”Congressman, I’m not sure whether or not you fulfill the basic requirements of being a Catholic, so let me ask: Do you accept the teachings of the Church on essential matters of faith and morals, including our stance on abortion?”

Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, Bishop of Providence

This from The Providence Journal:

‘Even as they agreed to postpone a planned face-to-face meeting that had been set for Thursday, Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin turned up the heat Monday on U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy over his “rejection” of church teaching on abortion, calling on him to enter into a process of conversion and repentance.’

Turned up the heat?

Try pulling out the heat and pummeling the double-tongued Kennedy with a good ol’ fashioned episcopal pistol-whipping… POW!!! SPLAT!!!

The public reply of Bishop Tobin below is in response [Here] to a Kennedy letter accepting an invitation from his bishop to discuss health care reform. However, after passage of the bill on Saturday last, in which, Kennedy voted against a provision preventing federal funding of abortion, the meeting was postponed by mutual agreement after their staffs agreed that the meeting was not as urgent…

Perhaps not, but, after reading over the remarks below one is left wondering if Mr. Kennedy’s own health care package includes ‘urgent ambulatory care.’

[My emphasis/Comments]

Dear Congressman Kennedy:

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” (Congressman Patrick Kennedy)

Since our recent correspondence has been rather public, I hope you don’t mind if I share a few reflections about your practice of the faith in this public forum. I usually wouldn’t do that – that is speak about someone’s faith in a public setting – but in our well-documented exchange of letters about health care and abortion, it has emerged as an issue. I also share these words publicly with the thought that they might be instructive to other Catholics, including those in prominent positions of leadership. [Honestly, when I first read this portion I took it to mean fellow bishops, and only moments later considered it in the probable light-- high-ranking Catholic pro-abort politicians. But, is it far-fetched to consider a double entendre here? Remember this phrase: “Profile In Courage.”].

For the moment I’d like to set aside the discussion of health care reform, as important and relevant as it is, and focus on one statement contained in your letter of October 29, 2009, in which you write, “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” [Boy, how often have we heard this error?] That sentence certainly caught my attention and deserves a public response, lest it go unchallenged and lead others to believe it’s true.  ["Profile In Courage..."Note: From here on read as P.I.C.!] And it raises an important question: What does it mean to be a Catholic?

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.

For example, the “Code of Canon Law” says, “Lay persons are bound by an obligation and possess the right to acquire a knowledge of Christian doctrine adapted to their capacity and condition so that they can live in accord with that doctrine.” (Canon 229, #1)

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says this: “Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles, ‘He who hears you, hears me,’ [Inspired Word of God.] the faithful receive with docility the teaching and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.” (#87)

Or consider this statement of the Church: “It would be a mistake to confuse the proper autonomy exercised by Catholics in political life with the claim of a principle that prescinds from the moral and social teaching of the Church.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2002)

There’s lots of canonical and theological verbiage there, Congressman, but what it means is that if you don’t accept the teachings of the Church your communion with the Church is flawed, or in your own words, makes you “less of a Catholic.”

But let’s get down to a more practical question; let’s approach it this way: What does it mean, really, to be a Catholic? After all, being a Catholic has to mean something, right?

Well, in simple terms – and here I refer only to those more visible, structural elements of Church membership – being a Catholic means that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine [P.I.C.!], obligations and expectations [P.I.C.!]. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church [P.I.C.!, P.I.C.!!], especially on essential matters of faith and morals[P.I.C.!!!!]; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.[Sing it with me... P.I.C!!!!!!].

Congressman, [Stop. Switch places with Mr. Kennedy and consider if this was your own bishop speaking to you...] I’m not sure whether or not you fulfill the basic requirements of being a Catholic, [He's serious.] so let me ask: Do you accept the teachings of the Church on essential matters of faith and morals, including our stance on abortion? Do you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish? Do you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly? Do you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially? In your letter you say that you “embrace your faith.” Terrific. But if you don’t fulfill the basic requirements of membership, what is it exactly that makes you a Catholic? Your baptism as an infant? Your family ties? Your cultural heritage?

