Francis’ Bad Emanations Do Not Mean He Is an Antipope

In these confusing times, we have to educate ourselves on our Faith.  In these times, we have particularly to educate ourselves on the scope of the Pope’s powers and prerogatives, and the limits of his authority.  It is providential that Ryan Grant, an Idaho (!) Latinist, has been busying himself with the long-overdue task of translating the works of St. Robert Bellarmine into English.  On the Roman Pontiff is a must-read for all faithful Catholics who find themselves suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous pontiffs.  We are bound to suffer even more, and needlessly, if we are laboring under misconceptions about the limits on papal authority, when the Pope can legitimately bind Catholics, and when the Pope is and is not protected by the charism of infallibility.

Taylor Marshall interviews Christopher Ferrara about the meaning of the message of Fatima for our time.  The entire interview is fascinating.  If you struggle to reconcile the errors of Pope Francis with his authenticity as Pope, then pay attention, starting at 37:28.  Here Ferrara explains why the errors of Pope Francis do not trouble him about the Church’s indefectibility, even though the current Pope’s audacity exceeds anything we have ever seen before in the history of the Church.  He explains in particular how to cope with bad teaching from the Pope, and how to distinguish teachings that are truly magisterial from those that aren’t, even if they are labeled as such.

 The key point is that God is not mocked.  He is not fooled by false labels; nor does He require us to accept false labels, even when they are applied by the Pope and his minions.  On the contrary, we are bound to reject that which is false.  Therefore, God does not put us in a Catch-22 even when He allows us to be governed by a bad Pope who purports to change doctrine.

Rumor

There is a rumor going around to the effect that priest of the Boise diocese, or some group of them, have had A Meeting to declare Their Resolution that there shall be No Latin Used Whatsoever in Any Novus Ordo Mass.  This is only a rumor; but, sadly, it is believable.  There is at least one local parish where this rule is apparently in effect.

And it is believable because so much of the Catholic hierarchy has spent the last half-century or so proving that they do not (a) believe in the content of the Catholic Faith, or (b) care about the flock, except insofar as the flock serves their purposes for the moment.  

Jesus asked, which of our fathers, if we asked him for bread, would give us a stone, or a serpent if we asked for a fish, or a scorpion if we asked for an egg?  Sadly, the answer, in our time, is, the Catholic hierarchy.  To so many of our priests and bishops, we are nothing more than sources of money, for which their demands are endless, or raw material for their liturgical or social engineering experiments.  They have no respect for our sensibilities, and double down on the things that hurt or offend us.  They excoriate us, not for our sins, but for wanting to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, or kneeling, or only from the consecrated hands of a priest.  We have to repeatedly beg many of them for the legitimate goods we seek, that lie only within their power to give us (such as the traditional Mass), and they either ignore us, deny us outright or grudgingly dole us out crumbs.  Many bishops are remote, quasi-mythical figures who don’t even answer letters from their subjects or grant them audiences.  Instead, they spend millions of our dollars on vain pursuits, like the just-concluded USCCB general assembly, behind a tight wall of armed security, at the $300.00-a-night Inner Harbor Marriott in Baltimore.  And they spend a lot of time not turfing out the sexual predators from among their own ranks. 

Jesus said: “If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?”  How far must one have fallen not to even know how to give good gifts to the children?

Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, saith the Lord God, forasmuch as my flocks have been made a spoil, and my sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd: for my shepherds did not seek after my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flocks: Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I Myself come upon the shepherds, I will require my flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more: and I will deliver my flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for them.

Ezekiel 34:7-10.

The Local Scandal

The news recently came from Rome that a certain retired and now imprisoned priest of the Boise Diocese has been deposed from the clerical state.  

Now-Mr. William Thomas Faucher pled guilty last year to a selection of felony charges of possessing and distributing child porn, out of about a couple dozen counts.  Despite the support of prominent Boise citizens, like Mayor Chris Bieter, and Faucher’s characterization of himself as “one really sick puppy” who “screwed up big time,” and his argument that he needed to be placed on probation so he could be free to help people in the community, he received a 25-year fixed prison sentence.  That means Faucher, who is now in his 70s, will not be eligible for parole until he has served 25 years, making this effectively a life sentence. The sentence is now up on appeal before the Idaho Supreme Court.

    There is plenty of news coverage of the depth and breadth and height of Faucher’s satanic depravity, which led him to amass a collection of exceptionally violent child porn images and videos numbering in the thousands.  There is no need, then, to darken this space with descriptions of these, or the sacrileges he boasted of committing, or the chat room conversations with other degenerates that police found on his computer. Just the Information (that is, the charging document) filed in the district court makes sickening reading.

But those who profess to have been shocked by the discovery of Faucher’s filthy proclivities should, on further reflection, probably not be shocked.  Faucher gave us a window onto his character during his prejudgment stint in jail by his public outpourings.  He published a newsletter in which he gave his supporters the benefit, among other things, of his complaints about the food, his complaints about access to television, his complaints about the consequences he was facing, and his great condescension in forgiving the prosecutor, the bishop and others who worked to put him behind bars.  He granted a jailhouse interview with the press in which he blamed the late Bishop Michael Driscoll for his plight, and shared his delusional belief that his legacy would not be as a priest who was into child porn. Even his supporters, while trying to make him sound good to the media, painted a picture of a character marked by ice-cold arrogance and viciousness toward anyone who disagreed with his views. Many saints have been imprisoned without having committed any crimes. Can you think of any who wasted time on recriminations?

But Faucher has been letting his biggest red freak flag fly for many years: his longtime public dissent from the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual morality.  He was for years a darling of the left for his pro-gay politics, even going so far as to print an editorial in the local paper in support of same-sex “marriage.”  For this alone he should have been suspended, yet the diocese left him untouched. Dealing with him fell to the secular authorities, almost a decade and a half later.  

As I have previously noted in this space, we cannot throw out the Ten Commandments without also forfeiting the protection they afford.  It makes no sense to expect someone to actually abide in his private life by moral laws that he publicly rejects. Why, if you publicly deride the moral law, would you go to the trouble of living by it when no one is looking, and preying on innocent people in order to feed the appetites that that law does not restrain? And if priests publicly deride the moral law, they betray their whole mission as priests. They not only sin themselves, but also drag others down with them. Where is the faith of bishops who leave the Eucharistic Lord and their flocks in the hands of these filthy soul-murderers?

