150th anniversary of suspension of habeas corpus

Posted on 24 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Every once in a while The First Gay President likes to associate himself with Pres. Lincoln.  Perhaps this is from his connection with Illinois?  Perhaps because he has delusions of grandeur?  Perhaps it’s because he would like to suspend habeas corpus? (Perhaps in his third or fourth term?) On the other hand, in 2009 Obama granted habeas corpus to terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay.  It’s a puzzle.

I am thinking about this because 150 years ago today, in the throes of the Civil War, Pres. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.

The Latin literally is “let you have a/the body”, in other words, in order to imprison or hold a person beyond a certain period of time, the state has to have proof of sufficient grounds for imprisonment and people can present proof against imprisonment. This is in the Constitution (Article I, Sec. 9, c.), which also includes the possibility that habeas corpus could be suspended: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

The situation apparently required the suspension of habeas corpus several times during the Civil War and during Reconstruction.

In any event, on 24 September 1862, during the Civil War, Lincoln did just that, with a proclamation that contrasts with the Emancipation Proclamation he issued the same month:

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

A PROCLAMATION

Whereas, it has become necessary to call into service not only volunteers but also portions of the militia of the States by draft in order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes of law from hindering this measure and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection;

Now, therefore, be it ordered, first, that during the existing insurrection and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all Rebels and Insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid and comfort to Rebels against the authority of United States, shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by Courts Martial or Military Commission:

Second. That the Writ of Habeas Corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement by any military authority of by the sentence of any Court Martial or Military Commission.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this twenty fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the 87th.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Perhaps habeas corpus will be suspended again if the campaign doesn’t go well (i.e. rebellion).

Stranger things have happened in the world’s troubled history.

And if he doesn’t want to employ the military to do this, there is another way…

Click HERE.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged , , , , , ,
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Peters on Canon Law and deaconesses

Posted on 22 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the blog of The Canonical Defender, Dr. Edward Peters, comes this:

Some thoughts occasioned by Bp. Wcela’s essay on female deacons
by Dr. Edward Peters

Writing in America magazine, Bp. Emil Wcela (ret. aux. Rockville Center) is encouraging wider public debate on the ordination of women to the diaconate. [Cui bono?] Those not familiar with the arguments favoring female ordination to the diaconate can find them outlined in Wcela’s essay. Counter arguments—and they are many—are available in, e.g.,

The best book on the subject.

Aimé Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: an historical study (Ignatius, 1986). (UK HERE)

Some canonical observations occasioned by Wcela’s essay.

1. Canon 1024 declares invalid any attempt to ordain women (presumably, first to diaconate). While Canon 1024 does not address the question of a woman’s ontological capacity for ordination, it leaves no doubt that any attempt to ordain a woman to any level of holy Orders is of zero sacramental force in the Church today.

2. John Paul II’s ap. con. Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994) settles forever, negatively, and on ecclesiological grounds, the question of ordaining women to priesthood (and by logical necessity, to episcopate). Further agitation for the ordination of women to Catholic priesthood seems a violation of Canon 1371, 2º—Wcela does not do that. Ordinatio says nothing, however, at least in its dispositive paragraph 4, about ordaining women to diaconate nor, strictly speaking, does it address (at least not definitively) ontological questions about female ordination. In that regard, discussion may continue.  [Albeit pointless discussion, because it is not going to happen.]

3. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2008 visitation of a latae sententiae excommunication, however, on those attempting to ordain women to the diaconate represents, I suggest, something more than a temporary disciplinary measure against prematurely implementing a sacramental development that might, in fact, never come. That such a severe sanction is levied at all suggests to me that some very significant—if not yet formally defined—values are being protected thereby.

Consider: sanctions for the invalid and/or illicit conferral of sacraments are relatively few in number, at least when compared to the total number of ways that such conferrals can be abused. Specifically in regard to ordination, only the illicit conferral of episcopal orders contrary to Canon 1382 is punished with excommunication; other violations of law in the context of ordination (say, conferral of orders without proper dimissorial letters, per c. 1383) carry lesser penalties. The same lighter touch marked the Pio-Benedictine Code (see, e.g., 1917 CIC 2364).
Therefore, it seems to me that the CDF excommunication for attempted female ordination (especially in light of the roll-back that excommunication has undergone over the last 150 years) should be taken as a sign that ecclesiastical authority regards female ordination, even to diaconate, with at best grave reservations; the enactment of such a sanction certainly does not suggest that female diaconal ordination is coming, and that all we need is time to work out the details.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Ehvv-ur.

