The Obama War on the Catholic Church

 

There is much criticism on the contemporary and chic upper west side condos of Manhattan ( and elsewhere) about the pathetic intellectual level of Catholics of the by gone fifties and sixties. Jokes are made, with the appropriate snicker, about Novenas, holy water and Nuns. It is observed that the mentality in those days was plebian, superficial and medieval. Kids were fed all kinds of garbage by ignorant priests and old Irish grandmothers who led them by their intellectually dwarfed noses to be told what to think and for whom to vote. This is all recounted, of course, by hip people who grandly announce, at the right conversational pauses, that they are "liberated" or recovering Catholics. Sometimes, to show how truly liberated and free thinking they are, they might very proudly proclaim that they were once altar boys. Which means, I suppose, that they were on the "inside" and really knew the "scoop."

I have been present at some of these outpourings and have observed the consequent "pick 'n choose" positions of these Pundits who in point of fact are the ignorant ones and who in turn make obvious why politicians so easily seduce them away from what we used to call " the faithful Catholics." That is, in the era so distortedly presented by such analyses as outlined above, people were actually schooled in their faith and had some pre-articulate sense of the meaning thereof. The easy criticisms, often accompanied by the needed Martini or other prop, are so largely untrue and easily demolished. Yet, sadly, poorly catechized Catholics, even those possibly well educated otherwise, are vulnerable to the secular influence so deeply embedded in modern society.

 

 

 

To mention the fair approach of consulting authentic sources like the "Catechism", is to surface wide eyed astonishment or empty stares. In effect, using the blunt language of the streets, they don't know what they are talking about. They have left the Faith they didn't really know.

Such a back ground so briefly outlined might explain, to some extent, the unbelievable statistic indicating that a surprisingly large number of Catholics voted for Obama in the 2008 election. Since justice and charity prohibit any judgmental stance on the strange conclusions of well educated Catholics relative to their support of a candidate clearly unfriendly to Catholic causes, I must leave that resolution to the "inexplicable." It would appear that they, though naïve and well intentioned, should know better. However, God alone is the real judge of anyone's decision.

But for the greater number of "free thinking" Catholics, seduction of the uninformed mind leads many to vote for someone ideologically opposed to their Faith. One more than subtle signal was Obama's insistence that specifically Catholic ( and indeed Christian) symbols must be covered while he delivered his presentation at an alleged Catholic University. Another (truly outrageous) instance was the Notre Dame incident. Despite the Local Bishop's legitimate protest the University administration fawningly invited Obama to give the Commencement address and crown him with an honorary Doctorate. In effect, the speaker invited the Catholic Church to join him in his position on abortion (which includes even botched abortions) How does one reach a "common ground" on killing unborn babies? How hypnotized can people get? Even the President of the University who invited the speaker, later confessed that he felt he had been
misled. A partial explanation rises from the need of some approval
seeking Catholics to appear Hip and "with it." To be socially acceptable level for some people is apparently the "summum bonum..

However, as Obama grew more confident (translate as arrogant) he apparently believed, on the advice of "enlightened" Catholics of the Biden and Sibelius type, that Catholics, in general, are passive and will simply roll over and take whatever he says as modern Gospel- -- - not be questioned. Catholics are peaceful and do not demonstrate or protest. So-called practicing Catholics are used to being told what to do. Further, he was informed by the sophisticated Catholics of his circle, that modern Catholics think for themselves and do not swallow the whole Catholic package. So handling the American Catholic bloc is not really a challenge. Some "progressive" Catholic theologian can be dug up to manufacture a useable spin to make it all look just dandy.

Vice President Biden, one of Obama's advisors in gathering the Catholic vote claims to be a practicing Catholic. Yet he is complicit with Obama's public abortion stance. Biden wishes, he says, not to force his convictions on others but refuses to surface his alleged belief in Catholicism. Nor does he seem to understand that there is intrinsic evil in killing pre-born babies. He does not seem to engage on any kind of public suasion for his Faith which he piously claims defines his life!

His debate with Paul Ryan interestingly illustrates the point. He unbelievably claimed that the Catholic Bishops of America agreed with the position of his administration relative to abortion and related matters. The very next day the Bishops published an explicit denial to what he said.

