Is Abortion Just Another “Issue”?
By Christopher Manion [from the Wanderer]
The more one pages through Charles Rice’s new book, “What Happened to Notre Dame,” the more Obama’s triumphal visit there last May emerges as a turning point, not only for the university, but for Catholic education and the American Catholic Church. No longer could the university pretend that the “Fighting Irish” would fight for the lives of the unborn. Instead, the event sent the message that Notre Dame had demoted abortion from the status of an intrinsic evil to just one of many increasingly obscure threads in the “seamless garment” that Obama’s favorite archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, conjured up long ago to diminish the relative importance – indeed, the horror -- of abortion in America, reducing it to a political issue that must be considered alongside many others.
Rice confronts that dialectic head-on, using the lens of Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Dictatorship of Relativism.” I wonder, do Notre Dame students read Orwell any more? Because the truth is right there in Animal Farm: in the seamless garment, “all issues are relative, but some issues are more relative than others.” Professor Rice drives the point home: “Could you possibly imagine Fr. Jenkins … honoring a public official who persistently expresses his approval of the Holocaust or legally enforced racial segregation, because of that official’s stand on the economy or health care?”
Come on, class, let’s not always see the same hands.
Relativism nonetheless has its supporters in the Church. While some eighty-three American bishops criticized Notre Dame’s decision to honor the most pro-abortion president in history, a couple of hundred were silent. Last month, one of their number, Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, criticized his colleagues who were critical of Father Jenkins. According to the National Catholic Reporter, “Sheehan said the Catholic community risks isolating itself from the rest of the country and that refusing to talk to a politician or refusing communion because of a difference on a single issue was counterproductive.” Archbishop Sheehan, who said he had once worked under Cardinal Bernardin, called the bishops’ criticism of Notre Dame “hysterical.”
I am grateful to Archbishop Sheehan for candidly revealing that he thinks not theologically, but politically – taking politically in its post-modernist, relativist, and reductionist sense. Abortion is reduced to a pesky “single issue” -- oppose it forthrightly and you “risk isolating yourself”! The good archbishop pretends that those 83 bishops “refuse to talk” to pro-abortion politicians, a canard that sounds pretty “hysterical” in itself (He does not complain that pro-abort politicians might not have ears to hear). But if that’s what Abp. Sheehan is against, what is he for? The Reporter again: “He said his approach – whether dealing with civic officials or church members, relied heavily on collaboration, a technique he said he learned from the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.”
Collaboration or Cooperation?
Rice recognizes that collaboration is a dangerous road. Regarding Obama’s support of cloning, and then killing, human embryos for stem-cell research, he writes, “the experiments performed by Nazi doctors on concentration camp prisoners were unimaginative and primitive by comparison. By conferring Notre Dame’s highest honors on the national leader who is setting the stage for such an atrocity, Notre Dame’s officers acted like ‘good Germans’ who were submissive to their Führer.”
In German, they called those folks “Kollaborateur” -- collaborators. How does Archbishop Sheehan counsel us to prevent his (apparently innocuous) collaboration from becoming cooperation? He does not say.
His positivism persists: Abp. Sheehan next claims that “the majority” of bishops agree with him. Perhaps that is true. He complains: “We’d be like the Amish, you know, kind of isolated from society, if we kept pulling back because of a single issue.”
Why the Amish, Your Excellency? Why not the English martyrs?
Darn those silly little “single issues”! But not all of them: near the end of his life, Cardinal Bernardin was very concerned about the precipitous decline of voluntary financial support for the Church from the laity. Could that explain why the USCCB has turned to the government, which has given their educational, charitable, and medical institutions tens of billions in taxpayer dollars? Didn’t Cardinal Bernardin ever warn Archbishop Sheehan that the issue of money might tempt the bishops not only to collaborate, but to cooperate, with abortionists? Was government money a “single issue” that the Church just couldn’t refuse?
Bravo Bishop D’Arcy
One prelate who takes his job more seriously than money or politics is my hometown bishop, John M. D’Arcy. After Rice’s book went to press, D’Arcy penned “A pastoral reflection on the controversy at Notre Dame” for America magazine – perhaps placing it in that liberal journal to make sure that folks at Notre Dame would see it. Bishop D’Arcy gets right to the point: “Does a Catholic university have the responsibility to give witness to the Catholic faith and to the consequences of that faith by its actions and decisions—especially by a decision to confer its highest honor? If not, what is the meaning of a life of faith?”
Bishop D’Arcy finds much to applaud in the students of Notre Dame: “I attended the Baccalaureate Mass the day before graduation, for the 25th time, speaking after Holy Communion, as I always do. Then I led an evening Rosary at the Grotto with students, adults and a number of professors. We then went to a chapel [the largest, in Dillon Hall] on campus. It was packed for a whole night of prayer and Eucharistic adoration.” (By the way, Fr. Richard McBrien, Notre Dame’s notorious critic of popes past and present, recently wrote that because today’s Catholics “are so literate or even well-educated … there is little or no need for [such] extraneous Eucharistic devotions.”) About Fr. McBrien’s colleagues in the Theology Department, Bishop D’Arcy makes a stunning, possibly promising observation: “It is notable that a vast majority has been willing to seek and accept the mandatum from the local bishop [D’Arcy],” he writes.
For Bishop D’Arcy, l’affaire Notre Dame is not yet over. “I firmly believe that the board of trustees must take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer. They also must understand the seriousness of the present moment,” he writes. It is up to board to address “the situation that so sundered the church last spring.” Well, since Land O’Lakes, that board has been pretty proud of its independence from the hierarchy. No matter -- Bp. D’Arcy makes his role clear: “The bishop must be concerned that Catholic institutions do not succumb to the secular culture, making decisions that appear to many, including ordinary Catholics, as a surrender to a culture opposed to the truth about life and love.”
Bishop D’Arcy then puts three questions to the board of Notre Dame: “(1) Do you consider it a responsibility in your public statements, in your life as a university and in your actions, including your public awards, to give witness to the Catholic faith in all its fullness? (2) What is your relationship to the church and, specifically, to the local bishop and his pastoral authority as defined by the Second Vatican Council? (3) Finally, a more fundamental question: Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae?”
In his introduction to Rice’s book, Professor Alfred Freddoso observes that Notre Dame invited Obama thinking it “could reap the great public relations benefits of a presidential visit, once it survived what it undoubtedly expected to be a short-lived protest by the local bishop.” Clearly Notre Dame got it wrong. Those questions are not going away: Bishop D’Arcy is waiting for answers.
[Charles Rice's book is pubished by Saint Augustine's Press
Monday, September 21, 2009
What Happened To Notre Dame? [Part One]
What Happened To Notre Dame?
[a review of Charles E. Rice's new book from St. Augustine's Press]
By Christopher Manion for the Wanderer
A few weeks into Notre Dame’s Fall semester of 1949, a sleeping freshman was jostled awake by a couple of upperclassmen.
“Hey, fella,” they shouted, “hey, we just wanna know -- how did you get into Notre Dame if you’re not Catholic?”
That awakened the sleeper in a heartbeat. “Whaddya mean, ‘not Catholic,’” he retorted. “Of course I’m Catholic!”
“Then why don’t you go to Mass!” they sternly replied.
That freshman became one of our family’s best friends – and one of Notre Dame’s most passionate alumni. All his life, he attributed his profound faith and his ardent love of Holy Mother Church and our Blessed Mother to Notre Dame. For him, and for generations of the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame was the exemplar of the Catholic Faith.
But times have changed.
“What happened to Notre Dame?” I have heard that question countless times since I graduated forty years ago. A ready answer does not come easily to mind. After all, Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s legendary football coach, used to tell my father (who started teaching there in 1919), “You should never spit on a man’s head if you’re standing on his shoulders.” And countless thousands of Notre Dame alumni undoubtedly owe their academic, their professional, and even their spiritual formation to Notre Dame. How can they criticize Notre Dame if they are “standing on its shoulders”?
Everything good about Notre Dame comes from God. For a century and more, the Holy Catholic Church and the salvation of souls was Notre Dame’s sole reason for being. By the 1960s, however, Notre Dame had grown weary of “standing on the shoulders” of the Church. Like a wayward spouse, it longed for independence, to be of the world as well as in it. Finally, with Land O’Lakes in 1967, Notre Dame filed for divorce. “For the sake of the children” (its students and alumni) and money (their financial support), it continued to project a public façade of harmony between the Church and its own secular relativism. But Notre Dame was simply trying to serve two masters, keeping up its Catholic appearances while sinking ever deeper into the mire of worldly infidelity. Last May, the flimsy façade finally came crashing down.
Hey, Wake Up!
The timing of even the most inevitable earthquake is hard to predict. But for years, Notre Dame has been poised athwart a widening chasm that makes the San Andreas Fault look like the Rock of Gibraltar. Charles E. Rice, Professor of Constitutional Law at Notre Dame since 1968, has long been a defensor fide there. His column in the campus newspaper regularly pierces the fog of faculty doubters like the siren of a Catholic Rescue Squad, racing to resuscitate victims who have been run over by hit-and-run heterodoxy. His numerous books, his Wanderer columns, and his speeches and legislative testimony have made key contributions to the intellectual and legal defense of the Culture of Life in the United States. When “Old Notre Dame” collapsed for good with Barack Obama’s commencement appearance last spring, Dr. Rice went to work. With his new book, What Happened To Notre Dame, he once more rides to the rescue.
In the introduction, Notre Dame philosophy professor Fred Feddoso succinctly explains Obama’s visit: “Both sides had much to gain. President Obama could cloak himself in the mantle of Our Lady’s university as part of an ongoing campaign to solidify his standing among those many Catholic voters for whom life issues are not very important, or at least not overriding. The university, on the other hand, could reap the great public relations benefits of a presidential visit, once it survived what it undoubtedly expected to be a short-lived protest by the local bishop, John D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and a few hardcore pro-life activists.”
Ever since, both Obama and Notre Dame have struggled to stay on message: “No big deal -- just a natural meeting of a great university and a great leader. Turn the page.”
