My friend the great Fr. George Welzbacher, one of the five smartest people I know, issues weekly a “Pastor’s Page” in his parish bulletin (he is 84 and still pastor of a parish) which always deserve a close read. They are not your typical “pastor’s pages”.
This week this is what he offered. You can find all his pages HERE at the site of the parish.
Pastor’s Page
By Fr. George Welzbacher
August 19, 2012It would seem that, for the first time in the history of our republic, we are witnessing here in the U.S.A. the establishment of a state religion, a religion so crafted as to delight the heart of a secularist, a religion with clearly defined dogmas, compliance with whose demands is to be enforced with all of the coercive powers at the disposal of the federal government. Here are the dogmas of this new faith.
Dogma #1: A woman has the right, the unrestricted right, to make arrangements for the killing of her unborn child whenever such course of action is convenient. [I would add that abortion thereby becomes a sacrament. Shades of Moloch.]
Dogma #2: The chief purpose served by the institution of marriage is the securing of social recognition for romantic attraction, together with the panoply of benefits accruing to such recognition. The begetting of children, together with such subsequent upbringing as will equip them to contribute responsibly to the society in which they will spend their lives, can be dismissed as of marginal importance. Thus every man, should this be his bent, has the right to marry another man, just as every woman, should she be so disposed, has the right to marry a woman. To suggest otherwise, to imply, for example, that a man’s realigning of his reproductive powers to adapt to another man’s digestive tract is in any way abnormal is to be guilty of a hate crime, in exculpation of which no appeal to the rights of conscience shall be allowed, this being an intolerable crime, properly punishable with fines and/or imprisonment.
Dogma #3: The sovereign pontiff in this new state religion is the people’s hero, Barack Hussein, now reigning gloriously in the White House. [Anti-Catholic, pro-abortion, against the 1st and 2nd Amendments (to begin with): The First Gay President.]
Dogma #4: Enemy Number One of the new state religion is, by and large, the Christian faith and, with special intransigence, the Catholic Church. Measures must accordingly be taken to compel the recusant authorities of the Roman Catholic faith to genuflect at the new religion’s altar. (Thus the new Health and Human Services mandate).
* * * * *
All of this represents at least one way of looking at President Obama’s arrogant trampling upon the First Amendment, not to mention his repudiation of God’s Commandments. A formally different but compatible “take” was recently offered by the political commentator Yuval Levin in an essay published in that excellent journal of opinion, The National Review. In his analysis of Mr. Obama’s attack on traditional religion and freedom of conscience Mr. Levin begins by citing the early nineteenth century French political philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America remains to this day a much admired, much consulted and much quoted classic.
In explaining America’s unique vitality and strength, Tocqueville assigns special importance to the vast proliferation of VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS of every imaginable type that channel human energy towards productive ends and stand as a kind of buffer, a PROTECTIVE SCREEN, between the individual citizen and the overreaching state. Mr. Levin argues that the grand aim of the Obama administration has been the systematic demolition of that buffer, that protective shield of free associations, among which first and foremost are the religious groups, America’s churches and synagogues and other God-centered associations.
Here (abridged to accommodate our restrictions of space) is what Mr. Levin has to say.
Due to the marvels of the interwebs, I don’t have to restrict anything. Instead I can simply link you to Yuval Levin’s original article, The Hollow Republic.
Dead on.
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I’d suggest that a state religion was established the moment John Hancock put the quill on the Declaration. The only thing sustaining it this long has been the treasury of virtue from Christianity. Now the treasury is depleted. Expect more of this.
Dead on.
But I believe it is still more awful than that. Every dogmatized religion, even if heavily opposed to Truth, can to a degree be calculated and dealt with; although this may be difficult. (This was the good point, even though by and large the sole good point, of Marxism.)
However, the new tendencies are opposed to dogma as such, regardless of content. This is what makes them so hard to even in one’s own thoughts deal with.
Which is also why they cannot even utter their own credo that a man should be able to marry a man except within a wast wave of emotion about the poor mistreated homosexuals, etc.
Absolutely agree and I think it is happening and on purpose. Remember that Obama got his training working with the Saul Alinksy School and Rules for Radicals. One of the proposals is to do away with established religions and substitute state “codes of ethics” based on Marxist goals. Marxist goals have always included destroying the family, sexual freedom, re-definition of personhood and the individual (Maritain is good on that one) and as one can read in Gramsci and others, who names I have listed on this blog, the number one enemy to the new world order is the Catholic Church.
