The Paper It's Written On

I wonder whether it has occured to Bart Stupak and his group of pro-life democrats that in the hours after the announcement of the deal they've brokered with the White House, there is a deafening silence from the left, and especially from the abortionist left (if one need distinguish).  Granted, it has only been a few hours.  NARAL's website makes no mention.  The online stories carried by the MSM make no mention.  Nobody is mentioning the reaction of the abortionists.

I suspect that's because there isn't any.

They know what Bart Stupak and his (I believe sincere) colleagues have allowed themselves not to know.  The abortionists know that the vaunted executive order to clarify how a health-care plan that expressly covers abortion does not in fact do so, if it is ever actually issued, will not be worth the paper it is written on.  With the television cameras off, and they will be off, the President will never get around to it; and the calls from Stupak and his group that he do so will not be heard outside of Congress, or perhaps outside of congressmen's offices, perhaps.  And if the order is actually, in some imaginary world, issued, it can as easily be rescinded.

If any of the above were false - if an executive order carried more weight than legislation, rather than less - the abortionists wouldn't have fought so tenaciously to keep it out of the law, and they wouldn't be so taciturn about the whole thing suddenly.  But wait, I do hear noises, after all: the sound of snickering in sleaves.
I am trying hard not to judge Stupak and his group.  The amount of pressure that they have been receiving has been enormous.  I think it safe to say that the spiritual combat is not yet over.

Priceless Irony

A UK court made an excellent ruling today.  A law in the UK, passed by parliament and authorized by the Queen in 2007, prohibited organizations from discriminating against homosexual couples - that is, any service or good, not strictly religious, could not be denied to a homosexual couple if it would be permitted to a hetersexual couple.  A number of dioceses began to spin-off (secularize) their adoption services, etc., so that those agencies could continue doing good work without the Church having to be implicated.  A poor solution by any standards, but an understandable one, too.

The statute contained its own demise, though.  In a selfish bid for special status, the statute included a provision that exempted organizations whose purpose was to serve persons of one particular sexual orientation (the homosexualists of course meant their orientation).  The homosexualist groups wanted this provision included so that they could exclude and refuse to serve heterosexuals.  In an almost inconceivably (these days) fair judgment, the justice who heard a relevant case has ruled today that the same provision provides protection to any organization, provided their mission includes service to only one sexual orientation.  The wicked statute is thus effectively gutted, its heart pulled out right through its own loophole.

Read all about it.

Archbishop Chaput Weighs In...

Archbishop Chaput of Denver wrote a column in his diocesan newspaper yesterday clarifying the position of the U.S. Bishops with respect to the current Obamacare baby-killing governmental power grab:


The Church in America opposes it, unambiguously and for several reasons.  Read all about it.

Casseroles and Community

Read this really excellent blog post written over on Luce's corner.  It's about a good, old-fashioned way to cooperate with grace.

The beatitudes and the works of mercy spelled out by our Lord in Mt 25, as well as those detailed in the subsequent tradition of the Church, are very much personal responsibilities... every bit as much as the Ten Commandments are.  The Law is not superseded by the Beatitudes, but transcended by them.  The Law provides a foundation, a bare minimum for civility and peace, within which the Beatitudes and the works of mercy can operate and transform hearts to resemble more closely the Sacred Heart that wrought them.

More Beating of Drums for Death...

Montana's high court rang in the New Year by ruling that it's OK to murder sick and, presumably, very old people.  Oh, wait - that's right, it's to be called mercy killing or assisted suicide or death with dignity or some such nonsense.  The court affirmed a lower court's December 6 ruling to the same extent.

Why Montana?

Hmmm... cash-strapped state... aging population...  Well, I suppose it doesn't matter why Montana, because the whole country is headed in that direction.  It will be a perfect storm - a trifecta of previously unlikely scenarios inevitably colliding:

1. Economic pressure from our incomprehensible national debt;
2. Demographic pressure of our aging baby-boomers who are now beginning to retire in earnest;
3. Foreign pressure from our Chinese debt-masters to impose the same sort of draconian measures that we impose upon our debtor nations.

When these three factors coincide - and they will - we are gonna start gassing 'boomers like you can't believe.  Mark my words; this prediction takes no great foresight, only commonsense.  We've long since been solving our unborn problems by killing them in the privacy of the womb; now Montana's court, the first such state high court ruling in the land, says that privacy protects the "right to kill granny."  They didn't call it that, but will the aged infirm or the sick have much more voice than those in the womb?