Your letter also says that your faith “acknowledges the existence of an imperfect humanity.” Absolutely true. But in confronting your rejection of the Church’s teaching, we’re not dealing just with “an imperfect humanity” – as we do when we wrestle with sins such as anger, pride, greed, impurity or dishonesty. We all struggle with those things, and often fail.

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.[A possible forewarning here?].

Congressman Kennedy, I write these words not to embarrass you or to judge the state of your conscience or soul. That’s ultimately between you and God. But your description of your relationship with the Church is now a matter of public record, and it needs to be challenged. [keep in mind this letter is intended to be instructive to other Catholics and those in prominent positions of leadership.] I invite you, as your bishop and brother in Christ, to enter into a sincere process of discernment, conversion and repentance. It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic “profile in courage,” especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children. And if I can ever be of assistance as you travel the road of faith, I would be honored and happy to do so.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas J. Tobin

Bishop of Providence

Extraordinary and timely… The Bishop and his letter.

UPDATE: PATRICK KENNEDY RESPONDS

By Karen Lee Ziner

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rep. Patrick Kennedy says he finds it “very disconcerting” that Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin will not agree to keep private a discussion about Kennedy’s faith.

Talking with reporters Tuesday in response to an open letter to Kennedy published Monday on the Web site of the diocesan newspaper the Rhode Island Catholic, the congressman said he initially agreed to meet with the bishop with the understanding that whatever he chose to bring up with him would be kept private.

He said the planned meeting, which had been set for Thursday, was postponed because the bishop would not stand by a promise to keep the meeting private.

In his letter to Kennedy — printed in his column, “Without a Doubt” — Bishop Tobin challenged Kennedy’s assertion that he is not any less of a Catholic for supporting abortion rights. The bishop, in addition to calling him to a process of “conversion and repentance,” said that being a Catholic involves much more than cultural heritage or being baptized a Catholic.

The bishop asked in his letter if Kennedy supported the church’s essential teachings on faith and morals, including abortion, if he belonged to a parish, attended Mass on Sundays and regularly received the sacraments.

Kennedy said Tuesday that he has a pastor, and “I have my sacraments through that pastor. I don’t want anyone hounding my pastor. I have sought the sacraments of reconciliation and communion and all the rest.”

When a reporter asked asked Kennedy: “Does all of this hurt you? Do you feel wounded?” Kennedy responded: “I think it’s unfortunate. I’m not going to engage this anymore.”

But when asked if he had been threatened with denial of communion or other sanctions, Kennedy said those were subjects he planned to discuss with the bishop. “Ideally, he will keep it between us.”

Kennedy said he initiially criticized the U.S. Catholic bishops because they said that they would oppose the health-care reform bills pending in Congress if they did not explicitly deny federal funding for abortion.

“What I disagreed with them is that if they didn’t get their they, weren’t going to support overall health-care reform,” he said. “That’s something i felt very strongly was destructive to the process.”

Kennedy’s meeting with reporters took place outside the Chafee Health Center in Providence after volunteers thanked him and Rep. James Langevin for their work on health-insurance reform.

END OF POST

January 30, 2009 

Dear Senator Casey: 

I wish to thank you for voting in favor of the Hatch Amendment to the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reorganization Act of 2009 which would have made unborn children eligible for child health assistance had it passed. I am grateful for what you have done on behalf of children in America who are without health care.

It is with deep regret, however, that I learned of your vote against the amendment offered by Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) to the same Children’s Health Insurance Act. Senator Martinez’s amendment would have reinstated the Mexico City Policy. That policy, instituted in 1984, required foreign non-governmental organizations “to agree as a condition of their receipt of [U.S.] federal funds” that they would “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning . . . .” It also prohibited them from lobbying governments to make abortion legal. In effect, the reversal of the Mexico City policy will mean that over 450 million dollars of American foreign aid will go to organizations that are militant in promoting abortion as a method of population control, particularly in countries that find abortion objectionable on moral grounds. Senator, is not this vote a contradiction of your repeated claim that you support the protection of unborn life?