Here is Gramsci’s editor, who is a NDU professor, explaining Gramsci against the Church: “Catholic integralism is …..affirming the supreme authority of the papacy and a subordination of social and political life to Catholic doctrinal principles….gained considerable momentum as many elements of the church conducted an intransigent struggle against all forms of religious reform, liberalism and secularism (which were often lumped together indiscriminately under the label of modernism) {my note-no these are modernist, Enlightenment heresies}) An especially important point of reference for the integralists was Pius IX, who formally condemned libralism and the ‘error’ of modern thought in his encyclical Quanta cura (1864) and the Syllabus.”
Written by a Marxist, ex-Jesuit atheist. We have been slow on the uptake in America as we have been playing footsy with the Marxist in the USCCB name of “social justice” issues, on our parishes and in our seminaries. If the new religion gets written in stone, it is our fault for not paying attention to the Popes who have led the way
.
Now, if the Marxists have known this for ages, why is it taking Catholics so long to catch up? Answer: Because the Church was infiltrated by these liberalists, who are against Western society, culture, marriage and sexual ethics.
The very people this good priest refers to in principle, if not name, cut their teeth on Gramsci, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Jürgen Habermas and those so-called Catholic theologians who assimilated all this stuff: Abraham Kuyper, Dorothy Day, Leonardo Boff , Jon Sobrino and Juan Luis Segundo, as well as others. The priest above has it pegged, but he could add that this has been going on a long time in preparation AND it has already happened in some, not all European countries.
These Washington aides to the president are all of the same school. The president may seem dumb, but he is, at least, a puppet president for a larger agenda started with the publication of Marx in 1848, with Das Kommunistische Manifest. In that, he is not dumb.
The Popes responded immediately to these words, and were punished by the Italians, specifically
Giuseppe Garibaldi for publishing the above mentioned encyclicals.
We have had over a hundred years to deal with this. I hope this priest gets more people to realize the depth and breadth of the problem. http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/too-many-church-leaders-do-not-think-or.html
and many more of this…
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/why-obama-does-not-support-israel-jews.html
By the way, I think the Transformational Marxists will fail, but it might be the day before the Second Coming of Christ. http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/ultimate-failure-of-transformational.html
There is a saying, all politics are local. I would make the humble suggestion that these words be taken to heart. If you are a parent, do not give your children over to the state via the school system. If you are unable to do this, do not sign your children up for any programs such as DARE and by all means do not sign them up for human development courses, which require permission from the parents to teach specific matters, but which find the instructors answering questions asked by students which are not course material, but which the teacher, by means of question proposed, feels obligated to answer an entire class on a topic which was never to be part of the curriculum. In addition, do not sign your children up to be “pee tested” by the school. If your child runs into trouble with drugs and alcohol, lawyer up, pay a penalty get help elsewhere, but, please do not get your child into the system of programs suggested by the state, it is an invitation for the state to haunt your child, children and your family. Your child may change, but their juvenile records remain and too often unsealed. I am not a parent, simply an aunt. If you want to know where the state makes and puts the majority of its money, I can’t help but think look at your children. The state will make every effort to use them as a means of extortion. The school will teach them how to, then not to and ask you to make the state a mediator when they have.
Supertradmum: The playing of footsy seems endless. The benefits of compromise accrue only to the state. Time for our good bishops to realize that, else it will be the death by a thousand cuts.
At present, 1. No person who believes life begins at conception has to have an abortion.
2. No person who believes that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman for the purpose of sanctifying a procreative union has to marry someone of his/her same sex.
The pro-abortion and pro-gay-marriage forces argue that outlawing both is more like establishing a state religion, whereas allowing abortion and gay marriage is state secularism. This raises the questions 1- Is state secularism a religion? 2- Has state secularism, which has existed to some degree from the founding of the republic, become aggressive state secularism (i.e. hostile to religion)?
