops are "personally opposed but pro-choice" on the issue.
The statement went on to explain that while the bishops praised the intention of CI-100 for eliminating abortion, the initiative was not "the most beneficial venue to pursue necessary change."
Note: OK, fair enough.. THEN WHAT'S YOUR IDEA? Let's hear it.
"We are currently working to develop a broad-based coalition to examine alternatives that offer a more realistic approach to the protection of human life," the statement said. "We, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Montana, remain dedicated to the protection of life from conception to natural death."
Note; The letter from Jesus to the Bishop of Laodicea comes to mind here, something about vomiting the lukewarm out of His body, the Church.
The amendment is sponsored by Rep. Rick Jore, a Constitution Party member for Ronan, MT, who explained that "while CI-100 merely defines 'person' as used in the Montana Constitution, it gets right to the heart of the abortion debate. The fact that human life begins at conception is the only sure foundation of the pro-life argument. We cannot, we must not, buy into the notion that human life begins at some arbitrary time that seems convenient to us."
A report in the Great Falls Tribune said Jonathan Martin, chairman of the Constitution Party of Montana and one of the main proponents of CI-100, was "saddened" by the bishops' unwillingness to support the CI-100 campaign. "I think far too often today that we make decisions based on pragmatism rather than right and wrong," he said.
Martin continued, "This initiative creates no laws, it legislates nothing, it outlaws nothing. It establishes a constitutional principle, and that is recognizing the personhood of the unborn child. If it gets the necessary signatures (to qualify for the ballot) and is approved by the voters of Montana, it will then be up to the Legislature to sit down and reason out legislation to implement."
According to an article in the Bozeman Chronicle, Montana Right to Life Coalition Director Greg Trude said his group is not supporting nor endorsing the measure. Mr. Trude was not available to comment on the statement.
The Montana bishops' statement follows on the heals of similar statements from Bishops' Conferences in Colorado and Georgia, where requests for support for personhood amendment proposals were rejected.
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory and Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Savannah said in a Jan. 8 statement that the proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would establish the rights of personhood for embryos from the moment of conception "does not provide a realistic opportunity for ending or reducing abortion in Georgia," although the bishops said they have "admiration and respect for those who have crafted this legislation."
In Colorado, Catholic Conference Executive Director Jennifer Kraska said that the bishops "commend the goal of this effort to end abortion, and individual Catholics may choose to work for its passage. At the same time, we recognize that other people committed to the sanctity of life have raised serious questions about this specific amendment's timing and content."
"It's a political, gutless position," said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, in a report by the Denver Post. "As a Catholic, it's the most scandalous thing I've ever heard. I can't believe that any bishop wouldn't want to be out in the front lines helping the petitioners. The sanctity of life is a fundamental teaching of the Catholic Church."
You may contact Montana Catholic Conference Executive Director, Moe Wosepka at: director@montanacc.org.
Note: This "crisis" among the Bishops and clergy is one of the most striking examples of how the Church can be derailed from its mission by sin. The premise of the book is that the underlying cause of the "crisis", homosexuality, has not been dealt with and remains ready to continue its slaughter of souls through deceit and lying until the faithful no longer trust anyone in the Church hierarchy at all. This is an apostacy of immense proportions!
Paved with the Skulls of Bishops
By Richard John Neuhaus Friday, February 1, 2008, 6:54 AM
That's a grim metaphor, maybe too grim. It's from an endorsement of Philip F. Lawler's book, to be published next week, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture (Encounter). The endorsement is by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, who says: "Lawler's masterful analysis is sobering and provides an urgent incentive for authentic renewal. If St. John Chrysostom is correct when he says that the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops, it would be a mistake for any bishop or priest to miss this book." Bishop Bruskewitz and Philip Lawler obviously think that Chrysostom was correct.
One might suggest that the book is really two books, one about what has happened to Catholicism in Boston and the other about the sex abuse scandal in the Church in America. Boston is the synecdoche for the telling of the much larger story. It is admittedly a very big synecdoche, but much of the book takes leave of Boston altogether in order to examine what happened and is still happening in dioceses around the country.