Christians, let's resolve in 2010 to pray harder.

Strategies for a Pro-Life America

Here's the beginning of a paper that I recently wrote about the general approach of our bishops to overturning Roe v. Wade and creating a culture of life:

In January of 2008, Georgia Catholic Bishops Kevin Boland and Wilton Gregory announced that they would not lend their support to the Georgia state human life amendment that many pro-life leaders were pushing. Why would two Catholic bishops refuse to back a bill that sought to defend life from the moment of conception? In order to understand the pro-life position today and the various strategies that are promoted in the movement, it is first necessary to review the impact of Roe v. Wade. This paper will first review the Court’s decision in Roe and analyze the past pro-life strategies for overturning it. It will investigate the two predominant “camps”—those who seek state constitutional amendments and those who favor an “incrementalist” approach—and detail how each envisions bringing about a pro-life legal system and culture. Lastly, the brunt of this paper will evaluate the state human life amendment approach and show how it is fraught with theological, philosophical, legal, and political
misunderstandings.

Click here to read the rest of the paper...

The Manhattan Declaration on Religious Liberty

Today at noon at the National Press Club, a coalition of about 150 leaders of the Christian community in the United States have issued a statement called the Manhattan Declaration. In the statement, numerous Catholic and Orthodox bishops and seminary rectors, Evangelical and Protestant ministers, and other Christians involved in culture, politics, and public life have all vowed that they will not budge one inch on traditional morality pertaining to abortion and marriage; they have insisted upon the primacy of religious liberty in public life. The statement is truly inspiring.

The Manhattan Declaration can be found here, on the website First Things. Additionally, a website has been established called www.ManhattanDeclaration.org, with a place for visitors to sign onto the declaration alongside Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Chuck Colson, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, and a host of others. Unfortunately, right now the link is having trouble and redirects to Chuck Colson's website, which is still an interesting read.

What's monumental about this is the strength and courage of the statement and its ecumenical breadth.  It is a clarion call to the nation's Christians - 80% of America.  With 60% of Americans saying that religion is important in their lives, this statement should be something of a wakeup call against the militant atheism that, in the name of maintaining a secular government (and secular it should be), is attempting to secularize the entire nation, and to bully anyone who objects or refuses to play along.

Here are some more articles related to it: from the Catholic News Agency and another about the Declaration's special place in current DC local politics.

Especially as we approach the Solemnity of Christ the King, this weekend, it behooves us to remember that nothing Caesar or his cohort can say or do has any authority over us except inasmuch as it aligns with the Law of God.  No matter who is president, no matter what lobby gets whatever law passed, Jesus Christ is Lord!

Another Reading from the Maccabees

Today's readings (2 Mc 7:1, 20-31; Ps 17:1bcd, 5-6, 8b and 15; Lk 19:11-28) are as gripping as yesterday's.  I have been partial to the Books of Maccabees ever since I read them.  The first reading is about the passion of a mother and her seven sons.  The selection for Mass cuts out vss 2-19 of the chapter, skipping over the deaths of the first six sons.  It does so for brevity's sake, but really the whole thing is worth reading.

The mother, after watching her first six sons die, is urged by King Antiochus to beg her last son to apostatize so that he will not die; in fact, Antiochus offers all sorts of incentives if he will abandon the law and God of his fathers.  The mother urges the son to spare her the grief of seeing him apostatize.  She let truth govern her emotions, rather than the other way around.  Amazing!

Africa Need Not Starve

The more one reads on the overpopulation myth, the more one is liable to become disturbed.  The problem is not too many people, but too much injustice - domestic within hungry countries, and internationally between the West and the Global South.

Why Won't the President Rule Out Abortion Funding?

The White House is refusing to discuss the funding of elective abortions with federal money, instead insisting - against all reports - that the Hyde Amendment will apply and so the question is moot.  Don't trust them; read this instead.  What the White House is not telling the American people, who overwhelmingly disapprove of government funding for abortion, is that the House health care plan under consideration will do just that.

I Love Fr. Frank Pavone

I am honored and flattered to have him speak on our behalf as Christians in the face of a culture that cares little for human life. He undoes stereotypes.