We are not a Roman Catholic country. We are, essentially, a Christian nation. As mainstream Christianity and Judaism (Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, UCC, reform and conservative Judaism) have adapted more to the secular perspective, this has provided a religious cover to those who believe that God, if He even exists, is a god who, first and foremost, wants us to be happy, and He seems to leave it up to us to define what happiness is. In this formulation, God endorses whatever we say is right, not the other way around. In other words, our state religion is a secular humanism (e.g. Western Europe) with a weak pseudo-religious cover (e.g. Western Europe with an American flair).
Giuseppe, beg to disagree, which is why I wrote what I did. The Popes since Pius IX saw it was more than secular humanism-it is a atheistic Marxism, combined with all the modernist heresies, and heading toward global tyranny. The cult of the personality, as is North Korean and Iran, has just begun here. To call what we see secular humanism is to water-down the danger and the principles.
sorry meant to write North Korea…the adoration of the late leader was not fake…it was bred of the same narcissism are we see in POTUS. It is a good thing we have “red-necks” out there in Missouri and Iowa who have the kind of minds to withstand something they recognize but can’t say in polite company.
Supertradmum,
I wrote my post prior to reading yours. I appreciate your perspective. I’m going to follow your generous links as well when I have a break later in the afternoon. Many thanks –
G
G, I do not know why that happens. I sometimes post and it comes up after one’s before, etc. Ta muchly.
Actually, STM, I started typing my post then went for coffee, so by the time I came back and actually finsihed the post, it was over an hour later, and I hadn’t seen anything that had been posted in the meanwhile. Of course, if I had my own stash of Mystic Monk at work, I wouldn’t have had to leave the building to get some good coffee. (Trying to turn this into a commercial…)
G
Minor quibble. The mentioned dogmas don’t have any foundation, so they’ll keep shifting as ethicist Peter Singer (who is unfortunally well respected in the secular world) properly points out.
If you want to see what the end game is, just look at the norms of pre-Christian cultures.
Dogma #1: Anyone child is a burden to a parent or person (elderly or handicapped) who is a burden on society can rightfully be killed and if you are a burden it is your duty to kill yourself.
Dogma #2: Marriage is a legal contract that can be entered into by any number of legally defined persons. Nothing more. Nothing less. Anyone who doesn’t abide by this contract many be sued out of existence, assuming the mobs don’t get to you first.
Dogma #3: Might makes right. Anyone in power has the right to declare what is right and what is wrong and what the penalties are for not accepting current dogma.
Dogma #4 stands without need of correction.
Oklahoma State University just came out with this letter to Obama, (the First Gay President) and it has over 6 million views in four days. Powerful
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=JVAhr4hZDJE&vq=medium#t=19
I think you forgot Dogma #5 about the state-imposed religious headdress, the tin-foil hat.
Let me deal first with Dogma #3: I’ve watched you call to task, Rev. Zuhlsdorf, people who make fun of others’ names. You’ve rightly pointed out that most people don’t choose their names. So what you repost here without fair-minded commentary disappoints me. Perhaps you just neglected that?
To the assertion that a President is often held by the nation in a role of religious leader (without theological training, which of course can lead to highly dubious statements), this is hardly new in the history of the republic. Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address (“With malice toward none, with charity for all”) is practically a sermon on forgiveness and reconciliation. Reagan’s eloquent address after the Challenger disaster, Clinton’s speech at the Oklahoma City bombing memorial, and Bush’s remarks at the World Trade Center site have frequently been commented upon as examples of US President as effectively a religious leader. People do look to those in high office for spiritual guidance, whether that’s right or wrong. I’m sure I hardly need to tell you that “pontifex” was originally a civic title.
Actually what has led to all this has always been: Protestantism.
Secularist Marxism is the inevitable conclusion that will be reached by those for whom man himself is his own authority about God, and not God Himself, or the authority God establishes.
Thus it is inevitable that Protestantism would subdivide further until many of them reach atheism, or some vague spiritualism out of convenience.
The Secular state is an invention of Protestantism precisely because there are too many varying interpretations to deal with and thus all must be tolerated in order to avoid conflict. This is the error that will undermine itself as a whole and reduce an entire people towards a distorted ideology centered on man.
It is inevitable that democracies will fail, and secularism will give rise to a tyranny. Since this is the inevitable logical outcome, then Catholics are the only dupes who are not also fighting to establish control. What we need is a return to Catholic Confessional States, and righteous Monarchy where power descends from the top down. Christ as the true King, His Vicar in place, a monarch from biological descent, and elected officials chosen democratically at the local level as representatives for their area before the King who will rule civilly, but who is in areas or morality accountable to the Pope. America as you know it will last only so long the way it is. If Catholics do not take the lead, then another monarchy and tyrant will rise serving that abyssal one instead who shall set his throne over the world as the Anti-Christ.