Well, not just yet. Professor Freddoso limns Notre Dame’s transition from Catholic orthodoxy to national prominence, a course that Rice examines in detail. Freddoso’s ruminations conclude that “Notre Dame is a wonderful place in many ways. [But] What it is not is a Catholic university, i.e., an institution of higher learning where the Catholic faith pervades and enriches, and is itself enriched by, the intellectual life on campus.” Freddoso concludes with the arresting description of Notre Dame as “a public school in a Catholic neighborhood.” The kids are Catholic, but the education -- what is taught in the classroom -- “has little or nothing to do with Catholicism.”
In celebrating Obama last May, University President Father John Jenkins was giddy with exultation. All that was missing was a tattoo across his forehead, proclaiming, “Fighting Irish Welcome O’Bama.” Rice zeroes in on the telling moment, early in Obama’s address, when a voice from the cheap seats shouted, “abortion is murder!” Immediately the students answered with a roar, shouting Obama’s campaign slogan (“Yes we can!”) and their favorite football cheer (“We are N. D. !!”).
How could it be that the kids from the “Catholic Neighborhood” were cheering the premier advocate of abortion in the western world? Perhaps the students were not just cheering Obama. They were cheering Father Jenkins, who had defeated their arch-rivals. And who were the bad guys? Not Michigan State or Southern Cal, but the Church, the orthodox faithful, the old alumni, and, ultimately, the Magisterium.
Notre Dame As A Lesson For Everyone
Always the master teacher, Rice examines the Obama appearance with precision. He then moves to a deeper consideration of the principles that inform Catholic education, and compares them with the conflicting assumptions and key events that have made Notre Dame “a small Purdue with a Golden Dome” that eventually collapsed into the arms of modernity with a longing for money, prestige, and worldly “success.” Over the years, Notre Dame has built a very expensive house of cards designed to serve two masters – the modern secular world of the intellectual, political, and cultural elite, on the one hand, and traditional Catholic faithful and alumni, on the other. With Obama’s appearance, those cards came tumbling down. One by one, Rice lays them face up on the table.
In one example, Rice addresses Notre Dame’s desire to be a “research university,” which brings in millions in grants, but gives the back of the hand to undergraduate education. Almost anticipating this criticism, Notre Dame broadcast an infomercial during its season opener in September touting its role “as a premier research university [that] works to pursue a cure for .. rare diseases often overlooked by mainstream science.” The irony? Right under its nose, there is a very widespread disease, all the more dangerous because it is so rarely detected – a loss of faith, a dalliance with the culture of death, a celebration of modernity, and an abandonment of the university’s responsibility to provide a Catholic education.
Rice’s book is not a polemic but a roadmap. “In its historical acceptance of its full Catholic character, including the teaching authority of the Church, Notre Dame had it all. And then walked away from it,” he concludes. The remedy? Return – not to the past, but to the timeless truths that the “Fighting Irish” used to cheer and fight and die for – the truths of the Faith, our firm defense against the dictatorship of relativism.
Christopher Manion won the Father Hesburgh Prize in 1968.
[a review of Charles E. Rice's new book from St. Augustine's Press]
By Christopher Manion for the Wanderer
A few weeks into Notre Dame’s Fall semester of 1949, a sleeping freshman was jostled awake by a couple of upperclassmen.
“Hey, fella,” they shouted, “hey, we just wanna know -- how did you get into Notre Dame if you’re not Catholic?”
That awakened the sleeper in a heartbeat. “Whaddya mean, ‘not Catholic,’” he retorted. “Of course I’m Catholic!”
“Then why don’t you go to Mass!” they sternly replied.
That freshman became one of our family’s best friends – and one of Notre Dame’s most passionate alumni. All his life, he attributed his profound faith and his ardent love of Holy Mother Church and our Blessed Mother to Notre Dame. For him, and for generations of the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame was the exemplar of the Catholic Faith.
But times have changed.
“What happened to Notre Dame?” I have heard that question countless times since I graduated forty years ago. A ready answer does not come easily to mind. After all, Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s legendary football coach, used to tell my father (who started teaching there in 1919), “You should never spit on a man’s head if you’re standing on his shoulders.” And countless thousands of Notre Dame alumni undoubtedly owe their academic, their professional, and even their spiritual formation to Notre Dame. How can they criticize Notre Dame if they are “standing on its shoulders”?
Everything good about Notre Dame comes from God. For a century and more, the Holy Catholic Church and the salvation of souls was Notre Dame’s sole reason for being. By the 1960s, however, Notre Dame had grown weary of “standing on the shoulders” of the Church. Like a wayward spouse, it longed for independence, to be of the world as well as in it. Finally, with Land O’Lakes in 1967, Notre Dame filed for divorce. “For the sake of the children” (its students and alumni) and money (their financial support), it continued to project a public façade of harmony between the Church and its own secular relativism. But Notre Dame was simply trying to serve two masters, keeping up its Catholic appearances while sinking ever deeper into the mire of worldly infidelity. Last May, the flimsy façade finally came crashing down.
Hey, Wake Up!
The timing of even the most inevitable earthquake is hard to predict. But for years, Notre Dame has been poised athwart a widening chasm that makes the San Andreas Fault look like the Rock of Gibraltar. Charles E. Rice, Professor of Constitutional Law at Notre Dame since 1968, has long been a defensor fide there. His column in the campus newspaper regularly pierces the fog of faculty doubters like the siren of a Catholic Rescue Squad, racing to resuscitate victims who have been run over by hit-and-run heterodoxy. His numerous books, his Wanderer columns, and his speeches and legislative testimony have made key contributions to the intellectual and legal defense of the Culture of Life in the United States. When “Old Notre Dame” collapsed for good with Barack Obama’s commencement appearance last spring, Dr. Rice went to work. With his new book, What Happened To Notre Dame, he once more rides to the rescue.
In the introduction, Notre Dame philosophy professor Fred Feddoso succinctly explains Obama’s visit: “Both sides had much to gain. President Obama could cloak himself in the mantle of Our Lady’s university as part of an ongoing campaign to solidify his standing among those many Catholic voters for whom life issues are not very important, or at least not overriding. The university, on the other hand, could reap the great public relations benefits of a presidential visit, once it survived what it undoubtedly expected to be a short-lived protest by the local bishop, John D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and a few hardcore pro-life activists.”
Ever since, both Obama and Notre Dame have struggled to stay on message: “No big deal -- just a natural meeting of a great university and a great leader. Turn the page.”
Well, not just yet. Professor Freddoso limns Notre Dame’s transition from Catholic orthodoxy to national prominence, a course that Rice examines in detail. Freddoso’s ruminations conclude that “Notre Dame is a wonderful place in many ways. [But] What it is not is a Catholic university, i.e., an institution of higher learning where the Catholic faith pervades and enriches, and is itself enriched by, the intellectual life on campus.” Freddoso concludes with the arresting description of Notre Dame as “a public school in a Catholic neighborhood.” The kids are Catholic, but the education -- what is taught in the classroom -- “has little or nothing to do with Catholicism.”
In celebrating Obama last May, University President Father John Jenkins was giddy with exultation. All that was missing was a tattoo across his forehead, proclaiming, “Fighting Irish Welcome O’Bama.” Rice zeroes in on the telling moment, early in Obama’s address, when a voice from the cheap seats shouted, “abortion is murder!” Immediately the students answered with a roar, shouting Obama’s campaign slogan (“Yes we can!”) and their favorite football cheer (“We are N. D. !!”).
How could it be that the kids from the “Catholic Neighborhood” were cheering the premier advocate of abortion in the western world? Perhaps the students were not just cheering Obama. They were cheering Father Jenkins, who had defeated their arch-rivals. And who were the bad guys? Not Michigan State or Southern Cal, but the Church, the orthodox faithful, the old alumni, and, ultimately, the Magisterium.
Notre Dame As A Lesson For Everyone
Always the master teacher, Rice examines the Obama appearance with precision. He then moves to a deeper consideration of the principles that inform Catholic education, and compares them with the conflicting assumptions and key events that have made Notre Dame “a small Purdue with a Golden Dome” that eventually collapsed into the arms of modernity with a longing for money, prestige, and worldly “success.” Over the years, Notre Dame has built a very expensive house of cards designed to serve two masters – the modern secular world of the intellectual, political, and cultural elite, on the one hand, and traditional Catholic faithful and alumni, on the other. With Obama’s appearance, those cards came tumbling down. One by one, Rice lays them face up on the table.
In one example, Rice addresses Notre Dame’s desire to be a “research university,” which brings in millions in grants, but gives the back of the hand to undergraduate education. Almost anticipating this criticism, Notre Dame broadcast an infomercial during its season opener in September touting its role “as a premier research university [that] works to pursue a cure for .. rare diseases often overlooked by mainstream science.” The irony? Right under its nose, there is a very widespread disease, all the more dangerous because it is so rarely detected – a loss of faith, a dalliance with the culture of death, a celebration of modernity, and an abandonment of the university’s responsibility to provide a Catholic education.
Rice’s book is not a polemic but a roadmap. “In its historical acceptance of its full Catholic character, including the teaching authority of the Church, Notre Dame had it all. And then walked away from it,” he concludes. The remedy? Return – not to the past, but to the timeless truths that the “Fighting Irish” used to cheer and fight and die for – the truths of the Faith, our firm defense against the dictatorship of relativism.
Christopher Manion won the Father Hesburgh Prize in 1968.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Who's On First?
From Under The Rubble
by Christopher Manion
The Wanderer, July 2, 2009
So Obama has weighed in on the removal of Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales by the country’s Congress and Supreme Court, and, ultimately, the Honduran army. It’s “not legal,” says Obama – but neither was Zelaya’s plan to pull a Chavez-style coup of his own. The Honduran constitution limits the president to a single term. Zelaya, elected in 2005 with 49% of the vote, wanted to defy the constitution – undoubtedly modeling himself not only on Venezuela’s Chavez, but perhaps also on our own stateside Democrats and Republicans who routinely ignore the U.S. Constitution at home and abroad. Well, Zelaya announced that, whatever the Honduran constitution says, he would run for re-election anyway. To accomplish that goal, he announced a referendum, which the country’s Supreme Court and Congress both declared illegal. He ignored them, and demanded that the army provide security for it.
