P.O. Box 23825 • Green Bay, WI 54305-3825 • 920-272-8194 • FAX 920-435-1330
OFFICE OF THE BISHOP
October 24, 2012
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
AN IMPORTANT MOMENT
It is almost time to vote and to make our choices for president and other political offices both local and national.
You have often heard it said that this is a turning point in our country’s history and I could not agree more.
The Church is not a political organism, but as you hopefully have learned in the US Bishops Faithful Citizenship material (which we have made widely available to you in the parishes, in the Compass and on-line), the Church has the responsibility to speak out regarding moral issues, especially on those issues that impact the
“common good” and the “dignity of the human person.”
I would like to review some of the principles to keep in mind as you approach the voting booth to complete your ballot. The first is the set of non-negotiables. These are areas that are “intrinsically evil” and cannot be supported by anyone who is a believer in God or the common good or the dignity of the human person.
They are:
1. abortion
2. euthanasia
3. embryonic stem cell research
4. human cloning
5. homosexual “marriage”
These are intrinsically evil. “A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program that contradicts fundamental contents of faith and morals.” Intrinsically evil actions are those which have an evil object. In other words, an act is evil by its very nature and to choose an action of this type puts one in grave moral danger.
But what does this have to do with the election? Some candidates and one party have even chosen some of these as their party’s or their personal political platform. To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally “complicit” with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own
soul in jeopardy.
The other position to keep in mind is the protection of religious liberty. The recent aggressive moves by the government to impose the HHS mandate, especially the move to redefine religion so that religion is confined more and more to the four walls of the Church, is a dangerous precedent. This will certainly hurt the many
health care services to the poor given by our Catholic hospitals. Our Catholic hospitals in the Diocese give millions of dollars per year in donated services to the poor. In the new plan, only Catholic people can be treated by Catholic institutions.
It has never been our mission to be exclusive of those who are not of our faith. This mandate also places Catholic business owners in a very precarious position in that they, too, will have to pay for those medical “services” which violate Catholic teaching. This has never been the American way and now these moves and others by the present government, will significantly alter and marginalize the role of religious institutions in our society.
These positions are indicators of a broader societal disposition to remove God from the public square and from any relation to society whatever. It is precisely religion and the free exercise thereof which has made this country great in the past.
Many people in our Diocese are presently without work. Our Catholic Charities is serving more and more people who are unemployed or under employed and can barely keep up with the demands. Work is so critical to the family and to the sense of human dignity. An economy which does the most for the common good is an economy that works and provides people gainful employment for the country’s citizens. A government that works pays its bills and models for citizens what it means to be responsible and contributive.
Let us pray for the electorate and let’s take action, that we may vote for good and moral leaders for this great country which will only remain great, if she continues to be and to do the good.
April 26, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. Paul Byrne has been on a
personal mission for many years to warn the public about the alarming
facts and dangers of the $20 billion dollar-a-year organ transplant
industry. At the International Conference for Life
in Vatican City February 25, Byrne and other distinguished speakers,
including Cardinal Raymond Burke, addressed serious concerns regarding
so-called “brain death”, the apnea test and organ transplantation. Dr.
Bryne also introduced a new 29-page booklet produced by his Life Guardian Foundation containing crucial information to assist the public in making informed decisions about organ donation.
The new Life Guardian booklet which Dr. Byrne briefly describes in a LifeSiteNews video interview recorded in Rome, is divided into six main sections:
Facts About Being an Organ Donor - What you don’t know can kill you
Do Your Organs Belong to the Government?
Are You Thinking About Organ Transplantation? Making an Informed Decision
Manipulation of Beginning and End of Human Life
Catholic Teaching on Death and Organ Transplantation
The last part of the booklet contains tear-out forms, with
instructions, intended to protect its readers from premature
declarations of death that can result in imposed death, followed by
subsequent unethical removal of their organs.
Dr. Byrne believes such forms are necessary due to increasingly
hurried and flawed death declarations and the very aggressive tactics of
the organ transplant industry.
The first form, a basic, Power of Attorney for Health Care, is followed by three complimentary, additional forms:
Directions to Protect and Preserve Life for Power of Attorney for Health Care
Directions to Protect and Protect and Preserve Life and Health Care
Representative Serving as an Agent for Dependent Person who is a Minor
or Mentally incapacitated person
Directions to Protect and Preserve Life to be carried at all times in case of sudden accident or serious illness
Each of he last three forms includes the strict, bolded direction,
“Do not hasten death. Do not shorten death. Do not do an apnea test. Do
not take any organ for transplantation or any other purpose.”