God foresaw all this and warned us numerous times. In Maccabeus. In Revelation. Through Popes. And through the Apparitions at Fatima. The errors of this world have their symbolic source in that of Russia. The Pope and bishops have yet to single out that error and consecrate it to the solution God has given us, His own Mother. Who else but she can stand to correct this evil that singles out sex, women and the unborn and the means through which to spread error and damnation? Who else but Mary? Did not it seems strange that all those years ago, Mary was crying out about Russia and the errors of Communism and the French Revolution, but reduced Hitler and WWII to a mere footnote by comparison? One has only to look at the madman that was Lenin to see that Hitler was tame in comparison. Hitler was ideologically driven, however erroneous, and targeted at select persons. Lenin was evil incarnate, and hated everyone and everything equally. He could no longer even recognize anything resembling humanity. And let’s not even get into the Terror that was the French Revolution. Something many celebrate today in their ignorance of that horrible period.
JKnot: That video was made in 2010 and has nothing to do with the university, as it says in the text that displays with it on Youtube: “Note: NosPopulus is not and has never been associated in any way with Oklahoma State University or any other educational institution. Please help support the production of the next NosPopulus videos by downloading “We The People” at cdbaby.com or iTunes.” FYI
PostCatholic:
Secular Humanism is a religion.
Church/State separation as it’s understood today was always a farce. All it meant was that the Government handle civil portions of governance: police, roads, military, agriculture, housing, infrastructure etc. And the Church handle spiritual needs: morality, marriage etc.
The government has been crossing its boundary to handle morality, marriage and the things of the Church. It infringed first.
Anyway, I do agree that leaders basically represent the people. If the people are all practical secularists and atheists, they shouldn’t be surprised when their leaders embody that practicality. For too long Catholics have bought into the idea that democracy and secularism is a good thing and the be all end all of human enlightenment. They compromised their faith in favor of Americanism and the values of man: democracy and secularism over that of the Truth and God. We should be fighting to establish the Truth and have it reign supreme. Not be accommodating. That was never an option simply because secularism is flawed and contradictory where opposing ideologies are always paying lip service to everyone being equal but are really all trying to impose their ideology on everyone else anyway. Catholics have by and large been the only dopes who actually bought into the ‘fairness for everyone’ deception. It is no surprise that it will be to their undoing.
Regarding Dogma #3: I totally think Obama’s letting the economy fail intentionally so that he can then in his 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th) term come “save” us all by “proving” how “awful” capitalism is and then giving everyone free handouts a la socialism/Marxism so that way he can set himself up as our “savior” and national deity.
God help us!
Thank you for the clarification Gail F. It is making the rounds again under different circumstances, but is even more timely now with the attack on our religious freedom.
Would agree with the author that we always need to be on our guard for signs of theocracy in our government. We would probably disagree on the examples and that only one party may demonstrate elements of theocracy, but in general I think his basic frame is appropriate.
@ Supertradmum. As somebody who knew Dorothy Day, I have to say that you’re wrong about her. Both she and Peter Maurin (other founder of the Catholic Worker) considered themselves personalists, and were utterly opposed to government influence or even money in any form. Personalism was the term Peter Maurin used to describe the system of governance of monasteries and parishes (he had a very idealistic view of Irish monasticism), but he felt that these should be purely private undertakings but communities that were open to families as well as celibate persons. Both Dorothy and Peter were influenced by the Agrarian Movement in the US South. Unfortunately, once Peter was dead, Dorothy was unable to defend this and because she did not regard herself as being in authority, she could not refuse it when the late 60’s cabal that had taken over the editorship of the paper described it as an “anarchist” movement. It was not, and her philosophy was neither marxism nor anarchism.
Dorothy did not pay taxes except for local taxes, because she considered that the latter went for useful things such as roads and street lights, while federal taxes went to impose government policies. She accepted no government money for any of the work that the Worker did (the soup kitchen, the residences for homeless men and women, etc.) and would not let anyone apply for government monies.