No one of this administration fairly acknowledges the Catholic position that even one intrinsically evil component of a moral position (such as abortion) makes it impossible for a practicing Catholic to accept. Obama, however, mandated that henceforth all Catholic institutions such as hospitals, schools, orphanages, adoption agencies will pay the insurance costs to cover abortifacients, sterilization, contraceptives and eventually abortion of their employees. Failure to do so will result in huge fines, in effect, shutting all such operations down. He graciously gave the Church one year to find a way to "adapt" to his wishes. For those of us old enough to remember the collectivist Fascistic mentalities of the forties and thirties of the last century, the present day trend is more than disturbing. In effect, Obama seriously threatens our freedom to practice our Faith as guaranteed by the First Amendment. He will grandly give us freedom of worship, but not freedom of religion. A distinction which is gigantic! Is it that he misunderstands that the granting of rights comes, not from government ( him) but from God, the Creator, a fact of Americana fairly easily found in the Declaration of Independence?

William Donahoe in his publication "The Catalyst" notes that in May of 2012 the United States Council of Catholic Bishops made a serious complaint through their lawyers, notably P. Picarello Jr, and Michael Moses thusly. "We believe that this mandate is unjust and unlawful. It is bad health care policy and because it entails an element of government coercion against conscience it creates a religious freedom problem." One central objection was the "unprecedented" attempt to re-define religious employer entities that hire and serve mostly those of their own religion. This would nullify religious exemption traditionally offered to Catholic schools hospitals, colleges and humanitarian institutions.

Some contemporary Catholics are beginning to see the truth of the Obama bias against the Catholic Church. The percentage of the Catholics who said the administration is unfriendly to religion ( read: Catholic) has jumped in the past 3 years from 15% to 25%/ Among white Catholics the per cent who say that the administration is "unfriendly" has gone from l7% TO 31%. Obama's administration recently denied funding to a Catholic agency for women and children simply because it is pro life (Catalyst May 2012). K. Sibelius has been at war with the Church for decades. She was appointed to Obama's cabinet, Connection ? Obama tried to get a big post for a woman who was the ACLU point person trying to strip the Church of tax exemption status. Obama hosted a forum of the biggest Catholic bashers when he welcomed the Secular Coalition which in 2010 opposed school choice for indigent parents for a Catholic school while supporting funding for "choice" to abort babies.

 

The term "social Justice" is a sacred and serious one for Catholics. However, Obama uses it in a manner which has little to do with Catholic doctrine. When a Catholic says he will fight vigorously for Social justice, he speaks in the vein of our Tradition so clearly taught by Pope Leo Xlll in his encyclical "Rerum Novarum".
Obviously, people use the same term but with totally different meanings. When the Pope used the term "social justice" he spoke specifically of subsidiarity which requires government not intervene in matters that can be taken care of or resolved by families or communities. Only when these families or communities cannot or will not fulfill their rights and duties in regard to its members can government intervene. Government should be at the service of the family not vice versa. Inappropriate intervention by government should not do what smaller communities for families can do for themselves. Such intervention can destroy the virtues that build a productive society where virtue can be taught and practiced most successfully.

Similarly, our sense of social justice involves participation wherein each of us is allowed to participate in building up society. When government takes this opportunity away, it is no longer social justice. Likewise solidarity requires us personally to help others of the community when they cannot help themselves. Government should not interfere unless absolutely necessary. Further, Catholics, as articulated by Leo Xlll, believe in the right of private property. When one labors to cultivate land and make it fruitful, he should be allowed to possess that into which he has so heavily invested himself. For government to take this away from him is tantamount to stealing. Subsequent Popes like Pope Pius Xl and Pope John Paul ll have developed these ideas more extensively.

 

I believe that Barry Barak Hussein Obama ultimately supports social and political positions inherently opposed to Catholic thought, belief and practice. and he knows it! I heard only yesterday (10/27/12) that Cardinal George of Chicago recently stated, as appears in First Things, on line, that while he can expect to die in bed, his successor might well die in prison and his successor might well be executed for the Faith. Exaggeration or not, there is something which is realistically frightening in this speculation.