Contrary to a release issued by your office yesterday, the 1973 Helms Amendment does not provide the same restrictions as the Mexico City Policy. The Helms Amendment prohibits only U.S. funds from being used to pay for abortions or to motivate or coerce anyone to practice abortions. It in no way keeps U.S. federal funds from organizations which use their own money to pay for or support abortions. Nor does it place restrictions on organizations that lobby foreign governments to reverse anti-abortion laws. While I understand that the Helms Amendment is still in place, it does not have the same effect in limiting abortions abroad.     

On Respect Life Sunday, October 5, I addressed the faithful of the Diocese of Scranton. In keeping with the obligations of my episcopal office, I called upon my brothers and sisters in faith to be vigilant against the objections to the Church’s teaching on life so prevalent in current political discourse. I vowed to be vigilant in correcting Catholics who are in error with regard to the sanctity of life. Your vote against the Mexico City Policy will mean the deaths of thousands of unborn children. This is an offense against life and a denial of our Catholic teaching on the dignity of every human being. This action is worthy of condemnation by all moral men and women.

Your release also says that you support “family planning . . . specifically because reducing unintended pregnancies reduces the number of abortions.” I remind you that it is never permissible to use immoral means (e.g., artificial contraception) to achieve a good end.

As I have done on several occasions, Senator, I urge you to consider that Church documents speak clearly and compellingly on the special responsibility that falls to you as a lawmaker to oppose abortion and other clear evils, including contraception, infanticide, euthanasia and embryonic stem-cell research. To that end, I refer you to two documents: 

1.                            Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life. It says, “Catholics . . . have the right and the duty to recall society to a deeper understanding of human life and to the responsibility of everyone in this regard. John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life.” 

2.                            Christifideles Laici. It states, “If, indeed everyone has the mission and responsibility of acknowledging the personal dignity of every human being and of defending the right to life, some lay faithful are given a particular title to this task: such as parents, teachers, health workers and those who hold economic and political power.“ 

I remind you further that when he was Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger sent a memo to the bishops of the United States advising them that advocacy of, or participation in, abortion and euthanasia can never be justified by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits or requires it. He said there can be no diversity of opinion among Catholics regarding abortion and euthanasia.

It is my deepest wish, Senator, to convince you of the necessity of rescinding your vote on the Martinez Amendment. It is the height of irony that this amendment was defeated while the Senate passed legislation to provide health insurance for children who would otherwise be without it. What hypocrisy offers health insurance to children in one part of the world when children in another part will be deprived, by the stroke of the same pen, of their first breath?

I recognize and respect the burdens that you bear as a United States Senator; however, I remind you that your responsibilities as a Catholic bound by the faith of the Church exceed even those of your office. Your failure to reverse this vote will regrettably mean that you persist formally in cooperating with the evil brought about by this hideous and unnecessary policy. 

As I have done several times before, I offer to make myself available to you to discuss the grave concerns that I raise here.  

Sincerely yours in Christ, 

Most Reverend Joseph F. Martino, D.D., Hist. E.D.
Bishop of Scranton

Source: Diocese of Scranton

Repent Obama Catholic voters…

     Today is the day and reason why any Catholic who voted for Barack Hussein Obama should now take the advice of those clear-minded clerics who prior to the election proclaimed this truth: There is/was no overriding proportionate issue to cause any Catholic to vote for the party of death and its new figurehead…

     President Obama’s pledge to “reduce the number of abortions” in this country can only be interpreted in the light of the truth his now unfulfilled words attempt to belie, a pledge to reduce “legalized genocide”.

     The Catholic vote for President Obama was and remains a sin, and today’s annoucement of America’s help in restoring the grave act of abortion on a global scale combined falls under the category of the well-known penitential words found within the Holy Mass, “In what I have done, and in what I (we) have failed to do, and I ask…” …and I will–pray for you: That you seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation with the Lord your God in Whom all things come into being… Including the unborn child.

     What was forgotten or simply ignored by the majority of Catholic voters this election cycle were the “millions of  proportionate reasons” not to vote for Barack Obama: the “millions of innocent unborn” who will perish by such policies in the years ahead…

Let us seek mercy.

Here’s the report w/Hat Tip to ABC News:

ABC News has learned that later today President Obama will sign an executive order overturning the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits Non Governmental Organizations that receive international family planning assistance through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from providing or actively promoting abortions as a method of family planning in other countries.