She was a pacifist, and unfortunately this was the thing that enabled a lot of very negative influences to get into the Worker movement during the Vietnam war, because we had a flood of dope-smoking, well-off “conscientious objectors” come in. I still remember the supercilious, druggy 23 yr. old who wore handmade loafers, ordered from the same place (in London!) where Daddy ordered his.
However, the real problem was that Dorothy, like many foundresses, was not a manager or meant to be the superior of anything. She never made decisions and in fact she traveled so much, speaking to raise money, that she really wasn’t involved in the day to day; when she objected to things, she was the one who ceded; and essentially by the time she died, the entire Worker movement was busy advocating things that she found abhorrent.
The same thing happened to St Francis and many other founders and foundresses. But I don’t think the Worker movement will ever be what she hoped, because it has been entirely taken over by the left. Dorothy was a very holy person, and they are not always very practical…as Stanley Vishniewski, a long time volunteer, used to say, “martyrs are those who have to live with saints.”.
Remember, she rejected Marxism to become a Catholic. She was also a product of her times (the 1930s), when the labor movement was not necessarily a bad thing, and she remained very committed to the fantasy of labor unions as defenders of what would have been at that time the lower middle class.
She was an extremely devout and pious Catholic. I still remember how horrified she was when Daniel Berrigan celebrated mass at the Worker house on the Lower East Side and poured the Blood of Christ down the kitchen sink. She burst into tears and refused to permit mass to be celebrated at the Worker house ever again.
Traductora, well we have to agree to disagree. When young and stupid, I worked in the Catholic Worker Movement and I can assure you everyone I worked with, including priests were
Marxist and thought themselves Catholic. Oxymoron. Here is one of her quotations, which you may know. She wanted “ some union in which the individual States will agree to surrender national sovereignty in favor of a world society.” Catholic Worker, June 1955
Sorry, my statement stands.
So now let’s turn to this:
I find the phrase “voluntary association” particularly interesting because of its association with classical liberalism. Not just with Tocqueville, but also with process theologian James Luther Adams. For Adams, the voluntary association is one which a person
1. freely chooses to belong (Non-voluntary associations include structures such as our birth family, community, and political environment);
2. is given the power to negotiate her or his internal emotions and intellect with others;
3. is given the power to negotiate changes in the non-voluntary associations that rule our lives as a member of the group.
I’ll stop there with Adams because his other ideas concerning priesthood of all believers, ecclesiola in ecclesia, the psychological and political purpose of churches, etc. are enough to make conservative Catholics apoplectic. Plus they also require some background in Tillich and I know what I’m not qualified to teach.
I think it’s a really interesting attack on the President from the left, and I think it’s always useful to return to the enlightenment values on which the republic was founded. Voluntary associations are in fact a consequence of democracy–it’s impossible to have a democratic society without people caucusing into groups which provide them a sense of identity and shared purpose. (It’s also very hard to have an educated society at all without such associations, but we can leave that aside.) By way of example, the Vichy government can be said to be both a voluntary and non-voluntary association, and the French Resistance can be said to be a voluntary association; the Tuesday Night Mixed Bowling League can be called a voluntary association; the VFW, the NAACP, Our Lady of Perpetual Something Catholic Church, the Branch Davidians–these are all voluntary associations. Human beings, being essentially social mammals, have a need to organize themselves into groups that give them identity and shared purpose. When they are not allowed to do this or find that their options are severely limited, we recognize the condition as a totalitarian society. To assert that the President is attempting the “systematic demolition” of voluntary associations is actually to assert that he’s attempting the “systematic demolition” of the democratic republic itself.
I can’t say I’d be surprised to hear conservative Catholics assert just that. (I might mentally award a tin-foil miter and lappets to anyone who does, but after watching this blog for a few years I can’t say I’d be surprised anymore.)
It seems to me that politicians are rather pragmatic people and the one under discussion particularly so. It may be that his policies are disruptive to some voluntary associations (in fact, that’s probably intentional). What I observe, though, is that he and his opponents spend a lot of time cravenly pandering to voluntary associations where they have some reason to think that they can influence the group identity and catalyze towards themselves some of that prophetic purpose Adams liked to talk about. To say that voluntary associations are under “systematic destruction” one would have to see that those associations (by which we should understand human relationships, not just the institutions they create, because those relationships are far more enduring) are in fact being destroyed–not some, not a handful, not just select and particularly obnoxious hateful ones like Branch Davidians and the KKK and the Legion of St Louis, but many and systematically and usually because of a perception that their thought threatens the state.