Happy Birthday, America

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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 to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Soraya and the West

Last night I went to see The Stoning of Soraya M. with a number of friends, and I have a lot that I want to share about it. First off, as a friend pointed out, the movie is not entitled The Almost-Stoning of Soraya M. That's important. So is the plot, though the plot has no amazing twists and turns. You know how it ends from the outset, especially if you've read the book upon which it is based. A man (Navid Negahban) accuses his wife, Soraya (Mozhan Marn), of adultery because he wants to be rid of her so he can marry another woman. Sharia law as interpreted under the Ayatollah apparently prohibits divorce without the wife's consent, which Soraya will not give because she hasn't any independent means of supporting their children. So her husband, Ali, accuses her of adultery and demands justice - stoning. The entire village, where they live and where she has spent her whole life, knows that she is innocent, but nonetheless go along with the charade for their various reasons. Only her aunt Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo, Exorcism of Emily Rose, House of Sand and Fog) comes to her defense. The town has a closed-door sham trial after which she is taken to the town square, buried to her waist, and pelted with stones until dead. The next day a French-Iranian journalist (Jim Caviezel, The Passion of the Christ, Frequency) is stranded in town by car trouble. Zahra meets him and tells him her story of Soraya with the hope that he will deliver her message to the outside world. The story is true, and the movie apparently hews close to the book and to reality.

I haven't wrecked anything by telling you the plot, dear reader, because the plot, while the point, isn't the principal power of the movie. The same plot might have been delivered lamely and wrecked everything. Instead, the cast and crew have delivered the viewer a masterpiece: gripping cinematography, powerful visuals, powerful score, and heart- and gut-wrenching acting that develops all characters involved immensely in a remarkably short period of time. The characters all feel real enough that if I met the actors on the street, I would have difficulty remembering that the man who played the Ali, Soraya's husband, isn't actually lustful and malicious, that the actor who played the mullah isn't actually a brazen hypocrite and opportunistic toady. Yet the movie laudably avoids generalizations or flattening characters out with self-righteous portrayals. The central characters, with the exception of Ali and Zahra, are complex creatures, and even these two can hardly be called superficial or false. Their roles and motivations are simple, and the actors' delivery makes them real and human.

The violence inflicted upon Soraya is gripping, but the violence imposed upon her is hardly the worst horror. And it would have come across as just another violent movie except for the humanity of the characters so manifest through the actors' artistry. Soraya's sham trial, at which she is not even permitted to be present or to face her accusers, will leave any Westerner open-mouthed with disbelief. The malice of her husband is astounding. The tension that builds in the one's heart and stomach is almost overwhelming as one watches the plot move inexorably forward toward the merciless murder of a perfectly decent and innocent woman.

I heartily recommend the movie to every adult with the stomach for it on two bases: (1) its artistry and craft, which are superb; (2) the lessons, both general and specific, that it contains and transmits without preaching. Still the caveat must be given that women in the theater were openly weeping; the movie is both extremely graphic and emotional, especially at the end.

Soraya's story has to teach us about a number of general lessons about which reviewers have commented. Mob mentality can block out reason and go to extremes. Check. Evil lurks in the human heart. Right. Fine. True.


I have seen one more specific lesson mentioned by reviewers, that Sharia law is hopelessly inadequate and that we in the West must be careful about embracing or tolerating it. There should be no talk of finding a niche for it in civil society, in the way that society allows corporations and churches to have their own internal by-laws. True there, too.

What I have not heard a lot about is the fact that the action depicted in the movie still persists in Middle Eastern countries today. Feminist groups like NOW should be up in arms but are oddly still. Intellectuals and the universities should be railing against draconian laws and irrational concepts of justice but haven't stirred. As pro-reform demonstrators were gunned down in Tehran a couple weeks ago, our President, just back from a trip to schmooze with the mullahs, was oddly silent. In fact, there is a deafening silence from our establishment. The movie is inconvenient for these groups in our civil society.