The reference to the apnea test reflects grave concerns by Dr. Bryne
and other medical professionals that this deadly procedure frequently
hastens the death of those being “tested,” some of whom might yet
recover, since they are deprived of ventilation for the dangerously long
period of time set to determine if they can breathe on their own.
Byrne writes, “Knowing full well how critical the ventilator is, to
withdraw it when it is needed most is absurd! Yet, it is planned for the
patient to be taken off for up to 10 minutes - the patient can only get
worse! This test is sometimes lethal. Make sure to instruct all medical
staff: “Do not do an Apnea test!”
Dr. Byrne contacted LifeSiteNews to add, “carbon dioxide normally
remains below 45 in us and when a patient is on a ventilator, the goal
is to keep the carbon dioxide below 45. When doing an apnea test (the
test for sleep apnea is not an apnea test), the respiration supporting
ventilator is taken from the patient causing the carbon dioxide to
increase to at least 60, and sometimes higher. When the carbon dioxide
goes to these levels, swelling in the brain occurs or gets worse if it
is already present. This is tantamount to suffocation.”
“The ventilator can be effective only in someone living” emphasizes
Byrne. “The ventilator pushes air into the lungs; the air goes out
(exhaled) only when and because the living body pushes it out. This does
not occur in a cadaver/corpse/dead body.”
Although parts of the Life Guardian Pamphlet are directed to
Catholics who are considering becoming organ donors, there is also much
medical/ethical information applicable to a more general audience.
The medical credentials of Dr. Byrne have given considerable weight
to the credibility of his presentations on the controversial topics
which he has traveled to numerous countries to speak about. The new
booklet describes Byrnes credentials as follows:
Dr. Paul Byrne, a Neonatologist is Director of
Neonatology and Director of Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in
Oregon, Ohio; Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, University of Toledo
College of Medicine; Board Certified in Pediatrics and
Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine: Member of the Fellowship of Catholic
Scholars; past-President of the Catholic Medical Association (USA); and
author of numerous articles on “brain death” and organ transplantation
in medical and law journals and lay press. He is the producer of the
film Continuum of Life and the author of Life, Life Support and Death, Beyond Brain Death, and Brain Death is Not Death.
Dr. Byrne has presented testimony on life-death issues to nine state
legislatures beginning in 1967, He opposed Dr. Jack Kevorkian on Cross-Fire, and has appeared on Good Morning America, the BBC documentary, “Are the donors really dead?” and public television in Japan.
LEICESTER, England, April 25, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to the Daily Mail newspaper,
a young British man owes his life to an insistent father who would not
allow his son’s organs to be removed from his body, despite assurances
from four doctors that his son could not recover from the wounds he had
suffered in a recent car accident.
The Mail reports that Stephen Thorpe, then 17, was placed in a
medically-induced coma following a multi-car pileup that had already
taken the life of his friend Matthew, who was driving the vehicle.
Although
a team of four physicians insisted that his son was “brain-dead”
following the wreck, Thorpe’s father enlisted the help of a general
practitioner and a neurologist, who demonstrated that his son still had
brain wave activity. The doctors agreed to bring him out of the coma,
and five weeks later Thorpe left the hospital, having almost completely
recovered.
Today, the 21-year-old with “brain damage” is studying accounting at a
local university. “‘My impression is maybe the hospital weren’t very
happy that my father wanted a second opinion,” he told the Mail.
The case is similar to dozens of others LifeSiteNews has reported in
recent years, in which comatose or otherwise unconscious patients are
declared to be “brain dead,” or hopelessly incurable. In many cases,
aggressive doctors seek the organs of the patient for harvesting.
In 2011, the Quebec Hospital Sainte Croix de Drummondville sought permission
to extract the eyes of a patient who had choked on hospital food in the
absence of a nurse, claiming she was “brain dead.” After the family
demanded proof from physicians of her alleged condition, she regained
consciousness, and recovered most of her faculties. The family declared
its intention to sue the hospital.
