The world is going nuts. I have often felt a bit like Cassandra, but … Cassandra was right.
Here is another take.
From the pen of John Zmirak at The Stream with my emphases and comments:
The expected Supreme Court decision imposing on 50 states an entirely newunderstanding of marriage, and the frenzy of hatred that gay activists have stoked against Indiana for trying to shelter religious believers from crippling lawsuits should wake us to a cold and stark reality: The age of tolerance in America is vanishing before your eyes. The question is how Christians and other people of faith and good will are going to respond.
Let’s break this down in stark and simple terms: Not only were gay activists willing to overturn an act of Congress (the Defense of Marriage Act) on spurious grounds; they also wish to force their libertine idea of marriage onto voters in each of the 50 states, voiding dozens of laws on an issue that has always rested with the states. [So, it is not just an issue of sodomy. This is a constitutional issue.]
Not satisfied with that, these activists want the full force of the regulatory state to compel every single American to affirm and accept the delusion of same-sex “marriage,” under the same civil and criminal penalties that now forbid discrimination by race. [BUT… the “gay” thing is nothing like the civil rights issues of the 60’s. Comparing the “gay” thing and race is like comparing apples and carrots.] A famous case was a 70-year-old Christian florist who declined to decorate a gay wedding, and was crushed by a successful lawsuit and the full force of the ACLU’s legal team. She was one of the Brave New Law’s first victims. She will be far from the last. [That’s for sure.]
These activists use the power of city governments (as in San Francisco) to try to intimidate isolated Catholic schools into abandoning Christian teaching on sexual ethics. Such zealots corrupt the academic authorities who grant accreditation in order to financially cripple schools such as Gordon College that maintain Christian “morals” clauses as part of their hiring policies.
Those who defend the reality of marriage, including even unbelievers who defend freedom of religion and association, are not simply wrong — they are “bigots” and “haters” who deserve to be fined, boycotted and bankrupted; [Crucifige! Crucifige eum!] to lose their jobs like Brendan Eich, the ex-CEO of Mozilla, and face financial ruin — as Elton John hopes to break Dolce & Gabbana, and [follow the trajectory] as Apple CEO Tim Cook hopes to break the entire State of Indiana. Politicians are joining in, with the Connecticut governor, and Seattle and San Francisco mayors, banning official travel to Indiana. [It goes from bakers and florists, to schools to entire states. What’s next?]
As Austin Ruse points out, states such as Indiana are not giving Christians a pass to broadly discriminate against gays. Such religious freedom laws “deal with the very narrow question of whether vendors can be forced by the state to participate in religious ceremonies that violate their own religious consciences.”
Given the fanatical response to a modest bill virtually identical to a federal law upheld by courts and bills on the books in twenty other states, [QUAERITUR…] how long before the call comes out for the “bigots” to be imprisoned? The First Amendment won’t protect us, if leaders like Hillary Clinton have their way; in public statements she followed President Obama in replacing the Constitution’s “free exercise” with “freedom of worship.”
The implicit message shouldn’t be missed: Say what you want in church for an hour every Sunday, but the rest of the week belongs to us.Your homophobic beliefs deserve no more protection than the religious use of peyote.
Scary.
Get your heads into that mental place where you will be able to face the persecution that is coming. You will be vilified, in especially venomous ways, even within the Church by catholics seeking to twist the Church into an instrument of social re-engineering.
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I was just on campus, today, and there was a “quad” preacher out haranguing the students. Try asking people, young or old who God is. The answer will reveal a lot about how this situation could come about. I hate to say this, but we Christians bear a part of this burden, because we did not speak out enough years ago, but let notions of tolerance swamp out our witness to the Laws of God. If you can make God into a God who loves everybody, where love = accepts everybody’s depravities as good, then God becomes whatever you want him to be. That is the primary problem, today – not consequentialism, but, rather, a type of non-consequentialism, where anything goes as long as I want it and I can rationalize my wants. No one cares about consequences, anymore, because no one cares for rational thought. We need to get religion out the clutches of the secular legal systems, as if they spoke for God, and show them a faith made visible, because they and most of society have forgotten what God looks like, anymore.
The Chicken
Just an aside, gay activists are not generally fans of Hillary Clinton, partly because her husband signed Defense of Marriage into law, and partly because she tries to triangulate on the issue and does not appear sufficiently enthusiastic about same-sex marriage.
The ‘age of tolerance’ was a fraud, a long lasting fraud, but a fraud nonetheless. Likewise the era of so called ‘religious freedom’ that was foisted on the world starting in the 18th century. So called tolerance and religious freedom can lead to nothing else but atheism. If a society says that all religions have an equal right to a place at its table then that society is by definition saying that there is no God. In some places this transition happens quicker and in others it takes a bit longer but that result is inevitable. That was the purpose of these frauds from the outset, and the men who were their champions in the beginning were fairly straightforward about what they intended.
And once God is fully jettisoned from public life then the phony tolerance goes with Him.
Well this will certainly separate the serious Christians from the social Christians won’t it.
Anyone with half a brain should have seen this train wreck coming a mile away. The question now is how to protect oneself against the coming persecution which I see as “soft” as in you’re not socially acceptable if you don’t hew to the secular world view. Career loss or stagnation is just one facet of what, quite frankly, has already arrived.
djc
As a student of history, I’ve pondered how something like this will play out here in the US. I mean when religious persecutions or wars erupted in other parts of the world, it was because one or both sides were willing to use violence to achieve their ends. Somehow I just don’t see gays and lesbians organizing themselves into “hit squads”. In this country, it is the Right who have most of the guns, as the Left is very much anti-gun. As another poster said, this would probably more of a “soft” persecution.
“Somehow I just don’t see gays and lesbians organizing themselves into “hit squads”. ”
They are hit squads. They just hit the pocketbook instead of the body. They throw insults like the Romans threw spears.
The Chicken
“Somehow I just don’t see gays and lesbians organizing themselves into “hit squads”.”
Yet.
I have watched videos of TFP Student Action visiting various “tolerant” college campuses these past few years. They’ve suffered having leaflets stolen and burned, a sign torn, and even one or two members being assaulted. One member got hit by a water bottle that had been flung from a moving car, another was actually punched.
In my own experience, praying outside abortion mills, I’ve heard various epithets being flung as people drove past, I’ve seen “the bird” being proffered, and I’ve even watched a man come within inches of slapping a counselor in the face.
Make no mistake, the Left’s obsession with guns does nothing to make them peaceful.
Fists or feet being used at two feet can be every bit as hazardous as a bullet fired from 20 feet.
Get them angry enough–not difficult, even when being quite peaceful–and they’re as prone to violence as anyone else.
And, of course, the bishops are silent. When they’re not, it’s to sacrifice teachers who try to uphold the Faith – and this has been going on for years.
The silence of the politicians during the current Indiana firestorm seems to indicate that they either have few morals or lack just the ones to speak up on this subject and tell these people to stuff it.
“Somehow I just don’t see gays and lesbians organizing themselves into ‘hit squads.'”
They may not have to, if they can use the legal system (courts, police) to enforce their agenda — coercively, as needed — for them.
DJC,
Persecutions don’t stop at the “soft” button. The Enemy brings out the hard stuff as soon as he thinks he can get away with it. In other words, as soon as he thinks he has successfully backed us into the corner, isolated us sufficiently, to come off to the general public as justified in applying the hard stuff. That means enough of the population sufficiently indifferent, hardened in indifference, toward the target of the persecution so as no longer to feel any empathy for them.