Most feminist groups in the US have gradually become flattened in their composition and purpose, from a diverse group of radicals for a range of legitimate rights, to a lobby of largely upper-middle and middle-class white women rationalizing abortion. This President is committed to helping them, so they leave him alone. He's better than George W., after all, they say. Barack Hussein Obama, for his part, is committed to detente with the Muslim world (appeasement?) as a path to peace and probably to keep oil affordable for a few more years. So he says nothing, not so much as "boo" to sheiks and mullahs considering their treatment of human rights. And the Islamist world continues merrily plotting the destruction of the West. The media and intellectual establishments say nothing because they are enamored of the President, too busy reminding us that Islam is a religion of peace, and have their hands full rationalizing abortion to an increasingly pro-life populace.

And poor Soraya will fall out of our minds almost soundlessly, like, well, a stone in soft sand. That is, if we ever bother in the first place to think about her and those others toiling under Sharia law with her. We forget her at our own peril though, because she was immolated by the same enemy that wants to grind us up as well. While I agree with Islam that adultery is immoral, I don't agree that folks (let alone only women) should be stoned for it. That makes me lax in Sharia's mind. The fact that the West tolerates things like women's hair makes us lewd, in their mind. While there is a great deal of lewdness here in the West, women's hair is hardly the issue. They seriously believe that justice is serve when an accused has no opportunity for a defense. There is an irreconcilable clash of worldview here, and those who oppose our view hate us for holding it. We'd best remember that when getting chummy with them.

Scary, But It's On The Way...

Beware of "mercy" that rejects suffering. And it's on the way.



Our whole social debate on the topic of euthanasia has become so warped we think of killing people as the more "merciful" path. That is because we fail to understand that LIFE IS GOOD. Even imperfect life, like yours and mine, dear reader, is good. It has an inherent value and meaning. With friends and love it will always be joyful. Any mercy that cannot comprehend those two facts is mercy that will end in the gas chambers, to paraphrase a wiser soul than my own.

The Real Question of (Gay) Marriage

The Washington Post's On Faith religion blogs are asking whether New Hampshire's new law is a legitimate solution to the gay marriage question. The law simultaneously recognizes gay marriages, authorizes ceremonies to perform them, and protects authorized marrying agents (ministers, rabbis, and perhaps court clerks, etc.) from lawsuits stemming from refusal to perform them. I wrote the following response to one write-in respondent, LorenInCA. Because the WaPo often does not permit my responses to post in a timely manner, I have decided to post it here, on my own blog.

LorenInCA wrote, "The only equitable solution is to pull marriage away from the churches, codify it as civil institution, and allow each church to solemnize unions as they see fit and exclude any persons who don't share their particular credo." In doing so, I believe that she represents a growing consensus among those who do not object to gay marriage.

The question has been put all wrong. What prerogative has the state to "pull" away from religious bodies an institution that has always, until very recently and then only by a minority, been conceived as an essentially religious institution. It is no coincidence that less religious people marry their lovers less frequently or not at all. An argument to pull bar mitzvahs and baptisms away from religious institutions makes the point more obvious. It has been in the regulation of inheritances first, then of divorces, and most recently of taxation, that civil authority has codified marriage at all. The first case dates to ancient times, to be sure, but the civil codification of divorce and taxation (vis-a-vis marriage status) is certainly an innovation of the most recent century.

So I would like to ask LorenInCA upon what basis s/he would nullify the First Amendment's anti-interference clause in order to remove an essentially religious concept and institution from the religious bodies among which it grew up.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that the oft-used analogy between the homosexualist lobby-agenda and the African-American civil rights movement is a very, very weak one. Discrimination is a vital part of human life. We daily discriminate between things we will put into our bodies, for instance, and things we will not. The steak goes in, the styrofoam in which it is packaged does not. And so forth. But the key achievement of the civil rights movement in the U.S. was legally to exclude irrelevant or arbitrary criteria from civil decision-making processes. Specifically, but not only, racial characteristics (and then sex) were to be excluded as legal criteria for making decisions where they were, naturally speaking, irrelevant.

So refusing sale of a home to an African-American family on the basis of their race/ethnicity is forbidden, because it is not a relevant factor. Relevant factors in the sale of a home include income, credit history, etc., but not skin tone or hair color.

On the other hand, I, a balding white man, cannot model hair care products intended for African American women. Is that unfair discrimination? Of course not, because the factors mentioned, though superficial to my character, etc., are directly relevant to my natural ability to do the job.

It is in this legal context that we must position the question of gay marriage. And to address the question we must first ask, rather than assume, the question, "What is marriage? What is it for? What does it do?"