The account offered is devastating and the blame is clearly laid at the door of the American bishops. Lawler is outraged, but, to his credit, his outrage is controlled. His judgments are sometimes harsh, but, in view of the evidence, they could hardly be otherwise. Throughout, one senses his palpable love for the Church, his solid orthodoxy, and his yearning for spiritual and moral renewal. Lawler was long the editor of Catholic World Report and for several years, under Bernard Cardinal Law, editor of the archdiocesan newspaper The Pilot. His treatment of Law, who was compelled to resign as Archbishop of Boston in December 2002, strikes one as an exemplary exercise in trying to put the best possible construction on the indisputably indefensible.
"The thesis of this book," writes Lawler, "is that the sex abuse scandal in American Catholicism was not only aggravated but actually caused by the willingness of church leaders to sacrifice the essential for the inessential; to build up the human institution even to the detriment of the divine mandate." Bishops again and again responded to the crisis as institutional managers, employing public relations stratagems to evade, deceive, and distract attention from their own responsibility. Lawler several times invokes the terse observation of St. Augustine, "God does not need my lie." The bishops lied, says Lawler, and many of them are still lying. This is offered not as an accusation but as a conclusion that he believes is compelled by the evidence.
"The first aspect of the scandal, the sexual abuse of children, has been acknowledged and addressed," Lawler writes. "The second aspect, the rampant homosexuality among Catholic priests, has been acknowledged but not addressed, and later even denied... The third aspect of the scandal has never even been acknowledged by American church leaders." The third aspect, the malfeasance of bishops, "is today the most serious of all."
Over 80 percent of reported cases of abuse were with teenage boys. That does not include, of course, uncounted instances of sex with men who are of age, since those cases, as several bishops have opined, constitute no problem for the Church, meaning no legal or financial problem. Spiritual and moral problems apparently do not enter the equation. The name for this is corruption. Lawler quotes at length an article, published in 2000, before the scandal in Boston made national headlines, by Father Paul Shaughnessy:
If we examine any trust-invested agency at any given point in its history, whether that agency be a police force, a military unit, or a religious community, we might find that, say, out of every hundred men, five are scoundrels, five are heroes, and the rest are neither one nor the other: ordinarily upright men who live with a mixture of moral timidity and moral courage. When the institution is healthy, the gutsier few set the overall tone, and the less courageous but tractable majority works along with these men to minimize misbehavior; more importantly, the healthy institution is able to identify its own rotten apples and remove them before the institution itself is enfeebled. However, when an institution becomes corrupt, its guiding spirit mysteriously shifts away from the morally intrepid few, and with that shift the institution becomes more interested in protecting itself against outside critics than in tackling the problem members that subvert its mission. For example, when we say a certain police force is corrupt, we don’t usually mean that every policeman is on the take-perhaps only five out of a hundred actually accept bribes-rather we mean that this police force can no longer diagnose and cure its own problems, and consequently, if reform is to take place, an outside agency has to be brought in to make the changes.
Lawler adds: "Homosexual influence within the American clergy was not in itself the cause of the sex abuse crisis. The corruption wrought by that influence was a more important factor." He very gingerly addresses a theory proposed by a number of commentators on the crisis, namely, that bishops engaged in cover-ups and other deceptions because they were threatened with homosexual blackmail. He cites a number of instances in which this appears to be the case and bishops were permitted to resign when their misdeeds could no longer be denied. "The blackmail hypothesis," he writes, "provides a logical explanation for behavior that is otherwise inexplicable: the bishops' willingness to risk the welfare of the faithful and their own reputations in order to protect abusive priests."
The subject of the sex abuse crisis lends itself to sensationalism, but Lawler strives to resist that temptation. His is a generally sober account of a crisis that brought to light a larger pattern of episcopal fecklessness in the Church's accommodation to, and complicity in, the forces of cultural decadence. As readers know, the sex abuse crisis-its sources and ramifications-is a subject regularly addressed in First Things. And I will likely be returning to The Faithful Departed in the magazine.