We are very close to that now. Even on the “right” end of the spectrum, among Libertarians, one now finds a kind of unempathetic hardness toward “social conservatives.”
It won’t take long for things to flip. Ask Alexsander Kerensky.
Those who think liberals won’t resort to deadly force are naive. In Germany, China, and Russia, the followers did much of their brutal bullying and mobbing without guns.
Hitler was voted into office after the Nazis’ and their Sturmabteilung (storm division) fought it out on the streets with the communists and other groups almost completely using fists, fire and other weapons beside guns. A Mob can do much without guns.
St Michael Defend us!
Dennis Martin,
I hope you’re wrong but time will tell. What form(s) do you think a “hard” persecution take?
djc
It is time to learn from the Christians who have lived with the Muslims in the Middle East or those who have lived under Communist and other tyrannies. Our Christian opposition will have to be subtle and not overt and we will have to be clever, like Jesus calls us to be anyway, and certain professions like florists who regularly schedule wedding or bakers who regularly bake wedding cakes will have to stop and put up signs: “this bakery does not bake wedding cakes”. This is the work of the devil and he has all the amunition he needs to destroy us. But the Church will survive and persevere, though we may have to learn to live like Catholics have done in Communist China for the last 65 years (who are growing, while Catholics in the up-to-now tolerant U.S. are stagnating).
A distinction should be made between a refusal of products or services to persons who are “gay” and a refusal to participate in activities a business owner finds objectionable.
For example:
1. A man (gay or not) wants to purchase flowers.
He should not be refused.
2. A man (gay or not) wants to employ a florist to decorate a room where he will take another man to be his “wife”.
A florist should be allowed to refuse.
It seems to me that the legal wording should address this distinction. For example, a Neo Nazi community wants a florist to decorate their headquarters: the florist should be allowed to refuse. On the other hand, if the Neo Nazis want to purchase flowers, they should not be denied. Am I missing something here?
Tzabiega,
Sorry, but no cigar. Putting up that kind of sign itself will be outlawed. Notice how the racebaiters have operated. Because overt racism is now rare, they have invented a new category, micro-agression. They have moved the goalposts. Putting up that sort of sign will be proof that the owner is a “hater,” “anti-social,” “counter-revolutionary”–trot out all the labels that were used in China and Russia and Germany to stigmatize the isolated minority.
Besides, for a baker or a florist not to do weddings at all is to pretty much kneecap his business. Even if putting up such a sign would not be taken as proof of homophobia, putting it up would destroy his business.
Which
is
what
they
want.
Economic boycotts of Jews were among the first stages in Germany after 1933.
One problem is that we are always fighting a defensive action (and pretty poorly), never an offensive action. The other side is continually on the offensive. We need to be united as a group and go on the vocal offensive, but, alas, the last fifty years has done a lot of subtle action to splinter Christian group cohesion. I blame the liberal Protestants, first of all, and then the liberal Catholics. Unless we either unite as a single voice or excommunicate and shun the liberal machine of these groups, this battle will be lost for a day, a day, and a half.
The best single thing would be to get the government out of education, since many young people are being brainwashed by the current regime.
The Chicken
Everyone should keep in mind that the purpose of persecution is not to slaughter everyone. It is to intimidate most adherents of the target group and to intimidate all of the general population in the “middle” into silence and fear by making public examples of a few members of the target group.
If these demagogic tactics succeed in frightening most traditional Christians out of public accommodation, retail-service businesses, they will have succeeded in a big way. Granted, Christians could save themselves partially by withdrawing to other kinds of businesses that don’t come under the “you may not discriminate” laws. But the point will have nonetheless been registered: you and your beliefs have no place in the public square, cannot be tolerated. Retreat to your squalor and live from hand to mouth trying to stay out of sight, if you can.
The Indiana law was designed to make the distinction someone upthread so clearly stated: it is wrong to refuse to sell a cake to a lesbian couple. It ought not be wrong to refuse to help that same lesbian couple celebrate its “wedding.”
The laws over the past 20 years have tried to make that distinction. The demogogic gay activists have simply lied about the Indiana law. Because we have, de facto, no critical mainstream press asking questions and eviscerating the idiocy of the demogogic lie, the vast majority of low information Twitterized people in the country are as firmly convinced that the Indiana law permitted a baker to refuse to sell a cupcake to a lesbian as they were convinced that Michael Brown did “hands-up, don’t shoot”.
Because the media has now added overt hostility to Christian faith to its decades of utterly uncritical, unprofessional reporting on all sorts of issues, it will be next to impossible to correct the Lie. The Lie is now created and cannot be uncreated. Hence the politicians crumple like card houses and the bishops lie cupine. I thought Mike Pence would hold out better, but he too has crumpled.
The lie will be put to the Lie only in the fires of the Persecution, by those who witness with their faithfulness to truth, despite the cost. Unless the Enemy, as portrayed in Michael D. O’Brien’s Children of the Last Days trilogy, decides to deprive us even of that witness, by just “disappearing” people into mental hospitals and drugging them up so that they are incapable even of speaking or acting their witness.
It appears that the Governor of Indiana is going to give in to the gay lobby and liberals, reported by Breitbart. Is there any leaders in the US that have some courage?
Stealing a 70-year-old-woman’s home and money and putting her out on the street with no food or shelter is quite deadly, as any homeless population can attest. I’d suggest a book to read: ” One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in order to get ideas now on how to manage day-to-day life with scarce resources.
I regret to say that I have forgotten the name of the bishop or layman, who stated a few years ago that, “The current bishop of your diocese will die in his bed. His successor will die in prison. His successor will be martyred by the State.”
I believe that we have lost so many of the current generation, from political correctness through to the educational process at public schools and colleges to an aggressive moral relativism. I can hear the cry coming down through the ages, “What is truth?”
Pilate’s children abound, So will the concentration camps.
They
I fear for young Catholics who are increasingly going to grow up surrounded and immersed in a culture where “you must approve of homosexual behavior” on the basis of “fairness” and “equality” and if you don’t it is treated as something horrific and deserving of contempt and consequences. I was at someone’s house yesterday and she was watching multiple news channels’ discussions of the religious freedom law in Alabama. On the morally liberal Fox show “Outnumbered” just as on CNN, the portrayal was that “gay people must be protected from discrimination”–one mini-skirted Fox female insisted that the law must have provisions that would protect gay people from religious people denying them service or otherwise “discriminating against them”, and another of the mini-skirted Fox women pointed out, but without really defending religious freedom, that that would defeat the purpose of the law. On CNN they were full-throated about how outrageous the law protecting religious conscience supposedly is. My friend and I were just disgusted, but kids are the ones most in danger from this wall-to-wall propaganda.
@Steve 51b31 – that was Cardinal George
From Martin Niemöller
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
We have to educate Catholics about what is happening and try to get them to remove the glasses of relativism and denial that they are currently looking through – if it is not already too late.
Soft persecution is already happening. A harder persecution is starting. I do not know how fast the oncoming storm is coming, but it is coming. As a Permanent Deacon I am prepared to go to prison if that is what must happen, I do not fear for myself, I truly fear for my children and their children because of what it seems the world will become in the next twenty to thirty years, unless we can get it stopped and turned around.