The policy — called the “Global Gag rule” by supporters of abortion rights — was first instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, was overturned by President Bill Clinton in 1993, and was re-instituted by President George W. Bush  in 2001.

Past presidents have instituted or revoked the ban on January 22, the anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, but President Obama held off on that move, thinking it too combative.

- jpt

Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

-Dietrich Bonhoeffe

As we head toward November, Catholics might profit from recalling a few simple facts. First, surrounding a bad social policy or party platform plank-for example, permissive abortion-with religious people doesn’t redeem the bad policy or plank. It merely compromises the religious people who try to excuse it. One of the more miraculous, or suspicious, side-effects of the 2004 election was the number of candidates in both political parties who suddenly began talking about their religious faith. There’s no doubt that many public officials, regardless of party, do take their religious beliefs very seriously and do try to live by them. That’s a good thing. So maybe this latest trend implies a new Great Awakening. Or maybe, as one of my skeptical friends says, “it’s just another charm offensive to get the shamans off their backs.” Time will tell. Words are important. Actions are more important. The religious choreography of a campaign doesn’t matter. The content of its ideas does. The religious vocabulary of a candidate doesn’t matter. The content of his record, plans, and promises does.

Second, there’s no way for Catholics to finesse their way around the abortion issue, and if we’re serious about being “Catholic,” we need to stop trying. No such thing as a “right” to kill an unborn child exists. And wriggling past that simple truth by redefining the unborn child as an unperson, a pre-human lump of cells, is the worst sort of Orwellian hypocrisy-especially for Christians. Abortion always involves the deliberate killing of an innocent human life, and it is always, inexcusably, grievously wrong. This fact in no way releases us from the duty to provide ample and compassionate support for unwed or abandoned mothers, women facing unwanted pregnancies, and women struggling with the aftermath of an abortion. But the inadequacy of that support demands that we work to improve it. It does not justify killing the child.

Obviously, we have other important issues facing us this fall: the economy, the war in Iraq, immigration justice. But we can’t build a healthy society while ignoring the routine and very profitable legalized homicide that goes on every day against America’s unborn children. The right to life is foundational. Every other right depends on it. Efforts to reduce abortions, or to create alternatives to abortion, or to foster an environment where more women will choose to keep their unborn child, can have great merit-but not if they serve to cover over or distract from the brutality and fundamental injustice of abortion itself. We should remember that one of the crucial things that set early Christians apart from the pagan culture around them was their rejection of abortion and infanticide. Yet for thirty-five years I’ve watched prominent “pro-choice” Catholics justify themselves with the kind of moral and verbal gymnastics that should qualify as an Olympic event. All they’ve really done is capitulate to Roe v. Wade.

Third and finally, national campaigns-of every political party-always run on the language of hope, change, and the American Dream. This makes sense. Our leaders should inspire us; they should stir our hearts and call us to live the ideals that make America great. But sometimes the answer to the realities we face is not “yes, we can,” but “no, we can’t.” No, we can’t spend money like hedonists and outrun our debts forever. No, we can’t ignore the poor of the Third World and expect to be loved abroad. No, we can’t allow the killing of roughly one million unborn children a year and then posture ourselves as a moral society. No, we can’t make wicked things right by spinning them in a clever way.

Robert D. Kaplan once wrote that “Americans can afford optimism partly because their institutions, including the Constitution, were conceived by men who thought tragically.” The American Founders, most of them Christians, had a hard and unsentimental understanding of the limits of human reason and virtue. The last thing we need in 2008 is the kind of bogus hope rooted in mystical good feeling.

The real world involves hard conflicts and intractable issues that can’t be talked away or smothered under evasive language. Plenty of very good Catholics inhabit both major political parties. It’s our job as Catholic citizens to press our parties and our political leaders to respect the sanctity of human life-all of it, from conception to grave-whether our leaders and party elites like us or not.

Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., is archbishop of Denver and author of Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (August 2008, Doubleday).