I differ with Philip Lawler on a number of points in his telling of the story. For instance, his treatment of the 1940's conflict between Father Leonard Feeney and Cardinal Cushing is, I think, too uncritical of Father Feeney. Feeney was out of line in the way he pressed the claim that only Catholics can be saved. And, despite his critique of cultural accommodationism, Lawler betrays a nostalgia for the old Boston Catholicism that has "collapsed," even though it was, in its way, a massive instance of cultural accommodation, albeit an institutionally successful instance.
Those and other caveats aside, The Faithful Departed is the best book-length treatment of the sex abuse crisis, its origins and larger implications, published to date.
Note: Sometimes you just can't believe what you read about the leadership of the Catholic Church, especially in America. Here we have a case where the bishops are not backing an amendment to a state constitution that would make abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and cloning illegal because they think there is a better approach. Their circular reasoning is unfortunately common these days. If one more conservative Supreme Court Justice were to somehow be appointed, and a challenge case to Roe vs. Wade winds its way to them, then a reversal of Roe would return to the states the power to decide abortion laws for themselves. So the Georgia constitutional amendment looks forward to that day. The bishops are not only displaying an arrogance about the means to outlaw abortion, but also a lack of leadership and courage. Do you really want to wait and see what they decide if a constitutional amendment is in the works? They'd probably tell you it should not be supported because of some obscure language they don't like. Georgia Catholic Bishops Won't Work for State "Human Life" Constitutional Amendment
By Hilary White
ATLANTA, Georgia, January 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The two Catholic bishops of the state of Georgia have refused to support efforts to implement a "human life" amendment to the state constitution. Supporters of the effort, however, say that a constitutional amendment would protect the unborn, the disabled, the elderly and vulnerable patients and "guarantee their constitutional right to life" and offer a step towards overturning Roe v. Wade.
"We do not support the passage of [House Resolution] 536" said a written statement signed by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, Archdiocese of Atlanta and Bishop J. Kevin Boland, Diocese of Savannah. The bishops continue, "We have come to the conclusion that the approach taken by HR 536 to amend the state constitution does not provide a realistic opportunity for ending or reducing abortion in Georgia."
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Atlanta told LifeSiteNews.com that after consultation with constitutional legal experts, the bishops decided that only an amendment to the federal constitution would succeed in "saving lives."
"We will be monitoring the legislation during the session to see if there are any changes, but the bishops have done a great deal of legal research and the decision is that this isn't going to be a bill we’re going to support, although we're not opposed to it in any way," she said.
Richard Thompson President & Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center disagreed with the bishops, saying HR 536 provides Georgia with the legal means of "overturning the central holding of Roe v Wade."
"For too long the pro-life movement has been dominated by a strategy of 'wait' - too fearful of losing to risk winning".
Rep. Martin Scott is sponsoring the bill that has the support of Democrats and Republicans in the Georgia Legislature. "The Human Life Amendment is the next logical step for defenders of liberty," said Scott. "With advances in science such as cloning to our society's movement toward a culture of death including euthanasia and endless abortions, Georgia is the place to enact this policy."
The text of HR 536 reads, "The rights of every person shall be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. The right to life is the paramount and most fundamental right of a person."
"With respect to the fundamental and inalienable rights of all persons guaranteed in this Constitution, the word 'person' applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, sex, health, function, or condition of dependency, including unborn children at every state of their biological development, including fertilization."
HR 536 requires a two-thirds vote of the Georgia House and the state Senate to appear on the ballot in the November 2008 election.
One More Thing for AMCHURCH To Ignore from Rome: Vatican Newspaper Article Says Catholics Should Receive Communion Kneeling and on the Tongue
1/9/2008 7:27:00 PM
By John-Henry Westen -LifeSiteNews.com Although it may seem a little strange, there is a definite battle being waged within the Catholic Church. It is the same "culture war" being waged by secular moderns against those who uphold traditional morality, it is pro-life vs. pro-choice.
But within the Catholic Church the same battle is fought along liturgical lines, and the publication in the Vatican newspaper of an article calling for Catholics to receive Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue is telling.