In 2008, a 45-year-old Frenchman revived on the operating table
as doctors prepared to “harvest” his organs for donation, following
cardiac arrest. In the subsequent investigation by the hospital’s ethics
committee, a number of doctors admitted that such cases, while rare,
were well known to them.
That same year, a “brain dead” 21-year-old American, Zack Dunlap, was about to have his organs harvested
when his two sisters, both nurses, decided to test the hospital’s
theory that his brain was no longer functioning. Family members poked
his feet with a knife and dug their fingernails under his nails,
provoking strong reactions by Dunlap and proving he was conscious. He
recovered completely. He later related that he was conscious and aware
as doctors discussed harvesting his organs in his presence.
The term “brain death” was invented in 1968 to accommodate the need to acquire vital organs in their “freshest” state from a donor who some argue is still very much alive.
While death had previously been defined as lack of respiration and
heart activity, “brain death” was judged as compatible with an otherwise
living patient. “Brain death” has never been rigorously defined, and
there are no standardized tests to determine if the condition exists.
Dr. John Shea, a medical advisor to LifeSiteNews.com, points out that
patients diagnosed as “brain dead” often continue to exhibit brain
functions.
In “Organ Donation: The Inconvenient Truth”,
Shea states that the criteria for “brain death” only “test for the
absence of some specific brain reflexes. Functions of the brain that are
not considered are temperature control, blood pressure, cardiac rate
and salt and water balance. When a patient is declared brain dead, these
functions are not only still present, but also frequently active.”
A list of articles by LifeSiteNews on comotose and “brain dead” patients who unexpectedly recovered follows:
Guidelines proposed by the pro-euthanasia Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) call on doctors in the Netherlands to refer patients for euthanasia — even if they have moral or religious objections to the practice of killing patients.
The Dutch medical group released the proposal, “The Role of the Physician in the Voluntary Termination of Life,” a position paper saying, “Patients, too, often have difficulty telling a physician they have an authentic wish to die. Physicians, for their part, are under an obligation to take such requests seriously. This also means that if a physician cannot or does not wish to honour a patient’s request for euthanasia or assisted suicide he must give the patient a timely and clear explanation of why, and furthermore must then refer or transfer the patient to another physician in good time.”
“Vague promises, failure to transfer patients during absences, causing delays or indicating at a late stage or too late that the physician has reconsidered his decision to perform the euthanasia all demonstrate a lack of professionalism. The KNMG therefore calls on all physicians to act as they would wish themselves or their loved ones to be treated,” the paper continues.
Wesley J. Smith, an American bioethicist and attorney, criticized the proposal on his blog, Secondhand Smoke.
“I have been fighting the international campaign to legalize and normalize doctor-prescribed/administered death since 1993, and this much I know: Once euthanasia is let in the door, ultimately, enough is never, ever enough,” Smith writes. “Euthanasia activists often assure that no doctor will be forced to participate in medicalized killing. But I have been warning that this right of conscience is really an expedient, intended to give false assurance while the euthanasia consciousness gestates and matures.”
“And now the very pro euthanasia Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has stated that all doctors have a professional duty to be complicit in euthanasia–either by killing legally qualified patients directly who ask, or if they don’t want to do the deed personally, by referring suicidal patients to a death doctor who they know will kill,” Smith says... (continued...)
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - President Barack Obama held talks with Pope Benedict on Friday and the pontiff gave him a booklet explaining Vatican opposition to practices such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research, which Obama supports.
Obama told the pope Washington wanted strong relations with the Vatican.
Obama and Benedict held private talks for about 40 minutes in the pope's private frescoed study in the Vatican's apostolic palace and the president briefed him on the G8 summit which ended hours earlier in the central Italian city of L'Aquila.
The pope gave Obama, who last March lifted restrictions of federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, a copy of a recent Vatican document on bio-ethics in which the Holy See explains it opposition to such practices.
"Dignitas Personae" (dignity of a person) condemns artificial fertilization and other techniques used by many couples and also says human cloning, "designer babies" and embryonic stem-cell research were immoral.
It defends life from conception to natural death.
The pope's private secretary later told reporters after the meeting: "This reading can help the president better understand the Church's position on these issues."
Obama told the pope during a picture-taking session after the private part of the audience: "We look forward to a very strong relationship between our two countries."
The pope told Obama, who is a Christian, "I pray for you..."
Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is to be stripped of his executive power to veto laws passed by parliament after threatening to block a Bill to allow euthanasia in the tiny state.
The hereditary sovereign, 53, who is the last Grand Duke in the world, caused a constitutional crisis when he gave notice that he objected to Luxembourg following its neighbours Belgium and the Netherlands in permitting euthanasia before a second-reading vote in the Chamber of Deputies next week.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister, also opposed the Bill but decided that the Grand Duke had overstepped the mark in threatening to deny the will of parliament.
Mr Juncker will propose a change to the constitution to downgrade the role of the Grand Duke to promulgating laws with his signature rather than approving them, giving him a purely ceremonial duty in line with the other European constitutional monarchies.
Luc Frieden, the Justice Minister, said: “[The Grand Duke] will no longer participate in the legislative process; he will just sign the law to mark the completion of the procedure.”
The Grand Duke, who was trained at Sandhurst, succeeded to the dukedom in 2000 when his father abdicated.
His ethical stance on euthanasia caused the worst constitutional crisis in Luxembourg — which has a population of fewer than half a million — since Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide was forced to abdicate in 1919 for being too pro-German during the First World War.
The first reading of the euthanasia Bill was approved by 30 votes to 26 in February and the intervention by the Grand Duke was seen by some as an attempt to influence the final vote.
Mr Juncker said: “I understand the Grand Duke's problems of conscience. But I believe that if the parliament votes in a law, it must be brought into force.”
The only other time that a sovereign has blocked a law was in 1912, when the Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide refused to sign an education Bill.
François Bausch, the leader of the Green party, which supported the euthanasia Bill, said: “I hope the law will pass through Parliament by the end of the year. I hope that the Grand Duke will respect the consensus which has always prevailed in Luxembourg.”
Privilege and power
— In Europe there are only 12 monarchies left, including seven kingdoms and the elective monarchy of the Vatican
— Juan Carlos of Spain became King upon Franco's death in 1975. He supported a move to strip much of his own power
— Queen Beatrix is a member of the Government and a head of state in the Netherlands
— In 2001 ex-King Simeon of Bulgaria became Prime Minister
"My neighbors planted a Peace Pole in their front yard yesterday while they strongly support abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research.
How can we have peace when we turn a blind eye to, or even actively support, what is happening to the unborn, the infirm or the disabled? Or work to break down the family? Peace is something (nearly) everyone wants. All the Popes in recent history have been quite vocal about striving for peace. Many times the Pope's message falls on deaf ears, even among Catholics who should be living our Faith by caring and protecting life from conception to natural death."
Though they are (sadly) in the minority, some Catholic priests are sounding the alarm of what already is — a massive spiritual and moral bankruptcy that many still refuse to recognize — and what's to come.
'I am writing to you with an urgent request. I understand that Senator John McCain is not a perfect candidate, but when it comes to the issue of abortion, we need to get what we can. McCain will appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice; Obama will appoint a pro-abortion one. Moreover, with an Obama presidency, the funding for Planned Parenthood will be out of control. Presently, it looks as if Senator Obama could win the election. This would be a complete disaster for the pro-life movement. Everything that we have legally gained in the past years for the pro-life movement will be thrown out the window.
'I know a lot of people consider Randall Terry to be very controversial. I just got off the phone with him because I read an Internet article regarding what happened to him this weekend in Arlington. This is the first time that we have spoken and our conversation was excellent. What he describes in his statement is absolutely the truth. We have a similar situation going on in the Diocese of Corpus Christi. The diocesan newspaper will not allow any discussion regarding the bishop's Faithful Citizenship pastoral document.
'Faithful Citizenship is a smoke screen that gives Catholics the possibility to vote for pro-abortion candidates, i.e. Barack Obama. I just reviewed Randall's Web site and the articles he has posted. They are excellent and I support his efforts. Many of our bishops are involved in a conspiracy against life. If they can't see the evil of homosexuality among their priests, how are they going to see the evil of abortion?'
'This is not an uncommon attitude from time to time among us Catholics when we hear an exhortation to belief, to action in a homily or an instruction from the Holy Father, the bishop, or the pastor of our parish when this exhortation challenges our current attitude in life which imprisons us while the Church offers us true freedom in Jesus. Another retort is, 'Why are you bothering me with this? There are more important issues in the world.'