Army Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez refused, citing the constitution. Zelaya fired him and branded the rest of the government as “elitists.” The rest of the country’s top military commanders quit in support of General Vasquez Velasquez, and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the general’s firing was illegal. The Honduran Congress stripped Zelaya of his presidential powers, and instead of providing security for the Sunday referendum, the army surrounded Zelaya’s house and sent him packing to Costa Rica.
Since Zelaya is a leftist, this event is popularly known as a “coup.” Were he a rightist, his removal would be hailed as “national liberation.” But let’s not quibble about vocabulary, since by now the reader might be experiencing what Bill Safire, who used to be funny, once coined as “MEGO” – “My Eyes Glaze Over.”
The average American isn’t expected to keep up on all those Latin American tinhorns, and neither is our own youthful, energetic president. Obama certainly doesn’t want to be bothered with such depth of detail without his teleprompter – after all, isn’t General Motors bigger than General what’s-his-name in Honduras anyway? But we can all rest assured that our State Department, under the seasoned hand of Hillary, has everything under control – right?
Well, as one Foreign Service lifer used to answer every question, “only up to a point.” And how we arrived at that point – that is, history – is worth looking at. Let’s start with the last eight years.
The Seven Lean Years
In attempting by force to enkindle the “natural democratic spirit” in Middle Eastern Islamic societies after 9-11, the Bush Administration missed a golden opportunity to solidify the still fragile, America-friendly democracies in Latin America. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan had managed to clean up after Jimmy Carter and nurture that continent’s move away from dictatorship while directing the final, triumphant conduct of the Cold War leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A historic feat indeed. Alas, the Bush years were different. In fact, the contrast with the Reagan years could not be more stark, nor the consequences more dire. Latin America has for years been a foreign policy backwater, attracting sentimental leftists to academic and government posts dealing with the area. The tough assignments were Russia, Asia (primarily China), and the Middle East, and Europe. Regarding Latin America, Bush’s first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, didn’t have a chance. After a long battle, he lost control of foreign policy to the neocons. They then damaged him beyond repair by feeding him disinformation regarding Iraq and WMD that Powell repeated in public testimony before the U.N. Security Council. Dismayed and discredited, Powell finally left office.
Colin Powell was succeeded by Condi Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor. Rice was undoubtedly well-intentioned, but she was simply inept. Nonetheless, President Bush valued her highly, as he did his other gentle protectors, Karen Hughes and Harriet Miers, whose support he relied on most during the years that Dick Cheney ran the executive branch and foreign policy as the most powerful vice-president in history.
While the Bush Administration studiously ignored our neighbors to the south, China’s top leaders treated Latin America like their backyard, sealing long-term economic and political deals, encouraging leftists and anti-Americans of every stripe, and simply outclassing their American counterparts. During the Bush years, U.S. officials appeared to be merely bewildered as Latin America veered ever more leftward. With Obama, that momentum will now be facilitated by Hillary’s State Department and the Senate veteran Chris Dodd, who has steered Latin American policy to the left for the Democrats there for almost 30 years.
A Whiff Of An Empty Bottle
Dr. Erik von Kuehneldt-Leddihn was a conservative original. He traveled the world, lecturing six months out of every year, spending the other months studying at his home in the Austrian Tirol. He knew a dozen languages and was always busy learning another one (“I have to go upstairs and study Japanese,” he said on one of his last visits, as he finished breakfast). Dr. von Kuehneldt-Leddihn was “an expert on everything, including expertise,” one wag fondly observed, and Leftism, his magnum opus, still stands as a true work of genius.
He once told me about a short story he had written (I’ve never been able to find it – he published it under a pseudonym, and in an obscure journal) -- in the late 1940s. He referred to it on several occasions to illustrate the inevitable decline of a culture, or even a civilization, once its central core of truth is abandoned.
The final scene is unforgettable. A young man has become a revolutionary. His father, a weak-kneed Lutheran minister, tried to restrain his son with reminders of the civic virtues, admonishing him to avoid extremes – all typical of the plaintive liberal weakling. The son, fed up with his father’s vacillations between progressivism and propriety, finally erupts. He points to the portrait hanging over his father’s desk. It depicts his grandfather, whom his father reveres – who was all his life a staunch and devoted Lutheran minister.
“He believed in something,” the son shouts, pointing to his grandfather. “He had principles, he had faith, he had courage, he had convictions. But you – (here his father cringes) – you -- you are living off the whiff of an empty bottle!”
I was reminded of Dr. von Kuehneldt-Leddihn’s young revolutionary by Hilaire Belloc’s description of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. Laud came to power as “the leader of and representative of those who feared and disliked Puritanism as a moral disease.” Laud had “sympathy” with all things Catholic – images, Our Lady, the Sacraments, even the Eucharist. But he and his cohorts “remained (though they would not have admitted it) thoroughly anti-Catholic, because they rejected that one part of Catholic doctrine which is its essential -- the combination of unity and authority. The unity of the visible Church and its invincible authority were repugnant to their growing nationalism, and those who preserved such an attitude of mind were just as much the enemies of Catholicism as the most rabid Puritan could be, or the most complete agnostic.”
As we survey the cultural wreckage around us, and hear platitudes about “human rights” (the homosexual slogan) and “I am personally opposed to abortion but…” – we see everywhere a dying body politic. But the whiff of an empty bottle cannot revive it. Only the Truth – Christ crucified, who unites us while platitudes and perversion divide and destroy us – can save us. Loyalty to Christ, to his Vicar on earth, and to the unity he represents is the true hope of the world.
by Christopher Manion
The Wanderer, July 2, 2009
So Obama has weighed in on the removal of Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales by the country’s Congress and Supreme Court, and, ultimately, the Honduran army. It’s “not legal,” says Obama – but neither was Zelaya’s plan to pull a Chavez-style coup of his own. The Honduran constitution limits the president to a single term. Zelaya, elected in 2005 with 49% of the vote, wanted to defy the constitution – undoubtedly modeling himself not only on Venezuela’s Chavez, but perhaps also on our own stateside Democrats and Republicans who routinely ignore the U.S. Constitution at home and abroad. Well, Zelaya announced that, whatever the Honduran constitution says, he would run for re-election anyway. To accomplish that goal, he announced a referendum, which the country’s Supreme Court and Congress both declared illegal. He ignored them, and demanded that the army provide security for it.
Army Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez refused, citing the constitution. Zelaya fired him and branded the rest of the government as “elitists.” The rest of the country’s top military commanders quit in support of General Vasquez Velasquez, and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the general’s firing was illegal. The Honduran Congress stripped Zelaya of his presidential powers, and instead of providing security for the Sunday referendum, the army surrounded Zelaya’s house and sent him packing to Costa Rica.
Since Zelaya is a leftist, this event is popularly known as a “coup.” Were he a rightist, his removal would be hailed as “national liberation.” But let’s not quibble about vocabulary, since by now the reader might be experiencing what Bill Safire, who used to be funny, once coined as “MEGO” – “My Eyes Glaze Over.”
The average American isn’t expected to keep up on all those Latin American tinhorns, and neither is our own youthful, energetic president. Obama certainly doesn’t want to be bothered with such depth of detail without his teleprompter – after all, isn’t General Motors bigger than General what’s-his-name in Honduras anyway? But we can all rest assured that our State Department, under the seasoned hand of Hillary, has everything under control – right?
Well, as one Foreign Service lifer used to answer every question, “only up to a point.” And how we arrived at that point – that is, history – is worth looking at. Let’s start with the last eight years.
The Seven Lean Years
In attempting by force to enkindle the “natural democratic spirit” in Middle Eastern Islamic societies after 9-11, the Bush Administration missed a golden opportunity to solidify the still fragile, America-friendly democracies in Latin America. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan had managed to clean up after Jimmy Carter and nurture that continent’s move away from dictatorship while directing the final, triumphant conduct of the Cold War leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A historic feat indeed. Alas, the Bush years were different. In fact, the contrast with the Reagan years could not be more stark, nor the consequences more dire. Latin America has for years been a foreign policy backwater, attracting sentimental leftists to academic and government posts dealing with the area. The tough assignments were Russia, Asia (primarily China), and the Middle East, and Europe. Regarding Latin America, Bush’s first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, didn’t have a chance. After a long battle, he lost control of foreign policy to the neocons. They then damaged him beyond repair by feeding him disinformation regarding Iraq and WMD that Powell repeated in public testimony before the U.N. Security Council. Dismayed and discredited, Powell finally left office.
Colin Powell was succeeded by Condi Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor. Rice was undoubtedly well-intentioned, but she was simply inept. Nonetheless, President Bush valued her highly, as he did his other gentle protectors, Karen Hughes and Harriet Miers, whose support he relied on most during the years that Dick Cheney ran the executive branch and foreign policy as the most powerful vice-president in history.
While the Bush Administration studiously ignored our neighbors to the south, China’s top leaders treated Latin America like their backyard, sealing long-term economic and political deals, encouraging leftists and anti-Americans of every stripe, and simply outclassing their American counterparts. During the Bush years, U.S. officials appeared to be merely bewildered as Latin America veered ever more leftward. With Obama, that momentum will now be facilitated by Hillary’s State Department and the Senate veteran Chris Dodd, who has steered Latin American policy to the left for the Democrats there for almost 30 years.
A Whiff Of An Empty Bottle
Dr. Erik von Kuehneldt-Leddihn was a conservative original. He traveled the world, lecturing six months out of every year, spending the other months studying at his home in the Austrian Tirol. He knew a dozen languages and was always busy learning another one (“I have to go upstairs and study Japanese,” he said on one of his last visits, as he finished breakfast). Dr. von Kuehneldt-Leddihn was “an expert on everything, including expertise,” one wag fondly observed, and Leftism, his magnum opus, still stands as a true work of genius.