I hope for two things out of this sordid business.  First, Christ died and poured out every drop of His Blood for the salvation of William Thomas Faucher, as much as He did for me.  I hope that, before he dies, Faucher realizes the enormity of what he has done, repents of his evil ways and converts, so that he will be saved from going to hell.  Second, I hope our current bishop, for the sake of his own soul and for the souls under his care, will turf out all the dirty priests in his diocese, and that he will single out for particular attention any other clergy who share Faucher’s views on sexuality.  Sex perverts network and stick together, and cover for each other — at least until someone outlives his usefulness. Did Faucher outlive his usefulness? Was it in fact another pervert that turned him in, for reasons having nothing to do with the wrongfulness of his acts? Was it the merest of coincidences that in 2005, Faucher had a deacon in his parish who also went to prison for child porn?  It is in any case hard to credit that someone with such an extensive collection of porn as Faucher’s is a newcomer to the vice, or that he could have been into it, and the drugs he was also caught with, for so long, with absolutely no one noticing.   

There is no real dichotomy between a man’s private life and his public persona.  We are not talking here about singular instances of someone doing something wrong, or something stupid.  Everyone who lives long enough will, sooner or later, do something he later regrets. But evil habits, especially unrepented ones, are another matter.  And if you are a Catholic priest, it matters very much whether you hew to the entire Deposit of Faith, since you are charged with the grave responsibility of upholding and promulgating it.  You cannot have heterodoxy alongside holiness, as the case of Mr. Faucher amply proves.

Let All the Poisons

This is a time when cesspits of corruption are being laid bare, both in the secular world and in the Church.  Now we are seeing exactly where that awful smell we have been coping with for so long has been coming from.  For decades, the hirelings among the Church’s appointed shepherds have held the ascendancy.  They have publicly palled around with leftist, pro-abortion celebrities and politicians.  They have preached heresies from the pulpit, or declined to take action against heretical priests under their purview.  They have stood silent in the face of secular encroachments onto the Church’s turf.  They have lived posh lifestyles.  (Question: why does a cardinal archbishop even have a beach house or a penthouse suite?)  They have fattened themselves on their flocks.  And now all of these scandals stand aside in awe at the monumental scandal that underlies them all, the scandal of sexual perversion and complicity in sexual perversion among not only priests but also bishops, and the revelation that the collaborators include even the Bishop of Rome himself.

For many, many years, the “progressive” wing of the Catholic Church has been slamming and making fun of Catholic teaching on sexual morality.  Why, then, should we be surprised to find members of this wing not behaving in accordance with the teachings that they publicly despise?  Now we are seeing that these teachings, so far from raining on our parade, are really our first line of defense against the predations of the powerful.  And since the powerful have for decades been assiduously knocking down and discrediting the last line of defense — canonical penalties — we see that now, humanly speaking, we have no defenses.  The wolves have free run of the sheepfold.

So is the solution to leave the Church?  I guess one could argue that that depends on whether we can expect to find greater purity, greater morality, and greater uprightness in the world outside the Church than we find inside the Church.  But it is the world outside the Church that has been telling us for so long that chastity is stupid, and that we should be free to decide for ourselves what is “normal” and what is “moral,” instead of trying to live up to objective standards.  At least within the Catholic Church there subsist the principles — unshakable even when ignored — that lust is a sin, using other human beings as objects is wrong, and lewd conduct is a damnable offense.  Will we find a safer refuge in the world, where those principles do not subsist?

Are we now ready, at long last, to accept the thorough discrediting of the colossally stupid idea that the Church needs to “modernize” and “get with the times”?  Modernity is thoroughly bankrupt.  “The times” that too many in the Church have been so anxious to get into line with over the last hundred-plus years have been filled with fratricidal wars, genocide, lawlessness, deceit, sexual deviancy, murder, and the powerful preying on the defenseless.  It is not the Church that needs to get with the times, but the times that need to get with the Church.

The Other Swamp

If you are not Catholic, believe me when I tell you you are not more furious about the clergy and bishop sex abuse scandal than those of us who are in the Church.

If you are Catholic, believe me when I remind you that the world outside the Church is not the home of greater pristine purity and uprightness than the Church.

And Judas Iscariot is not a new phenomenon.

The Red Flag We Are Trained to Ignore

What are we to make of it when a priest, who has long been a darling of the “progressive” left on account of his public dissent from the teachings of the Catholic faith — and particularly the teachings of the Catholic faith on sex — is exposed as a sexual deviant?

For decades, we have been conditioned to buy into the false dichotomy between a man’s private life and his public persona.  A quarter of a century ago, we were told — all the way through to his impeachment — that Bill Clinton’s sexcapades had nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to run the country.  Similarly, Catholic liberals have for many years given us to understand that you can have heterodoxy alongside holiness — and that, in fact, heterodoxy may even be an outstanding sign of holiness, since it implies The Courage to Take On The Establishment, which is invariably The Enemy in the Struggle to Do the Right Thing.

And so we are lulled into not asking key questions and drawing key conclusions about the left’s favorite “progressive” sons in the hierarchy, such as: why does someone within the Church attack the Church’s teachings on sexual matters?  Because these teachings are out of step with our enlightened notions of “fairness” and “equality”?  Because they might give pain to some hypothetical third parties?  Because they aren’t nuanced enough?  But real life is a concrete thing, a wrecking ball too weighty for our towering yet spindly edifices of sophistry to withstand; and people’s motivations are usually quite uncomplicated, and really not so noble.  After all, who really has time or energy to take on causes without some sort of personal investment?  The most obvious and straightforward answer to the question of why is that the dissenter probably has a favorite sin he is trying to hold onto.  To which the heterodox reply will be that (a) the person drawing such a conclusion is “uncharitable” for arriving at a “rash judgment”; and (b) in any case it doesn’t matter whether the dissenter has a dog in the fight, since his motivations in no way detract from the correctness of his positions.

But in fact, the dissenter’s motivations are directly relevant to his objectivity, and therefore to his credibility.  This is why lawyers get to cross-examine witnesses on their motives for testifying.  Credibility matters a great deal in a court of law, and in public discourse.  Sometimes, credibility is the only asset an advocate has to trade on.  It is precisely in a bid to preserve the credibility of a dissenter that inquiries into his motives are suppressed; besides which, the very people who want to engage in such suppression would be the first to raise suspicions about the motivations of someone who supports Catholic doctrine.