'Above all things I value my freedom and your freedom. Freedom exists in being able to have power, possessions, and prestige. Freedom exists in being able to go where you want to go when you want to do it. Freedom means being able to think with the mind of God, exercise your skills, express your ideas at least privately and most of the time publicly as well. While freedom can be taken from us in our power, possessions and prestige, our physical liberty and our rights by the state or by a criminal, it never can be taken from us in our soul. We are still ultimately free persons when we have the attitude of Jesus, think with the mind of Jesus, and love with the heart of Jesus, even if we are limited by the state or by evil men and women from exercising our will in Jesus.
'While we may not be in jail (at least at the moment), under house arrest, or in jeopardy of losing our personal liberty today, we are not truly free from attacks with the goal of domination of us by other people, the devil, and the passions when they are not in accord with the order of God.
'When Catholics are urged to vote Catholic, some of us think we are being pressured by the Church, our freedom threatened by the Church. These Catholics respond that in America we have separation of church and state.
'What we really have constitutionally is freedom to express our religion and that Congress only cannot establish one denomination or religion as the state religion.
'Yet the state is encroaching on our religious beliefs, our freedom by passing laws which indoctrinate us, penalize us for non conformity, and take away our liberty. One law builds on another until a prison of thought and action is formed against us Christian believers. The state intertwines itself with religion, silences religious belief, and there is no separation any more.
'The chief agents of this silencing of religion have been Catholic politicians who accept money and praise from special interest groups. These Catholics have abandoned faith and us who elected them, and are slaves to people with evil ideas.
'The evils seeking dominance in our culture are abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual activity. No Catholic politician can remain Catholic and go to Holy Communion while voting in favor of these. No Catholic in the pew can go to Holy Communion while voting in favor of these politicians and these policies [Father C. Frank Phillips, C.R., pastor of St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago, has said virtually the same on more than one occasion from the pulpit].
'The evils are well organized. The spirit of evil infects the souls of individuals who put these evils into practice in their lives. These people give over their freedom becoming slaves to these sins. The people doing evil then organize into groups, and begin to force their lifestyles on the rest of us.
'First evil forms people into groups to organize and express itself. People then reinvent themselves with new names such as gays and lesbians instead of chaste men and women, or women for choice instead of free women for life, or "progressives" instead of faithful people. Evil then beings to take over in 4 ways: infiltration, indoctrination, intimidation, and imposition.
'When we know an unrepentant woman who has killed a child through abortion, we feel horror for her act and for the child, but also sorrow for her. We want her to feel better. We let her infiltrate through telling her story as to why she aborted. Then she begins to indoctrinate us in the necessity of freedom of choice. She begins to intimidate us with accusations of intolerance and hate. Finally she and her politicians impose laws on us which require us to accept it and practice it, such as medical students who must learn this to become doctors now in California
'When we know persons with same sex attractions who have not learned to master chastity, we feel sorry for them. We want them to feel better. They infiltrate by asking for tolerance. They reinvent themselves saying that this is who they are. They indoctrinate with false ideas that they are genetically created this way, that they cannot change, that their sex is just as good as, or even better than, normal people because they don't create overpopulation. They intimidate, calling us bigots, hate-filled people, intolerant. Finally they impose laws forcing us to learn about their sinful lifestyle, to accept it, to take away our freedoms if we don't accept it, to teach this as normal in schools, nursing programs, to celebrate it publicly in parades, schools, and the work place as 'diversity' when in fact it is perversity.
'Famous people with diseases come on TV infiltrating our thinking through sympathy saying that we need to kill embryos so they can get better. They indoctrinate us saying that this is the only way. They intimidate through ridicule of other methods and of the people of life and faith who try to save the embryos. Finally they impose laws, often through Catholic politicians to spend your money to kill embryos for research. Others do the same with euthanasia. My health may not always be perfect, but I don't want to live in slavery in this world by taking the life of another in order to do so. This experimentation reaches its ultimate perversion in cloning of embryos, experimentation combining human and animal research.
'Unfortunately we hear the saying, 'It's the economy, stupid.' In a sense this is correct because losing one's financial freedom and security may be a greater fear than losing deeper liberties of the soul. Losing the soul, however, is the worst reality.