He once told me about a short story he had written (I’ve never been able to find it – he published it under a pseudonym, and in an obscure journal) -- in the late 1940s. He referred to it on several occasions to illustrate the inevitable decline of a culture, or even a civilization, once its central core of truth is abandoned.
The final scene is unforgettable. A young man has become a revolutionary. His father, a weak-kneed Lutheran minister, tried to restrain his son with reminders of the civic virtues, admonishing him to avoid extremes – all typical of the plaintive liberal weakling. The son, fed up with his father’s vacillations between progressivism and propriety, finally erupts. He points to the portrait hanging over his father’s desk. It depicts his grandfather, whom his father reveres – who was all his life a staunch and devoted Lutheran minister.
“He believed in something,” the son shouts, pointing to his grandfather. “He had principles, he had faith, he had courage, he had convictions. But you – (here his father cringes) – you -- you are living off the whiff of an empty bottle!”
I was reminded of Dr. von Kuehneldt-Leddihn’s young revolutionary by Hilaire Belloc’s description of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. Laud came to power as “the leader of and representative of those who feared and disliked Puritanism as a moral disease.” Laud had “sympathy” with all things Catholic – images, Our Lady, the Sacraments, even the Eucharist. But he and his cohorts “remained (though they would not have admitted it) thoroughly anti-Catholic, because they rejected that one part of Catholic doctrine which is its essential -- the combination of unity and authority. The unity of the visible Church and its invincible authority were repugnant to their growing nationalism, and those who preserved such an attitude of mind were just as much the enemies of Catholicism as the most rabid Puritan could be, or the most complete agnostic.”
As we survey the cultural wreckage around us, and hear platitudes about “human rights” (the homosexual slogan) and “I am personally opposed to abortion but…” – we see everywhere a dying body politic. But the whiff of an empty bottle cannot revive it. Only the Truth – Christ crucified, who unites us while platitudes and perversion divide and destroy us – can save us. Loyalty to Christ, to his Vicar on earth, and to the unity he represents is the true hope of the world.
Another Battleground
From Under The Rubble
by Christopher Manion
The Wanderer, July 2, 2009
During the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981, Guatemala was living through one of its more chaotic moments. The country’s military waged pitched battles with armed Marxist-Leninist terrorists throughout the country. Cardinal Mario Casariego, Archbishop of Guatemala City, was candid regarding the number of Catholic priests who supported the revolutionaries. There were quite a few of them, he told me – disobedient, passionate, and harmful to the Catholic Church as well as to the country.
The Cardinal’s observation came to mind when I was given a briefing by the U.S. embassy staff in Guatemala City. This "country team” meeting involved in-depth presentations by all the senior embassy officials -- perhaps ten in all. As they surveyed the economic, political, agricultural, and military disasters besetting the country, they never mentioned religion, much less the Church.
When they were finished, I asked a simple question: "I understand there are many American protestant missionaries here in the country. Have any of them come to you and said something along these lines: "Please tell the military government that our church doesn't preach politics like the Catholics, we only teach the Bible."
“Oh, yes!” came the answer -- from virtually everybody around the conference table, almost in unison. Then there was a moment of silence as they all stared at one another. Apparently, every one of them had heard similar complaints from American protestant missionaries in Guatemala – they were afraid that the military government classified all American missionaries as leftists, just because so many Catholics were. These non-Catholic missionaries -- primarily independent Evangelicals and Baptists – were all over the country, including some remote village areas that were often controlled by the terrorists. They didn't want the military to think that they were terrorist supporters -- "like those Catholics."
What surprised me most was how ignorant our State Department officials were. Every one of these "experts" at that briefing had heard the same complaints from Americans in Guatemala, but had never bothered to report them or even to discuss them with each other. As far as religion goes, they were clueless -- like most secular government types then and now. Furthermore, most of them were liberals, if not socialists, and they probably thought that, for all they knew, Liberation Theology represented progress for Latin America.
Well, it certainly didn’t represent progress for the Catholic Church there. Evangelical missionaries from the United States roundly denounced the Catholic Church. Like the Liberation Theologians, they attacked it as a backward institution that kept the people poor. Like their American sponsors, they preached “the Gospel of Prosperity,” promising Latin Americans that “God wants you to be rich.” Jimmy Swaggart packed them in, 90,000 people a night, at the soccer stadium in Lima, Peru.
Most of these American evangelical missionaries were supported by individual, independent congregations throughout the United States. Those churches tithed religiously and made their foreign missions a highlight of their activities. Their missions built schools, medical clinics, and orphanages, and also provided a good number of volunteers from the congregation for several weeks a year to work on those projects.
Unfortunately, leaving the Church has not helped Guatemalans achieve either peace or prosperity. A friend there tells me that gangs, kidnappings, and murder now abound. He’s been there since I first visited in 1959, and he’s never seen it worse. People are looking to get out, either to Spain, or to the U.S.
The Theology of Reconciliation
Liberation Theology was popular among the Latin American left for political, not religious reasons. “Human rights” advocates in the United States would criticize only governments, not the revolutionaries who terrorized their countries. Politically, the terrorists got a free ride in Congress: the domestic Left relentlessly attacked President Reagan’s policies, often employing religious language and stooges. Not surprisingly, the culturally illiterate State Department officials were pathetic, and always on the defensive.
That was not the case with the Latin American Church. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia became known and beloved by American Catholics in the 1990s because of his heroic efforts on behalf of the family. But in the 1980s, as secretary and then president of the Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM), he championed “the Theology of Reconciliation,” an authentic antidote to Liberation Theology based on man’s true liberation from sin in Christ, rather than in ideology and revolution. Cardinal Lopez Trujillo was never fooled by the religious trappings of liberation theology – he knew from long years of study and experience that it represented the Marxist theory of class warfare, which he knew would destroy Latin American culture.
Pope John Paul II made over 100 international trips during his pontificate, but the very first was to the meeting in Puebla, Mexico, in January 1979 – arranged by then-Archbishop Lopez Trujillo. Puebla lay the important groundwork for the Church’s response to Liberation Theology for the next 25 years.(Incidentally, the principal advocate of liberation theology, both at the preparations for the meeting in Puebla and throughout the 1980s, was Father Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., who now serves as the Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.)
A Two-Front Battle
For 40 years, the Catholic Church in Guatemala (like its sister churches throughout the hemisphere) has fought on two fronts: first, against the "liberationists," and second, against the "sects" -- the fundamentalists. Unfortunately, a recent report from the Catholic News Agency (CNA) indicates that the battle is far from over – that the Catholic Church in Guatemala is seriously threatened by the growth of Evangelical sects that try to win converts with offers of money, jobs, and other material goods:
“Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic Charity that works with oppressed and suffering Christians throughout the world, found that half of the people of Guatemala are now Evangelical, and new churches are appearing rapidly,” says the report, which actually describes a steady process that took over 30 years. The report details allegations that the fundamentalists’ recruitment efforts include outright payments and even bribes, which may be true; but the most powerful attraction of the “sects” is their focus on the Bible, and the stress they place on economic advancement as part of their evangelization.
Our own bishops confront similar problems -- again, on two fronts. First, we have our own Liberation Theology -- the "parallel Catholic Church" applauded by Obama at Notre Dame – that is advocated by Catholic university faculties and the staff of the USCCB. Second, a detailed study by the Pew Charitable Trust reports that ten percent of American evangelicals are former Catholics. Of course, some of those defections can undoubtedly be attributed to Catholics who disagreed with the moral teachings of the church and who left in search of friendlier pulpits. But as Wanderer readers know all too well, there are other very plausible reasons, too many to number, for this sad exodus.
The U.S. Church also confronts the Latin American dilemma. The millions of Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, in the United States undoubtedly comprise millions of former Catholics who are now members of fundamentalist churches. Like their brother bishops in Guatemala, our bishops naturally want to keep the Catholic faithful from jumping ship. While we might differ with their chosen means – supporting amnesty for illegal aliens, and advocating a left-wing political agenda in Washington – the laity should certainly do all it can to help our bishops and priests bring wavering Hispanics back to the fullness of the faith.
Perhaps we can start with Sonia Sotomayor.
by Christopher Manion
The Wanderer, July 2, 2009
During the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981, Guatemala was living through one of its more chaotic moments. The country’s military waged pitched battles with armed Marxist-Leninist terrorists throughout the country. Cardinal Mario Casariego, Archbishop of Guatemala City, was candid regarding the number of Catholic priests who supported the revolutionaries. There were quite a few of them, he told me – disobedient, passionate, and harmful to the Catholic Church as well as to the country.
The Cardinal’s observation came to mind when I was given a briefing by the U.S. embassy staff in Guatemala City. This "country team” meeting involved in-depth presentations by all the senior embassy officials -- perhaps ten in all. As they surveyed the economic, political, agricultural, and military disasters besetting the country, they never mentioned religion, much less the Church.
When they were finished, I asked a simple question: "I understand there are many American protestant missionaries here in the country. Have any of them come to you and said something along these lines: "Please tell the military government that our church doesn't preach politics like the Catholics, we only teach the Bible."
“Oh, yes!” came the answer -- from virtually everybody around the conference table, almost in unison. Then there was a moment of silence as they all stared at one another. Apparently, every one of them had heard similar complaints from American protestant missionaries in Guatemala – they were afraid that the military government classified all American missionaries as leftists, just because so many Catholics were. These non-Catholic missionaries -- primarily independent Evangelicals and Baptists – were all over the country, including some remote village areas that were often controlled by the terrorists. They didn't want the military to think that they were terrorist supporters -- "like those Catholics."
What surprised me most was how ignorant our State Department officials were. Every one of these "experts" at that briefing had heard the same complaints from Americans in Guatemala, but had never bothered to report them or even to discuss them with each other. As far as religion goes, they were clueless -- like most secular government types then and now. Furthermore, most of them were liberals, if not socialists, and they probably thought that, for all they knew, Liberation Theology represented progress for Latin America.