There has to be something compelling, not merely theoretical, that drives Catholics — lay and clerical — to wage war on the doctrines of Christ’s Church.  One very distinct possibility is that they are no longer serving Christ (if indeed they ever did serve Him) but the idol that is their pet vice.  Such is their devotion to it that the titanic efforts needed to conform society to their tastes in order to salve their consciences are as nothing compared to the agony of even willing to conform their own selves to Truth.

The hard, cold reality of life is that we cannot throw out the Ten Commandments without also forfeiting the protection they afford.  After all, if we decide that there’s nothing wrong with people thinking the moral law is stupid, then we shouldn’t be surprised when those same people decline to follow it, and when they prey on others in order to feed the appetites that that law does not restrain.  If a person publicly proclaims the stupidity of the moral law, isn’t it foolish to assume that he must be privately following what he publicly derides?  Then why should we be surprised to find a priest who both publicly dissents from the teachings he has been charged to pass on and lives contrary to those same teachings?  A priest who publicly repudiates Catholic doctrines is already unfaithful in virtue of that very fact since, by consenting to receive Holy Orders, he has consented to bearing the burden of preaching those very doctrines.  And once he is unfaithful in one thing, it is easier for him to be unfaithful in other things, which paves the way for unfaithfulness in more and more things.  Sin leads to more sin.

The lesson here would seem to be twofold.  First, heterodoxy is not the mark of a free and tolerant society, but a huge red flag that we have all been trained to ignore.  Second, in case the authority of the Catholic Church to speak on behalf of Christ is in any doubt, the fruit of dissent from orthodoxy in the life of the dissenter bears strongly on the correctness of his dissenting views.  You can’t have holiness without orthodoxy.  If God is Truth, then the pursuit of something other than Truth must be the pursuit of something other than God.  But it is our business as Catholics to pursue God, and the business of our shepherds to lead us rightly in that pursuit.  If a shepherd is pursuing something other than God, then where must he be leading his sheep?  What must he be doing to his sheep while he leads them astray?  And what is to become of bishops who do not pay attention to what their priests are pursuing?

By the Way...

...I just reminded myself.  Earth Day is really Lenin's birthday.  Here is the old bastard in a mugshot from 1895, looking every inch the punk kid brother of Satan.  And here is some first-rate commentary about his spiritual progeny, Ira Einhorn, the murderer who masterminded Earth Day.

Celebrate, if you must, this slithering hell-bait, the fuse that lit the explosion of destruction that was the 20th century.  As for me, I think I'll take the old internal combustion engine for a totally unnecessary trip across town in search of some white cheddar popcorn, the making of which produces greenhouse gas emissions.

Questions

To all you women who engaged in such shameful conduct over the weekend in D.C., and any similar conduct elsewhere, a few questions*:

1. Why is Madonna, who has spent decades touting herself as a sex object and who offered to administer blow jobs to anyone who would vote for Hillary, one of your spokespersons against the objectification of women?

2. Why, if you want to be thought of as more than a vagina, did you wear big pink vaginas on your heads and/or dress up in vagina costumes?

3. Why, if you want to be thought of as strong and smart and powerful and made of stern stuff, are you melting down over a man's crude remarks from 20 years ago?  Why, if you want to be noticed for your brains rather than your lady parts, did you cheer so loudly over Ashley Judd's utterly incoherent "nasty woman" rant?

4. How many of you, who are now screaming over Donald Trump talking about grabbing pussy, voted for accused rapist, exploiter of White House interns and actual grabber of pussy Bill Clinton?  How many of you voted for him twice?  How many of you continued to support him even after all the disgusting revelations?

5. Why in God's Name did so many of you expose your young children to the visual and auditory obscenity on display at the march?  Why did you make your young children wear vagina hats?

6. How is it that you have not figured out that it is precisely this kind of behavior, which is fit only for insane asylums, that helped motivate so many of the rest of us to use our votes to remove your party from power?

*Not addressed to the mercenaries who swelled the crowds in exchange for filthy lucre.

Repost: He Made a Wasteland Out of Cuba, But It's Okay: He's Deeply Spiritual

The day after the long-awaited death of Fidel Castro is announced seems a good day to re-publish a post that originally went up on February 26, 2007.  

It also seems like a good day to congratulate ourselves on having elected as president a man who comes up with absolutely the most appropriate response to the death of Castro (after praying for his spotted soul and celebrating with cigars and madeira):

Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.

While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.

Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. I join the many Cuban Americans who supported me so greatly in the presidential campaign, including the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association that endorsed me, with the hope of one day soon seeing a free Cuba.

At long last, the Washington Post brings us the news the English-speaking world has been waiting for: a joyous end to its long deprivation of the English language translation of Fidel Castro's Cartas del Presidio, the 21 letters the future Maximum Leader (shown here spooning with Nikita Khruschev) penned from the hoosegow in the early 1950s. Gushes Ann Louise Bardach, co-editor of The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro: "[T]his collection of Castro's writings -- virtually the only unofficial writing he ever did -- has become something of a Rosetta Stone for historians, biographers and journalists seeking to understand the man who would become Cuba's ruler for life." She goes on: "The letters amply illustrate Castro's many gifts: his formidable erudition, strategic thinking and natural leadership. They are also an early indicator of his Machiavellian cunning and his genius for public relations. And they dramatize his resentments and rages....What must this intensely proud and private man have felt about the public disclosures of his recent medical travails, in which every inch of his intestines has become fodder for the world media?"

Coming up for air out of our barf bags, we see what it is that passes for deep spirituality in the insane world of Castro and his fawning minions. Immediately after describing how, in 1969, Castro outlawed the celebration of Christmas in Cuba, Barlach, apparently impervious to irony, rhapsodizes: "And yet the letters suggest that Castro was a man of unusual spiritual depth -- and a fervent believer in God." Exhibit A: a polysyllabic-word-laden excerpt from a letter to the father of a fallen revolutionary thug:

I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably. . . . This truth should be taught to every human being -- that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice -- how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice.