But I suspect many Catholics do not even know Obama's plan to gag and corral us in our desire to carry out our God-based charities in our nation.

At the same times, there are many Catholic groups which are intelligent and brave and which take a public stance so clearly required by Jesus. For example the Sisters of Life, a religious order of nuns given to an heroic community charity, issued this statement:

" This mandate is an offensive and dangerous infringement upon the natural and Constitutional rights of American citizens. The only just solution to this infringement of rights is to rescind the HHS rule. We call upon members of Cong-gress and the Executive Branch to reverse this decision as soon as possible, and we invite our fellow citizens to join us in prayer and fasting that our Nation may be protected from this great threat against liberty."

Would that American Catholics in general had the insight and courage and generosity of these Sisters. This President has not united us. He has harassed us and as the title of this little reflection indicates, he subtly is making war on our Catholic Faith.

It has been said that Catholics would give Jews a good run for their money when it come to which group has more of self hating types. Which is worse self hate or ignorance? One is psychological, the other inadequacy. In either case real healing of harm already done could begin by recognizing who is hurting us. Stand or fall, the buck stops with the guy on top. I'll bet you can guess for whom I will vote, God willing.

I Love My King But I Love God More!

 

 

 

 

I Love my King But I love my God More!

(or why Government domination of religion is unacceptable)

It is alleged that when St. Thomas More, once the Chancellor of England, was being led to the gallows to be beheaded, he said those powerful words quoted in the title. He was being punished, in effect, for refusing to renounce his Roman Catholic Religion as required by his King. He believed that by following his conscience and disobeying his worldly Master, he avoided eternal damnation and received the eternal happiness of Heaven promised by Jesus to those who would acknowledge the Father in heaven "before men." Chillingly, Jesus also highlighted the price one would pay for refusing to publicly acknowledge Him.

Inherent in More's choice is the recognition that true Conscience does not create truth but discovers it. The word "conscience" derives from two Latin words—cum meaning with and scientia meaning knowledge. Conscience means
"with Knowledge".

Many of his contemporaries, including his own family, believed that he could and should somehow bend his conscience sufficiently to allow him to escape the penalty of death. They argued that others followed their personal "conscience" and bent to the King's wishes with full approval from God. In effect, they argued, Truth is relative. It simply depends, they said, upon how one sees things. Even were that so, Thomas would have been bound to do what he did. any other stance would have put him in the role of hypocrite. However, it is more than a question of hypocrisy. It involves the whole foundation of human morality.

The present Pontiff, Benedict XVI, has consistently held that a fundamental error in human thinking is Moral Relativism. While his observation of the widespread modern reality of relativism is true, certainly, it is nothing new in human history. We have always had those who rationalized evil into good in order to escape difficulties or gain some desired object. And often under the guise of "conscience." (The Catholic Church has always held to the supremacy of properly formed conscience not of any kind of conscience.)

But, likewise, there have always been martyrs whose consciences put them in uncomfortable places because of their belief in unchanging truth. For example, Thomas a Becket got into difficulty, in 1164, with his King for conscience reasons similar to More's. In T.S. Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral there is a line (p.74) which portrays the underlying theme. "…… I give my life to the Law of God above the law of man…." A Catholic Archbishop is murdered because he will not bend to the attacks of a political leader who demands that the Church accept a view contrary to Church belief. There are numerous historical precedents showing that people die for perennial truths in the face of relativism. They obviously believed that even great pressures from powerful sources cannot change reality.

The Pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote in 1991 that "…..Morality of conscience and morality of authority, as two opposing models, appear to be locked in struggle with each other…" (10^th Bishops' Workshop of Nat'l Bioethics Center.) Catholics and many other fellow Americans presently are "locked" in a struggle for human conscience, specifically religious liberty, with the present Federal administration. The manifest sore of the conflict centers around the Administration's insistence that all health insurance programs provide for abortion inducing medication, sterilization and contraception. As clamoring as these subjects are for attention, more deeply and strongly screaming is the question of basic freedom. Specifically, Religious freedom but not merely the right to worship only within the walls of the church, synagogue or mosque, but freedom of religious thought, expression and viewpoint in every public square.