Source: First Things Magazine

A large number of endangered, unwanted, and unborn children held a town hall meeting on the 4th of July–alarmed at the brutal and untimely killing of millions of their brothers and sisters in recent years. That the murderous war waged on them had the full force and respectability of the law made their plight all the more terrifying.

Their complaint was humble and it was simple. They were not distressed by rising gas prices, or the deteriorating economy in general. They were not even frightened by the exponential increase of natural disasters. The threat of global warming or global terrorism did not greatly disturb them. They had become an endangered species, and little had been done to answer their terrified and silent screams from the womb. They decided that the barbaric treatment that they and their fellow unwanted unborn human beings have had to endure for perilous decades was unconscionable and unbearable. They cried out to their Creator for inspiration and protection, and then unanimously they put forth a declaration. It began as follows:

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS….”

THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE!

The first and pre-eminent right is the right to life. This truth the Founding Fathers were sure of, and anyone with any common sense at all is equally sure of it. 232 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed the amount of common sense that seems to be operative in many spheres of influence-most notably the courts and the political arena–can easily be poured into a very small thimble.

The United States of America seems to have a death wish, and we have traveled far down the road to having that wish realized. When law divorces itself from common sense and spawns the illegitimate offspring of distortions of law, resulting in illegal laws-based neither on the natural law nor divine law–this undermines law itself, generating disdain for the law. Erosion of trust in the courts, or the system in general, is inevitable.

The genesis of the death wish is rooted in the fall of man that we see in the Book of Genesis. The substance of the fall is wrapped up in Lucifer’s pride, transferred to Adam and Eve-”You can be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The unholy, yet inevitable, consequence of that pride is disobedience-eating the forbidden fruit. The ultimate end is death, as God said it would be. That’s the way it was in the beginning. That’s the way it is now. That’s the way it will be until time breathes forth it’s last moment. The prototypical sin is pride, the pride that seeks to exalt the creature above the Creator: “I can be like God.” Then, subjectively and arbitrarily, man tries to assert himself, imagining that he knows what’s good and evil for himself without reference to God and God’s law. This was the fall of the angels and the fall of man. The attempt by creatures to usurp what is only the province of God. Only God knows what is good for His creation.

In recent years it took the form of a self-inflicted heart wound when some dissident Catholics rejected the teaching of the Church, a teaching that clearly held that artificial contraception is intrinsically evil. Then, as Pope Paul VI had warned, it metastasized into abortion. From abortion it degenerated even further into partial-birth abortion. It was then a short and easy step to infanticide.

The exclamation point at the end of the death wish is that now there is yet another candidate for the office of president of the United States who has in an extraordinary way done everything possible to breathe life into all of the barbaric elements of the death wish. He and his party make no apologies for their support of abortion, partial-birth abortion, and even infanticide. It’s hard to believe that we have degenerated to the point that we’ll murder a helpless baby should it escape the violence of an abortion and be born alive. Can a Catholic vote for such persons? We are told, “yes” for a “proportionate reason.” What, I might ask, is the proportionate reason so weighty as to excuse supporting those responsible for what is tantamount to genocide?

The judges and politicians that support such barbaric practices are truly guilty of genocide: genocide-the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, national, or social group. “What is the group so targeted?” you might ask. The group is unwanted, unborn children–tens of millions of them.

The Supreme Court justices that gave us Roe v. Wade will have to plead temporary insanity in the court of history. There will be no defense in the highest Court that is the judgment seat of almighty God if they do not repent of the incalculable evil they have wrought.

Yet, despite the life and death importance of this travesty of authentic law, there will be no serious discussion among political candidates, or anyone else. It is as if society has been bewitched, blind to the splendor of truth, deaf to the cries of the most innocent, most vulnerable, and most utterly helpless.

From artificial contraception to abortion to partial-birth abortion, then on to infanticide we march toward the abyss of oblivion, a society marked for death. Is it any wonder we can rationalize the killing of the elderly or the sick through euthanasia? The tragic murder of Terri Schiavo is a logical extension of a morally numb society’s mad march toward its own suicidal death. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t dying. They murdered her, starved her to death–one of the cruelest forms of death. She was innocent, yet subjected to a most cruel and unusual punishment. Why? Because she was helpless? Because she was too much trouble, too hard to look at?