Well, it certainly didn’t represent progress for the Catholic Church there. Evangelical missionaries from the United States roundly denounced the Catholic Church. Like the Liberation Theologians, they attacked it as a backward institution that kept the people poor. Like their American sponsors, they preached “the Gospel of Prosperity,” promising Latin Americans that “God wants you to be rich.” Jimmy Swaggart packed them in, 90,000 people a night, at the soccer stadium in Lima, Peru.
Most of these American evangelical missionaries were supported by individual, independent congregations throughout the United States. Those churches tithed religiously and made their foreign missions a highlight of their activities. Their missions built schools, medical clinics, and orphanages, and also provided a good number of volunteers from the congregation for several weeks a year to work on those projects.
Unfortunately, leaving the Church has not helped Guatemalans achieve either peace or prosperity. A friend there tells me that gangs, kidnappings, and murder now abound. He’s been there since I first visited in 1959, and he’s never seen it worse. People are looking to get out, either to Spain, or to the U.S.
The Theology of Reconciliation
Liberation Theology was popular among the Latin American left for political, not religious reasons. “Human rights” advocates in the United States would criticize only governments, not the revolutionaries who terrorized their countries. Politically, the terrorists got a free ride in Congress: the domestic Left relentlessly attacked President Reagan’s policies, often employing religious language and stooges. Not surprisingly, the culturally illiterate State Department officials were pathetic, and always on the defensive.
That was not the case with the Latin American Church. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia became known and beloved by American Catholics in the 1990s because of his heroic efforts on behalf of the family. But in the 1980s, as secretary and then president of the Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM), he championed “the Theology of Reconciliation,” an authentic antidote to Liberation Theology based on man’s true liberation from sin in Christ, rather than in ideology and revolution. Cardinal Lopez Trujillo was never fooled by the religious trappings of liberation theology – he knew from long years of study and experience that it represented the Marxist theory of class warfare, which he knew would destroy Latin American culture.
Pope John Paul II made over 100 international trips during his pontificate, but the very first was to the meeting in Puebla, Mexico, in January 1979 – arranged by then-Archbishop Lopez Trujillo. Puebla lay the important groundwork for the Church’s response to Liberation Theology for the next 25 years.(Incidentally, the principal advocate of liberation theology, both at the preparations for the meeting in Puebla and throughout the 1980s, was Father Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., who now serves as the Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.)
A Two-Front Battle
For 40 years, the Catholic Church in Guatemala (like its sister churches throughout the hemisphere) has fought on two fronts: first, against the "liberationists," and second, against the "sects" -- the fundamentalists. Unfortunately, a recent report from the Catholic News Agency (CNA) indicates that the battle is far from over – that the Catholic Church in Guatemala is seriously threatened by the growth of Evangelical sects that try to win converts with offers of money, jobs, and other material goods:
“Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic Charity that works with oppressed and suffering Christians throughout the world, found that half of the people of Guatemala are now Evangelical, and new churches are appearing rapidly,” says the report, which actually describes a steady process that took over 30 years. The report details allegations that the fundamentalists’ recruitment efforts include outright payments and even bribes, which may be true; but the most powerful attraction of the “sects” is their focus on the Bible, and the stress they place on economic advancement as part of their evangelization.
Our own bishops confront similar problems -- again, on two fronts. First, we have our own Liberation Theology -- the "parallel Catholic Church" applauded by Obama at Notre Dame – that is advocated by Catholic university faculties and the staff of the USCCB. Second, a detailed study by the Pew Charitable Trust reports that ten percent of American evangelicals are former Catholics. Of course, some of those defections can undoubtedly be attributed to Catholics who disagreed with the moral teachings of the church and who left in search of friendlier pulpits. But as Wanderer readers know all too well, there are other very plausible reasons, too many to number, for this sad exodus.
The U.S. Church also confronts the Latin American dilemma. The millions of Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, in the United States undoubtedly comprise millions of former Catholics who are now members of fundamentalist churches. Like their brother bishops in Guatemala, our bishops naturally want to keep the Catholic faithful from jumping ship. While we might differ with their chosen means – supporting amnesty for illegal aliens, and advocating a left-wing political agenda in Washington – the laity should certainly do all it can to help our bishops and priests bring wavering Hispanics back to the fullness of the faith.
Perhaps we can start with Sonia Sotomayor.
No Way To Treat A Laity
From Under the Rubble
The Wanderer, p.3
June 18, 2009
In this “age of the laity,” the laity that the USCCB bureaucracy pays attention to features Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, and Nancy Pelosi. Now Barack Obama, has taken the lead, brandishing his newly-minted Fighting Irish imprimatur and adroitly evading moral absolutes as he preaches the same political agenda that the USCCB has embraced for years.
Obama’s speech at Notre Dame was a clarion call for pro-abortion “Catholics” to stand up and fight for the heresy that Pope Benedict has called “the dictatorship of relativism.” That effort requires a sly semantic two-step -- first, reductionism: equate the importance of the paramount life issues of abortion, stem-cell research, and contraception to the “social justice” issues like those found in the platform of the Democratic Party. This approach echoes the “seamless garment” sleight-of-hand promulgated by Obama’s favorite bishop ever, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.
The second step is pragmatism: we must (ahem, regrettably) admit that we are not within practical reach of reversing Roe v. Wade, passing a Human Life Bill, or adopting a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, we must find “common ground,” without alienating those pro-abortion politicians whose cooperation and support is so critical to the successful expansion of our “seamless garment” goals. Now, those same pro-abortion politicians are all supporters of “gay rights” as well. They are busily cooking up “hate crimes” bills that might outlaw the preaching of Catholic moral teaching altogether, as like-minded leftists have already done in Canada and England.
Many bishops have taken a firm stand of late in defense of traditional marriage, but some apparently find it difficult to take the next step and preach Humanae Vitae, even though Paul VI prophetically predicted the evils that are ravaging our culture today. These sinful indulgences are advocated in the public schools and celebrated on once-Catholic university campuses. They permeate the entire popular culture, and represent nothing less than a brazen and virtually unopposed frontal attack on the Catholic Church.
Models Of Perfection
On June third, we celebrated the Feast of Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, who were brutally executed by Ugandan King Mwanga on June 3, 1886. King Mwanga, a homosexual, hated Christians. Charles Lwanga was a lowly page in the court of the King, but he and his companions bravely rejected the King’s advances. The irate King ordered savage executions for the boys, all of whom chose to die for their Faith. Their heroism so impressed Pope Paul VI that he canonized the Ugandan Martyrs in 1964, then traveled to Uganda to in 1969 to break ground for a Basilica to be built on the site of St. Charles Lwanga’s execution.
On that occasion, Pope Paul VI said, “Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their twenty companions?… The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, and to be handed down to posterity.”
Holy Mother Church is so devoted to the memory of these valiant young men that Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the basilica in 1993. All Uganda reveres them every year on June 3, which is now a national holiday there.
Like many homosexuals today, King Mwanga hated the Catholic Church. Yet Popes Paul VI and John Paul II underscored the heroic witness of the Ugandan martyrs to the truth of Catholic moral teaching in defiance of the king’s hatred that he inflicted with such brutality. Today, as we watch one “Catholic” state after another ratify some sort of officially-recognized homosexual consortium, Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions might be admirable models for our prayerful advocacy of moral foundations and spiritual customs based on the truths of the Catholic Faith.
Pope Paul VI visit to Uganda came less than a year after he had promulgated Humanae Vitae. He clearly recognized the fearless heroism required to defend moral teaching in the face of a decadent culture backed by a vile and powerful ruler. Today, in our midst, the battle is on. Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, pray for us!
Abortion Is Child Abuse
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is an intrinsic evil, but a lot of Americans don’t think we really mean it. A majority of Catholics -- and possibly even of our bishops -- apparently voted for Obama, and today many “Catholics” willingly serve and support the most pro-death administration in American history. How can we restore the unity of the faithful that prevailed among our ancestors just 100 years ago -- when virtually everyone (and not only Catholics) considered abortion to be murder?
Christ prayed “that all may be one,” (John 17:22), but today the sheep are scattered indeed. In recent months, many of our bishops have bravely confronted the Culture of Death in the political sphere. At their upcoming meeting on the weekend of June 17-19, they have two opportunities to make further progress.
First: In 2008, when employees of Catholic Charities of Richmond, Virginia, procured an abortion for a minor under their care, neither Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo nor the director of Catholic Charities reported the incident to the Safe Environment Director in the Chancery. The lawyer for the diocese justified such secrecy, insisting that abortion is simply not considered either child abuse or murder by the Diocese of Richmond.
At their meeting this month, the bishops should take their cue from Bishop DiLorenzo. They should amend the definition of "abuse" in their 2002 Dallas “Charter For the Protection of Children and Young People” to include “abortion, or the procurement of an abortion for a pregnant minor.” It may seem like a no-brainer, but believe me, the bureaucrats, lawyers and insurance companies will scream bloody murder if the USCCB even discusses the issue in public.
But wait, there’s more: Bishop DiLorenzo fired four employees after this incident, but required them to sign nondisclosure agreements or lose their severance pay. This cover-up, was paid for with the money of the faithful to keep from the faithful facts they deserved to know. Such deceit was a central ingredient of the scandals for decades – but today it is also a direct violation of article VII of the Dallas Charter, which requires – which demands -- transparency.
Is there any worse occasion of "child abuse" than the murder of the defenseless child in the womb? The bishops should act swiftly.
Second: another no-brainer. the bishops should amend the Charter to reverse their decision in Dallas to exempt themselves from its provisions. In 2002, the bishops acknowledged that they had lost the credibility of the faithful because of the clerical sex abuse scandals. Cardinal Avery Dulles warned them that their Charter would alienate them from their priests. You could see them on EWTN, furtively glancing at the cameras as they voted to amend the definition of “cleric” to exclude bishops.
Unfortunately, that same approach has also alienated many of our bishops not only from their priests, but from the laity. In 2002, the bishops thought they could sweep it all under the rug and “put the scandals behind them.” Today we know all to well the damage wrought by that approach.
The Wanderer, p.3
June 18, 2009
In this “age of the laity,” the laity that the USCCB bureaucracy pays attention to features Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, and Nancy Pelosi. Now Barack Obama, has taken the lead, brandishing his newly-minted Fighting Irish imprimatur and adroitly evading moral absolutes as he preaches the same political agenda that the USCCB has embraced for years.