Adams is interesting as a theologian of ecclesiology in part because his ideas about voluntary associations were born in sabbatical in the Third Reich prior to the Second World War. Voluntary association is very difficult to completely suppress.
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Johnno says: “Secularist Marxism is the inevitable conclusion that will be reached by those for whom man himself is his own authority about God, and not God Himself, or the authority God establishes.”
You underestimate the American people. We are a very religious people. I have just read Harold Bloom’s ‘The American Religion’ (it is bracing to read someone you violently disagree with about SOME things and not others). Professor Bloom says that modern Protestantism is no longer really ‘Christian’ at all but a Gnostic cult in which ‘God is within each of us’ and the end result is ‘I’ am God and my ‘accepting Jesus Christ as my yada yada’ makes me psychologically precedent of God. A blasphemy fer sure. What is REALLY interesting is that Bloom’s book was greatly inspired (as he gratefully admits) by Msgr. Ronald Knox’s brilliant book ‘Enthusiasm’. (!)
He concentrates in particular on the repulsive takeover of the Southern Baptists, America’s premier Protestant group by a Fundamentalist Coup of ignorant TV evangelists, shucksters, hucksters and pompous asses. The American Triumphalist marriage of Protestant Pride and bone-headed ignorance gave us Bush Jr. and ended in Obama. The Catholic church is indeed between a rock and a hard place in secular/Gnostic Protestant America.
Absurd. No one is being imprisoned or fined in the USA for speaking out against homosexuality, as this pastor claims. SCOTUS recently upheld the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest at funerals with their “God hates fags” signs. The rhetoric about “the people’s hero” and how Obama is “reigning gloriously” and how the Catholic Church is the “enemy” of this new “state religion” is exaggerated fear-mongering, quite at odds with the example being set by Cardinal Dolan with his bipartisan Al Smith dinner and by the Knights of Columbus with their new campaign for civil discourse. If I went to this pastor’s church, I would be disgusted to find such rantings in the bulletin. He is entitled to his opinions, but as pastor of a parish he should be able to discriminate between his own personal views and what is appropriate for the People of God, who are a very big tent.
@supertradmum. Sorry to be late with my response – I’ve had a big translation to work on.
I think you missed my point altogether. I wasn’t talking about the Worker movement, and in fact I said that it had been taken over by the left. I was talking about Dorothy Day.
Did you know her?
quotus quisque reliquus qui rem publicam vidisset? igitur verso civitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris
Tacitus
Supertradmum says: Here is one of her quotations, which you may know. She wanted “ some union in which the individual States will agree to surrender national sovereignty in favor of a world society.” This is from an article by a former associate of Dorothy Day’s, Robert Ludlow.
It doesn’t necessarily reflect Day’s views, or even those he espoused while a member of the CW community.
Chrysologus, Chick-fil-as are vandalized, mayors of large cities and university presidents state that a particular restaurant is “not welcome in our city”. People lose their jobs because of opinions expressed, not even at work, but privately. No, arrests are not happening yet. But there are REAL penalties assessed against the dogmas of this “religion”.
digdigby– “You underestimate the American people. We are a very religious people.” the Cuban people were ALL saying the same thing right up till the time two-faced castro came down from the mountains with a Rosary around his neck (spit!) they were all so sure that their neighbors adhered to the pure Catholic faith as nurtured by such men as Archbishop Emeritus of Santiago de Cuba ( Sancti Iacobi in Cuba); Archbishop St. Antonio María Claret y Clará, C.M.F. † (St.Anthony Marie Claret) but the populace had been so corrupted by lax morals encouraged by pagan religions that it was real easy pickens for castro.