As Abraham Lincoln asserted, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” We are dying by suicide, moral and spiritual suicide, and the moral demise of a nation almost always precedes the ultimate demise of a nation.

Many of our leaders, political and legal, are reminiscent of the horrid witches in Act 1 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” chanting shrilly to a morally sick public all too eager to be confirmed in their sins, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.” Good is evil, and evil is good. The truth is a lie and lies are the truth, hover through the fog of moral relativism and the filthy air of a world gone mad with the madness of sin.

The words of the prophet thunder through the ages, ” Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). We have inverted the poles of the moral power grid. We have begun to call the negative pole the positive, and the positive the negative. This inversion of reality begets disaster:

The power fails, the lights go out, darkness falls-and indeed, if your light is darkness, how deep, how very deep will the darkness be! (cf. Mt 6:23).

This death wish has marched toward its logical and inexorable conclusion with little opposition from leaders–political, legal, or religious. The world knows the Catholic Church and any self-respecting and faithful Christian roundly reject abortion and all of the other nails in the coffin of contemporary society, but the defense of life hasbeen weak. Weak leadership, whether in society in general, or in the Church in particular, is punishment for sin. The Old Covenant has examples enough of the Chosen People being turned over to exile and their enemies because of infidelity. They lamented, “We have no priest, prophet, or king.” These were taken away because of infidelity.

In recent times large numbers of Catholics and other Christians rejected Pope Paul VI’s landmark and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae, on Human Life. A majority of the bishops of Canada did so publicly, formally, and in writing with their infamous Winnipeg Statement. The great Archbishop Fulton Sheen lamented bitterly in the 1970s that the prophetic Spirit of Christ had all but been extinguished in the contemporary Church.

Today there are many CEOs, all too few Apostles. Are we afraid of a fight? Do we fear rejection, misunderstanding, or derision? Are we cowed and intimidated by fallacious notions of the separation of Church and state? Could we be afraid of persecution? Could we be afraid of losing our tax-exempt status? Have we declared détente with evil?

The clock is ticking. Midnight is approaching. Time is running out for our nation, a nation that once was great, and could be great again if enough of us wake up and renounce this curse of a death wish. Will God turn his friends over to His enemies as He has done multiple times in the past? Will radical Islam overrun us? Will the planet cook? Will one too many natural disasters grind us into dust? Will we collapse economically? All of the above? Perhaps these are all merely effects of the underlying cause-a death wish that chokes the life out of us.

In the end it is likely that President Abraham Lincoln had it right: “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Thus forgetting that we are one nation under God, we become a nation gone under (President Ronald Reagan). And, indeed, “If destruction be our lot we ourselves will be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

May God grant us the grace to awake from this deadly moral slumber, renounce the death wish, and live like truly free men and women-in the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Rev John Corapi, SOLT-2008

www.fathercorapi.com

©2008 REV. JOHN A. CORAPI, SOLT, STD

I have been wanting to write something regarding the situation in Kansas, where dissident Catholic governor Kathleen Sebelius has been told to refrain from partaking of communion. Archbishop Naumann is another leader of the Church that I applaud for defending the truth of the Catholic faith.

Some may see this as a negative move on the part of the Church, however, if the Church is to remain faithful to the truth, then Church leaders must stand up on these issues. The Church clearly teaches that abortion is not acceptable and Governor Sebelius supports the worst form of abortion.

It is tiring to hear that a politician personally does not approve of abortion and then for them to pass laws that promote it. What kind of leadership is that? A politician should stand up for truth. Would it be acceptable for one to say they don’t approve of murder but they won’t legislate against it? Abortion is murder! That is a fact! You cannot as a faithful Catholic have it both ways!

The Archbishop has shown incredible charity in asking the governor and other pro abortion polititians to refrain from the Eucharist. Catholic teaching clearly states that if one is in the state of mortal sin that they must refrain from the Eucharist until they confess and repent from their sinful actions. 

Thank you Archbishop Naumann for standing up for the faith.

Please pray for the Archbishop and also pray for Governor Sebelius’s change of heart on the issue of abortion.

Here is more on the subject.

http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=28077