Obama’s speech at Notre Dame was a clarion call for pro-abortion “Catholics” to stand up and fight for the heresy that Pope Benedict has called “the dictatorship of relativism.” That effort requires a sly semantic two-step -- first, reductionism: equate the importance of the paramount life issues of abortion, stem-cell research, and contraception to the “social justice” issues like those found in the platform of the Democratic Party. This approach echoes the “seamless garment” sleight-of-hand promulgated by Obama’s favorite bishop ever, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.
The second step is pragmatism: we must (ahem, regrettably) admit that we are not within practical reach of reversing Roe v. Wade, passing a Human Life Bill, or adopting a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, we must find “common ground,” without alienating those pro-abortion politicians whose cooperation and support is so critical to the successful expansion of our “seamless garment” goals. Now, those same pro-abortion politicians are all supporters of “gay rights” as well. They are busily cooking up “hate crimes” bills that might outlaw the preaching of Catholic moral teaching altogether, as like-minded leftists have already done in Canada and England.
Many bishops have taken a firm stand of late in defense of traditional marriage, but some apparently find it difficult to take the next step and preach Humanae Vitae, even though Paul VI prophetically predicted the evils that are ravaging our culture today. These sinful indulgences are advocated in the public schools and celebrated on once-Catholic university campuses. They permeate the entire popular culture, and represent nothing less than a brazen and virtually unopposed frontal attack on the Catholic Church.
Models Of Perfection
On June third, we celebrated the Feast of Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, who were brutally executed by Ugandan King Mwanga on June 3, 1886. King Mwanga, a homosexual, hated Christians. Charles Lwanga was a lowly page in the court of the King, but he and his companions bravely rejected the King’s advances. The irate King ordered savage executions for the boys, all of whom chose to die for their Faith. Their heroism so impressed Pope Paul VI that he canonized the Ugandan Martyrs in 1964, then traveled to Uganda to in 1969 to break ground for a Basilica to be built on the site of St. Charles Lwanga’s execution.
On that occasion, Pope Paul VI said, “Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their twenty companions?… The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, and to be handed down to posterity.”
Holy Mother Church is so devoted to the memory of these valiant young men that Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the basilica in 1993. All Uganda reveres them every year on June 3, which is now a national holiday there.
Like many homosexuals today, King Mwanga hated the Catholic Church. Yet Popes Paul VI and John Paul II underscored the heroic witness of the Ugandan martyrs to the truth of Catholic moral teaching in defiance of the king’s hatred that he inflicted with such brutality. Today, as we watch one “Catholic” state after another ratify some sort of officially-recognized homosexual consortium, Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions might be admirable models for our prayerful advocacy of moral foundations and spiritual customs based on the truths of the Catholic Faith.
Pope Paul VI visit to Uganda came less than a year after he had promulgated Humanae Vitae. He clearly recognized the fearless heroism required to defend moral teaching in the face of a decadent culture backed by a vile and powerful ruler. Today, in our midst, the battle is on. Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, pray for us!
Abortion Is Child Abuse
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is an intrinsic evil, but a lot of Americans don’t think we really mean it. A majority of Catholics -- and possibly even of our bishops -- apparently voted for Obama, and today many “Catholics” willingly serve and support the most pro-death administration in American history. How can we restore the unity of the faithful that prevailed among our ancestors just 100 years ago -- when virtually everyone (and not only Catholics) considered abortion to be murder?
Christ prayed “that all may be one,” (John 17:22), but today the sheep are scattered indeed. In recent months, many of our bishops have bravely confronted the Culture of Death in the political sphere. At their upcoming meeting on the weekend of June 17-19, they have two opportunities to make further progress.
First: In 2008, when employees of Catholic Charities of Richmond, Virginia, procured an abortion for a minor under their care, neither Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo nor the director of Catholic Charities reported the incident to the Safe Environment Director in the Chancery. The lawyer for the diocese justified such secrecy, insisting that abortion is simply not considered either child abuse or murder by the Diocese of Richmond.
At their meeting this month, the bishops should take their cue from Bishop DiLorenzo. They should amend the definition of "abuse" in their 2002 Dallas “Charter For the Protection of Children and Young People” to include “abortion, or the procurement of an abortion for a pregnant minor.” It may seem like a no-brainer, but believe me, the bureaucrats, lawyers and insurance companies will scream bloody murder if the USCCB even discusses the issue in public.
But wait, there’s more: Bishop DiLorenzo fired four employees after this incident, but required them to sign nondisclosure agreements or lose their severance pay. This cover-up, was paid for with the money of the faithful to keep from the faithful facts they deserved to know. Such deceit was a central ingredient of the scandals for decades – but today it is also a direct violation of article VII of the Dallas Charter, which requires – which demands -- transparency.
Is there any worse occasion of "child abuse" than the murder of the defenseless child in the womb? The bishops should act swiftly.
Second: another no-brainer. the bishops should amend the Charter to reverse their decision in Dallas to exempt themselves from its provisions. In 2002, the bishops acknowledged that they had lost the credibility of the faithful because of the clerical sex abuse scandals. Cardinal Avery Dulles warned them that their Charter would alienate them from their priests. You could see them on EWTN, furtively glancing at the cameras as they voted to amend the definition of “cleric” to exclude bishops.
Unfortunately, that same approach has also alienated many of our bishops not only from their priests, but from the laity. In 2002, the bishops thought they could sweep it all under the rug and “put the scandals behind them.” Today we know all to well the damage wrought by that approach.
The Greatest Generation? No Way!
From Under The Rubble
The Wanderer, P. 3
June 11, 2009
In January 1973, my car broke down after dark about an hour north of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The temperature was 30 below, I was in the middle of nowhere, and the only building within a mile was a farmhouse set far back from the highway. No one was home, but the door was open. I went in, called the police, and waited for a tow truck.
Two hours later, I saw the flashing lights out on the highway. As I went out, a car came up the driveway. It was the farmer and his family and the biggest dog I have ever seen, barking at me from the back seat. "My car broke down -- that's my tow truck," I explained. "I've been in your house for the last two hours.” The farmer just laughed and said, "Well, that's great!" I didn't think to tell him how grateful I was that he had taken his dog with him.
The tow truck driver had my car up by the time I got there. When I climbed in, he let fly. "I own this company. None of my drivers wanted to work on a Friday night. So I came out to get you myself. (Pause)... one of these days, us old folks are going to stop pulling this gravy train, and you kids are going to have to get out and push."
My generation is not the greatest. I was born two weeks after George Bush and three weeks before Bill Clinton -- certainly nothing to brag about. So I thought of my tow truck driver when I read the address by Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, to the graduating class of Butler University in Indianapolis, delivered at about the same time that Obama was speaking at Notre Dame. Here's what Daniels said about us “children of the baby boom":
“As a group, we have been self-centered, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and all too often just plain selfish. Our current Baby Boomer President has written two eloquent, erudite books, both about -- himself…. We have spent more and saved less than any previous Americans…. we ran up deficits that have multiplied the debt you and your children will be paying off your entire working lives…. We voted ourselves increasing levels of Social Security pensions and Medicare health care benefits, but never summoned the political maturity to put those programs on anything resembling a sound actuarial footing.
“In sum, our parents scrimped and saved to provide us a better living standard than theirs; we borrowed and splurged and will leave you a staggering pile of bills to pay. It's been a blast; good luck cleaning up after us.”
Illegals: The Next Generation
Meanwhile, in the name of “Welcoming the Stranger,” our bishops are advocating amnesty for illegal aliens. They also support giving them generous government benefits like universal health care and exemption from immigration law enforcement. So I was surprised, for a moment, to read that the bishops have recognized some limits to this taxpayer largesse. While they support “unlimited” visas allowing extended family members of illegals to enter the U.S., they oppose visas for homosexual “partners.” Apart from that, apparently, anything goes.
Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, puts it this way: “It is extremely important that barriers that keep the nuclear family—husband, wife, and child—divided are removed as soon as possible. The legislation achieves this goal while preserving the ability of other close family members, including siblings of United States citizens, to reunite with their loved ones and without eroding the institution of marriage and family.”
Of course, the “barrier” that prohibits such reunions on U.S. soil is the law. Nothing prohibits aliens from reuniting with their extended families in their home country. Why doesn’t Bishop Wester advocate that? Sure, millions of illegals now have “anchor babies” – children born in the U.S. to an illegal mother – but why don’t they reunite back home, where they are all legal? Somewhere between twelve and twenty million aliens already reside illegally in the United States. Bishop Wester’s proposal would double, and perhaps triple, that number. Coming from corrupt countries, wouldn’t these immigrants tend to vote for “corruptos” like the ones they knew back home? Is that what Bishop Wester wants?
Alas, the good bishop fails to tell all. I volunteer as a translator for law enforcement. Most of the people we interview are in the U.S. illegally. Virtually every one of them leaves family in his home country. Now, each illegal must not only pay thousands of dollars to a “coyote” to get smuggled into the U.S., but he must continue paying bribes long after he arrives. Not only does he send money home to his wife, but he must also bribe his hometown police chief, the local gang leader, and the mayor – or his house will be ransacked and his family assaulted. Virtually all illegals come from corrupt countries where survival requires breaking the law and paying bribes. That is not their fault, but it is the only culture they know. Their habits will not magically change merely because they are legal in America.
Studies indicate that forty percent of those who actually attend Mass in the U.S. are Hispanic. Sadly, in recent decades, huge numbers of Latin American Catholics have left the Church to become evangelicals – apparently, they do not like liberation theology. Moreover, the Pew Foundation reports that ten percent of American evangelicals are former Catholics. Do our bishops fear alienating Hispanics and losing them to the evangelicals if Catholics don’t support amnesty? If so, shouldn’t our bishops tell us, in this “age of the laity”?
A local clergyman asked me this winter to translate for a Salvadoran who showed up at the rectory. He had no job, no friends, and no plans, but wanted money to stay in town. “Why don’t you go home,” I asked him. “I would,” he replied, “but my wife wants the kids to go to school here.”