“Dogma #4: Enemy Number One of the new state religion is, by and large, the Christian faith and, with special intransigence, the Catholic Church. Measures must accordingly be taken to compel the recusant authorities of the Roman Catholic faith to genuflect at the new religion’s altar. (Thus the new Health and Human Services mandate).” scapegoating at it’s best. “Scapegoating can also cause oppressed groups to lash out at other oppressed groups. Even when injustices are committed against a minority group by the majority group, minorities sometimes lash out against a different minority group in lieu of confronting the more powerful majority”—- Mount up Church Militant! — “And there came to him the Pharisees and Sadducees tempting: and they asked him to shew them a sign from heaven. [2] But he answered and said to them: When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. [3] And in the morning: Today there will be a storm, for the sky is red and lowering. You know then how to discern the face of the sky: and can you not know the signs of the times? [Matthew 16:3] ”
[8] And if a man desire much knowledge: she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come: she knoweth the subtilties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments: she knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages. [Wisdom 8:8]
I agree with Cathy 100%. I will prepare my child b/c i know what anarchy looks like.
Our Lady Queen of Victory pray for us!
Chrysologus, you lose out my tin foil miter and lappets prize. Not even close. Thanks for playing, though. [ROLF! Gotta hand it to you.] Next time, leave the deductive reasoning at home and bring some megadittoes.
No one is being imprisoned or fined in the USA for speaking out against homosexuality.
Chesterton might have said or meant, what I, being cowardly not only in speech but even in opinion, do not dare to say or mean: “I wish they were.”
Or in the words of Peregrin Took, “I do not want to be in a battle. But waiting at the edge of one I cannot escape is even worse.”
Always remember that (and this time Chesterton really did say that) to about any man imprisonment is a mere trifle, compared with losing one’s job. And fines are mere pennies, compared with taxes. And while not so hard as losing one’s job (or arguably imprisonment), being a virtual outcast from society is not so light either.
Roughly two centuries ago, a man (I think it was de Tocqueville, and before writing it I had not even seen that he was already mentioned in this commentary box) said that in America censorship has gone much farther than in Europe; in Europe it was only that publishers were imprisoned (and became popular heroes to be hailed in students’ songs etc. to this day), in America the very thought of publishing dissenting material had been removed from potential publishers’ minds. (I’m not praising the Europe of today here. It has quickly followed in America’s footsteps and is now, I guess, worse in this respect, for America after all at least had more training to be a liberal society in the European sense of the word.)
Dear @Johnno, while what you say is praiseworthy, I just add some little clarifications. Nothing will be to the Catholics’ undoing. More important than establishing an actual monarchy (which due to essential leanings within the soul of the American people will not work, as little as in Switzerland), we have to uphold that real authority, even in a republic, does come from above. Also, I do not believe democracy is bound to fail, at least not if the people is faithfully Christian. And much as we may fight for any thing, a Christian does not make a revolution, so in the words of Bl. Clemens, and please dear @Fr. Z excuse the length:
‘Certainly, we Christians do not make a revolution! Faithfully we shall go on doing our duty in obedience to God, from love to our people and fatherland. Our soldiers shall fight and die for our country, but not for those men who by their cruel measures against our monks and nuns, their brothers and sisters, are wounding our hearts and bringing the [German] name into disgrace before God and the fellow men. We shall go on to fight bravely against the exterior enemy. Against the interior enemy who torments us and beats us we cannot fight with weapons. Only one device remains: strong, tough, hard perseverance! Get hard! Stay fast! We are daily seeing and experiencing what is between the new doctrines imposed on us since a couple of years, for whose sake religion has been banned from schools, has suppressed our clubs [the sermon is from Germany, 1941], is willing to destroy Catholic kindergardens: profound hatred against Christianity which they want to exterminate. […] Get hard! Stay fast! We are, in this moment, not hammer, but anvil. Others, strangers and renegades mostly, are hammering on us, want with force of violence shape differently our people, ourselves, our youth, want to twist us away from the straight posture towards God. We are anvil and not hammer! But do take a look in the smithy! Ask the master-smith and let him tell you: What is smithied on the anvil gets its shape not only from the hammer, but also from the anvil. The anvil cannot and need not strike back; it must only be fast, only be hard! If it is tough, fast, hard enough, then mostly the anvil lasts longer than the hammer. However hotly the hammer is beating, the anvil stands there in quiet firmness and will for a long time keep on shaping what is smithied anew.