"If some nonbeliever arrived and observed such an act of adoration perhaps he, too, would 'fall down and worship God, declaring, God is really in your midst,'" explained Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan in the pages of L'Osservatore Romano. The Catholic News Service reports that in the January 8 edition of the Vatican paper, Bishop Schneider noted that the reverence and awe of Catholics who truly believe they are receiving Jesus in the Eucharist should lead them to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues. "The awareness of the greatness of the eucharistic mystery is demonstrated in a special way by the manner in which the body of the Lord is distributed and received," the bishop wrote.
Although in all likelihood most Catholics are oblivious to it, the decision to receive communion on the tongue, versus in the hand and the decision to receive communion standing rather than kneeling is a significant fault line in the culture war.
Modernizers who relentlessly work to have the Catholic Church move away from so-called 'archaic' positions on sexuality, (forbidding contraception, pre-marital sexual activity, homosexuality etc.) also rail against 'archaic' piety in worship.
However, the culture war at least in terms of liturgical issues was nearly lost in the West until the advent of Pope Benedict.
In the United States for instance, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on the Liturgy wrote in its July 2002 newsletter: "Kneeling is not a licit posture for receiving Holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States of America unless the bishop of a particular diocese has derogated from this norm in an individual and extraordinary circumstance."
The majority of the faithful have since adopted the practice of standing and receiving communion on the hand.
However, some traditional Catholics, often derisively referred to as "pre-Vatican II" Catholics have held to the practice of communion kneeling and on the tongue. Those same Catholics are often the most vociferous defenders of life and family within and without the Church.
While many valiant Catholic activists who work in the pro-life and pro-family battles receive communion in the common fashion, they nonetheless respect the right of those who wish to receive communion kneeling and on the tongue.
Not so for those within the Church seeking to get the Church in line with the times. Certain Church leaders, priests and even bishops who are zealous in their attempts to modernize the Church have gone so far as to attempt to enforce modernism by refusing communion to those who kneel for communion.
One prominent example of such was Orange County Florida Bishop Tod Brown who was caught on video last year refusing communion to a woman who was kneeling. Brown is also known for refusing in 1994 to back an Idaho measure to deny homosexuals special privileges. Explaining his actions he said the law "would contribute to attitudes of intolerance and hostility in Idaho directed at homosexual citizens and is potentially discriminatory." In Brown's diocese there has been considerable intolerance toward Catholics who kneel for communion and some traditional Catholics have been asked to leave the diocese. Another prominent example was the denial of communion to Virginia House of Delegate member Richard Black by Arlington's St. Thomas More Cathedral Rector, Fr. Dominic Irace in 2002. Black was one of the strongest defenders of life in the legislature. As Delegate Black left the Cathedral, Fr. Irace loudly called him a "conservative idiot." (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/oct/02101001.html )
These types of situations caused the Vatican to react rather strongly in 2002. Jorge A. Cardinal Medina Estevez, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which addresses liturgical matters, wrote a bishop about reports received of a priest denying communion to faithful because they were kneeling.
The Cardinal called such denial "a grave violation of one of the most basic rights of the Christian faithful," and directed the bishop to investigate the case. The letter said that the Vatican regards such abuses of the faithful as very grave. The letter said, the Congregation, if such actions are verified, "will regard future complaints of this nature with great seriousness, and if they are verified, it intends to seek disciplinary action consonant with the gravity of the pastoral abuse." (see the letter: http://www.adoremus.org/Notitiae-kneeling.html )
My take: The Bishop can gloss over the removal of the Priest all he wants. And to the Priest's credit, he won't criticize or even question the Bishop. But I will. Bishops like this one are responsible for the emptying of the pews and the seminaries. They have presided over an historical apostasy that has left the faithful in a state of grave and mortal sin by no longer teaching divine truth publicly. This Bishop would expel Christ himself for teaching divine truth. It is he who needs to be removed, if not by Apostolic authority, then by God Almighty Himself.
Homily on NFP provokes congregation member to stand up and shout at priest "When are you going to stop?"