La Piñata
Free school, free health care, free food stamps, and a host of other “free” taxpayer-funded benefits – no wonder Mexicans call it the “Piñata.” It’s great for them – but what about us? Why doesn’t Bishop Wester tell the people in the pews that virtually every decent home in the countries these “strangers” come from is surrounded by a wall, with barbed wire and shards of glass on top? That many homes require round-the-clock guards? Why do you think that is, Your Excellency? Because otherwise the house would be trashed within hours. And what about rampant kidnapping? It’s a way of life south of the border – not only with the hundreds of thousands of well-armed members of the criminal drug gangs in Mexico, but with countless common criminals throughout the hemisphere who just want to make some easy money.
You don’t have to read Spanish -- the Los Angeles Times reports regularly how Mexican, Salvadoran, and Honduran drug gangs have spread their tentacles throughout the United States – with kidnappings, decapitations, and, of course, bribes. When our local sheriff is called to deal with Hispanics, the single most common phrase I have to translate is, “get your hands out of your pockets.” The deputy is afraid they are reaching for a gun. I know they are getting out their wallets -- to pay a bribe.
Before committing the Church to this radical agenda, doesn’t Bishop Wester owe the faithful an explanation?
The Wanderer, P. 3
June 11, 2009
In January 1973, my car broke down after dark about an hour north of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The temperature was 30 below, I was in the middle of nowhere, and the only building within a mile was a farmhouse set far back from the highway. No one was home, but the door was open. I went in, called the police, and waited for a tow truck.
Two hours later, I saw the flashing lights out on the highway. As I went out, a car came up the driveway. It was the farmer and his family and the biggest dog I have ever seen, barking at me from the back seat. "My car broke down -- that's my tow truck," I explained. "I've been in your house for the last two hours.” The farmer just laughed and said, "Well, that's great!" I didn't think to tell him how grateful I was that he had taken his dog with him.
The tow truck driver had my car up by the time I got there. When I climbed in, he let fly. "I own this company. None of my drivers wanted to work on a Friday night. So I came out to get you myself. (Pause)... one of these days, us old folks are going to stop pulling this gravy train, and you kids are going to have to get out and push."
My generation is not the greatest. I was born two weeks after George Bush and three weeks before Bill Clinton -- certainly nothing to brag about. So I thought of my tow truck driver when I read the address by Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, to the graduating class of Butler University in Indianapolis, delivered at about the same time that Obama was speaking at Notre Dame. Here's what Daniels said about us “children of the baby boom":
“As a group, we have been self-centered, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and all too often just plain selfish. Our current Baby Boomer President has written two eloquent, erudite books, both about -- himself…. We have spent more and saved less than any previous Americans…. we ran up deficits that have multiplied the debt you and your children will be paying off your entire working lives…. We voted ourselves increasing levels of Social Security pensions and Medicare health care benefits, but never summoned the political maturity to put those programs on anything resembling a sound actuarial footing.
“In sum, our parents scrimped and saved to provide us a better living standard than theirs; we borrowed and splurged and will leave you a staggering pile of bills to pay. It's been a blast; good luck cleaning up after us.”
Illegals: The Next Generation
Meanwhile, in the name of “Welcoming the Stranger,” our bishops are advocating amnesty for illegal aliens. They also support giving them generous government benefits like universal health care and exemption from immigration law enforcement. So I was surprised, for a moment, to read that the bishops have recognized some limits to this taxpayer largesse. While they support “unlimited” visas allowing extended family members of illegals to enter the U.S., they oppose visas for homosexual “partners.” Apart from that, apparently, anything goes.
Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, puts it this way: “It is extremely important that barriers that keep the nuclear family—husband, wife, and child—divided are removed as soon as possible. The legislation achieves this goal while preserving the ability of other close family members, including siblings of United States citizens, to reunite with their loved ones and without eroding the institution of marriage and family.”
Of course, the “barrier” that prohibits such reunions on U.S. soil is the law. Nothing prohibits aliens from reuniting with their extended families in their home country. Why doesn’t Bishop Wester advocate that? Sure, millions of illegals now have “anchor babies” – children born in the U.S. to an illegal mother – but why don’t they reunite back home, where they are all legal? Somewhere between twelve and twenty million aliens already reside illegally in the United States. Bishop Wester’s proposal would double, and perhaps triple, that number. Coming from corrupt countries, wouldn’t these immigrants tend to vote for “corruptos” like the ones they knew back home? Is that what Bishop Wester wants?
Alas, the good bishop fails to tell all. I volunteer as a translator for law enforcement. Most of the people we interview are in the U.S. illegally. Virtually every one of them leaves family in his home country. Now, each illegal must not only pay thousands of dollars to a “coyote” to get smuggled into the U.S., but he must continue paying bribes long after he arrives. Not only does he send money home to his wife, but he must also bribe his hometown police chief, the local gang leader, and the mayor – or his house will be ransacked and his family assaulted. Virtually all illegals come from corrupt countries where survival requires breaking the law and paying bribes. That is not their fault, but it is the only culture they know. Their habits will not magically change merely because they are legal in America.
Studies indicate that forty percent of those who actually attend Mass in the U.S. are Hispanic. Sadly, in recent decades, huge numbers of Latin American Catholics have left the Church to become evangelicals – apparently, they do not like liberation theology. Moreover, the Pew Foundation reports that ten percent of American evangelicals are former Catholics. Do our bishops fear alienating Hispanics and losing them to the evangelicals if Catholics don’t support amnesty? If so, shouldn’t our bishops tell us, in this “age of the laity”?
A local clergyman asked me this winter to translate for a Salvadoran who showed up at the rectory. He had no job, no friends, and no plans, but wanted money to stay in town. “Why don’t you go home,” I asked him. “I would,” he replied, “but my wife wants the kids to go to school here.”
La Piñata
Free school, free health care, free food stamps, and a host of other “free” taxpayer-funded benefits – no wonder Mexicans call it the “Piñata.” It’s great for them – but what about us? Why doesn’t Bishop Wester tell the people in the pews that virtually every decent home in the countries these “strangers” come from is surrounded by a wall, with barbed wire and shards of glass on top? That many homes require round-the-clock guards? Why do you think that is, Your Excellency? Because otherwise the house would be trashed within hours. And what about rampant kidnapping? It’s a way of life south of the border – not only with the hundreds of thousands of well-armed members of the criminal drug gangs in Mexico, but with countless common criminals throughout the hemisphere who just want to make some easy money.
You don’t have to read Spanish -- the Los Angeles Times reports regularly how Mexican, Salvadoran, and Honduran drug gangs have spread their tentacles throughout the United States – with kidnappings, decapitations, and, of course, bribes. When our local sheriff is called to deal with Hispanics, the single most common phrase I have to translate is, “get your hands out of your pockets.” The deputy is afraid they are reaching for a gun. I know they are getting out their wallets -- to pay a bribe.
Before committing the Church to this radical agenda, doesn’t Bishop Wester owe the faithful an explanation?
From Under The Rubble
Christopher Manion
The Wanderer - June 4, 2009, p. 3
Contradiction or Capitulation?
The recent unpleasantness at Notre Dame has shed a helpful light on a contradiction that has increasingly troubled the American Catholic Church for the past forty years. Bound up in this contradiction are, on the one hand, the Church’s bureaucracies, and their budgets and political agendas. On the other hand are the teachings of the Catholic Church and the Magisterium.
Like many bishops, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, the former President of the USCCB, welcomed Obama’s election victory as “a great step forward for humanity.” At Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins echoed Gregory’s sentiment, declaring that, “as the first African-American holder of this office, [Obama] has accelerated our country’s progress in overcoming the painful legacy of slavery and segregation.” There were celebrations all around.
We should recall that the USCCB’s voter guide for the 2008 elections, Faithful Citizenship, specified only two “intrinsic evils” of which Catholics should take special notice when considering how to cast their ballots - abortion and racism. From the signals that the faithful are receiving these days from the majority of bishops, Catholic universities, and the virtually unanimous left-wing bureaucracy at the USCCB, it is evident that “racism,” however loosely defined, is much more universally opposed where the rubber meets the road than abortion is. For example, one strains to remember a Catholic University ever honoring an outspoken racist on campus, but pro-abortion speakers are routinely welcomed at a good number of them.
A recent example nicely outlines the irony. At Providence College in Rhode Island, a student group invited Tom Tancredo, a pro-life former congressman from Colorado, to speak on campus regarding the immigration issue. But Mr. Tancredo opposes granting amnesty to the twelve- to twenty-million aliens illegally in the country already. Therefore, the President of Providence College, with the full support of Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, withdrew the invitation because Tancredo disagrees with the USCCB bureaucracy, which supports amnesty.
While the college didn’t actually call Tancredo a racist, the administration certainly treated him like one. It reacted as though Tancredo advocated an evil far more intrinsic than abortion. But Providence College has often welcomed pro-abortion speakers to campus, and undoubtedly will again, even though the USCCB has called on Catholic institutions not to do so. In this regard, as Socrates would put it, the USCCB is Providence College writ large. In theory, our bishops abhor racism and abortion. In practice, many of them abhor racists but not pro-abortion politicians, as long as those politicians support the bishops’ liberal political agenda.
About a quarter of the American hierarchy, including some major prelates, eventually criticized Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame. However, I have not heard similar criticism from any senior administrators of Catholic universities. This is not surprising: while the bishops are still muddled in contradiction, the universities have virtually collapsed in capitulation to secularism.
Salvation As Politics – Or Politics As Salvation?
This past January, the USCCB urged President Obama and Congress to pass government-run health-care, amnesty for illegal aliens, increased funds for Medicaid and SChip, more taxpayer funding for a variety of government poverty programs, new government spending for a “national safety net,” and – oh yes, to seek “common ground that will reduce the number of abortions in morally sound ways.” The billions that the government spends at home and abroad on contraception is not mentioned. The USCCB has indeed endorsed President Bush’s “conscience protections” for health care providers who oppose contraception and abortion, but Obama abolished those protections anyway -- long before he was cheered at Notre Dame.