The religious context in which marriage arose has always posited marriage as stable location in which a couple could raise the offspring of their sexual union. That's all. It is not a question of whether Adam and Steve love each other; people do not need marriage or other institutions simply to love each other. The question is whether a gay couple meets the criteria natural to a marriage as it has always been conceived. I think the answer is fairly clear.

Moreover, the question is not one of whether Adam and Steve can inherit each other's property at death, visit each other in the hospital, name each other as beneficiaries of insurance policies, or appoint each other with power of attorney in the event of incapacity. All those questions have been settled decades ago by contract law. Of course they can do any of those things. There are tax benefits to marriage conferred by the government, again, originally to facilitate family stability and the rearing of offspring.

The ready availability of almost all the rights of marriage through contract or other arrangements makes me think that gay couples don't actually want marriage. Many homosexuals have spent most of their lives being scorned by those around them, from hurtful cries of "faggot" on the playground to devastating abandonment by their families that so often accompanies "coming out." I think that they want acceptance and approval.

And that's fine. I can accept gays living as they wish, and approve of them as persons, without reorganizing society to suit their demands. Moreover, as a grown man, I am not going to acquiesce against my conscience because they (or anyone else) may call me mean, cry really hard, label me a homophobe (which is a funny label, coincidentally - of what, exactly, is one supposed to be afraid?), or make bad historical analogies to the civil rights movement.

I stand on my conscience. Marriage is a religious institution, to be left to religious institutions for governance, and is oriented toward the rearing of the offspring of the married persons. It exists for no other reason, and ancillary benefits are themselves oriented toward that purpose. It is not fearful to refuse a demand or to defy public pressure or coercion. Society must not tolerate the hateful treatment of homosexuals, but nor should it let itself be guilted or bullied into acquiescence by them.

If You Can Lend a Hand...

The IRS has decided to lay a heavy fine on Catholic Answers (www.catholic.com), an apologetics organization devoted to catechesis of Catholics and the presentation of our holy faith to non-Catholics. The reason for the fine?

Catholic Answers had the audacity to give Catholic answers. It's shocking that they should do such a thing, I know. What's not shocking is that the IRS is shocked. It seems that during the 2004 election cycle, Catholic Answers presented the Church's view as to why pro-choice Catholic politicians, specifically John Kerry, should not be admitted to the altar rail. At no point did the organization tell anybody how they should vote. Four years and more pass, and now (with a new Administration less friendly to Catholic teachings?) the IRS has decided that its regulations for tax exempt organizations were violated. Hmmm...

One immediately wonders if other tax-exempt organizations like NARAL, NOW, or various urban churches are being investigated under the new, more rigorous standards that seem to apply and (suddenly) to prohibit non-profits from even mentioning political figures.

Happily, Catholic Answers is not taking it lying down. They estimated they will need $100,000 for their lawsuit to fend off the Man in court. This lawsuit is an important opportunity to defy a government that has for a while become increasingly partisan and totalitarian in its behavior. Perhaps the courts will still defend the citizenry from the Administration and assert that we still have rule of law in America, and not merely rule of rulers. Instructions for donating to Catholic Answers are available on their website. I have already made a contribution to Catholic Answer's cause, and hope many others will as well.

No Bones About It

An infamous villain was murdered on Sunday in his church; and it is a horrible thing that was done to him. Whatever his crimes were, and whatever punishment he deserved and may now receive before God, it is always and everywhere wrong deliberately to harm or kill someone who does not pose an immanent threat to oneself or to those under one's God-given duty to protect. Murder is always wrong. All that said, because a cold-blooded profiteering murderer was killed by another murder, himself deranged and fanatical, it is entirely unfair to label the pro-Life movement as hateful or to say that it incites violence. Those who hate life have already begun to use the murder of Dr. Tiller as an excuse to smear the pro-Life movement and to cow people from rallying to its cause, because they rightly understand that good-hearted, sound-minded people don't want to be associated with murderers. But murderers aren't pro-Life, and pro-Lifers aren't murderers. We must take this opportunity to state unequivocally that murder is always wrong, against not only the unborn, but also against their murderers. We must refuse to back down or to be cowed, but instead take the opportunity to be counted and to repeat firmly that no matter what, still

I am pro-Life.