By John Jalsevac ROCKFORD, Illinois, January 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This past December 9, at St. James' parish in Rockford Illinois, a very normal Mass suddenly became a very unusual Mass when a parishioner stood up in the middle of the homily, interrupted the priest, shouting at him "When are you going to stop?", and then left, with her homosexual partner in tow. A few other parishioners also stood up and left the church. A few days later, the priest was dismissed from his duties at the parish by his bishop.
Catholics know that there are some things that you just don't hear preached from the pulpit any more. The most conspicuous of these unpreachables is sexual ethics, especially the idea that using contraception might be immoral, and contrary to a Culture of Life. Most priests know that these are unpopular subjects, and emphatically avoid them. But Fr. Tom Bartolomeo, who until several weeks ago was the associate pastor at St. James parish, is not your typical priest.
To begin with, Fr. Bartolomeo was ordained only just over a year ago. This, of course, is not exactly extraordinary in itself, except for the fact that he is now seventy years old. At an age when many other priests are retiring, therefore, he is only getting his feet wet.
Perhaps, says the elderly priest in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, his newness to the ministry and late vocation explains his almost youth-like zeal for his priestly duties. "I'm going to die with my boots on," he says. "Who knows how many years I have left? That kind of puts pressure on me to preach the Gospel message. My days are numbered."
About a month ago, however, Fr. Bartolomeo's enthusiasm for the Gospel message brought an unexpected turn into his life, when he gave what he thought was a normal Advent homily. The homily was the second of a projected series of four homilies dealing with life and family issues, designed to coincide with the four Sundays of Advent - the season leading up to the birth of Jesus. This particular homily had to do with contraception and natural family planning.
The Catholic Church teaches that the use of contraception is intrinsically and gravely immoral. Church teaching does, however, allow married couples to use the natural rhythms of the female body to knowingly space children, if there is a sufficiently grave reason to do so. These fundamental moral teachings formed the basis of Fr. Bartolomeo's homily."New births, anniversaries and funerals, separations of any kind, a photograph from the past - give us pause and remind us whom we are bound to," he said in his homily, a copy of which he provided for LifeSiteNews. "Our human sexuality - father, mother, brother, sister - reveals our deepest relationships. We call God our father, and his Son our brother."
"Contraception, contra-conception, trivializes the sacred value of human sexuality - a danger humanity did not have to face a century ago before the advent of modern chemistry and technology, the pill (before or after) and a host of plastic devices."
"Contracept, take God's plan off the table, and you have mayhem," he said. "The most important thing in your lives, bearing children, is no longer discussed. It has been permanently removed from the conversation. Done deal. The pill, the IUD, the diaphragm, the sponge, the condom - who is making money here? - have shut down not only the body but the brain. And wives and husbands wonder why they grow apart? When a man and woman, a husband and wife, share daily this most wonderful mystery of their human sexuality they are bonding as nature and God intended."
In the middle of this homily however, say witnesses, one congregation member stood up and began to argue with the priest, yelling "When are you going to stop?" Gerald Weber, who has been a parishioner at St. James for 47 years, was at that Mass. "It was embarrassing, the noticeable argumentative tone with which she stopped him in his homily," he told LifeSiteNews. "Father treated her nicely for the way she was acting, but she continued yelling. She finally sat down, but then stood up again, and took her friend with her and made a show of leaving the church. With that there were some other people who objected to the subject matter."
Note: Here is another example of a runaway rogue unsupervised extra ecclesial body dissenting from Church authority on faith and morals with no accountability. The USCCB is more and more becoming a seat of dissent and secularization in the US and is becoming ever more irrelevant to the life of the Church. They are simply too compromised by homosexuality, and consumed with political power to effectively shepherd the flock. Change is needed. U.S. Catholic Health Association Openly Defies Vatican Over Nutrition and Hydration of Disabled Statement penned by same priest who called it a "blasphemy" to keep Terri Schiavo alive
By John ConnollyWASHINGTON, D.C., December 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHUSA) posted a statement on its website interpreting a document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on the necessity of feeding and watering the disabled in a way contrary to its intended meaning.