Castro certainly ought to know about the ephermeral nature of human life, as a life-long specialist in rendering as ephemeral as possible the lives of anybody who gets in his way. As to God being the "supreme idea" of goodness and justice, somehow Barlach misses this clue to Castro's true belief system, pursuant to which it is held that man created God, instead of the other way around. But no matter: at long last, the Left has found a "fervent believer in God" that it can live with -- one who proves his "unusual spiritual depth" by:

-- Being ruled by pride, as when he flew into a rage upon discovering that his wife, Mirta, accepted a modest government stipend in order to keep body and soul together while Castro rotted in prison: "I never imagined that Rafael [his brother-in-law] could be such a scoundrel and that he had become so corrupted; I cannot conceive how he could have so pitilessly sacrificed the honor and name of his sister, exposing her to eternal shame and humiliation...." Meeting life's basic requirements is counterrevolutionary.

-- Learning the wrong lessons in the School of Suffering: "It is a chore to push away the mortal hatreds that seek to invade my heart. I do not know if there is anyone who has suffered more in these past days. It has been a terrible and decisive test, with the capacity of quashing the last atom of kindness and purity in my soul, but I have made a pledge to myself to persevere until death. . . . After such weeping and sweating of blood, what is left for one to learn in the school of sorrow?" Any number of real martyrs could have supplied him with a few ideas.

-- Getting divorced and waging all-out war from the joint for custody of his son: "I do not care one bit if this battle drags on till the end of the world. If they think they can exhaust my patience and, based on this, that I am going to concede -- they are going to find that I am wrapped in Buddhist tranquility and am prepared to reenact the famous Hundred Years War -- and win it! To these private matters, add my reflection on the political panorama -- and it will not be difficult to imagine that I will leave this prison as the man of iron." A paragon of parental love and self-sacrifice.

-- Taking a mistress, Maria Laborde: "The inscription on your card was so beautifully written, I have set my hope on the pleasure of soon receiving a letter from you, with the only variant that you use 'tu' instead of 'usted.' Could this be too much to hope?" Apparently not, since he went on to father an illegitimate child with Laborde.

This is to say nothing of what Castro would go on to do over the course of an ignominious career:

-- Impose Communism on his hapless people and reducing them to a state of grinding poverty

-- Suppress individual liberty, including freedom of worship

-- Threaten the United States with nuclear war

-- Aggress against neighbors, such as the Carribbean island nation of Grenada

-- Imprison and torture political dissidents for decades without a trial

-- Murder political dissidents and other threats to his regime

It's true: the Castro letters from the joint reveal a great deal about the man -- a great deal too much, if his partisans were not too blind to see it.

Dies Irae

For behold the sovereign the Lord of hosts shall take away from Jerusalem, and from Juda the valiant and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water.  The strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the cunning man, and the ancient.  The captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the architect, and the skillful in eloquent speech.  And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them. 
Isaiah 3:1-4

One thing we have to realize about this week's Supreme Court catastrophe is that it is not merely calculated to bring down the wrath of God upon us.  This is the wrath of God.

We have lain under God's wrath for many years now, and most of us can't see it.  Many of us -- maybe most of us -- are positively pleased with the way things are going, both within and without the Church.  That is part of the punishment.

The Church is filled with bad priests and bishops.  Sorry, but I just do not subscribe to the Pollyanna view that most priests and bishops are good and that it is just a few bad apples that give the rest a bad name.  If that were true, the bad apples would be swiftly dealt with and would have no influence.  But the reality is that they are not dealt with at all, and run riot throughout the Church, doing incalculable damage.  Good priests and bishops are vastly outnumbered by those who, at best, are negligent, and at worst, are devoid of the Catholic faith and actively seeking to stamp out faith in their flocks.  Even most of the good ones are a mixed bag.  We have, in our time, hardly any outstandingly holy priests, and these are despised and persecuted by their own people and by the bad bishops who are over them.  This is a chastisement, as St. John Eudes declared:

The most evident mark of God's anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clergy who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than charity and affection of devoted shepherds....When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people, and is visiting His most dreadful anger upon them. That is why He cries unceasingly to Christians, "Return O ye revolting children ... and I will give you pastors according to My own heart". (Jer. 3:14,15) Thus, irregularities in the lives of priests constitute a scourge upon the people in consequence of sin.

A wicked secular government is also a sign of God's wrath.  We as a nation gleefully threw ourselves into the arms of a lawless president who is an enemy of this country and all the ideals enunciated at her founding, who rules by executive fiat, who has swept away the last remnants of constitutional government and the rule of law, and -- make no mistake about it -- has pitted himself irrevocably against the Catholic Church.  We suffered an unmitigated defeat the day he was elected, and many of us still don't know it.

Why is this part of the punishment?  Consider the story of the Exodus out of Egypt, where we read repeatedly about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart:

And the Lord said to Moses: Behold I have appointed thee the God of Pharao: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.  Thou shalt speak to him all that I command thee; and he shall speak to Pharao, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.  But I shall harden his heart, and shall multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and he will not hear you: and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and will bring forth my army and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, by very great judgments.  Exodus 7:1-4.

The excellent gloss in the Douay-Rheims Bible explains what God means here:

I shall harden: not by being the efficient cause of his hardness of heart, but by permitting it; and by withdrawing grace from him, in punishment of his malice; which alone was the proper cause of his being hardened. 

Every thinking person ought to find this frightening.  Spiritual blindness is a punishment for continually hardening our hearts against the graces God sends us.  To be so steeped in sin as to not recognize it for what it is is to be foreclosed from repentance and conversion; and if we persist in that state until death, we are damned.  Sometimes God even permits people in this state to be surrounded at the moment of death by others who make sure they are cut off from the Sacraments and confirmed in their errors to the end.  That is why it is so horrible that the popular culture supports the gay lifestyle.  In the name of "compassion," society hermetically seals its practitioners into their prison of lust, cutting them off from their only real avenue of retreat, until they die, despairing.

There are some delusional Catholics who think that, if only we just believe, any minute now, God will just swoop down and rescue us from our dire straits, as though we are somehow entitled to such.  Scripture is indeed full of promises that God will rescue us from disaster, and we even have the example of the Ninevites, whom God decided to spare from destruction.  But the Ninevites were spared because they listened to Jonah's warnings and repented and did penance.  If we want to be spared, we must do likewise; there has been no shortage of warnings.  But so far, it seems, we are going to continue to ignore them.

You Will Be Assimilated. Resistance Is Futile.

These lights went up the same day the opinion was published.

This photo is from the White House's Twitter feed, which also now has a cartoon of a rainbowed White House as its avatar.  The Executive Mansion, owned and kept up by the American taxpayer, is currently the residence of a man who, just a few short years ago, declared that he believed marriage to be between one man and one woman.  Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has discovered the "right" to same-sex "marriage" in the Fourteenth Amendment -- a right hitherto undetected by any human being since the Constitution was ratified -- that same man has turned the house first lived in by Thomas Jefferson into a gigantic billboard for homosexualism. 