The Teacher, the Lawgiver, and Notre Dame

Bishop D'Arcy is the diocesan bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, the diocese that includes the University of Notre Dame among its local Catholic institutions. Notre Dame decided some time ago to invite our nation's president to speak as commencement speaker and receive an honorary juris doctorate. In the resulting flurry of fury, laity have formed petitions, bishops have written positions, and Notre Dame has gone on the defensive. The university's president has tried some Nancy Pelosi-style scheistiness, i.e., redefining terms and pretending to teach the teachers of our Church.

Here is Bishop D'Arcy's response to Notre Dame's actions, firstly, its awarding of an honorary law degree of a man who advocates maintaining and advancing laws to permit and enable the murder of babies (and God knows who else) under the pretext of personal autonomy; secondly, mouthing off to our nation's bishops and telling them, in essence, that they didn't know what they meant when they wrote the document "Catholics in Political Life," regarding the relationship of Catholic institutions with political personalities.

Firstly, Bishop D'Arcy reminds Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, that according to canon law and the entire tradition of the Church, the local diocesan bishop (Bishop D'Arcy) and no other is the authoritative teacher and lawgiver, and thus interpreter of laws, for everyone in his diocese. Only to Rome can appeal be made. And the opinions of whatever canonists and bishops Jenkins claims to have consulted, well, are simply irrelevant. Bishop D'Arcy then recognizes that Notre Dame has pulled off a fait accompli without so much as consulting him, and officially advises the university that he isn't happy about it. At all. He lastly notes that a serious rift has developed between Notre Dame and the Church, a rift that is primarily Notre Dame's responsibility to heal.

The kicker in all this, it strikes me, is that the Democrats have been DYING to get someone in Catholic officialdom to support them so they can claim the moral highroad, or something. (I think, frankly, that their consciences eat at them, and they are desperate to soothe them.) Think of Nancy Pelosi trying to get a photo-op with the Holy Father, who very skillfully denied her the opportunity to appear with him in public. Now Notre Dame, one of the most prestigious Catholic universities in the world and certainly the country, has given this morally depraved rascal an honorary degree of law - which can be seen as nothing, if not an approval of his way of legal thinking.

Mary Ann Glendon

If you don't know about this woman, you should. Atop a pile of accomplishments and scholarship, she has defied stereotypes at every turn. For example:

"What is clearly 'old-fashioned' today is the old feminism of the 1970s — with its negative attitudes toward men, marriage and motherhood, and its rigid party line on abortion."

She is a professor at Harvard Law School and was the US Ambassador to the Holy See, appointed by President Bush. She resigned her position on Jan 19, whether as a formality or because she would not serve under Obama, I cannot say. Check her out on Wikipedia.

Guerilla Warfare Against God's Church

Ok, so check this out: a bill before the Connecticut state senate to cause the restructuring of Church finances, taking them out of the hands of the diocesan bishop and his pastors, and putting them in the hands of boards of laypeople. This blog post and news story from the National Catholic Register cover it.

Whatever you think of the idea, oughtn't we as Americans to be alarmed simply by the fact that it is a topic of legal debate in a state senate? Have these senators ever read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution? Now granted, the case is not technically one of establishment - that is, the making "official" of one religious denomination or another together with its structures, along with providing any sort of unfair advantage. In the US for at least 60 years, that has been read more broadly as meaning that neither a church nor the state will directly interfere in the internal affairs of the other. The churches may influence public opinion about morals, of course, and the state may do so as well. But the churches are not to politick for or against particular candidates, lobby about matters of governmental structuring, etc. And likewise, the state is not to decide on who holds what church office, or how the churches run themselves, or what they teach. That's the law of the land.

The Catholic laypeople supporting the bill and the senators sponsoring the bill clearly have ideological axes against the Church, and see this as a way of forcing change.

What a lot of people-in-the-pews, who love the Church, do not realize realize is that this sort of bill is debated all the time in state legislatures: bills that would require the Church to provide insurance for contraceptives or abortion; bills that would violate the seal of the confessional; bills that would force governance structures on the Church; and more. They usually don't get very far, because we still have rule of law and a constitution in our land, and a majority who remember these things, and judges who do as well.

But enemies of Christ's Church are there, gnawing at our ankles and swiping at our heels, straining to throw down the gates that hold them back.