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Saturday Afternoon

Posted on 22 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

What to do?

I have bumped off my to do list today and am now free. Strange feeling.

Meanwhile, a wedding is just over at Westminster Cathedral.

20120922-150719.jpg

Good luck and prayers for the couple on this important day.

So… now a book, perhaps.

Posted in What Fr. Z is up to |
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Some reflections on a life changing book

Posted on 22 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is Bilbo Baggins’s Birthday and yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit.

I found an image of the edition that I first read.

I first read The Hobbit when I was in 7th grade.  I have a clear memory of sneaking some pages during a wood-shop class.   The following summer, having read everything else I could get my hands on and longing intensely for The Silmarillion, I wrote to The Professor at the urging of my grandmother (the one who had given me sets of lp records of Shakespeare plays).  The professor wrote back.   I received his letter, an aerogramme, in September 1973, some days after he had died.  In his letter he wrote that he had to be brief because people were waiting for him in the car.  He went to Bournemouth and he died that same day.  I may have the last thing he ever wrote.

Tolkien’s books were one of those pivotal forces which veered me into a life changing path.

We have little cross-roads to face each day.  Every once in a while, we come to a major cross-road.  Occasionally we know that the choice is a big one.  Sometimes, however, we can only see how important that moment was through the long lens of retrospect.

Books have the power to change us.  They can seriously screw you up and they can seriously shake and sift you into someone new.

Parents: Choose and monitor carefully the books (and movies/shows/games) your children are into.

To get a handle on how to discern about books and children you might try looking at Michael O’Brien’s A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle For Your Child’s Mind.  (US HERE, US Kindle HERE, UK HERE UK Kindle HERE).  I am not entirely in sync with what O’Brien has to say, but overall all his book is useful in determining what books (etc.) are good for your children’s worldview and which could do them harm.

For adults, you might consider also a great book by Benjamin Wiker called 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn’t Help.  (US HERE, Kindle HERE, UK HERE, UK Kindle HERE).  Bad books can screw up individuals who, in turn and over time, can screw up other writers and then screw up the world.

In any event, celebrate Mr. Baggins’s birthday, perhaps with some ale, and say a prayer for the repose of the soul of J.R.R. Tolkien, a devout Catholic gentleman.

Posted in Brick by Brick, Just Too Cool, Linking Back, On the road, The future and our choices | Tagged , , , ,
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A palpable hit!

Posted on 22 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Just because it has to do with Shakespeare:

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged
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Amy Sullivan on Jonathan Reyes

Posted on 22 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We have seen Amy Sullivan before. Among other things, Amy Sullivan was a legislative assistant to pro-abortion Catholic, former Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD).  She is as politically partisan as you can get.

This time Sullivan, with The New Republic as her soap-box, has a little nutty in a piece called “The Catholic Bishops Move Even Further Away From Social Justice”.

Let’s look:

The appointment of a new executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development doesn’t sound like earth-shaking news to most people. But social justice Catholics (as opposed to the abortion-firsters) [She begins to show her real colors.  By this she means that we can kill the unborn for the sake of a whole bunch of other reasons that outweigh the right of children to be born.] have been awaiting the announcement ever since the bishops’ longtime anti-poverty lobbyist John Carr announced in June that he would be leaving after 25 years in the role. [A good day.]

Carr, who was highly-respected on Capital Hill and throughout the tight-knit community of religious advocates in Washington, was widely seen as a moderating voice within the conference. [That can’t be good.] (Fun fact: Carr is the older brother of New York Times media columnist David Carr.) That made life difficult for him over the past few years, as he continued to promote Catholic social teaching even when it put him at odds with the positions of conservative Catholic bishops and activists, as well as conservative lay Catholics who have risen to positions of significant power at the conference.  [Did you see what she did there?  She made the people she likes into the arbiters of what the Church teaches about “social justice” over and against the Catholic bishops.]

So when Carr announced his departure to become a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, moderate Catholics looked to the announcement of his replacement for a sign of where the USCCB is headed. [CUE OMINOUS MUSIC] The bishops have criticized recent Republican budgets that have included stark cuts in social justice programs at home and abroad. But their advocacy has been restrained, [Oh dear!  Imagine!] expressed through letters to Congress and not through directives for parish education in the form of sermons or anything like the two-week teach-in on religious freedom that took place this summer. The open question for moderate Catholics [As opposed to extremist Catholics, such as those who believe that people have the right, according to the most fundamental sort of social justice, to be born.  As opposed to those who think that marriage is between one many and one woman.  As opposed to those who believe in a male priesthood, Christ’s giving a hierarchy to the Church, and the Magisterium is not a voting issue.] was whether the conference would continue to pursue an arguably partisan agenda [HA!  If you agree with the bishops, then you are being politically partisan, but if you agree with Amy’s ilk, you are moderate.] or shift some of its resources and might back to battling poverty in a more visible way.  [Because the Church’s mission is to battle poverty, to involved with earthly concerns.]