[…] What is smithied in this time between hammer and anvil is our youth; the adolescent, yet unfinished, still educatable youth! We cannot withdraw them from the hammerstrokes of unfaith, of antichristianity, of the wrong doctrines and morals. What, then, is it, that is presented to them, is pushed in them in the meetings of those youth associations [I repeat: Germany 1941 and not the situation of today] to which they, as is said, have acceded willingly and with their parents’ accord? What do they hear in school, into which today all children are forced regardless the parents’ will? What do they read in the new school books? Christian parents, just let them show to you the books, especially the history books of the higher schools! You shall be horrified with which neglect of historical truth they are trying to fill the unfledged children with mistrust against Christianity and Church, nay even with hatred against the Christian faith! In the favored public instructional institutions, […] [including] the institutions for education of future teachers, any Christian influence, nay even any really religious activity is excluded on principle. […] We are anvil and not hammer! It is a pity but you cannot withdraw your children, the noble, but still unhardened and untoughened raw material, from the hammerstrokes of anti-faith, of anti-Churchism. But the anvil also takes its part in shaping. Let your parental house, let your parental love and loyalty, let your exemplary Christian life be the strong, tough, fast and unwavering anvil which absorbs the enemy beats, ever again strengthens the as yet weak force of the young men and makes them fast in the will not to let themselves bend away from the posture towards God. What is smithied these days is, almost without exception, all of us. How many are dependent by pensions, state annuities, child subsidies and so on! Who, today, is an independent and free master in his business? Maybe, especially at war, strong surveillance and guiding, nay even combinative unions and enforced steering of production and economy, of manufacturing and consumption is necessary, and who will not willingly bear this for love of people and fatherland! But that includes a dependence of every individual from many persons and offices which not only restrict the freedom to act, but also bring into heavy danger and tempation the free independence of attitude, when the said persons and offices happen to have an anti-Christian worldview and seek to push it through the men dependent from them. A fortiori, this dependence exists with all state officials. And which courage, which heroic courage may be necessary for some state officials, in spite of all pressure still prove and publicly confess themselves as true Christians, as faithful Catholics! We are, at this time, anvil and not hammer! Stay strong and fast and unwavering just like the anvil in all beats that are whizzing down to it; in most loyal service of people and fatherland, but also ever ready to act in utmost courage of sacrifice according to the word: “One must serve God more than men!” Through conscience, formed by faith, God speaks to each of us. Obey always invariably to the voice of conscience. Take for example and model that Prussian Minister of Justice (I’ve spoken of him already) to whom once King Frederic the Great announced his suggestion to knock over his legally issued decision according to the monarch’s wish, and change it. Then this real nobleman, a Lord Münchhausen [no, I’m not joking, it says so in the sermon] gave to his king this magnificent answer: “My head is at Your Majesty’s disposal, but my conscience is not!” He wanted to say: “I’m ready to die for my king, nay even I’d accept death from the hangman’s hand in obedience.” My life is to the king, not my conscience; this is to God! Is the lineage of such noblemen, with this attitude and the will to act accordingly, are the Prussian state officials of this kind extinct? Aren’t there anymore burghers and farmers, craftsmen and workers of the same conscientiousness and same magnanimity? I cannot, I will not believe it! And therefore once again: Get hard! Get fast! Stay sturdy, like the anvil under the hammerstrokes! It may be that obedience towards God and loyalty towards conscience cost to me or you life, freedom, or motherland. But “Rather die than sin!” May God’s grace without which we can do nothing give to you and me [and the humble translator] this unwavering firmness and keep us in it! […] St. Ludger admonishes you, and I, his 70th successor on the see of Münster, admonish you with the words which in the first persecution the Apostle Peter, the first Pope, wrote to the Christians in distress: “Humble yourselves under God’s almighty hand, and then at the right hour he will answer your prayers. Throw all worries onto Him, for He will take care of you. Be sober and vigil, for your enemy the Devil goes around like a lion roaring for pray… Resist him standfast in the Faith… The God of all graces who has called you trough Jesus Christ to go into His Glory after short time of passion, He shall equip you, strengthen you and make you fast! To Him be Glory and Honor and Dominion forever and ever. Amen“ (1 Petr 5).’
I’m going to go read more of the Pastor’s Pages!
I don’t know the moment the USA dream began to crumble. Sometimes I think it was when they signed the final draft of the Constitution, while key men were absent. Other times I think it was when President Wlson first called the Constitution a “living document”.
An excellent volume : http://www.tomwoods.com/books/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-american-history/
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