'Jesus came to give us the truth that will set us free. He asks us Catholics to maintain that freedom. Look carefully at your politicians. Do not let them deceive you by telling you that they are Catholic when they vote against the Catholic Faith.
'Like it or not, freedoms are being taken away in politics. There is no longer separation of Church and state. The state is taking over your life and freedom, making you a slave to evil.'
"My family and fellow parishioners were ambushed by Father Geoffrey Farrow, who decided to have his 'coming out party' at Mass last weekend. His homily was about us accepting homosexuals, defeating California Proposition 8 and accepting homosexual marriage. My two teenage daughters, 7-year-old daughter, and 11-year-old son (who was altar serving for Father Geoff) received a sexual education class on homosexuality, homosexual marriage,
f-----s and all the other words and phrases he used, all of which are against our Catholic beliefs. I called, e-mailed and faxed Bishop Steinbock but received no response."
Interestingly, one source in the diocese claims that the bishop has known about Father Farrow for at least five years.
A large number of endangered, unwanted, and unborn children held a town hall meeting on the 4th of July--alarmed at the brutal and untimely killing of millions of their brothers and sisters in recent years. That the murderous war waged on them had the full force and respectability of the law made their plight all the more terrifying.
Their complaint was humble and it was simple. They were not distressed by rising gas prices, or the deteriorating economy in general. They were not even frightened by the exponential increase of natural disasters. The threat of global warming or global terrorism did not greatly disturb them.
They had become an endangered species, and little had been done to answer their terrified and silent screams from the womb. They decided that the barbaric treatment that they and their fellow unwanted unborn human beings have had to endure for perilous decades was unconscionable and unbearable. They cried out to their Creator for inspiration and protection, and then unanimously they put forth a declaration. It began as follows:
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS….” THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE!
The first and pre-eminent right is the right to life. This truth the Founding Fathers were sure of, and anyone with any common sense at all is equally sure of it. 232 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed the amount of common sense that seems to be operative in many spheres of influence—most notably the courts and the political arena-- can easily be poured into a very small thimble.
The United States of America seems to have a death wish, and we have traveled far down the road to having that wish realized.
When law divorces itself from common sense and spawns the illegitimate offspring of distortions of law, resulting in illegal laws—based neither on the natural law nor divine law--this undermines law itself, generating disdain for the law. Erosion of trust in the courts, or the system in general, is inevitable.
The genesis of the death wish is rooted in the fall of man that we see in the Book of Genesis. The substance of the fall is wrapped up in Lucifer’s pride, transferred to Adam and Eve—“You can be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The unholy, yet inevitable, consequence of that pride is disobedience—eating the forbidden fruit. The ultimate end is death, as God said it would be. That’s the way it was in the beginning. That’s the way it is now. That’s the way it will be until time breathes forth it’s last moment.
The prototypical sin is pride, the pride that seeks to exalt the creature above the Creator: “I can be like God.” Then, subjectively and arbitrarily, man tries to assert himself, imagining that he knows what’s good and evil for himself without reference to God and God’s law. This was the fall of the angels and the fall of man. The attempt by creatures to usurp what is only the province of God. Only God knows what is good for His creation.
In recent years it took the form of a self-inflicted heart wound when some dissident Catholics rejected the teaching of the Church, a teaching that clearly held that artificial contraception is intrinsically evil. Then, as Pope Paul VI had warned, it metastasized into abortion. From abortion it degenerated even further into partial-birth abortion. It was then a short and easy step to infanticide.
The exclamation point at the end of the death wish is that now there is yet another candidate for the office of president of the United States who has in an extraordinary way done everything possible to breathe life into all of the barbaric elements of the death wish. He and his party make no apologies for their support of abortion, partial-birth abortion, and even infanticide. It’s hard to believe that we have degenerated to the point that we’ll murder a helpless baby should it escape the violence of an abortion and be born alive. Can a Catholic vote for such persons? We are told, “yes” for a “proportionate reason.” What, I might ask, is the proportionate reason so weighty as to excuse supporting those responsible for what is tantamount to genocide?
The judges and politicians that support such barbaric practices are truly guilty of genocide: genocide—the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, national, or social group. “What is the group so targeted?” you might ask. The group is unwanted, unborn children--tens of millions of them.
The Supreme Court justices that gave us Roe v. Wade will have to plead temporary insanity in the court of history. There will be no defense in the highest Court that is the judgment seat of almighty God if they do not repent of the incalculable evil they have wrought.