Now they have their answer, and it isn’t encouraging. [The Anglican Church is waiting for you, Amy, and with open arms.] Earlier this week, the USCCB announced that Jonathan Reyes would replace Carr at the conference. Reyes has most recently led Catholic Charities in the Denver Archdiocese. [Watch this one! …] But in Catholic circles, he is better known for having co-founded and served as the first president of the Augustine Institute, an unaccredited Catholic graduate school in Denver [by which she means that it is no good] that has no women on its faculty. [ROFL!] However, the institute does have a number of faculty with degrees from Steubenville University in Ohio, the Liberty University of Catholicism. [?  As opposed to… what… the Gulag University of….?  No, wait.  Read on and you will get it.] Steubenville made national news in May when it became the first Catholic institution to sue the federal government over the contraception mandate, even though the school would almost certainly be covered by the administration’s “religious employer” exemption.  [Okay… that was ridicule.  Amy must be in favor of imposing immoral obligations on religious institutions.  But wait… Reyes is a bad guy for yet another reason…]

Perhaps the most relevant piece of Reyes’ background is his position as a protégé of Archbishop Charles Chaput, [Ooooo!] who served in Denver until his recent appointment to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Chaput, you may remember, was one of a handful of Catholic clerics who declared in 2004 that John Kerry should not receive communion because of his support for abortion rights. [LOL! Chaput did that, Reyes is connected to Chaput, ergo Reyes is a medieval meanie.] The archbishop gave an interview to the National Catholic Reporter last week that all but endorsed the Romney-Ryan ticket, [Amy, who lied in another article we looked at on this blog, distorts what Chaput said.  Chaput said that he could not vote for a pro-abortion candidate.] and he joined a small group of Catholic leaders who have sought to defend Paul Ryan and his enthusiastic support for cutting funds to social programs.  [Does that pass the common-sense smell test?  They give enthusiastic support to cutting social programs?  Is that what they are doing?]

Reyes’ appointment has been cheered by conservative Catholics online. Here’s the reaction of one columnist at the conservative site CatholicCulture.org:

Have you been frustrated, over the years, with the political statements issued by the US bishops’ conference? If so, prepare for a welcome change. Have you wondered why the bishops never seem to listen to reasonable arguments by conservative Catholics? That’s about to change, too.

No one I have talked to—in or outside the conference—seems to know exactly who was involved in choosing Reyes. [That’s because, Amy, it has to do with greater fidelity to the Church’s teachings.  That’s why it is hard for you and the people you talk to to get this.] It’s unclear whether the selection was left up to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, [a little more innuendo] who serves as the president of the USCCB, or whether the bishops who head the committees Reyes will report to were involved in the process. Regardless, Michael Sean Winters spoke for concerned moderate Catholics when he wrote at the National Catholic Reporter: “At a time when there are obvious divisions within the hierarchy regarding which public policy issues should be emphasized and how those issues should be framed, it seems to me imperative to have selected someone who was not so obviously aligned with one wing of the current ideological divisions.” [In other words, one of those “social justice” Catholics who will vote for pro-abortion candidates.]

 

Posted in Biased Media Coverage, Emanations from Penumbras, Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The Drill, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged , , , ,
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NYC 22 September 10 AM – pilgrimage, Solemn TLM at Shrine of St. Frances Cabrini

Posted on 21 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Tomorrow, Saturday, 22 September, there will be a Pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in New York City for a Solemn Mass at 10 AM (Missale Romanum 1962).

The Shrine is located just south of the Cloisters Museum in Manhattan at 701 Fort Washington Avenue (to get there by subway, take the A Train to 190th Street and walk north a few blocks).  The Pilgrimage and Solemn Mass are sponsored by the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny.

The Mass to be celebrated is for Ember Saturday.  The music will be Palestrina’s Missa O Virgo simul et Mater. 

After the Mass, there will be a place available at the Shrine to have any lunch pilgrims may bring with them.  Some may also visit the Cloisters museum after Mass.

In 1946 St. Frances Xavier Cabrini became the first American citizen to be canonized.  She was born in Italy in 1850 and naturalized a US citizen in 1909.  After founding the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1880 with six other sisters in Italy, she began a plan to pursue missionary work in the far east.  Pope Leo XII suggested that she go west instead, to the United States.