CHUSA is the same organization that advised the USCCB to endorse offering the morning-after pill to victims of rape being treated in Catholic hospitals. It has now posted a letter on its website claiming to put the CDF document in its proper context. The letter is penned by John J. Hardt and Fr. Kevin D. O'Rourke, O.P., both bioethicists. O'Rourke is notorious as the priest who lobbied against the cause to keep Terri Schiavo alive. He stated that "for Christians, it is a blasphemy to keep people [like Terri Schiavo] alive."
In the current letter, the two bioethicists came to the conclusion that the CDF document errs on the side of not nourishing and hydrating patients, rather than the reverse, claiming that the document's meaning is much narrower than face value dictates.
"Many of the rules are repeated in one way or another in the present Code of Canon Law," the letter said. "Two canons of the present code are relevant for our study: Canon 18: Laws which establish a penalty or restrict free exercise of rights . . . are subject to strict interpretation. Canon 52: A singular decree has force only in respect to the matters which it decides and for the persons for whom it was given."
Hence, the application of the CDF response, because it limits the free exercise of rights, will only apply to a restricted number of cases, specifically to patients with a firm diagnosis of PVS [persistent vegetative state]. Some commentators have sought to extend the statement to people with other pathologies, such as advanced Alzheimer's disease or acute dementia. But the response concerns only patients who are diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, not to all patients who are unable to assimilate food and water without artificial assistance."
In 2004, Pope John Paul II told an international medical-moral congress that "the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory."
In 2005, the U.S. Bishops sent two follow-up questions on the statement asking for clarification on the statement. The questions asked for confirmation that the administration of food and water was morally obligatory and if food and water could be removed in the event of a doctor's judgment that the patient will not regain consciousness. The CDF responded in September of 2007 with a yes to the first question and a no to the second.
"Theologians on the wrong side of these debates are not satisfied with church clarifications," he said. "The theologians on CHA's website claim that the mere "psychic burden" of being cognitively disabled, and the related "burden upon the loved ones giving care," justifies withholding tube feeding and thereby causing death by starvation. This is exactly the conclusion that the Vatican statement rejected. A comatose person's life, and our need to care for him, is not a burden that justifies starvation any more than it justifies suffocation. I fail to see how this line of reasoning does not in principle justify suicide."
Dr. Edward Peters, a canon lawyer, criticized Hardt and O'Rourke's legal reasoning. On his blog (http://www.canonlaw.info/2007/12/hardt-orourke-err-in-minimi...), Peters faults the letter for taking the CDF document in the completely wrong light. He debunks O'Rourke and Hardt's use of canon law from 1298 to interpret what was not a juridical statement from the CDF, but a moral one.
"Canons 18 and 52 and the Rules of Law upon which they draw are, by their plain terms, meant to inform one's interpretation of laws and legal directives," wrote Peters. "In issuing its Response on nutrition and hydration, however, CDF was not issuing a law, or an authentic interpretation of a law (1983 CIC 16), or indeed any other kind of juridic decree (administrative or otherwise). Instead the dicastery is setting forth moral criteria for personal decision-making, a point reinforced by the CDF Response being posted among the dicastery's doctrinal statements, not its disciplinary ones. In other words, by subjecting CDF's enunciation of moral principles to interpretive techniques that were developed for assessing legal norms, Hardt & O'Rouke are basically criticizing the CDF Response for not being something it never claimed to be."
CHUSA has a history of doctrinal dissent, endorsing the use of "emergency contraception" and sterilization in Catholic hospitals and paying for advertising space in pro-abortion magazines. Fr. O'Rourke attended a talk in Wisconsin in October to explain his new interpretation of the CDF's document, asserting that maintaining the lives of the disabled "has never been the Catholic tradition," but rather, these kinds of decisions have always been left "up to the family." When
Father O'Rourke was asked at the talk about the discrepancy between his viewpoint and the Responses to Certain Questions, he indicated that the CDF document is "full of holes that theologians will be able to exploit."