Mother Mary pray for us
St. Michael Defend us
@steve51b31
You were thinking of Cardinal Francis Eugene George who said “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.” (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_George )
I work for a large manufacture. Every so often a customer (another company) will submit a request for a quote to buy something from us and we decline. Maybe what they want will take too much time that could be devoted to other developments. Maybe they are a high-maintenance customer. Maybe there is little hope of repeat business. Whatever the case, we simply decline, they so somewhere else and life goes on. Another company I know solves this issue by giving the quote, but at such a high margin the customer won’t take them up on it. So if a large company and pick and choose who they want to do business with, why can’t a mom-and-pop?
As cpttom noted above, many of the leadership and upper hierarchy of the Sturm Abteilung, SA’s, were homosexual gang toughs. Hitler used the SA’s to gain control of the government and the people brutally, and then during the “night of the long knives” took them out. The keepers went to the SS, the others who survived, went to the camps.
Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.
some decades from now, this generation will stand before God and inquire why it was condemned to live in an immoral age rather than the ones enjoyed by its ancestotancestors, which activactively fostered Christian faith.
The Church will survive. Marriage I am far less certain of. Quite frankly, at this point, I’m willing to throw my support behind direct financial payments to those who enter into wedlock. The stakes may well be too high to risk anything less.
What a scary situation, and I fear deeply for my two little boys who have to grow up in this depravity. I just can’t comprehend how it is illegal for a florist or baker to simply refuse service to someone wanting products or services to be used in morally objectionable ceremonies. It’s the exact same scenario as Obamacare compelling doctors to perform abortions even if they find it morally objectionable. It essentially says the doctor’s time, energy, work-product, resources, etc. are not his, they are the state’s! This is communism/totalitarianism/call-it-what-you-will.
No, rather, this is diabolical. It has all the marks of Satan and he is on the march. We’re in for a very ugly future.
‘Gay rights’ activists believe in tolerance and diversity only insofar as you agree with them.
You are right Father. Persecution is coming.
It will be quicker and more legally specific on your side of the pond, and and more subtle over here. But come it will.
And why not. Why shouldn’t our enemies think they have us at last? The Catholic Church in recent years must have seemed almost eager to comply with the Secular word. All the things we worry about at present, Communion for the divorced for active homosexuals, the downplaying of the Ordained priesthood, “equality” of the sexes in the liturgy, and now the environment and the death penalty, these are all matters that the Secular world has set priorities on – and the Church is now seen to be following!
On top of this the Catholic Church is now seen to be overly feminised, preoccupied excessively with love and Heaven, in spite of the fact that Christ frequently showed righteous anger and spoke very specifically of Hell.
The dire fate of our Christian brethren being annihilated in the Middle East is being effectively ignored.
No wonder our enemies think they have us?
The old, “hard” Left of the Marxist-Leninist and Maoist Communist varieties had/have no regard for the homosexualist agenda. It is/was irrelevant in their struggle for a “workers’ paradise”. Rather, the LGBT got their main support from the “soft” Left, Social Democrats/Socialists of Western Europe and later on the US Democrat party. To this day, Russia and China have nothing but contempt for the gay agenda.
Starting in 2011, I was documenting on my blog the five stages of persecution as I saw them happening. Angry commentators told me that they did not want to follow my blog anymore as I was “too negative”. Sadly, they do not know history and I do. When Great Britain passed the ssm bill, I was there watching the debates on the telly and seeing Archbishop Peter Smith being derided in public by the special committee of Parliament which was set up to get “religious” views. Six “Catholics” on the committee were not only pro-ssm, but one was a lesbian who could hardly wait to marry her partner. The good Archbishop, who held the Catholic position and stated it clearly, was actually laughed at on T.V. by these members of Parliament.
As I wrote then, two years ago, and as I write now, it all started with a marriage before, an illegal, immoral marriage between Ann Boleyn and Henry VIII, which directly led to the destruction of one of the most Catholic nations in the world at the time, Mary’s Dowry, England. The Church has never recovered the Catholic identity, nor the strength of character She had before that rebellion.
Sex, lust, power, all tools of Satan to destroy the Church and bring souls to hell. What is mostly my concern, despite the fact that many of us bloggers will be shut down or fined, and priests fined for not cooperating with the request for “marriages” among ss couples, will be the huge rebellion of so many wishy-washy Catholics (61%) who do not mind ssm. The remnant will be very, very small.
I expect to be hearing Mass behind a hedgerow, or in prison….and we shall see martyrs. make no mistake about the number of good priests who will say “no”.
Here in the Diocese of San Francisco there appears to be a continuing witch hunt. Not a week goes by but there’s a “massive” protest by “a majority of Catholics” or there’s the call for dismissal of someone. Or a biased article in the media, especially not-really-catholic media, interviewing all sorts of dissidents to get the correct (for their use) slant.
I think most Catholics either aren’t really aware of what’s going on or haven’t been asked how they feel about it. And then there are those who stay silent out of fear. I’ve met a few.
What’s important for the media is to get the slanderous statement made. Doesn’t matter if it’s later proven false.
Not to be contrary–because I see the writing on the wall the same as everyone here–but just in regards to this Indiana law, isn’t anyone else concerned with the fact that it’s *not* the same RFRA that we have at the Federal level and in 19 other states, despite Pence and every defender of the law claiming it is? I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation of the differences, and since I’m no legal expert, it makes me uncomfortable that the opponents are pointing the changes out as “the problem” and the defenders are ignoring it. If this was meant to match the same situation existing in all these other places, why on Earth did they make changes? And why are they pretending they didn’t, or at least not explaining it? The story seems off to me.
I work for one of the 379 companies (HP) that arrogantly signed the amicus brief to the Supreme Court, urging them to equalize sodomy with marriage under the specious argument that it would make the administration of their benefit packages easier. If it was really a matter of expense, they could treat unmarried people as unmarried people and save even more. Several of us are going to rip the management on this during our next employee survey. I also noticed that National Organization for Marriage was surprisingly on the list of charities that they matched funds for, so they got a little extra donation from my company on my behalf for all the trouble we’re causing. Next time I am able, I’ll see if I can make that a larger donation.
Now is the time for the Church to get out of the marriage business. Let them get marriage by the state and come to the Church for the Sacrament after. If not, these loons are going to try to force the Church to perform same-sex and every other kind of marriage that the state demands. Our Bishops need to act before we are hauled off to prison, or just beaten to death. We must understand, there will be no trial. The Church/ Priests are guilty until proven innocent, and there will be no chance to prove anything.
Hey, what about all the Big Companies which do business in and with the 76 countries in the world where homosexuality is ILLEGAL. and where some people are stoned for such behavior?
http://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/
Hypocrisy…..as there no Apple Computers or Adidas shoes in Saudi Arabia? Are there no Levi stores or sold in the United Arab Emirates or on the island of St. Lucia? Hypocrisy for such names to want to boycott states in America which want religious freedom, not the same are freedom of worship.
It is/was irrelevant in their struggle for a “workers’ paradise”.
Or even a sign of the decadence of the class-enemy.
Pardon me if this is ignorant, but why must cake makers or florists give any reason for refusing the custom of those who think they are “marrying” a person of the same sex? Businesses all over the nation post signs stating that they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Make the customer *prove* it’s discriminatory. “Uh, gee, we just have too many other cake orders right now… better go somewhere else.”
Marc M and Boniface:
As you could see from comments on this thread and elsewhere, most people are not interested in the details of this case. People will form a strong opinion about this without ever reading the wording of the law. As Spock would say: fascinating!
In the US anyway, I wonder what the election of a solidly Christian gentleman from Texas, one who believes in the rule of law and the Constitution, might do to upset the apple cart of these rabid fascists. 2016 is coming, and this one is going to count like none before.