She died in 1917 in Chicago but was buried in New York State where she first arrived and began her mission to Italian immigrants in March 1889.  Her body was found to be incorrupt when it was exhumed in 1933 and most of it (the head is in Rome) has been interred in New York City in a glass sarcophagus built into the altar at which this Mass will be celebrated.

The St. Frances Cabrini Shrine in New York City was built in 1957. Although quite modern for that time, it was designed for the celebration of Mass in the extraordinary form.

This Solemn Mass will probably be the first time the extraordinary form of the Mass will be celebrated at this Shrine since the liturgical changes following the Second Vatican Council.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged , , ,
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Tolerance

Posted on 21 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Tolerance.

This is a misunderstood concept today.  We must recover a proper sense of “tolerance”.

Liberals have there version, usually involving something like, in the political sphere today “If you don’t conform to my will, then you are a racist.”  In the Church it might be something like “If you don’t agree with my denial of the Church’s teaching on X, then you are a homophobe/misogynist/meanie.”  Liberals – and often also young skulls full of mush – think that “tolerance” means that we must accept and even affirm their position, regardless of the ramifications.

I recommend an interesting piece by the talented writer (and Dante scholar) Anthony Esolen.  HERE.

A snippet:

What’s not so often acknowledged is that tolerance implies reciprocity from the person whose behavior is tolerated. For tolerance of wrongdoing is freely given; it is an act of graciousness, and not the paying of a debt. Therefore it rests with the offender, at the very least, to refrain from aggravating the burden of tolerance.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill | Tagged ,
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Creepy Obama Flag

Posted on 21 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Have you seen the latest swag being offered by the Obama campaign?  For a contribution, you can have one of these!

This guy isn’t full of himself, is he.

Perhaps he should have made the stripes into the colors of the rainbow.  He is, after all, The First Gay President, right?  At least that way, they would look less like blood smears.

On the site where I saw this, there was a photo of the blood-smeared wall in the consulate in Benghazi.  HERE.  Looks familiar.

That’s what the Obama campaign is offering you: empty visual rhetoric harking to his prediction of the end of global warming and the rolling back of the oceans, or whatever that hogwash was.  This is the same guy who, having been honored at Notre Dame, promised to seek common ground with the Church.  This is the same guy, aggressively pro-abortion and even pro-infanticide, who lied to Card. Dolan.

Creepy.

Who is this guy?  Have you read Dinesh D’Souza’s The Roots of Obama’s Rage? (UK HERE and KINDLE).  And Jerome Corsi’s $2.99 Kindle book: Saul Alinsky:The Evil Genius Behind Obama.  And Hugh Hewitt’s book The Brief Against Obama: The Rise, Fall & Epic Fail of the Hope & Change Presidency.

In the meantime.

HERE is some swag you might consider for your car as we draw closer to the election.  There are stickers and car magnets and other things.

 

 

Posted in Liberals, The future and our choices | Tagged , , ,
48 Comments

LA priest suspended for lobbying for same-sex “marriage”

Posted on 21 September 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

During my London sojourn, several people have asked me about the state of the Church in the USA, and have usually also added a query about how Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles is doing.

Here is a story from CNA:

Los Angeles, Calif., Sep 21, 2012 / 03:04 am (CNA).- Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles has suspended local priest Father Joseph Palacios from ministry over his promotion of same-sex “marriage.”

Tod Tamberg, director of media relations for the Los Angeles archdiocese, confirmed to CNA Sept. 20 that Fr. Palacios was put on inactive leave in June.

[…]

Fr. Palacios is a founding member of Catholics for Equality, a group which advocates for same-sex “marriage” and other social benefits for gay, [Again, I object to the appropriation and distortion of this word.] lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.

He has identified himself as “a gay man and a celibate gay priest.”

According to the National Catholic Register, he will be suspended as long as he remains politically active. In a Sept. 10 interview with the paper, he said he does not present himself as a priest when promoting same-sex “marriage.”

However, in a Feb. 2011 panel discussion called “Same Sex Marriage in the United States: Where We Are as a Nation,” hosted by the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, he appeared in a priestly collar and was introduced as “Father Joseph Palacios.”

During the event, he said that the Washington, D.C.-based Catholics for Equality are trying to portray support for same-sex “marriage” as a pro-life position, adding that “pro-life means pro-gay.”

[…]

Blech.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Brick by Brick, Dogs and Fleas, Liberals, One Man & One Woman, Priests and Priesthood | Tagged , , , ,
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