But, lest we be too distracted by this puerile display and mockery of an historic monument of the nation's founding, let us take special note of Obama's speech celebrating the Supreme Court's travesty.  You can read the whole thing here; this is the money quote:

I know that Americans of good will continue to hold a wide range of views on this issue. Opposition, in some cases, has been based on sincere and deeply held beliefs. All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact and recognize different viewpoints, revere our ["]deep["] ["]commitment["] to religious freedom.

But today should also give us hope that on the many issues with which we grapple, often painfully, real change is possible. Shift in hearts and minds is possible. And those who have come so far on their journey to equality have a responsibility to reach back and help others join them, because for all of our differences, we are one people, stronger together than we could ever be alone.

Let us leave to one side the hypocrisy in this divide-and-conquer president of appealing to national unity.  I have already been ridiculed as a paranoiac because I perceive this new development as a frontal assault on my free exercise of my Catholic faith as formerly guaranteed by the First Amendment.  Now along comes Obama, vindicating my point and proving that, like always with leftists, this victory is not enough.  It was never going to be enough, just like all the previous victories garnered after long years of shoving gay propaganda down everyone's throats.  Nothing is never enough.  It's not enough that government at all levels supports the gay lifestyle. It's not enough that big business supports it.  It's not enough that the entertainment industry supports it.  It's not enough that the education system, from kindergartens to universities, supports it.  It's not enough that the media support it.  It's not enough that popular culture supports it.  It's not enough that some heretical Catholic bishops and priests support it.  It's not enough that Disneyland supports it.  It's not enough that now five out of nine Supreme Court justices support it.  No: I must also support it.  And since I must support it, if I will not do so voluntarily, the next step is to use force to make me.  And if I still refuse to give way, then I guess the next step is liquidation.  Because leftists think they can only have peace when there is an absence of opposition.

Yet that still will not be enough.  Even after all the intractables are liquidated, opposition will continue to be redefined.  One day, opposition will consist in all those who are not actively participating in the gay lifestyle and gay sex, even though they condone it.  Meanwhile, the misery of homosexuals increases as they struggle, pathetically, to re-invent reality in the face of nature, reason and God, their carefully-constructed edifice of imaginary "rights" having turned into a maximum-security prison from which there is no escape -- not even death.

Martin Luther said: "Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."  This idea of reason as a whore has borne much evil fruit over five centuries, and perhaps none more poisonous than the current assault on marriage and the free exercise of religion.  We are in a mess now that can be fixed only by divine intervention; we had better pray and strive to somehow deserve it.

Starri, Starri Blight

If you pay a creepy-looking, tattoo-covered, bushy-armpitted, ritual sex magick-performing New Age guru-ette up to $7,000.00 a year to educate your children at a place founded on pagan principles, named after a pagan earth goddess and staffed with pagans and womyn's studies majors, should you be surprised to find out that "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" at that school?

Apparently it does come as a surprise to parents at Minneapolis' Gaia Democratic School, whose kids were taken on a field trip to a sex shop as part of a year-long (!) sex ed class.  School director Starri Hedges, who arranged and led the field trip, claimed that the children were not exposed to anything that was considered pornographic, although they could see sex toys and other unspecified products.  "What I saw happening on our trip, I thought it was beautiful because kids could talk to these sex educators without any shame, without any fear," said the delusional Hedges.  Regarding the outrage of parents, who were not consulted ahead of time, Hedges said: "It was certainly the first time we have taken that kind of field trip and it will probably be our last, which I feel bad [about] because the kids had so much fun" -- "fun" being a core principle upon which the school's educational philosophy is based.  Hence, no doubt, the school's board of directors' issuance of a press release defending Hedges and her misbegotten field trip.

Nevertheless, many of the parents of children enrolled at Gaia Democratic are calling for Hedges' ouster, and several have pulled their children out of the school.  One parent has instigated a criminal investigation on the grounds that children were exposed to pornographic material -- an allegation that may be supported by the fact that the sex shop has since been cited for keeping sexually explicit materials in the view of minors.  “I want her done and out, and that school closed,” said one parent. “I want her away from children.  It’s borderline predation.”  It seems that otherwise progressive, forward-thinking, open-minded, neo-pagans do not want their own kids to be groomed for early sex, proving that the Age of Aquarius has its limitations after all.

Concerning this imbroglio, a few observations:

-- We are constantly preached at that one should not judge another based on appearances.  This is true -- up to a point.  We should not automatically assume that a person who is physically beautiful must therefore also be beautiful on the inside, lest we cast aside ordinary prudence.  Likewise, we should not think ill of a person based on external factors that are more or less out of his control, like skin color or body type or poverty or illness.  But what about deliberately self-inflicted physical oddities?  Should we not pay attention to the red flags raised by persons like Starri Hedges who give the appearance of great personal creepiness based on things she's done to herself?  Does not her willingness to take children as young as 11 to a sex shop prove this creepiness to be more than skin-deep?

-- Sex is a basic human drive and an instinct so deep as to require no training, except in self-control.  Why, then, does any school have a year-long course in sex -- manifestly not about self-control, since it includes a trip to a sex shop -- except to break down the inhibitions of children?  This is what is known as grooming, a practice formerly restricted to child molesters, but which now parents are paying schools to do to their children.

-- What is the rationale for keeping kids away from porn if it's okay for them to be exposed to sex toys?  What is the rationale for keeping kids away from sex toys if it's okay to subject them to a year of sexual indoctrination in the classroom?  Where were the outraged parents while this was going on?

 -- Incidents like this prove that when you reject the natural law -- as these parents did implicitly by sending their kids to a school that operates explicitly on principles directly opposed to the natural law -- you leave yourself defenseless in the face of evil.  Worse, you leave defenseless those who are entrusted to your care.   

-- Do any of these parents think it's okay or even actively support the exposure of other people's children to the filth that they do not now want their own children exposed to?

The father who has filed a complaint with Minneapolis police against Starri Hedges has been quoted as calling the incident "a major breach of trust," and observing that "you just can't erase those images."  He is absolutely right; and he is absolutely right in declaring Hedges unfit to have anything to do with children.  But there is a legion of reasons why neither he nor any of the other parents should ever have reposed any trust in Hedges or her school in the first place, and no knowing when, if ever, the damage to their children will ever be undone.