Violence and homosexuality go hand in hand. The data is out there, if it hasn’t been scrubbed by now.
“Now is the time for the Church to get out of the marriage business. Let them get marriage by the state and come to the Church for the Sacrament after. If not, these loons are going to try to force the Church to perform same-sex and every other kind of marriage that the state demands.”
Sorry, but I can’t agree with this one. Make no mistake, I believe homosexual “marriages” are a horribly repugnant thing, and I absolutely believe that providing government incentives for alternative lifestyles will hurt the traditional family……but probably not nearly as much as stripping away any benefits for it whatsoever.
Fr. Jim?
Boniface,
You should read up on the cases in Oregon, New Mexico etc. The putative customers filed legal complaints, usually with the state human rights commission or something along those lines, sometimes in the regular courts. The merchants were found guilty of violating non-discrimination public accommodation laws and fined heavily. The same thing has happened in Canada. In some of these cases it seems likely that the “customers” deliberately targeted the merchant in order to “prove a point.”
Proving oneself innocent in these circumstances is next to impossible. Merchants are on a knife’s edge. The wrong words out of their mouths and their can be hauled into court. That is why many of us are concerned.
People must understand that the judicial system is now packed with those hostile to our faith. We have lawlessness at the highest levels of the executive branch and in the bureaucracy. We can no longer assume that making a solid, rational case for anything will matter much. The official judicial philosophy of the president of the United States and of many he has appointed is that law should be interpreted “flexibly” according “higher” values than mere letter of law, which translated means a shift toward rule of person rather than rule of law.
There will be no recourse through the courts or the legislatures, since the executive branch’s flunkeys believe they rightfully may choose which laws to enforce and which not to enforce or that, in the enforcement, bureaucrats issue regulations (more detailed laws) more or less as they wish, always, of course, in the service of a “higher good”. In part the federal legislature has created this mess by passing omnibus legislation that establishes a general framework but permits bureacrat-regulators to issue the “real” laws in the form of regulations.
The Constitution and the courts will not save us. Even Mark Levin’s Article V state conventions, even if 3/4 of the states agreed on amendments to reform the power of the federal executive and bureaucracy and of Congress, would only accomplish that goal if the overreaching, oppressive Federal branch meekly acknowledged its overreach and carried out the Article V mandated reforms.
Not
going
to
happen.
But the Article V approach should be tried anyway.
When once you depart down the road of lawlessness, which is what 1968 represented, you make reform by means of respect for corrective laws next to impossible. Perhaps intervention 30 years ago might have reversed the course, but since 1988 (even during the period 1980-88) all or parts of both parties have colluded in growing the power of the executive branch it its bureaucracy. I think we have passed the tipping point.
Pray that I am wrong.
Kathleen10
No president can change the trajectory. The bureaucracy can destroy any president it sets out to destroy. Even if a incredibly gifted president-leader managed to move reform legislation through Congress, the fundamentally lawless mentality of a rising majority of the culture would do a “non serviam”.
The Department of Justice is now loaded with radical civil service appointees who cannot be removed because of civil service protection. The federal appeals courts are loaded similarly because the Democrats politicized judicial appointments 30 years ago (Bork), denied George Bush many of his appointments, and then railroaded many of Obama’s during the last Congress. Beyond that the law schools are hopelessly politicized. The chatterati, the intellectuals, the journolists, the financial sector–all the movers and shakers are now post-Christian, deeply-contraceptive, deeply anti-nature and thus deeply lawless. They don’t realize it but they have no god but Power.
The problem is far beyond what even the most gifted single leader can address. We have a culture that is anti-culture, that hates law itself, hates nature itself. No, not everyone is like that but the elites of the culture and, in a curious but really not surprising way, also the hoi polloi in the “just gimme mine and leave me alone” segments of the culture, are like that now.
Nature is real and powerful and in the end will reassert Herself as the truth from the Creator. Human nature, divine nature, natural law cannot be buried for ever. But they can be buried for the lifetimes of one or more generations–until the prosperity and comfort built up over centuries is finally dissipated and brutal scramble for survival sets in. The truths of Caritas and Creator will eventually be rediscovered, in desperation and calamity at the bottom. But not before much evil and bloodshed has been visited upon this and other lands.
“Somehow I just don’t see gays and lesbians organizing themselves into ‘hit squads.’”
That’s because they don’t have to. They point their finger and they have the “muscle” of the government do it for them. The threat of violence is from the government. Do this or face x penalty. That penalty can be escalated to a violent one pretty easily.
This is a very depressing comment thread. I wish I could go to the Chrism Mass tonight and be with the bishop and people from all over the diocese, because it is an encouraging thing to go to, but I am losing out this year. :-(
Well I suspect that Timothy McVeigh may have been just ahead of the times, then. It amazes me that a government would recognize sexual acts as a form of civil rights. It starts with homosexuality but that is just one of many deviant sexual acts that humans can indulge in. The next step is pedophilia. Why not? If both participants are consenting there is no harm. And see the way the homosexual activists want there deviant sexual behavior to be taught as normal in schools to our children. Now the children will think all sexual behavior is normal, whether it is deviant or perverse. They will not stop at homosexuality. The worst is yet to come.
That was tremendously eloquent and spot on, Dennis Martin.
You know, the picture at the top of this post reminds me of modern day photos of crowds–with people holding up their smartphones for a photo op.
I wish I could find a nearby planet and watch the fireworks as the gays and lesbians duke it out with Islamic fanatics. It would be interesting to watch from a distance, but no place for a Christian to be stuck in the middle as both sides shoot at us. If only there were a safe place on this planet for Christians to live under Christian law…
With great respect to Cardinal George, I don’t think his prophecy will come true. His successor certainly isn’t the kind of bishop who will stand strong on this issue or any most any other.
Woody79– I believe a lot of this is about Satan’s appetite for our children. The ones he cannot abort, he will pervert.
From Charles Rice’s book Contraception and Persecution:
“Every society, like every man, has to have a god. There has to be an ultimate authority. If it is not the real God, speaking through the Vicar of Christ (and Christ is God), it will be a god of man’s own making. This may be man himself, the consensus, the courts–whatever. Ultimately, in the absence of an external, morally authoritative interpreter, that moral authority will center in the State, which already possesses the coercive power. The conflict, then, is between the claim of the Catholic church and the claim of the total State. It is not surprising, therefore, that the modern totalitarian State sees the Catholic Church as its main enemy.”
We must affirm from the rooftops that Christ is God. From Pacem in Terris: “Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience…; indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse”.
Dennis Martin,
You get it.
I think you’ve “gotten it” for a long time. And likely much more.
I read every word of your posts.
Folks, read them.
I’m with Kathleen10- We are one cowboy away from setting the country straight, again.
To Dennis Martin’s observations about the “lawlessness at the highest levels of the executive branch and in the bureaucracy” we may add the extent that this is already true, and further still a goal, where the military and law enforcement are concerned, and also note the ‘weaponizing’ of an enormous variety of ‘agencies’, ‘departments’, ‘bureaus’, etc.
And while “the purpose of persecution is not to slaughter everyone”, history provides lots of evidence of latitude and flexibility where the extent of slaughter is concerned.