Cardinal Dolan, speaking for the Bishops of the United States noted: "Never before has the Federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy products that violate their consciences. This should not happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights." It is interesting to note that the important expression is free exercise of religion not of worship which inexorably confines the practice of religion to the physical strictures of buildings. archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia described this mandate as "coercive and deeply troubling in its implications for the rights of conscience."

Of course, there then arises the thorny question: What is a rightly formed conscience? How does one decide which is which? Is there any authority with the power and insight to be the "Ultimate" Voice? Doesn't everyone have the right to form his own conscience? To follow his own star?

If the role of conscience is to discover the good and the true, how would one square the "conscience" of the Nazi Doctor in the camps who experimented on human beings for the sake of what he called "good"? Can one question the legitimacy of the Nuremberg trials, in light of some modern notions of Conscience? If those on trial testified they did what they thought was right in following orders, how could the modern condemn them since they were following their own star? If one holds that there is some kind of human consensus about rights and life, does this not place the world on a shaky basis? Hitler, Stalin, and others in history have worked from a consensus. Remember the consensus of the French Revolution with its unspeakable barbarisms? Perhaps, It is my Jewish genes again but I quake at consensus since Dachau is not far behind.

In the early 20^th century people said "It's simply not possible It couldn't be. We wouldn't kill millions of babies by making abortion legal. Impossible. Men marry men. Impossible Women marry women. Impossible. Kill people simply because they are Jewish. Impossible. Government enslaving millions of people. Impossible. Governments crushing religious freedom. Impossible. Government telling citizens what is right and wrong. Just couldn't be possible."

It is all possible if conscience is decided by consensus. If there is not some kind of fixed absolute norm apart from any government or viewpoint there is potential for disaster. Unless conscience is entwined with human nature itself, everything is relative and flexible capable of becoming whatever consensus decides. Who or what decides how far is too far? This is not evolution or growth. This is denial with potential for chaos. The complexity is clear when even a Supreme Court Justice suggests, relative to the Constitution, that "it means what we say it means." This would seem to me to imply that the Constitution's meaning could possibly change with the advent of any new panel of Justices who have a different view. An absolute and objective truth might be a factor more utilitarian than utilitarianism.

Is there some kind of absolute which exists beyond government and convenience? I sensed a direction to the answer in Jeremiah 31,33 where the Lord declares: "I will place My law within them and write it upon their hearts." Some great human thinkers seem to me to follow this point. Thomas Aquinas, for example, in his Disputed Questions on Truth writes that the judgment of conscience is made by considering an action in the light of the principles of the Natural Law placed in our souls by God Himself. So it is the duty of good people to search for this Truth already within them. Congenial to this insight is the conclusion that a rightly formed conscience must be respected. Conscience is the voice of God and the echo of God's law within us. Catholics believe that the clarification of this "Natural" law is through the Catholic Church's Magisterium whereby God Himself teaches the full Truth. This is based on Jesus Himself Who founded His own Church for precisely this purpose. (Matt, 16,18) with His own backing of the Church's Leadership.

 

Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote that "conscience is a connecting principle between the creature and his Creator." And this is why the Obama administration is so clearly wrong when it offers to those who oppose it, in the MHS mandate, the opportunity to "adapt" their consciences to the new rule. Catholic Tradition and teaching insist that the judgments of conscience are to be preserved, nurtured and respected

In the end it comes down to the requirement of Jesus to give to Caesar what is Caesar's but give to God what is God's. It may require that the Catholic Church in America be forced to exit the good works of hospitals and schools and clinics and orphanages and old age homes. This is tragic and unnecessary. Millions will suffer for this but it is brought on by the invasion of religious rights so preciously guaranteed not only by our Declaration of Independence and of our founding Fathers but by the very nature of being human. Our right to follow our conscience comes from God not from any ruling group or smiling oppressor. Apocryphal or not, a ruling principle of integrity is that earlier attributed to St. Thomas More:

" I love my God and am his loyal servant but God's more."