Yet, despite the life and death importance of this travesty of authentic law, there will be no serious discussion among political candidates, or anyone else. It is as if society has been bewitched, blind to the splendor of truth, deaf to the cries of the most innocent, most vulnerable, and most utterly helpless.
From artificial contraception to abortion to partial-birth abortion, then on to infanticide we march toward the abyss of oblivion, a society marked for death. Is it any wonder we can rationalize the killing of the elderly or the sick through euthanasia? The tragic murder of Terri Schiavo is a logical extension of a morally numb society’s mad march toward its own suicidal death. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t dying. They murdered her, starved her to death--one of the cruelest forms of death. She was innocent, yet subjected to a most cruel and unusual punishment. Why? Because she was helpless? Because she was too much trouble, too hard to look at?
As Abraham Lincoln asserted, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” We are dying by suicide, moral and spiritual suicide, and the moral demise of a nation almost always precedes the ultimate demise of a nation.
Many of our leaders, political and legal, are reminiscent of the horrid witches in Act 1 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” chanting shrilly to a morally sick public all too eager to be confirmed in their sins,
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
Good is evil, and evil is good. The truth is a lie and lies are the truth, hover through the fog of moral relativism and the filthy air of a world gone mad with the madness of sin. The words of the prophet thunder through the ages, “ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20).
We have inverted the poles of the moral power grid. We have begun to call the negative pole the positive, and the positive the negative. This inversion of reality begets disaster: The power fails, the lights go out, darkness falls—and indeed, if your light is darkness, how deep, how very deep will the darkness be! (cf. Mt 6:23).
This death wish has marched toward its logical and inexorable conclusion with little opposition from leaders--political, legal, or religious. The world knows the Catholic Church and any self-respecting and faithful Christian roundly reject abortion and all of the other nails in the coffin of contemporary society, but the defense of life has been weak. Weak leadership, whether in society in general, or in the Church in particular, is punishment for sin. The Old Covenant has examples enough of the Chosen People being turned over to exile and their enemies because of infidelity. They lamented, “We have no priest, prophet, or king.” These were taken away because of infidelity. In recent times large numbers of Catholics and other Christians rejected Pope Paul VI’s landmark and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae, on Human Life. A majority of the bishops of Canada did so publicly, formally, and in writing with their infamous Winnipeg Statement.
The clock is ticking. Midnight is approaching. Time is running out for our nation, a nation that once was great, and could be great again if enough of us wake up and renounce this curse of a death wish. Will God turn his friends over to His enemies as He has done multiple times in the past? Will radical Islam overrun us? Will the planet cook? Will one too many natural disasters grind us into dust? Will we collapse economically? All of the above? Perhaps these are all merely effects of the underlying cause—a death wish that chokes the life out of us.
In the end it is likely that President Abraham Lincoln had it right: “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Thus forgetting that we are one nation under God, we become a nation gone under (President Ronald Reagan). And, indeed, “If destruction be our lot we ourselves will be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
May God grant us the grace to awake from this deadly moral slumber, renounce the death wish, and live like truly free men and women—in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Rome, Aug 29, 2008 / 03:39 am (CNA).- The undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Guzman Carriquiry Lecour, said in an address this week that human rights are based on natural law and that denying this truth opens the door to relativism.
During a ceremony in which he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Carriquiry said, “What they are trying to do is turn into individual rights that which attacks fundamental human rights of the person.”
During his extensive discourse, he pointed out that 60 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a “relativist derivative” exists in which “new rights are imposed” that stem from the “arbitrary desires” of certain groups or individuals.
“Are we not the witnesses of opinion campaigns and pressure from international powers to foster national legislation to introduce forms of liberalizing abortion and unrestricted bioethical manipulations, of making same-sex unions the equivalent of marriage, of promoting eugenic and euthanasia practices,” Carriquiry said.
Quoting Jacques Maritain, he recalled that “human rights cannot be arbitrary, they must be universally applied and be well-founded upon reason.” Rights, he said, “are not oblivious or evident by themselves.”
“If human rights are not established, they are left baseless,” he added. “They remain at the mercy of whoever is in power” and only reflect a government that is merely democratic in name.
You have often heard it said that this is a turning point in our country’s history and I could not agree more.