The New Alchemy

Bruce Jenner is now officially pretending to be a woman, and we are advised from nearly every quarter that he deserves respect and support and plaudits for this "courageous" and "difficult" decision to pursue his "right" to be whatever he wants to be.

This sort of thing is possible only in a world that rejects (a) God, and (b) objective reality.  The recognition of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good and loving God necessarily rules out the idea that a person can be a woman "trapped in a man's body" and vice versa.  God cannot make mistakes or fail to carry out His ordaining will.  And contrary to the fevered imaginings of the so-called Enlightenment philosophers, it is possible to perceive and grasp reality, and to distinguish it from that which is unreal.  Sex (not "gender": funny how, in an age saturated with sex, we cavil at using the word) is inescapable.  The sex chromosomes, which inhabit every single cell in the human body, are inescapable.  Persons who think they can create their own reality should think about trying to apply that principle to their checking accounts.  Go ahead and decide you're a billionaire, and then start trying to spend accordingly.  See where that gets you.

With God and objective reality out of the picture, no one is safe, not even from himself.  Now anything is not only possible, but permissible.  The willingness to traverse boundaries previously understood as being impassible marks the death of human dignity.  The body is nothing more than fodder for experimentation, to be used and abused as we please.  We are just human chattels.  We are reverting back to the slavery that our forebears fought and labored so hard to abolish, only this time it will be without even the minimal protection of the law.  The idea of the integrity of the human person is meaningless.

And since we need not respect our own integrity, others need not respect it either.  Maybe someone else should be able to decide for us that we should be the opposite sex.  That day in fact has already come: already we are seeing stories about parents putting their children -- even five-year-olds! -- through this process, and attributing it to the child's "choice."  Is it not the height of immorality to hold a child -- manifestly too immature to make life-changing decisions, possibly not even having yet attained the use of reason -- to a whim?  What if the child decides to pretend to be a dog or a cat?  Should he be held to that, even to the extent of being surgically mutilated to look like a dog or a cat?  Where are the laws to protect children from this extreme form of abuse inflicted on them by those whose duty it is to love and care for them?  In the end, where will we get laws to protect adults from this kind of treatment?

Bruce Jenner is not a woman, and he is not a hero for trying to live like one.  He is properly an object of pity, not only on account of his deep disorder but also because he is surrounded by people who do not love him enough to uphold the truth to his face.  And the truth is this.  God made him a man, on purpose, and it is His will that Bruce live like the man he was made to be.  He can put on women's clothes; he can fill himself full of hormones; he can go through the "counseling"; he can pay some quack tens of thousands of dollars to mutilate his body; he can even bully the rest of the world into playing along with his fantasy.  But he can never, ever make himself into something that he is not, much less find happiness in the effort.

God Does Not Mess with Our Heads

Fracassini, Execution of the Martyrs of Gorkum.

Today I found myself reflecting on Protestantism, and it occurred to me that among its fundamental flaws is that it is okay with the idea of a God Who messes with our heads.  This is because Protestants hold that Christ established an invisible church of true believers, rather than a visible Church of true teachers.  In other words, God leaves us to figure out for ourselves what we need to do to save our souls.  

The idea that God allows us to puzzle out our own path to salvation gives us way too much credit for brains, and God no credit at all for being a loving Father.  What loving human parent allows a child to figure out for himself whether to stick his hand in a pot of boiling water, or light matches, or run out into traffic?  What loving parent fails to pass on to the child wisdom and knowledge that the child cannot learn without being told?  So God sets up visible authority figures for the child in the person of his mother and father in order to teach him the things he will need to know in order to survive in the world -- and also in order to give him a reason to believe what he has been taught without having to find it out through tragic experience.  If God does this in order to secure our temporal good, why would He not, to secure our eternal good, set up a true Church of visible teachers with authority to teach in His Name?  After all, the avoidance of hell and attainment of heaven is the paramount business of our lives.  Nothing else equals it in importance.  It is why we were created.  Failure to achieve our supreme objective is catastrophic and irreversible.  And, if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there is a reason Holy Scripture constantly compares mortal man to sheep.  We are not very bright.

So why would anybody even want private judgment to be a true doctrine?  Clearly, the purpose of private judgment is to allow us to rationalize doing whatever we want.  It provides us with a built-in scorn for, or at least suspicion of, authority -- especially the authority of the Successor of Peter -- that permits us to doubt and ultimately disregard any authoritative teaching that goes against our perverse inclinations.  It blinds us to the truth by allowing us to replace reality with our own fantasies and stamping them with the imprimatur of the Holy Spirit.  It gives us a basis to conclude that, after all, breaking our marriage or religious vows or neglecting our kids or accumulating an Everest of possessions or furthering the cause of socialism or apostatizing from the Catholic faith may indeed be our own personal path to salvation.  In the end, private judgment must lead to a forgetfulness of salvation at all, in favor of idolizing the transitory happiness of this life.  Private judgment is ultimately rooted in pride.  This has to be why the confidence of its adherents is not shaken by the proliferation of contradictory and mutually exclusive judgments, each of which is held by someone claiming to have been inspired by God.

But God does not inspire chaos.  He does not leave us without guidance in the pursuit of our most vital interests.  He does not deprive us of light in our search for Truth.  He does not make the most vital truths obscure and indiscernible.  God does not mess with our heads.

Holy Week and "Gender" Politics

With liberals, everything is always about politics, which means the rest of us must constantly be indoctrinated, lest we fail to see the light.  We can't just have music: we have to have some message set to a tune.  We can't just have a novel: we have to have an attitude adjustment.  We can't just have plays or movies: we have to have leftist sermons disguised as entertainment.  Even religion isn't safe from this busybody interference.  We can't just have Holy Mass, or Vespers, or the Rosary, or Stations of the Cross: our once Catholic worship and devotions have to be salted down with a heavy seasoning of philistinism, narcissism, secular humanism and even downright Marxism.  It is always during this, the holiest week of the year, that the top is off the salt-shaker and the spoons and castor oil are out, and we are lined up to take our medicine.  It is time for us once again to be force-fed our annual lessons in "gender" theory, beginning with the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday and culminating in Holy Thursday with the washing of the feet.