Ideas have consequences, said Richard Weaver. Well, so do contradictions, and they are becoming clearer all the time. Obama’s triumph marks a victory over racism -- but embryonic stem-cell research, homosexual rights, abortion on demand, and attacks on public witness to religious faith will all be advocated in Obama’s America. But so what? How on earth can our bishops acknowledge Obama as the most pro-death leader in the western world when they are so busy cheering his election as a victory over racism?
As is the case in so many moral questions, the answer is simple but not easy. Borrowing the theme of Obama’s campaign, the bishops need to embrace “change.” Let’s face it: when it comes to protecting human life, the Church that Obama singled out for praise – that of Cardinal Bernardin – has failed. A long-time member of Bernardin’s staff at the USCC (who is as much a fan of Bernardin as Obama is) tells me that, while Pope Paul VI was valiantly trying to resonate Catholic moral principles in Humanae Vitae, Bernardin was busily politicizing the USCC (now the USCCB) irreversibly to identify the liberal agenda with the Catholic Church in every possible way.
Money Talks, Nobody Walks
Catholic leaders embraced Bernardin’s political agenda, preaching it far and wide, for years. As payback, federal money flowed freely. Unfortunately, some of the advocates of this largesse were, and are, among the most corrupt politicians in the country. Wanderer readers will recall how Father George Parker, who barred pro-abortion Senator Chris Dodd from his parish in the Connecticut Diocese of Norwich, was forced to retire by his bishop in retribution. As Cardinal McCarrick put it later, years of perpetuating Cardinal Bernardin’s cozy relationship with the pro-abortion “social justice” crowd on Capitol Hill had put today’s bishops in a bind: either keep the money flowing by keeping silent to, or risk “alienating” the corrupt pro-aborts (and their funding) by preaching Humanae Vitae and applying Canon Law to rampant scandal and crimes against the Eucharist.
The simple solution --“Damn the funding, follow Canon Law and preach Humanae Vitae” – certainly resonates with the truth, but it poses problems to the current organization of Catholic institutions all over the country. Our bishops might be tempted to be silent, but they now confront an even more dangerous threat: Obama’s radical allies, including his appointments to the federal bench, are simply going to declare war on the orthodox Catholic bishops in this country.
In fact, they already have. Homosexual groups are demanding that the IRS remove the tax exemption of churches that oppose same-sex marriage. Catholic hospitals are being forced to offer “family planning” services and referrals. Obama’s judges will require that Catholic organizations provide “equal protection” for GLBTQ employees, applicants, students – you name it. On every front of the culture war, the Obama Left wants to push the Catholic Church to the wall.
Meanwhile, Father Jenkins drones on: Obama “has set ambitious goals across a sweeping agenda -- extending health care coverage… improving [public] education …. promoting renewable energy….”
Jenkins represents capitulation. What we need is a revolution. The Catholic Church should refuse all government funding immediately – it’s all stolen money anyway. Then it should renounce its tax exemptions, to prevent Obama’s Thought Police from threatening to revoke them. These steps would allow our bishops to be bishops, preaching the Gospel in all its beautiful fullness, and to turn away from pro-abortion politicians and government bureaucracies and towards the people in the pews for their sustenance and support.
Another “Catholic” Justice?
Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Much is being written and spoken about her Catholic background – especially the Catholic education she received thanks to the Archdiocese of New York. Do not expect her to be grateful. If Sotomayor were pro-life, she would still be sitting out on the curb in the Bronx, and she knows it. Now we know it.
Christopher Manion
The Wanderer - June 4, 2009, p. 3
Contradiction or Capitulation?
The recent unpleasantness at Notre Dame has shed a helpful light on a contradiction that has increasingly troubled the American Catholic Church for the past forty years. Bound up in this contradiction are, on the one hand, the Church’s bureaucracies, and their budgets and political agendas. On the other hand are the teachings of the Catholic Church and the Magisterium.
Like many bishops, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, the former President of the USCCB, welcomed Obama’s election victory as “a great step forward for humanity.” At Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins echoed Gregory’s sentiment, declaring that, “as the first African-American holder of this office, [Obama] has accelerated our country’s progress in overcoming the painful legacy of slavery and segregation.” There were celebrations all around.
We should recall that the USCCB’s voter guide for the 2008 elections, Faithful Citizenship, specified only two “intrinsic evils” of which Catholics should take special notice when considering how to cast their ballots - abortion and racism. From the signals that the faithful are receiving these days from the majority of bishops, Catholic universities, and the virtually unanimous left-wing bureaucracy at the USCCB, it is evident that “racism,” however loosely defined, is much more universally opposed where the rubber meets the road than abortion is. For example, one strains to remember a Catholic University ever honoring an outspoken racist on campus, but pro-abortion speakers are routinely welcomed at a good number of them.
A recent example nicely outlines the irony. At Providence College in Rhode Island, a student group invited Tom Tancredo, a pro-life former congressman from Colorado, to speak on campus regarding the immigration issue. But Mr. Tancredo opposes granting amnesty to the twelve- to twenty-million aliens illegally in the country already. Therefore, the President of Providence College, with the full support of Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, withdrew the invitation because Tancredo disagrees with the USCCB bureaucracy, which supports amnesty.
While the college didn’t actually call Tancredo a racist, the administration certainly treated him like one. It reacted as though Tancredo advocated an evil far more intrinsic than abortion. But Providence College has often welcomed pro-abortion speakers to campus, and undoubtedly will again, even though the USCCB has called on Catholic institutions not to do so. In this regard, as Socrates would put it, the USCCB is Providence College writ large. In theory, our bishops abhor racism and abortion. In practice, many of them abhor racists but not pro-abortion politicians, as long as those politicians support the bishops’ liberal political agenda.
About a quarter of the American hierarchy, including some major prelates, eventually criticized Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame. However, I have not heard similar criticism from any senior administrators of Catholic universities. This is not surprising: while the bishops are still muddled in contradiction, the universities have virtually collapsed in capitulation to secularism.
Salvation As Politics – Or Politics As Salvation?
This past January, the USCCB urged President Obama and Congress to pass government-run health-care, amnesty for illegal aliens, increased funds for Medicaid and SChip, more taxpayer funding for a variety of government poverty programs, new government spending for a “national safety net,” and – oh yes, to seek “common ground that will reduce the number of abortions in morally sound ways.” The billions that the government spends at home and abroad on contraception is not mentioned. The USCCB has indeed endorsed President Bush’s “conscience protections” for health care providers who oppose contraception and abortion, but Obama abolished those protections anyway -- long before he was cheered at Notre Dame.
Ideas have consequences, said Richard Weaver. Well, so do contradictions, and they are becoming clearer all the time. Obama’s triumph marks a victory over racism -- but embryonic stem-cell research, homosexual rights, abortion on demand, and attacks on public witness to religious faith will all be advocated in Obama’s America. But so what? How on earth can our bishops acknowledge Obama as the most pro-death leader in the western world when they are so busy cheering his election as a victory over racism?
As is the case in so many moral questions, the answer is simple but not easy. Borrowing the theme of Obama’s campaign, the bishops need to embrace “change.” Let’s face it: when it comes to protecting human life, the Church that Obama singled out for praise – that of Cardinal Bernardin – has failed. A long-time member of Bernardin’s staff at the USCC (who is as much a fan of Bernardin as Obama is) tells me that, while Pope Paul VI was valiantly trying to resonate Catholic moral principles in Humanae Vitae, Bernardin was busily politicizing the USCC (now the USCCB) irreversibly to identify the liberal agenda with the Catholic Church in every possible way.
Money Talks, Nobody Walks
Catholic leaders embraced Bernardin’s political agenda, preaching it far and wide, for years. As payback, federal money flowed freely. Unfortunately, some of the advocates of this largesse were, and are, among the most corrupt politicians in the country. Wanderer readers will recall how Father George Parker, who barred pro-abortion Senator Chris Dodd from his parish in the Connecticut Diocese of Norwich, was forced to retire by his bishop in retribution. As Cardinal McCarrick put it later, years of perpetuating Cardinal Bernardin’s cozy relationship with the pro-abortion “social justice” crowd on Capitol Hill had put today’s bishops in a bind: either keep the money flowing by keeping silent to, or risk “alienating” the corrupt pro-aborts (and their funding) by preaching Humanae Vitae and applying Canon Law to rampant scandal and crimes against the Eucharist.
The simple solution --“Damn the funding, follow Canon Law and preach Humanae Vitae” – certainly resonates with the truth, but it poses problems to the current organization of Catholic institutions all over the country. Our bishops might be tempted to be silent, but they now confront an even more dangerous threat: Obama’s radical allies, including his appointments to the federal bench, are simply going to declare war on the orthodox Catholic bishops in this country.
In fact, they already have. Homosexual groups are demanding that the IRS remove the tax exemption of churches that oppose same-sex marriage. Catholic hospitals are being forced to offer “family planning” services and referrals. Obama’s judges will require that Catholic organizations provide “equal protection” for GLBTQ employees, applicants, students – you name it. On every front of the culture war, the Obama Left wants to push the Catholic Church to the wall.
Meanwhile, Father Jenkins drones on: Obama “has set ambitious goals across a sweeping agenda -- extending health care coverage… improving [public] education …. promoting renewable energy….”
Jenkins represents capitulation. What we need is a revolution. The Catholic Church should refuse all government funding immediately – it’s all stolen money anyway. Then it should renounce its tax exemptions, to prevent Obama’s Thought Police from threatening to revoke them. These steps would allow our bishops to be bishops, preaching the Gospel in all its beautiful fullness, and to turn away from pro-abortion politicians and government bureaucracies and towards the people in the pews for their sustenance and support.
Another “Catholic” Justice?
Obama has nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Much is being written and spoken about her Catholic background – especially the Catholic education she received thanks to the Archdiocese of New York. Do not expect her to be grateful. If Sotomayor were pro-life, she would still be sitting out on the curb in the Bronx, and she knows it. Now we know it.
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