A sobering resource is the work of the late Professor Rummel on ‘democide’, including his observation that “Although the democracy itself may be open, with freedom of speech and the diffusion of power, centers of near absolute power may be set up that operate internally and over their mandate as though a dictatorial system”:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html
I have a very good friend who’s not just gay, but is a prominent gay activist. On the other hand, I have a good buddy whose a Traditional Catholic monarchist! There are wonderful gays, and horrible Catholics. I think if we Catholics change the bedpans of AIDS patients more (without, of course, voicing approval for the gay lifestyle), like Cardinal O’Connor, more, we could make better strides in upholding Catholic Church teaching.
I’m not too concerned or interested in the culture wars. I have prayed the rosary–with my children–in front of our local abortion clinic. I think abortion is a much bigger issue to focus on. And, in any case, gay “marriage” is no more “marriage” than 99% of the protestant fake marriages out there anyway. If you’re a florist, just say you’re busy that day! My guess is this particular florist made an unnecessary issue out of the whole affair…
THIS: The best single thing would be to get the government out of education, since many young people are being brainwashed by the current regime.”
Unfortunately this has been the default option in this country for 120 plus years, and is considered normal and even ideal by most–including Catholic parents who want a cheap babysitting service by “professionals” while they work full time jobs for stuff.
If you think the Catholic hierarchy is moribund regarding pro-abortion and pro-homosexual politicians, try finding one that can recognize educational (!) conditioning of the young they offered up to Moloch.
Sorry, but I think we’d best get used to being a remnant. But hey, it’s better than being neutered.
Sorry, many folks here, but politics cannot change anything, only Christ can. We need to keep evangelizing anyone and everyone who is open, and pray for those who are not.
May the last words out of my mouth be, “Lord, let me die to this world for love of you.”
Breibart has an article outlining the next moves of the homosexual lobby:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/30/whats-next-for-the-same-sex-marriage-advocates/
Faithful Catholics should all stop complaining and “waiting for the persecution to start”. The big problem here is mainly just the ignorance of the multitudes in all things regarding true religion. Then how do we solve this problem? Isn’t it IMPOSSIBLE?
In no way is it impossible! We are not utilizing the MOST IMPORTANT WEAPON we have today (besides the Sacred Liturgy)… And that is EWTN Catholic Radio Broadcasting! Local Catholic Radio teaches the orthodox faith 24 hrs. per day, 7 days per week to any who tune into the station.
I put out an average of about 1000 Catholic Radio Cards to the general public each week, and have done so for about 2 years. I give them out at Supermarkets, Farmers Markets, University Campuses, Cultural Fairs, County Fairs, Shopping Malls, etc.. I give every happy Catholic I meet in these locations at least 10–15 cards to distribute to their family and friends. Every time I go out to distribute (usually on Sundays) I find about 40 such good Catholics to take multiple cards. Weak Catholics usually get only a single card. Sometimes, Protestants get multiple cards when they say they are already listeners and like the broadcasting.
Catholics need to stop being Bobo’s and Sissies and get out there and start educating the ignorant masses. And bringing them to Catholic Radio is the quickest way to do this. Get them to consecrate their cars to Christ by listening ONLY to Catholic Radio while driving.
Do this on a massive scale and then you will see that we will start to win the religious and moral war again.
But, do nothing but whine, and cry, and be afraid…and then you will all DESERVE the persecution of the immoral masses…because you never taught them anything about the holy faith! So, stop being Sissies and start DOING SOMETHING! Promote your local Catholic Radio station far and wide by distributing cards and bumper stickers in every place, and in every way, that the Lord inspires you!
So sad what is happening in my state. If Pence caves.. he will probably lose re election. The left wont vote for him anyway and his Christian right base wont look at him the same.
The tolerant bunch is now going from business to business downtown and telling owners to buy a sign of acceptance of all .. of course if they dont hang said sign they will be boycotted and labeled a bigot. Welcome to Germany circa 1939…er I mean.. Indpls 2015.
God help us. I find myself clutching my rosary in angst like never before.
Satan has been up until now underfoot like most snakes, but soon he will be on even par with us as he was with Eve, in our ear, in our face. We’ve long since past the point of policies and procedures and are entering the end game, the supernatural realm. Attend every Mass you can, while you can, pray the Rosary and fast, that’s really the most effective offense. Grace will be abounding.
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. . . All good reasons to pray , as related by Supertradmum, Maltese , and others. I would stand with St. Jude and Landless Laborer and stillkickin in emphasizing the importance of praying the Rosary daily, and of invoking St. Michael daily. We Catholics really need to be people of prayer, and we have to try and be consistent in our prayer daily. As ocalatrad points out, this is diabolical. So whom better to invoke than Our Blessed Mother ?
A little before our time, there was a Father Patrick Peyton who, essentially served to keep Catholic America united in prayer. This was , in large part, accomplished by praying the Holy Rosary. It’s not an “old woman’s prayer” (a disparaging comment which St. Louis de Montfort attributes to the devil saying during a confrontation with St Dominic). The Rosary is the weapon chosen by our Blessed Mother. It’s the Gospel on its knees.
This week, we’re entering into a specific meditative recollection of that time where in part of the sequence even the Apostles felt all was lost . . .but it wasn’t. What was the advice our beloved Savior gave to us as he entered into his Passion for us . . . ? “Watch and pray. . . ”
All of Israel had been petrified of this warmonger, and when Israelite soldiers saw him, they ran away . . . then along comes this young shepherd – “only a boy”, and one smooth stone later, Goliath is history – face down in the dirt – with a detachable head to boot.
Let them boast. And let us pray.
I like KateD’s notion of being “one cowboy away from setting the country straight, again.”
Then again, maybe we’re only one Mother away from achieving that :
God bless you guys and Father Z.
God willing, see you next week after the Resurrection.
If you’re a florist, just say you’re busy that day! My guess is this particular florist made an unnecessary issue out of the whole affair
But if one was not busy that day, he would be lying, which is immoral. What also needs to be understood is that evil has a lidless eye which manifests itself in homosexualists “over-sharing” in a manner of speaking in order to test people for “homophobia”. Fail the test , and punishment follows. If left unchecked, then eventually the box will get smaller and smaller so that no citizen will be able to escape via remaining silent and will have to publically declare for or against homosexual “marriage”. Christians are being ghettoized.
Supertradmum, dittos.
How many of our fellow Catholics are even aware of this battle? Those of use who frequent Catholic blogs know the dangerous times ahead, but we are a minority. Have any bishops been on TV defending their flock? How many of us have even heard a homily about this? I live in a fairly traditional NO parish, and have yet to hear any warning. Parish priests are the ones who can really educate the faithful every week, local bishops, as well. And yet…crickets….
Scott W.
We will yet have our Kristallnacht for those merchants who do not pass the test. As has happened before in Nazis Germany, the “guilty” will have their windows / doors marked with a cross or “Christian” and have the windows and their heads bashed in. If they don’t get into line they will be dragged to the street and beaten or worse. Count on it. Nazisim is just the flip side of respectable progressivism.
The only problem is: who will be the Allies that will liberate us? The rot is too deep in Europe and most of the world. There is no other country like the USA was as Regan said ” a Shining City on the hill” “the last great hope of man on Earth”. Her light is being snuffed out by the forces of Darkness. In many cases being helped along by supposed useful idiot (c)atholics.
St Michael Defend Us! Holy Mother of God pray for us!