These days, during the reading of the Passion, and while a multitude of men stands around, we have women reading the parts of St. Peter and Pontius Pilate, and men reading the part of the maidservant who confronts St. Peter.  Why is this a big deal?  Because, apart from the fact that it is jarring to hear a woman reading St. Peter's lines, it is obvious that this is not being done out of necessity, since there are plenty of men around; it is clearly being done to make a point, even if those who orchestrate it vehemently deny it.  One grows weary of being peppered by these little points during Mass.  It is hoped that eventually we will grow so used to them that we start ignoring them -- and therein lies the danger.  To ignore them is to be anesthetized, and therefore compliant.  This sort of thing prepares us, gradually, to accept the lie that there is no difference between men and women. Each time one of these little stunts is pulled, that is one more degree added to the temperature of the pot of water that we frogs are sitting in. And the lie has broad and deep implications. If it is true that there is no difference between men and women, and men and women do not each have their proper roles and inclinations ordained by God in virtue of their different endowments, then there is no reason why marriage should only be between one man and one woman; there is no reason why children need both their mothers and their fathers; and ultimately, the union of Christ, the divine Bridegroom, and His spotless Bride, the Church, is a joke.

The gender-bending and general confusion in secular society about the nature of maleness and femaleness is being harnessed by the women's ordination crowd within the Church.  We need to get it through our thick skulls that there is no real difference between the sexes, you see, so that we will realize what an injustice it is that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood.  The inherent dignity of women demands that they have a role at the table too, and not just as sacristans or preparers of meals or on cleaning crews, the argument runs; therefore, women must swarm the sanctuary, must read the male lines in the reading of the Passion, and must have their feet washed -- even though the rubrics of the Mass specify that only men are to have their feet washed, as they symbolize the all-male college of Apostles.  

But this line of thinking betrays a worldly mindset as well as a total lack of understanding of the self-immolation that is the ordained priesthood.  If the inherent dignity of women demands that they have a role "at the table" -- which seems to be how we now think of the Altar of Sacrifice -- why wasn't the Mother of God there at the Last Supper; or, if she was there, why wasn't she mentioned in Scripture? If any woman deserved a place "at the table," surely it was she.  Perhaps the answer is that the Mother of God, rather than standing on her dignity, took her (unglamorous) place at the blood-soaked foot of the Cross, which is identical to the Mass.  Besides: is there something undignified about being a sacristan or preparer of meals or on a cleaning crew?  Generations of saints, including the Mother of God herself, might disagree with such a proposition.   

The Mass is the August Sacrifice of Calvary, where our redemption was won and the powers of hell were decisively defeated; it is not a forum for politicking, and the faithful are not there to serve as a captive audience for liberal propaganda.  For years, the world has been telling us that the sexes are fungible and that sexual identity is purely a societal construct that has nothing to do with nature. This is patently false. Why, then, are we Catholics buying into the gender-bending ideology, and why are we applying it to the Mass?

To Men in Holy Orders: A Cri de Coeur

Choosing the hard path: Athanasius contra mundum.

I know it's easy for me to say this.  I also know that what I am about to say will sound harsh.  But I am going to say it anyway.  Those of you to whom this does not apply know who you are, and know I am not talking to you.  If it does apply to you...you also know who you are.

I hear it often said that, despite the headline-making scoundrels in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, there are nevertheless many faithful bishops, priests and deacons.  

Where are they?

As I shade my eyes with my hand and scan the ecclesiastical landscape, straining my sight toward the horizon, I find it hard to make very many of them out.  As I cup my hand to my ear, listening with all my might for the rolling thunder of the Gospel, I hear an isolated voice here and there; but mostly, what I get is the chirping of crickets.

You orthodox men in Holy Orders, why are so many of you undetectable?  Why are you hiding?  What are you afraid of?

Are you afraid of being suspended?  Are you afraid of being called on the carpet by the bishop?  Are you afraid of trumped-up accusations?  Are you afraid the contributions will dry up?  Are you afraid of the powerful feminist crowd at the chancery?  Are you afraid of being transferred to a remote corner of the Dry Tortugas?

Of course, nobody wants to have to face any of these things.  But facing up to such was part of the deal you signed up for; and in the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders, you were given the supernatural assistance and the authority you need to do it.   Why don't you use these?  Can you really serve the Church from under your beds?  Are you really doing your flocks and the Church any good by neglecting the graces you were given, and allowing yourselves to be muzzled in order to avoid repercussions?

Redemption and salvation are founded upon suffering.  Does Christ not enjoin us to take up our crosses and follow Him?  St. Paul rejoiced in his sufferings, filling up those things that were wanting in the sufferings of Christ in his flesh, for His Body, which is the Church (Colossians 1:25).  And Tertullian is credited with the saying that martyrs are the seedbed of the Church.  Has the Church ever taken root in a mission field, from Rome to the Americas, that was not first consecrated by the suffering and even blood of Christians, especially priests?  What if these martyrs had refused suffering?

If you men in Holy Orders have to suffer for Christ's sake, do you honestly suppose God cannot make anything out of your sufferings?  Do you honestly suppose God will not support you in doing the right thing?  Do you honestly suppose He will not reward you for doing the right thing, either in this life or in the next?  Have you forgotten about the supernatural order, in which your sufferings draw down graces upon your flocks?  Put it another way:

Do you do your sheep more good by suffering unjustly; or by letting us see you stand around, mute and impotent, wringing your hands, while the wolves run riot amongst us?

I get that you have to pick your battles.  But many of you have gotten so used to passing up opportunities to fight in the name of "picking your battles" that now there is no battle you will fight.  Many of you have gotten so used to keeping your mouths shut that now silence is your default setting, even when you should speak up.  So the wolves do whatever they want, secure in the knowledge that there will be little or no push-back from the shepherds.

Let me ask you this: what if ALL the priests who labor under the rule of modernist bishops did the right thing?  If these bishops order you to suppress the Gospel you were ordained to preach, are you bound to obey them to that extent?  They can't send you ALL to the Dry Tortugas.  What if ALL faithful bishops did the right thing without fear or favor?  Even if they take ALL of you out, do you really think your courageous example will not inspire others to spring up to take your place?

We live in a time when charity has run cold and very many Catholics -- even many who attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days -- simply do not believe the content of the Catholic faith.  This is obvious from the way they conduct their lives.  Our enemies outside the gates do not fail to notice this, and to plan accordingly.  This is no time for you who are supposed to be shepherds to be shrinking violets.  By keeping your head down and your mouths shut, men in Holy Orders, you avoid repercussions -- for now.  But the repercussions that you avoid for yourselves fall on your sheep.  How do you expect to explain this to God, when you stand before Him in judgment?

The Holy Innocents

Salvete flores martyrum, – Hail Martyr Flowers

quos lucis ipso in limine – On the very threshold of the dawn (of life)

Christi insecutor sustulit – Christ’s persecutor destroyed (you)

ceu turbo nascentes rosas. – like the whirlwind does the budding roses.

Vos prima Christi victima, – You, Christ’s first fruits

grex immolatorum tener, – A flock of tender sacrificial victims

aram sub ipsam simplices – right up by the very altar

palma et coronis luditis. – now play with your palms and crowns.

Iesu, tibi sit gloria, – Jesus to you be glory

qui natus es de Virgine, – who were born of the Virgin

cum Patre et almo Spiritu, – with the Father and loving Spirit

in sempiterna saecula. Amen. – unto to eternal ages. Amen.

Translation by Msgr. Charles Pope

Herod the Great ordered the massacre of the Innocents in order to eliminate the Christ Child, Who he feared would deprive him of his kingdom.  Herod was a great murderer in general, particularly of his own children: the Emperor Augustus is said to have remarked that he would rather be Herod's pig than his son.   Not long after the birth of Christ, according to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Herod died a disgusting, excruciating death in Jericho -- a city that, in Scripture, symbolizes the world that is opposed to the kingdom of heaven.

Herod -- who was killing people right until the end, and even tried to have the murders continue after his death -- was punished in this life by colon pains, convulsions, terrible itching all over his body, fever, and the putrefaction and infestation by worms of his private parts.  What kind of punishments can we expect, who have outstripped Herod's homicidal assaults on babies in both numbers and brutality, even going so far as to enshrine the murder of the unborn in our laws as a constitutionally guaranteed "right"?  When have we ever hated children more than in this present day?

Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Why We Can't "Just Let Obamacare Implode"

1. Because Obamacare is unconstitutional, and, indeed, anti-constitutional.  It purports to compel individuals to enter into binding contracts against their will -- an unprecedented overreach that takes the federal government far, far beyond its enumerated powers.  This is not changed by the fact that Obamacare bears the imprimatur of the Supreme Court -- from which has emanated, among other things, Dred Scott v. Sanford (blacks cannot be citizens); Plessy v. Ferguson (upholding racial segregation); Korematsu v. United States (upholding FDR's executive order interning Japanese Americans during World War II); and Roe v. Wade (legalizing abortion).  Besides, the Court's 5-4 decision in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius hardly constitutes a solid consensus among the justices, as liberals are fond of pointing out any time the Court comes out with a 5-4 decision they don't like.

2. Because Obamacare was hurriedly rammed, Politburo-style, through Congress and onto the President's desk, purposely in order to avoid deliberation and to prevent the American people from finding out all the gory details before it was too late.  This process is utterly un-American and at variance with the open, above-board legislative process that is supposed to foster the health of a constitutional republic.

3. Because Obamacare is pure socialism, and as such is a frontal assault on liberty, limited government, subsidiarity, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of commerce, private property rights -- in short, every principle upon which this nation was founded.  For those who are Catholic, it is worth noting that a line of Popes stretching back to Bl. Pius IX has condemned socialism: you can't be a faithful Catholic and a socialist.

4. Because Obamacare is going to be enforced by the IRS.  This alone should be sufficient reason to oppose it.

5. Because Obamacare is already hurting flesh-and-blood Americans.  Employers are already laying people off and/or shortening their hours in order to escape the costly burden of falling within Obamacare's ambit.  Obamacare's prohibitive costs are also inducing insurance carriers to discontinue certain policies or pull out of certain markets altogether, leaving many customers with private insurance high and dry.  This is contrary to Obama's explicit promise that people would be "allowed" to keep their coverage -- as if, by the way, the Founding Fathers ever intended that the people be "allowed" to engage in free enterprise and enter into contracts at the gracious sufferance of an imperial Chief Executive.

6. Because anybody with any political clout with this regime -- including Congress and other ruling elites in Washington -- is seeking exemptions from Obamacare -- and getting them.  If Obamacare is not a train wreck, why are the feds themselves stepping out if its way?  And, while we're on the subject, who told Obama that he had the constitutional authority to make unilateral alterations to a federal statute, however devious and disgraceful the process by which it was rammed through the legislative process?

7. Because when was the last time failure doomed a government program to extinction?  How many of LBJ's "Great Society" programs have been abolished after half a century and trillions spent on the "war on poverty"?  Have we driven a stake through the heart of all of FDR's "New Deal" programs eighty years later?  When it comes to the federal government, failure is an almost certain guarantee of immortality.

No, we cannot simply sit back and let Obamacare run its course.  Obamacare is a legal, moral and economic evil that must be stopped.  We must make the effort to stop it even if (which I do not believe) it were true that we could not hope to succeed in doing so, because that is the right thing to do.  If Obamacare is allowed to "implode" and "collapse under its own weight," it will certainly take the country with it.

For generations, people who long for freedom have fled to the United States.  When we have allowed the United States to be destroyed, where will we flee?

Morton's Fork

I emerge from underneath my rock long enough to comment on the business of Barack Obama versus Vladimir Putin.

I must say, I am rather alarmed by the admiration a lot of people on my end of the political spectrum seem to have for Vladimir Putin, and their readiness to yield to the temptation to compare him favorably to Barack Obama.  There is no doubt that Barack Obama has utter contempt for the rule of law, the free market, the integrity of the family, Western Civilization in general and the Catholic Church in particular, and that he is making the United States a laughingstock on the world stage.  But let us not forget that the Soviet Union, Putin's old stomping ground, was a Machiavellian world of lies, intrigues, betrayals, and assassinations, and that persons did not flourish in such a world by being nice.  We should not be quick to embrace as "Leader of the Free World" a man who rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the KGB.  

We should also keep in mind that great evils frequently come in pairs, so that, seeking to oppose one, the undiscerning are driven into the arms of the other. We had a striking example of that during the last century.  Nazism and Communism were both atheistic, materialistic, religion-hating, tradition-hating, totalitarian ideologies; yet some people joined the Communist Party in order to oppose Nazism, and others became Nazis in order to fight the Communists.  All were wrong, and millions paid the price.

Today we live in equally confused times.  We are sure to pay the price for having deliberately unmoored ourselves from our Christian heritage.