Dear Dennis Martin,
Sadly, I have come to the same conclusion. This game was lost in 1965 when the Pill became universally available. Before that time, restraint of the appetites was something that was, at least in principle, recognized as a virtue. From 1965, on, self-expression became the highest virtue. Because some types of expression are perverse, this, of necessity, led to the self-esteem movement of the 1980’s, with the resultant loss of any sense of sin or shame, especially among the brainwashed youth. Homosexuality is just another step in this quest for self-expression. We do not have freedom of speech, anymore. We have freedom of expression, which has become increasingly enshrined in non-discrimination laws. Freedom of Religion has morphed into Freedom of Worship. Notice the subtle shift from God to self in that act.
Politics has always been contaminated with self-centered need ever since Adam passed the buck to Eve and Eve passed the buck to the Serpent. In this day and age, politicians have begun to obey the Fools Golden Rule: let others do unto me as I would have them do unto me.
Make no mistake: the Government is not foolish. They know what’s coming as well as we do. If Harry Seldom were here with his psychohistory computer, he would tell anyone who would listen that there will be a war and that we will lose, in worldly terms. The signs are there. One cannot win this war by political means. That way is gone. The only chance to derail this war is by a sudden mass movement, now. If we wait any longer, all will be lost for at least 300 years. It is true that after that time Christianity will re-assert itself (assuming the Kingdom hasn’t come in the meantime), but it will take centuries to rise from the ashes at that point. You have no idea how close we are to the total perversion of man as a species. There is a bio-molecule that exists, right now, (CSPR-12, if memory serves) that will allow any DNA sequence to be inserted in human DNA. Because we don’t quite have human DNA understood with regards to such things as a complete protein map (that’s coming), people are afraid to play with human DNA modification, but it is coming. It will make the homosexual problem look like kindergarten morality, by comparison. This will be tolerance and self-expression carried to the extreme. All of this will happen if we don’t act, now.
Prayer is the best way, but martyrdom is the last refuge only when nothing else has worked. Now is not, yet, the time of martyrs. It is the time for strong men. It is the last stand for the word, no. Not all judges are appointed for life. Win the elections. Boycott companies that support evil. There is still strength in numbers, but those days are swiftly passing by. I am convinced that the Church can, still, turn things around, but only if there is unity within the Church. Are people so caught up in themselves as to not notice that every step along the way of modern civil perversion has been preceded by a weakening of the Church in that area? It has been deliberately done. That must stop.
There is more that I could say, but I will be silent, now, and simply hold up the Cross. It says everything better than I ever could.
The Chicken
We should look at it as an OPPORTUNITY. Martyrdom is probably the only way I’m getting into heaven.
I also want to share an article someone brought to my attention. This was an article from 2014 where a Christian man asks 13 bakers in Seattle to bake him a cake that says: “Gay marriage is wrong”. The hypocrisy that ensues makes one shake their head in disbelief. The article can be found here.
Maltese wrote: “My guess is this particular florist made an unnecessary issue out of the whole affair…”
This is not a time for guessing. You are blaming the victim, as in “The Jews in 1930s Germany were troublemakers and that’s why their store windows were bashed in and they ended up on the streets begging.”
Educate yourself about these cases in Oregon, New Mexico, the bed-and-breakfast owners in New York and dozens of others. This began almost 20 years ago and I have been warning fellow Catholics ever since. Yet here we are and Catholics are still refusing to take this seriously.
Wake up. This cannot be finessed. Because of their guilty consciences, those who want to believe that same-sex desire is normal and natural must, I repeat, must silence all opposition voices. There can be no rest short of that goal. A florist who would without hesitation sell flowers to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation but who balks at doing a homosexual “wedding” is an opposition voice and must be silenced.
And no, abortion is not the root issue here. Really. Really it is not. The root issue is contraception, the separation of sexuality from procreation. Until we get that through our heads we will be fighting blind. The bishops’ decision to focus on abortion and let contraception slide was a fatal error and we will all pay the price for it.
The Republicans are going to fall away on gay rights, leaving Christians with no political cover. Then the real persecution will come.
@ Dennis Martin,
dead-center bull’s eye.
This is all so Orwellian; I look at the sprawling Fed Gvmt agencies and see hogs occupying the farm house. Sodomite and Socialist crypto-fascism is well entrenched, government workers are handsomely paid for supporting it, and won’t leave peaceably.
Yet there is also a rising tide (remnant) of Tradition-embracing Catholics and future clergy who, at a certain point, will not/cannot cave to it and will pay far more drastically than we.
I get a horrible sense of dread thinking upon what we are handing to the future Church, and to what extent they will have to fight back…
May GOD be merciful to us and supply them with abundant grace.
We were warned almost 100 years ago at Fatima. Few Catholics responded. We were warned at Akita. Few pay attention to those words of Mary. We were warned by Christ Himself.
To pretend that years of playing Catholic and not taking the rot which has been here all my adult life, seriously, and which has ruined the ordinary Catholic in the pew, is to be an ostrich, of which there are many on my blog.
Why is it that some of knew as early as the 197os that this gay agenda would come? Some of us talked about this in Minneapolis. We prayed and listened. Why is it that few read After the Ball in 1999, or followed the signs of degradation? Catholics were too busy with trivia. Persecution will come because the majority of Catholics are asleep and think they are OK being mediocre. This coming persecution is for the Church to be purified, for you and me to be purified, and we shall see the justice of God on this nation, which is totally corrupt and has been for a very long time. Look at the leadership as far back as Wilson to see corruption.
SSM is just the last straw in a list of many horrible sins. Abortion, socialism, freemasonry, avarice, consumerism and imho, one of the worst, parents not taking control of the Catholic education of their children and blaming others for their own duty-the salvation of their children.
Those of us who homeschooled saw this all thirty years ago. I was trying to convince parents as early as 1987 not to have their children in non-Catholic Catholic schools. Few listened and most were in denial. Now, we have two generations of mental apostates, as these people do not know the Faith.
They may learn. They may not. I wrote about Kristallnacht on my blog three years ago…http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2012/02/kristallnacht-and-lukewarm-war.html. Catholics will be blamed for not being “good citizens”.
I pray the Pope calls for a rosary crusade, but he may have to call for a military one as well.
@ Dennis Martin —
Correct. As was written here some time ago (http://orthosphere.org/2013/05/03/where-we-are-and-where-were-going/), there is an internal logic to leftism that demands the persecution of religious persons. They became the scapegoat for the failures of the leftism for which leftism, being itself deeply deficient and even deranged, cannot otherwise account. As leftism ascends and its failures become more manifest, the scapegoating must intensify until we reach a point at which the delusion becomes too expensive to maintain.
“Lord, let me die to this world for love of you.”
“And no, abortion is not the root issue here. Really. Really it is not. The root issue is contraception, the separation of sexuality from procreation. Until we get that through our heads we will be fighting blind. The bishops’ decision to focus on abortion and let contraception slide was a fatal error and we will all pay the price for it.”
AMEN…..Wake up all!
The florist didnt make a big deal…. either did the gay guy. She wasnt even sued by the gay guy, they are friends. He used a florist she recommended. He mentioned the incident, the ACLU heard of it and sued her. The florist is friends with the guy.
I disagree with iPadre in that retreating from the public square concedes the argument to them. Think of the nations where the Sacrament of marriage is distinct (and separate) from the state recognition (and ceremony) that require state marriage: Mexico comes to mind. Atheistic and anti-Catholic to it’s core yet despite the huge Catholic majority in that country, this law (and the laws mandating a secular state run education and prohibiting parochial schools also echo those of France, amongst other nations).
The sexual deviants have never really wanted “equality” and aren’t interested in monogamy, much less chastity, at all. That was a strategem on their part, which many milktoast Easter and Christmas salad bar “c”atholics bought hook, line, and sinker (to say nothing of the apostates and heretics masquerading as Catholics). Many of them are quite open about the goal being to destroy ‘patriarchy’ and the old social mores that are summed up and codified in Christian marriage.
Many want to bring up Rome, disregarding the specific nature of pagan Rome and the numerous social mores that restricted the ius connubii far more than the law (excepting only the decadence of the absolute upper strata of society of which Tim Cook no doubt qualifies) . They’re even worse with misrepresentation of the pederasty of pagan Greece.
Ultimately, I’m reminded of the debate around the Defense of Marriage Act and the arguments against the necessity of a Constitutional Amendment at the time and how the deviants moved the goal post repeatedly from “civil unions.” Let us all acknowledge that the slippery slope is not a logical fallacy with the atheistic left, but their deliberate modus operandi. Article V and a resurgance of Federalism is about the only thing that can save us given the courts condone the specious argument that the 14th Amendment was ever intended to allow such toleration of sexual deviance in the public square, much less completely repudiate Federalism and repeal the 10th Amendment.
@Woody79, your McVeigh comment is out of line & frankly, sick.
Sensationalism should be avoided. Reductio ad Hitlerum is the bane of comboxes.
That being said, yes, the Supreme Court is likely going to make gay marriage the law of the land in June. While Pope Benedict wrote that truth is not determined by a majority vote, any opinion poll you look at is clear: gay marriage has widespread and growing support among young people and people who are middle-aged.
So, where does that leave traditional morality? Well, first and most importantly, “tradition” has had a bad PR department for a long time. Blame the devil if you’d like, but truth shouldn’t be that difficult to define. It’s easy to cast blame on Bishops and Priests and politicians and parents. But, we have to make do with the situation as it exists without lamenting how we got here.
Realistically, people aren’t going to be put on trains any time soon. However, what needs to happen is that people need to preemptively (using favorable decisions from the Supreme Court like the Hobby Lobby Opinion) to enshrine very specific conscience issues. We should not, as Indiana and Arkansas are doing, write broad and vague conscience clauses. Rather, for example, pass a law stating: No ordained minister of any denomination may be compelled to perform any function he interprets to be against his faith or conscience (or something to that effect). These type of laws would have broad support and be unassailable from the “left” while slowly building a bastion against the perceived “endgame” of persecution.
Maybe I’m just not alarmed by these developments because they have been completely predictable for the last decade. “Persecution” is an old term. The 21st century version is just hyper-marginalization. “Isn’t that nice” and other apathetic condescension will do more to harm the Church than martyrdom of thousands. The big question is: what will the Church be in three generations?
@govmatt – per Pope Benedict, probably small but pure.
@Kathleen10 Put no trust in Republican politicians.
@New Sister. Your response to McVeigh and his action was expected. I thought there would be more like you, however. While you may not like the road of violence that McVeigh went down, yet that road is well traveled when people feel so frustrated that they feel they have no choice with a tyrannical government. Perhaps you would have preferred I made reference to the American Revolution? Many were killed in that conflict. What you need to remember is that this country became a country as a result of war. McVeigh thought of himself as a patriot. You and I may not think so but as time goes on, will we change our perspective? I may not agree with your response to my comment but I will defend to my death your right to speak it. Sound familiar?
govmatt, I disagree strongly. Your plan of attack would sacrifice every Catholic individual on the altar of the ‘progressives’. You are doing exactly what Obama and Hillary et al are doing and changing our clearly enumerated First Amendment Right of Freedom of Religion and the free exercise there of to the Freedom of ‘worship’. Our rights do not end at the church door. Protecting clergy is important, but protecting the faithful is too, including bakers, florists, photographers, innkeepers, etc… Our rights are for all, not just the clergy and for how we live our lives, not just Sunday worship.
Tell Aaron Klein he is engaging in ‘sensationalism’ as he and his wife try to raise their five young children after being drummed out of business and attacked and fined by the city government for his free exercise there of.
I have a slightly off topic but still valid question.
If the Indiana RFRA is taken to the SCOTUS and they rule that the law is constitutional and that there is nothing indicating a blank check for discrimination in the law, either as it was amended or originally written, what happens next? The supporters are vindicated and the progressives and media (and their lemming followers) are shown to be the ones filled with hate in all this. Where do we go from here? Indiana, and pretty much any other state that tries to pass an RFRA going forward, will resemble a political war zone. Will the opponents some out and issue public apologies? Will the business and states that issued boycotts and secular fatwas against Indiana help us rebuild our economy after they intentionally trashed it? These are serious questions that need answers and I just can’t come up with them. I truly do see a future SCOTUS upholding this law.
Should read “Will the opponents come out and issue public apologies?”
At the risk of sounding simplistic, all I will say is “Pray, people, pray!” Say the Rosary, fast and pray some more. Offer small sacrifices to the Lord. We’ve gone way too far down this road and we’re at the point where only His Divine Intervention can save us now.
Could a florist choose to only provide flowers to certain churches for weddings — not individuals?
iPadre is right. Why should the Catholic Church do paperwork free for the state, when the state doesn’t respect our religion? Why be a sitting duck for activists? Let everyone first get the marriage paperwork from the state, then come to church for the real wedding. Perhaps this part of the deal will eventually need to be done in secret. Hey, the parents of St. Therese may have been on to something, getting married at midnight.
Why do we need the RFRA?
The ATF does not investigate routine fires for the fun of it.
http://www.wtrf.com/story/28655246/fire-at-st-james-and-johns-church-in-benwood
You don’t need to be an expert fire investigator to look at the picture of the sanctuary and realize there is something very odd in the burn pattern.
For those advocating that the Church get out of the marriage business (legally speaking), I remind you that in some countries, in order to get a marriage license from the state, couples have to pass a mandatory “family planning/responsibility” class.
I hate to even link to this, but do so in order to make sure that we know what will happen to businesses that refuse to serve gay weddings. While I think that the owners of Memories Pizza in Indiana made some huge PR blunders, and probably weren’t in danger of being asked to cater a gay wedding, just stating that they would not cater a gay wedding has erupted in a firestorm of some of the most hateful, vile, and threatening comments from the general public that I’ve ever seen. I link to their Yelp page reviews so that religious business owners know just what kind of treatment they will get if they stand up for marriage. The mistreatment comes from all corners: the homofascists, straight people, Protestants, Catholics, the old, and the young. If you can stomach them, read the reviews and understand what the culture now thinks of those of us who believe in traditional marriage- we are bigots to be marginalized, threatened, shunned. The commenters are gleefully waiting for this business to close.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/memories-pizza-walkerton
Avoid clicking on the pictures that the mob has uploaded.
Great points all, and Dennis Martin, you are probably correct. Sobering, but we have to face it.
We should do whatever we can, relentlessly, but ultimately, this is a God-sized problem, not a human problem. We are clearly dealing with principalities and powers beyond our scope.
Defend the Family’s Dr. Scott Lively has a very interesting commentary this week. This is a man who knows well the territory we are facing. He instructs on how the homosexualists have been able to take over so many businesses and corporations, how they have become so powerful. It is a smart, insidious plan of takeover by infiltration of personnel.
But I do believe, like any powerful virus, this one has it’s weakness too. We don’t see it now but if we pray enough, God may reveal it. This is depressing stuff and the world is darn grim, but we have reason to hope! We serve a mighty God.
On the way to His judicial murder, Our Lord said (St. Luke 123:31), “Quia si in viridi ligno haec faciunt, in arido quid fiet?” (“For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?”)
It is good that the Holy Father has more than once recommended R. H. Benson’s Lord of the World, but it is troubling to think how good a recommendation this may be.
Woody79
The odd-ball defense of McVeigh above is in itself scandalous and deserving of censure.
The “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” type argument is the worst sort of moral relativism. It is both logically and morally flawed.
Also, your paraphrase of (pseudo) Voltaire does nothing to impress, he was after all a staunch anti-Catholic secularist.
Chant girl, The harassment of Memories Pizza stems less from the pizza parlor’s PR than the front page headline on MSN.com “Indiana Pizza Place Says It Will Refuse Service to Gays Once Law Enacted” (or something to that effect they have subsequently pulled/updated the previous article and headline). It was not true, intentionally inflammatory and the article provided a link to the Yelp page for that restaurant. It was clearly stated in the body of the article that the business would not refuse service to anyone, but that to cater a wedding would conflict with their religious beliefs. Talk about a hit piece. A similar headline, which still was out there reads, “Memories Pizza Shop says it would Deny Same-Sex Service Under Indiana Religious Freedom Act” – International Business Times.
If it were me (and it’s probably best it’s not) I’d go after MSN for the damage that it caused with a false and inflammatory headline with a link to the business’s Yelp page. What MSN did was the equivalent of yelling “Fire” in a movie theater. There has to be some accountability.
Chon,
St. Therese’s parents would still have had to have a state license. France invented the civil marriage during the Enlightenment period. And, most EU nations do not recognize religious, faith-based marriages, only civil ones. Same here in the States. One cannot just have a Catholic marriage ceremony without either getting a licence before, or at the same time, as the church wedding. In Great Britain, Catholic marriages were not even recognized until the re-establishment of the Catholic Church-1850.
PS Hence, one reason why Sir Walter Raleigh’s beautiful Catholic wife, Elizabeth Throckmorton Raleigh, was called by the Protestants, “Raleigh’s Whore” by the locals, as they most likely had a secret Catholic wedding. Her father favored Protestantism, but the family was divided into Catholics and Protestants, and even her father supported and was friends with Mary Queen of Scots, the Catholic Queen, and he worked for Queen Mary, as well as Elizabeth. Messy days…
In Sherborne, where I lived for several years, there is a street, just at the end of my old street, called “Horsecastles”, a Victorian tidying up of “Whore’s Castle” Street leading to the Old and New Castles of the Raleighs. Anti-Catholicism has never left the English mind-set.
Correction: It is “Rev.” or “Atty.” Scott Lively. Mr Lively is not a doctor.
GovMatt:
The reductio ad reductionem Hitleri is unwise. We are not alarmed when we point out paralells to 1930s Germany or 1950s China. We are level-headedly serious while others whistle past the graveyard.
Of course hyper-marginalization and condescension are and will be employed, as they have been in elite circles for nearly a century. The difference is that has now reached the street-level and infected wide swathes of popular culture, dominating the Millennials and their Twitterverse.
But you are mistaken if you think it stops there. Hyper-marginalization and other forms of intimidation are the tactic used to reduce the target group by about 80% or 90%. After the die-hard 10% has been isolated and exposed, then, precisely because they are so stubborn and die-hard, they will be given the chance to demonstrate their die-hardiness. That’s when the “persecution” that you distinguish from mere hyper-marginalization sets in. And it has to be hard and vicious because the die-hards die so hardily.
This is what Niemoeller meant with his famous quote. As long as it was some other group being hypermarginalized, Niemoeller pooh-poohed it as much-ado-about-nothing and reductio ad ______ (fill in the name of the last big-name villain before Hitler here).
It is in the hope of awakening awareness on the part of the larger Christian population that we point out where this trajectory leads. Hyper-marginalization will not work if Christians get alarmed and worked up enough by the earlier stages of hyper-marginalization. But if most Christians pooh-pooh the consciousness-raisers as Cassandras and reductioners ad absurdum, then you can be sure that the hyper-marginalization and ghettoization will work.
And they even you will have a choice: become one of the die-hards and face what you consider to be real rather than fake persecution or abandon Christ and look the other way while the die-hards are rounded up, crushed down, locked away.
It should be emphasized that the Indiana pizzeria owners did not just suddenly and gratuitously “announce” that they wouldn’t cater gay weddings. They were approached by a TV reporter doing a “person on the street” interview of business owners to ask them what they thought of the new law, and this owner responded, honestly, that she had no problem serving gays but would draw the line at catering a gay wedding — that is, if she were ever asked to do so, which she hadn’t. The TV reporters played up her response to a hypothetical “what if” situation for all it was worth.
What I would like to know is, how on earth are we supposed to maintain our traditional families and be open to life in a world that won’t allow us to make a decent living? You really think this is going to inspire young Catholics to want to get married or have children? Also, it’s one thing to decide that you yourself, personally, are going to fight back to the point of martyrdom, but what if you have a spouse and a disabled child, both completely dependent on you, who haven’t made that choice? Is it right for you to force the consequences of your choice on them — for example, if your business gets destroyed or you lose a job? This is something I worry about, A LOT.
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UPDATE on WV Church fire.
The state fire marshal and the ATF have announced that they are unable to determine a cause for the fire. They stated that it started on a corner of the roof.
There was no lightning that night. There were no lights/electrical wiring in the area near where the fire started. (In addition, it is fairly easy to determine if an electrical fault started a fire by examining the meter.)
The fire started in an area of the roof that could easily be reached by throwing explosive material by hand. (Neighbors reported hearing a “bang” at the time the fire started.) There is noticeable gang graffiti on walls in that area of town, and teens/young adults frequently gather near the Church/school.
If you eliminate every reasonable accidental cause for the fire, you are left with the conclusion that it was intentionally set. If it was an “inside job” there would have been much easier ways to start a fire. This means we are left with the fact that it was set by a malicious external actor as the only reasonable cause for the fire.
http://www.wtrf.com/story/28714694/cause-of-benwood-wv-church-fire-cant-be-determined
It is time to hit those who oppose religious freedom where it hurts.
University of Southern California athletic director Pat Hayden recently announced his opposition to the Indiana Religious Freedom Act. It is important to note that while Pat Hayden speaks of “tolerance” and “freedom”, his university does not guarantee religious freedom for student athletes. They don’t have to – they are a private university and they can do what they want. However, players – and in particular their parents – should be fully aware of these institutional policies.
The same faculty and administrators who love to use their “tolerance” as an excuse for religious discrimination are perfectly happy to exploit these student athletes. You will find that many of these football/basketball recruits come from deeply religious families. We have a duty to make sure these families are fully aware of the lack of protection student-athletes have from religious discrimination at many of these universities. Coaches can – and have – kicked athletes off their teams for reading the Bible or attending Church.
We need to ensure that academic administrators – such as USC AD Pat Hayden – who espouse anti-religious beliefs face consequences. Maybe when football recruits refuse to attend their school due to their intolerance of religion, they will begin to rethink their positions. Use social media, letters to the editor, sports talk radio, or whatever else to make sure that potential recruits are fully aware of those universities that refuse to guarantee religious freedom for their athletes.
I was just watching ‘the Passion of the Christ’ and afterwards looked at an article about the Indiana law that was ‘fixed’ just recently. In ‘the Daily Signal’ was a picture of a man, who I guess is in the government of Indiana, and he has a look on his face that directly mirrored a look on the face of Hristo Shopov as he gives the order to his soldier to ‘do what they want’.